Search Results

Search found 54116 results on 2165 pages for 'application restart'.

Page 757/2165 | < Previous Page | 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764  | Next Page >

  • Use ASP.NET 4 Browser Definitions with ASP.NET 3.5

    - by Stephen Walther
    We updated the browser definitions files included with ASP.NET 4 to include information on recent browsers and devices such as Google Chrome and the iPhone. You can use these browser definition files with earlier versions of ASP.NET such as ASP.NET 3.5. The updated browser definition files, and instructions for installing them, can be found here: http://aspnet.codeplex.com/releases/view/41420 The changes in the browser definition files can cause backwards compatibility issues when you upgrade an ASP.NET 3.5 web application to ASP.NET 4. If you encounter compatibility issues, you can install the old browser definition files in your ASP.NET 4 application. The old browser definition files are included in the download file referenced above. What’s New in the ASP.NET 4 Browser Definition Files The complete set of browsers supported by the new ASP.NET 4 browser definition files is represented by the following figure:     If you look carefully at the figure, you’ll notice that we added browser definitions for several types of recent browsers such as Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5, Google Chrome, Opera 10, and Safari 4. Furthermore, notice that we now include browser definitions for several of the most popular mobile devices: BlackBerry, IPhone, IPod, and Windows Mobile (IEMobile). The mobile devices appear in the figure with a purple background color. To improve performance, we removed a whole lot of outdated browser definitions for old cell phones and mobile devices. We also cleaned up the information contained in the browser files. Here are some of the browser features that you can detect: Are you a mobile device? <%=Request.Browser.IsMobileDevice %> Are you an IPhone? <%=Request.Browser.MobileDeviceModel == "IPhone" %> What version of JavaScript do you support? <%=Request.Browser["javascriptversion"] %> What layout engine do you use? <%=Request.Browser["layoutEngine"] %>   Here’s what you would get if you displayed the value of these properties using Internet Explorer 8: Here’s what you get when you use Google Chrome: Testing Browser Settings When working with browser definition files, it is useful to have some way to test the capability information returned when you request a page with different browsers. You can use the following method to return the HttpBrowserCapabilities the corresponds to a particular user agent string and set of browser headers: public HttpBrowserCapabilities GetBrowserCapabilities(string userAgent, NameValueCollection headers) { HttpBrowserCapabilities browserCaps = new HttpBrowserCapabilities(); Hashtable hashtable = new Hashtable(180, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase); hashtable[string.Empty] = userAgent; // The actual method uses client target browserCaps.Capabilities = hashtable; var capsFactory = new System.Web.Configuration.BrowserCapabilitiesFactory(); capsFactory.ConfigureBrowserCapabilities(headers, browserCaps); capsFactory.ConfigureCustomCapabilities(headers, browserCaps); return browserCaps; } At the end of this blog entry, there is a link to download a simple Visual Studio 2008 project – named Browser Definition Test -- that uses this method to display capability information for arbitrary user agent strings. For example, if you enter the user agent string for an iPhone then you get the results in the following figure: The Browser Definition Test application enables you to submit a user-agent string and display a table of browser capabilities information. The browser definition files contain sample user-agent strings for each browser definition. I got the iPhone user-agent string from the comments in the iphone.browser file. Enumerating Browser Definitions Someone asked in the comments whether or not there is a way to enumerate all of the browser definitions. You can do this if you ware willing to use a little reflection and read a private property. The browser definition files in the config\browsers folder get parsed into a class named BrowserCapabilitesFactory. After you run the aspnet_regbrowsers tool, you can see the source for this class in the config\browser folder by opening a file named BrowserCapsFactory.cs. The BrowserCapabilitiesFactoryBase class has a protected property named BrowserElements that represents a Hashtable of all of the browser definitions. Here's how you can read this protected property and display the ID for all of the browser definitions: var propInfo = typeof(BrowserCapabilitiesFactory).GetProperty("BrowserElements", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance); Hashtable browserDefinitions = (Hashtable)propInfo.GetValue(new BrowserCapabilitiesFactory(), null); foreach (var key in browserDefinitions.Keys) { Response.Write("" + key); } If you run this code using Visual Studio 2008 then you get the following results: You get a huge number of outdated browsers and devices. In all, 449 browser definitions are listed. If you run this code using Visual Studio 2010 then you get the following results: In the case of Visual Studio 2010, all the old browsers and devices have been removed and you get only 19 browser definitions. Conclusion The updated browser definition files included in ASP.NET 4 provide more accurate information for recent browsers and devices. If you would like to test the new browser definitions with different user-agent strings then I recommend that you download the Browser Definition Test project: Browser Definition Test Project

    Read the article

  • Ask How-To Geek: Dropbox in the Start Menu, Understanding Symlinks, and Ripping TV Series DVDs

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    This week we take a look at how to incorporate Dropbox into your Windows Start Menu, understanding and using symbolic links, and how to rip your TV series DVDs right to unique and high-quality episode files. Once a week we dip into our reader mailbag and help readers solve their problems, sharing the useful solutions with you in the process. Read on to see our fixes for this week’s reader dilemmas. Add Drobox to Your Start Menu Dear How-To Geek, I use Dropbox all the time and would like to add it right onto my start menu along side the other major shortcuts like Documents, Pictures, etc. It seems like adding Dropbox into the menu should be part of the Dropbox installation package! Sincerely, Dropboxing in Des Moines Dear Dropboxing, We agree, it would be a nice installation option. As it stands you’re going to have to do a little simple hacking to get Dropbox nestled neatly into your start menu. The hack isn’t super elegant but when you’re done you’ll have the link you want and it’ll look like it was there all along. Check out this step-by-step guide here in order to take an existing Library shortcut and rework it to be a Dropbox link. Understanding and Using Symbolic Links Dear How-To Geek, I was talking to a coworker the other day about an issue I’d been having with a media center application I’m running. He suggested using symbolic links to better organize my media and make it easier for the application to access my collection. I had no idea what he was talking about and never got a chance to bug him about it later. Can you clear up this whole symbolic links business for me? I’ve been using computers for years and I’ve never even heard of it! Sincerely, Symbolic Who? Dear Symbolic, Symbolic links aren’t commonly used by many Windows users which is why you likely haven’t run into the concept. Symbolic links are essentially supercharged shortcuts—the newly introduced Windows library system is really just a type of symbolic link system. You can use symbolic links to do all sorts of neat stuff like link folders to your Dropbox folder, organize media, and more. The concept of symbolic links is pretty simple but the execution can be really tricky. We’d suggest reading over our guide to creating symbolic links in Windows 7, Windows XP, and Ubunutu to get a clearer idea what you’re getting into. Rip Your TV DVDs into Handy Episode Files Dear How-To Geek, My wife got me an iPod for Christmas and I still haven’t got around to filling it up. I have tons of entire TV show seasons on DVD and would like to get them on the iPod but I have absolutely no idea where to start. How do I get the shows off the discs? I thought it would be as easy to import the TV shows into iTunes as it is to import tracks off a CD but I was totally wrong. I tried downloading some applications to rip them but those didn’t work at all. Very frustrating! Surely there is an easy and/or automated way to do this, right? Sincerely, Free My DVDs Dear DVDs, Oh man is this a frustration we can relate to. It’s inordinately difficult to get movies and TV shows off physical media and into digital (and portable media player-friendly) formats. There are a multitude of ways to rip DVDs and quite a few applications out there (some good, some mediocre, and some outright malware). We’d recommend a two-part punch to solve your ripping woes. You’ll need a copy of DVDFab to strip away the protections on the discs and rip the disc and Handbrake to load the disc image and convert the files. It’s not quite as smooth as the CD-to-iTunes workflow but it’s still pretty easy. Check out all the steps and settings you’ll want to toggle here. Have a question you want to put before the How-To Geek staff? Shoot us an email at [email protected] and then keep an eye out for a solution in the Ask How-To Geek column. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines Google’s New Personal Blocklist Extension Kills Search Engine Spam KeyCounter Tracks Your Keystrokes and Mouse Clicks Add Custom LED Ambient Lighting to Your PC or Media Center The Trackor Monitors Amazon Prices; Integrates with Chrome, Firefox, and Safari Four Awesome TRON Legacy Themes for Chrome and Iron Anger is Illogical – Old School Style Instructional Video [Star Trek Mashup]

    Read the article

  • Where is my app.config for SSIS?

    Sometimes when working with SSIS you need to add or change settings in the .NET application configuration file, which can be a bit confusing when you are building a SSIS package not an application. First of all lets review a couple of examples where you may need to do this. You are using referencing an assembly in a Script Task that uses Enterprise Library (aka EntLib), so you need to add the relevant configuration sections and settings, perhaps for the logging application block. You are using using Enterprise Library in a custom task or component, and again you need to add the relevant configuration sections and settings. You are using a web service with Microsoft Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0 and hosting the proxy in SSIS, in an assembly used by your package, and need to add the configuration sections and settings. You need to change behaviours of the .NET framework which can be influenced by a configuration file, such as the System.Net.Mail default SMTP settings. Perhaps you wish to configure System.Net and the httpWebRequest header for parsing unsafe header (useUnsafeHeaderParsing), which will change the way the HTTP Connection manager behaves. You are consuming a WCF service and wish to specify the endpoint in configuration. There are no doubt plenty more examples but each of these requires us to identify the correct configuration file and and make the relevant changes. There are actually several configuration files, each used by a different execution host depending on how you are working with the SSIS package. The folders we need to look in will actually vary depending on the version of SQL Server as well as the processor architecture, but most are all what we can call the Binn folder. The SQL Server 2005 Binn folder is at C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\, compared to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\ for SQL Server 2008. If you are on a 64-bit machine then you will see C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\ for the 32-bit executables and C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\ for 64-bit, so be sure to check all relevant locations. Of course SQL Server 2008 may have a C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\ on a 64-bit machine too. To recap, the version of SQL Server determines if you look in the 90 or 100 sub-folder under SQL Server in Program Files (C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\nn\) . If you are running a 64-bit operating system then you will have two instances program files, C:\Program Files (x86)\ for 32-bit and  C:\Program Files\ for 64-bit. You may wish to check both depending on what you are doing, but this is covered more under each section below. There are a total of five specific configuration files that you may need to change, each one is detailed below: DTExec.exe.config DTExec.exe is the standalone command line tool used for executing SSIS packages, and therefore it is an execution host with an app.config file. e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\DTExec.exe.config The file can be found in both the 32-bit and 64-bit Binn folders. DtsDebugHost.exe.config DtsDebugHost.exe is the execution host used by Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) / Visual Studio when executing a package from the designer in debug mode, which is the default behaviour. e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\DtsDebugHost.exe.config The file can be found in both the 32-bit and 64-bit Binn folders. This may surprise some people as Visual Studio is only 32-bit, but thankfully the debugger supports both. This can be set in the project properties, see the Run64BitRuntime property (true or false) in the Debugging pane of the Project Properties. dtshost.exe.config dtshost.exe is the execution host used by what I think of as the built-in features of SQL Server such as SQL Server Agent e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\DTS\Binn\dtshost.exe.config This file can be found in both the 32-bit and 64-bit Binn folders devenv.exe.config Something slightly different is devenv.exe which is Visual Studio. This configuration file may also need changing if you need a feature at design-time such as in a Task Editor or Connection Manager editor. Visual Studio 2005 for SQL Server 2005  - C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe.config Visual Studio 2008 for SQL Server 2008  - C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe.config Visual Studio is only available for 32-bit so on a 64-bit machine you will have to look in C:\Program Files (x86)\ only. DTExecUI.exe.config The DTExec UI tool can also have a configuration file and these cab be found under the Tools folders for SQL Sever as shown below. C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\DTExecUI.exe C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\DTExecUI.exe A configuration file may not exist, but if you can find the matching executable you know you are in the right place so can go ahead and add a new file yourself. In summary we have covered the assembly configuration files for all of the standard methods of building and running a SSIS package, but obviously if you are working programmatically you will need to make the relevant modifications to your program’s app.config as well.

    Read the article

  • Add Zune Desktop Player to Windows 7 Media Center

    - by DigitalGeekery
    Are you a Zune owner who prefers the Zune player for media playback? Today we’ll show you how to integrate the Zune player with WMC using Media Center Studio. You’ll need to download Media Center Studio and the Zune Desktop player software. (See download links below) Also, make sure you have Media Center closed. Some of the actions in Media Center Studio cannot be performed while WMC is open. Open Media Center Studio and click on the Start Menu tab at the top of the application.   Click the Application button. Here we will create an Entry Point for the Zune player so that we can add it to Media Center. Type in a name for your entry point in the title text box. This is the name that will appear under the tile when added to the Media Center start menu. Next, type in the path to the Zune player. By default this should be C:\Program Files\Zune\Zune.exe. Note: Be sure to use the original path, not a link to the desktop icon.   The Active image is the image that will appear on the tile in Media Center. If you wish to change the default image, click the Browse button and select a different image. Select Stop the currently playing media from the When launched do the following: dropdown list.  Otherwise, if you open Zune player from WMC while playing another form of media, that media will continue to play in the background.   Now we will choose a keystroke to use to exit the Zune player software and return to Media Center. Click on the the green plus (+) button. When prompted, press a key to use to the close the Zune player. Note: This may also work with your Media Center remote. You may want to set a keyboard keystroke as well as a button on your remote to close the program. You may not be able to set certain remote buttons to close the application. We found that the back arrow button worked well. You can also choose a keystroke to kill the program if desired. Be sure to save your work before exiting by clicking the Save button on the Home tab.   Next, select the Start Menu tab and click on the next to Entry points to reveal the available entry points. Find the Zune player tile in the Entry points area. We want to drag the tile out onto one of the menu strips on the start menu. We will drag ours onto the Extras Library strip. When you begin to drag the tile, green plus (+) signs will appear in between the tiles. When you’ve dragged the tile over any of the green plus signs, the  red “Move” label will turn to a blue “Move to” label. Now you can drop the tile into position. Save your changes and then close Media Center Studio. When you open Media Center, you should see your Zune tile on the start menu. When you select the Zune tile in WMC, Media Center will be minimized and Zune player will be launched. Now you can enjoy your media through the Zune player. When you close Zune player with the previously assigned keystroke or by clicking the “X” at the top right, Windows Media Center will be re-opened. Conclusion We found the Zune player worked with two different Media Center remotes that we tested. It was a times a little tricky at times to tell where you were when navigating through the Zune software with a remote, but it did work. In addition to managing your music, the Zune player is a nice way to add podcasts to your Media Center setup. We should also mention that you don’t need to actually own a Zune to install and use the Zune player software. Media Center Studio works on both Vista and Windows 7. We covered Media Center Studio a bit more in depth in a previous post on customizing the Windows Media Center start menu. Are you new to Zune player? Familiarize yourself a bit more by checking out some of our earlier posts like how to update your Zune player, and experiencing your music a whole new way with Zune for PC.   Downloads Zune Desktop Player download Media Center Studio download Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Rip a Music CD in Windows 7 Media CenterIntegrate Hulu Desktop and Windows Media Center in Windows 7Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Fixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add FilesBuilt-in Quick Launch Hotkeys in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins

    Read the article

  • Upgrading Windows 8 boot to VHD to Windows 8.1&ndash;Step by step guide

    - by Liam Westley
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/twickers/archive/2013/10/19/upgrading-windows-8-boot-to-vhd-to-windows-8.1ndashstep-by.aspxBoot to VHD – dual booting Windows 7 and Windows 8 became easy When Windows 8 arrived, quite a few people decided that they would still dual boot their machines, and instead of mucking about with resizing disk partitions to free up space for Windows 8 they decided to use the boot from VHD feature to create a huge hard disc image into which Windows 8 could be installed.  Scott Hanselman wrote this installation guide, while I myself used the installation guide from Ed Bott of ZD net fame. Boot to VHD is a great solution, it achieves a dual boot, can be backed up easily and had virtually no effect on the original Windows 7 partition. As a developer who has dual booted Windows operating systems for years, hacking boot.ini files, the boot to VHD was a much easier solution. Upgrade to Windows 8.1 – ah, you can’t do that on a virtual disk installation (boot to VHD) Last week the final version of Windows 8.1 arrived, and I went into the Windows Store to upgrade.  Luckily I’m on a fast download service, and use an SSD, because once the upgrade was downloaded and prepared Windows informed that This PC can’t run Windows 8.1, and provided the reason, You can’t install Windows on a virtual drive.  You can see an image of the message and discussion that sparked my search for a solution in this Microsoft Technet forum post. I was determined not to have to resize partitions yet again and fiddle with VHD to disk utilities and back again, and in the end I did succeed in upgrading to a Windows 8.1 boot to VHD partition.  It takes quite a bit of effort though … tldr; Simple steps of how you upgrade Boot into Windows 7 – make a copy of your Windows 8 VHD, to become Windows 8.1 Enable Hyper-V in your Windows 8 (the original boot to VHD partition) Create a new virtual machine, attaching the copy of your Windows 8 VHD Start the virtual machine, upgrade it via the Windows Store to Windows 8.1 Shutdown the virtual machine Boot into Windows 7 – use the bcedit tool to create a new Windows 8.1 boot to VHD option (pointing at the copy) Boot into the new Windows 8.1 option Reactivate Windows 8.1 (it will have become deactivated by running under Hyper-V) Remove the original Windows 8 VHD, and in Windows 7 use bcedit to remove it from the boot menu Things you’ll need A system that can run Hyper-V under Windows 8 (Intel i5, i7 class CPU) Enough space to have your original Windows 8 boot to VHD and a copy at the same time An ISO or DVD for Windows 8 to create a bootable Windows 8 partition Step by step guide Boot to your base o/s, the real one, Windows 7. Make a copy of the Windows 8 VHD file that you use to boot Windows 8 (via boot from VHD) – I copied it from a folder on C: called VHD-Win8 to VHD-Win8.1 on my N: drive. Reboot your system into Windows 8, and enable Hyper-V if not already present (this may require reboot) Use the Hyper-V manager , create a new Hyper-V machine, using half your system memory, and use the option to attach an existing VHD on the main IDE controller – this will be the new copy you made in Step 2. Start the virtual machine, use Connect to view it, and you’ll probably discover it cannot boot as there is no boot record If this is the case, go to Hyper-V manager, edit the Settings for the virtual machine to attach an ISO of a Windows 8 DVD to the second IDE controller. Start the virtual machine, use Connect to view it, and it should now attempt a fresh installation of Windows 8.  You should select Advanced Options and choose Repair - this will make VHD bootable When the setup reboots your virtual machine, turn off the virtual machine, and remove the ISO of the Windows 8 DVD from the virtual machine settings. Start virtual machine, use Connect to view it.  You will see the devices to be re-discovered (including your quad CPU becoming single CPU).  Eventually you should see the Windows Login screen. You may notice that your desktop background (Win+D) will have turned black as your Windows installation has become deactivate due to the hardware changes between your real PC and Hyper-V. Fortunately becoming deactivated, does not stop you using the Windows Store, where you can select the update to Windows 8.1. You can now watch the progress joy of the Windows 8 update; downloading, preparing to update, checking compatibility, gathering info, preparing to restart, and finally, confirm restart - remember that you are restarting your virtual machine sitting on the copy of the VHD, not the Windows 8 boot to VHD you are currently using to run Hyper-V (confused yet?) After the reboot you get the real upgrade messages; setting up x%, xx%, (quite slow) After a while, Getting ready Applying PC Settings x%, xx% (really slow) Updating your system (fast) Setting up a few more things x%, (quite slow) Getting ready, again Accept license terms Express settings Confirmed previous password Next, I had to set up a Microsoft account – which is possibly now required, and not optional Using the Microsoft account required a 2 factor authorization, via text message, a 7 digit code for me Finalising settings Blank screen, HI .. We're setting up things for you (similar to original Windows 8 install) 'You can get new apps from the Store', below which is ’Installing your apps’ - I had Windows Media Center which is counts as an app from the Store ‘Taking care of a few things’, below which is ‘Installing your apps’ ‘Taking care of a few things’, below ‘Don't turn off your PC’ ‘Getting your apps ready’, below ‘Don't turn off your PC’ ‘Almost ready’, below ‘Don't turn off your PC’ … finally, we get the Windows 8.1 start menu, and a quick Win+D to check the desktop confirmed all the application icons I expected, pinned items on the taskbar, and one app moaning about a missing drive At this point the upgrade is complete – you can shutdown the virtual machine Reboot from the original Windows 8 and return to Windows 7 to configure booting to the Windows 8.1 copy of the VHD In an administrator command prompt do following use the bcdedit tool (from an MSDN blog about configuring VHD to boot in Windows 7) Type bcedit to list the current boot options, so you can copy the GUID (complete with brackets/braces) for the original Windows 8 boot to VHD Create a new menu option, copy of the Windows 8 option; bcdedit /copy {originalguid} /d "Windows 8.1" Point the new Windows 8.1 option to the copy of the VHD; bcdedit /set {newguid} device vhd=[D:]\Image.vhd Point the new Windows 8.1 option to the copy of the VHD; bcdedit /set {newguid} osdevice vhd=[D:]\Image.vhd Set autodetection of the HAL (may already be set); bcdedit /set {newguid} detecthal on Reboot from Windows 7 and select the new option 'Windows 8.1' on the boot menu, and you’ll have some messages to look at, as your hardware is redetected (as you are back from 1 CPU to 4 CPUs) ‘Getting devices ready, blank then %xx, with occasional blank screen, for the graphics driver, (fast-ish) Getting Ready message (fast) You will have to suffer one final reboots, choose 'Windows 8.1' and you can now login to a lovely Windows 8.1 start screen running on non virtualized hardware via boot to VHD After checking everything is running fine, you can now choose to Activate Windows, which for me was a toll free phone call to the automated system where you type in lots of numbers to be given a whole bunch of new activation codes. Once you’re happy with your new Windows 8.1 boot to VHD, and no longer need the Windows 8 boot to VHD, feel free to delete the old one.  I do believe once you upgrade, you are no longer licensed to use it anyway. There, that was simple wasn’t it? Looking at the huge list of steps it took to perform this upgrade, you may wonder whether I think this is worth it.  Well, I think it is worth booting to VHD.  It makes backups a snap (go to Windows 7, copy the VHD, you backed up the o/s) and helps with disk management – want to move the o/s, you can move the VHD and repoint the boot menu to the new location. The downside is that Microsoft has complete neglected to support boot to VHD as an upgradable option.  Quite a poor decision in my opinion, and if you read twitter and the forums quite a few people agree with that view.  It’s a shame this got missed in the work on creating the upgrade packages for Windows 8.1.

    Read the article

  • Oracle Support Master Note for Troubleshooting Advanced Queuing and Oracle Streams Propagation Issues (Doc ID 233099.1)

    - by faye.todd(at)oracle.com
    Master Note for Troubleshooting Advanced Queuing and Oracle Streams Propagation Issues (Doc ID 233099.1) Copyright (c) 2010, Oracle Corporation. All Rights Reserved. In this Document  Purpose  Last Review Date  Instructions for the Reader  Troubleshooting Details     1. Scope and Application      2. Definitions and Classifications     3. How to Use This Guide     4. Basic AQ Propagation Troubleshooting     5. Additional Troubleshooting Steps for AQ Propagation of User-Enqueued and Dequeued Messages     6. Additional Troubleshooting Steps for Propagation in an Oracle Streams Environment     7. Performance Issues  References Applies to: Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition - Version: 8.1.7.0 to 11.2.0.2 - Release: 8.1.7 to 11.2Information in this document applies to any platform. Purpose This document presents a step-by-step methodology for troubleshooting and resolving problems with Advanced Queuing Propagation in both Streams and basic Advanced Queuing environments. It also serves as a master reference for other more specific notes on Oracle Streams Propagation and Advanced Queuing Propagation issues. Last Review Date December 20, 2010 Instructions for the Reader A Troubleshooting Guide is provided to assist in debugging a specific issue. When possible, diagnostic tools are included in the document to assist in troubleshooting. Troubleshooting Details 1. Scope and Application This note is intended for Database Administrators of Oracle databases where issues are being encountered with propagating messages between advanced queues, whether the queues are used for user-created messaging systems or for Oracle Streams. It contains troubleshooting steps and links to notes for further problem resolution.It can also be used a template to document a problem when it is necessary to engage Oracle Support Services. Knowing what is NOT happening can frequently speed up the resolution process by focusing solely on the pertinent problem area. This guide is divided into five parts: Section 2: Definitions and Classifications (discusses the different types and features of propagations possible - helpful for understanding the rest of the guide) Section 3: How to Use this Guide (to be used as a start part for determining the scope of the problem and what sections to consult) Section 4. Basic AQ propagation troubleshooting (applies to both AQ propagation of user enqueued and dequeued messages as well as Oracle Streams propagations) Section 5. Additional troubleshooting steps for AQ propagation of user enqueued and dequeued messages Section 6. Additional troubleshooting steps for Oracle Streams propagation Section 7. Performance issues 2. Definitions and Classifications Given the potential scope of issues that can be encountered with AQ propagation, the first recommended step is to do some basic diagnosis to determine the type of problem that is being encountered. 2.1. What Type of Propagation is Being Used? 2.1.1. Buffered Messaging For an advanced queue, messages can be maintained on disk (persistent messaging) or in memory (buffered messaging). To determine if a queue is buffered or not, reference the GV_$BUFFERED_QUEUES view. If the queue does not appear in this view, it is persistent. 2.1.2. Propagation mode - queue-to-dblink vs queue-to-queue As of 10.2, an AQ propagation can also be defined as queue-to-dblink, or queue-to-queue: queue-to-dblink: The propagation delivers messages or events from the source queue to all subscribing queues at the destination database identified by the dblink. A single propagation schedule is used to propagate messages to all subscribing queues. Hence any changes made to this schedule will affect message delivery to all the subscribing queues. This mode does not support multiple propagations from the same source queue to the same target database. queue-to-queue: Added in 10.2, this propagation mode delivers messages or events from the source queue to a specific destination queue identified on the database link. This allows the user to have fine-grained control on the propagation schedule for message delivery. This new propagation mode also supports transparent failover when propagating to a destination Oracle RAC system. With queue-to-queue propagation, you are no longer required to re-point a database link if the owner instance of the queue fails on Oracle RAC. This mode supports multiple propagations to the same target database if the target queues are different. The default is queue-to-dblink. To verify if queue-to-queue propagation is being used, in non-Streams environments query DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES.DESTINATION - if a remote queue is listed along with the remote database link, then queue-to-queue propagation is being used. For Streams environments, the DBA_PROPAGATION.QUEUE_TO_QUEUE column can be checked.See the following note for a method to switch between the two modes:Document 827473.1 How to alter propagation from queue-to-queue to queue-to-dblink 2.1.3. Combined Capture and Apply (CCA) for Streams In 11g Oracle Streams environments, an optimization called Combined Capture and Apply (CCA) is implemented by default when possible. Although a propagation is configured in this case, Streams does not use it; instead it passes information directly from capture to an apply receiver. To see if CCA is in use: COLUMN CAPTURE_NAME HEADING 'Capture Name' FORMAT A30COLUMN OPTIMIZATION HEADING 'CCA Mode?' FORMAT A10SELECT CAPTURE_NAME, DECODE(OPTIMIZATION,0, 'No','Yes') OPTIMIZATIONFROM V$STREAMS_CAPTURE; Also, see the following note:Document 463820.1 Streams Combined Capture and Apply in 11g 2.2. Queue Table Compatibility There are three types of queue table compatibility. In more recent databases, queue tables may be present in all three modes of compatibility: 8.0 - earliest version, deprecated in 10.2 onwards 8.1 - support added for RAC, asynchronous notification, secure queues, queue level access control, rule-based subscribers, separate storage of history information 10.0 - if the database is in 10.1-compatible mode, then the default value for queue table compatibility is 10.0 2.3. Single vs Multiple Consumer Queue Tables If more than one recipient can dequeue a message from a queue, then its queue table is multiple consumer. You can propagate messages from a multiple-consumer queue to a single-consumer queue. Propagation from a single-consumer queue to a multiple-consumer queue is not possible. 3. How to Use This Guide 3.1. Are Messages Being Propagated at All, or is the Propagation Just Slow? Run the following query on the source database for the propagation (assuming that it is running): select TOTAL_NUMBER from DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES where QNAME='<source_queue_name>'; If TOTAL_NUMBER is increasing, then propagation is most likely functioning, although it may be slow. For performance issues, see Section 7. 3.2. Propagation Between Persistent User-Created Queues See Sections 4 and 5 (and optionally Section 6 if performance is an issue). 3.3. Propagation Between Buffered User-Created Queues See Sections 4, 5, and 6 (and optionally Section 7 if performance is an issue). 3.4. Propagation between Oracle Streams Queues (without Combined Capture and Apply (CCA) Optimization) See Sections 4 and 6 (and optionally Section 7 if performance is an issue). 3.5. Propagation between Oracle Streams Queues (with Combined Capture and Apply (CCA) Optimization) Although an AQ propagation is not used directly in this case, some characteristics of the message transfer are inferred from the propagation parameters used. Some parts of Sections 4 and 6 still apply. 3.6. Messaging Gateway Propagations This note does not apply to Messaging Gateway propagations. 4. Basic AQ Propagation Troubleshooting 4.1. Double-check Your Code Make sure that you are consistent in your usage of the database link(s) names, queue names, etc. It may be useful to plot a diagram of which queues are connected via which database links to make sure that the logical structure is correct. 4.2. Verify that Job Queue Processes are Running 4.2.1. Versions 10.2 and Lower - DBA_JOBS Package For versions 10.2 and lower, a scheduled propagation is managed by DBMS_JOB package. The propagation is performed by job queue process background processes. Therefore we need to verify that there are sufficient processes available for the propagation process. We should have at least 4 job queue processes running and preferably more depending on the number of other jobs running in the database. It should be noted that for AQ specific work, AQ will only ever use half of the job queue processes available.An issue caused by an inadequate job queue processes parameter setting is described in the following note:Document 298015.1 Kwqjswproc:Excep After Loop: Assigning To Self 4.2.1.1. Job Queue Processes in Initalization Parameter File The parameter JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES in the init.ora/spfile should be > 0. The value can be changed dynamically via connect / as sysdbaalter system set JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES=10; 4.2.1.2. Job Queue Processes in Memory The following command will show how many job queue processes are currentlyin use by this instance (this may be different than what is in the init.ora/spfile): connect / as sysdbashow parameter job; 4.2.1.3. OS PIDs Corresponding to Job Queue Processes Identify the operating system process ids (spids) of job queue processes involved in propagation via select p.SPID, p.PROGRAM from V$PROCESS p, DBA_JOBS_RUNNING jr, V$SESSION s, DBA_JOBS j where s.SID=jr.SID and s.PADDR=p.ADDR and jr.JOB=j.JOBand j.WHAT like '%sys.dbms_aqadm.aq$_propaq(job)%'; and these SPIDs can be used to check at the operating system level that they exist.In 8i a job queue process will have a name similar to: ora_snp1_<instance_name>.In 9i onwards you will see a coordinator process: ora_cjq0_ and multiple slave processes: ora_jnnn_<instance_name>, where nnn is an integer between 1 and 999. 4.2.2. Version 11.1 and Above - Oracle Scheduler In version 11.1 and above, Oracle Scheduler is used to perform AQ and Streams propagations. Oracle Scheduler automatically tunes the number of slave processes for these jobs based on the load on the computer system, and the JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES initialization parameter is only used to specify the maximum number of slave processes. Therefore, the JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES initialization parameter does not need to be set (it defaults to a very high number), unless you want to limit the number of slaves that can be created. If JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES = 0, no propagation jobs will run.See the following note for a discussion of Oracle Streams 11g and Oracle Scheduler:Document 1083608.1 11g Streams and Oracle Scheduler 4.2.2.1. Job Queue Processes in Initalization Parameter File The parameter JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES in the init.ora/spfile should be > 0, and preferably be left at its default value. The value can be changed dynamically via connect / as sysdbaalter system set JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES=10; To set the JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES parameter to its default value, run: connect / as sysdbaalter system reset JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES; and then bounce the instance. 4.2.2.2. Job Queue Processes in Memory The following command will show how many job queue processes are currently in use by this instance (this may be different than what is in the init.ora/spfile): connect / as sysdbashow parameter job; 4.2.2.3. OS PIDs Corresponding to Job Queue Processes Identify the operating system process ids (SPIDs) of job queue processes involved in propagation via col PROGRAM for a30select p.SPID, p.PROGRAM, j.JOB_namefrom v$PROCESS p, DBA_SCHEDULER_RUNNING_JOBS jr, V$SESSION s, DBA_SCHEDULER_JOBS j where s.SID=jr.SESSION_ID and s.PADDR=p.ADDRand jr.JOB_name=j.JOB_NAME and j.JOB_NAME like '%AQ_JOB$_%'; and these SPIDs can be used to check at the operating system level that they exist.You will see a coordinator process: ora_cjq0_ and multiple slave processes: ora_jnnn_<instance_name>, where nnn is an integer between 1 and 999. 4.3. Check the Alert Log and Any Associated Trace Files The first place to check for propagation failures is the alert logs at all sites (local and if relevant all remote sites). When a job queue process attempts to execute a schedule and fails it will always write an error stack to the alert log. This error stack will also be written in a job queue process trace file, which will be written to the BACKGROUND_DUMP_DEST location for 10.2 and below, and in the DIAGNOSTIC_DEST location for 11g. The fact that errors are written to the alert log demonstrates that the schedule is executing. This means that the problem could be with the set up of the schedule. In this example the ORA-02068 demonstrates that the failure was at the remote site. Further investigation revealed that the remote database was not open, hence the ORA-03114 error. Starting the database resolved the problem. Thu Feb 14 10:40:05 2002 Propagation Schedule for (AQADM.MULTIPLEQ, SHANE816.WORLD) encountered following error:ORA-04052: error occurred when looking up Remote object [email protected]: error occurred at recursive SQL level 4ORA-02068: following severe error from SHANE816ORA-03114: not connected to ORACLEORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_AQADM_SYS", line 4770ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_AQADM", line 548ORA-06512: at line 1 Other potential errors that may be written to the alert log can be found in the following notes:Document 827184.1 AQ Propagation with CLOB data types Fails with ORA-22990 (11.1)Document 846297.1 AQ Propagation Fails : ORA-00600[kope2upic2954] or Ora-00600[Kghsstream_copyn] (10.2, 11.1)Document 731292.1 ORA-25215 Reported on Local Propagation When Using Transformation with ANYDATA queue tables (10.2, 11.1, 11.2)Document 365093.1 ORA-07445 [kwqppay2aqe()+7360] Reported on Propagation of a Transformed Message (10.1, 10.2)Document 219416.1 Advanced Queuing Propagation Fails with ORA-22922 (9.0)Document 1203544.1 AQ Propagation Aborted with ORA-600 [ociksin: invalid status] on SYS.DBMS_AQADM_SYS.AQ$_PROPAGATION_PROCEDURE After Upgrade (11.1, 11.2)Document 1087324.1 ORA-01405 ORA-01422 reported by Advanced Queuing Propagation schedules after RAC reconfiguration (10.2)Document 1079577.1 Advanced Queuing Propagation Fails With "ORA-22370 incorrect usage of method" (9.2, 10.2, 11.1, 11.2)Document 332792.1 ORA-04061 error relating to SYS.DBMS_PRVTAQIP reported when setting up Statspack (8.1, 9.0, 9.2, 10.1)Document 353325.1 ORA-24056: Internal inconsistency for QUEUE <queue_name> and destination <dblink> (8.1, 9.0, 9.2, 10.1, 10.2, 11.1, 11.2)Document 787367.1 ORA-22275 reported on Propagating Messages with LOB component when propagating between 10.1 and 10.2 (10.1, 10.2)Document 566622.1 ORA-22275 when propagating >4K AQ$_JMS_TEXT_MESSAGEs from 9.2.0.8 to 10.2.0.1 (9.2, 10.1)Document 731539.1 ORA-29268: HTTP client error 401 Unauthorized Error when the AQ Servlet attempts to Propagate a message via HTTP (9.0, 9.2, 10.1, 10.2, 11.1)Document 253131.1 Concurrent Writes May Corrupt LOB Segment When Using Auto Segment Space Management (ORA-1555) (9.2)Document 118884.1 How to unschedule a propagation schedule stuck in pending stateDocument 222992.1 DBMS_AQADM.DISABLE_PROPAGATION_SCHEDULE Returns ORA-24082Document 282987.1 Propagated Messages marked UNDELIVERABLE after Drop and Recreate Of Remote QueueDocument 1204080.1 AQ Propagation Failing With ORA-25329 After Upgraded From 8i or 9i to 10g or 11g.Document 1233675.1 AQ Propagation stops after upgrade to 11.2.0.1 ORA-30757 4.3.1. Errors Related to Incorrect Network Configuration The most common propagation errors result from an incorrect network configuration. The list below contains common errors caused by tnsnames.ora file or database links being configured incorrectly: - ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve service name- ORA-12505: TNS:listener does not currently know of SID given in connect descriptor- ORA-12514: TNS:listener could not resolve SERVICE_NAME - ORA-12541: TNS-12541 TNS:no listener 4.4. Check the Database Links Exist and are Functioning Correctly For schedules to remote databases confirm the database link exists via. SQL> col DBLINK for a45SQL> select QNAME, NVL(REGEXP_SUBSTR(DESTINATION, '[^@]+', 1, 2), DESTINATION) dblink2 from DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES3 where MESSAGE_DELIVERY_MODE = 'PERSISTENT';QNAME DBLINK------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------MY_QUEUE ORCL102B.WORLD Connect as the owner of the link and select across it to verify it works and connects to the database we expect. i.e. select * from ALL_QUEUES@ ORCL102B.WORLD; You need to ensure that the userid that scheduled the propagation (using DBMS_AQADM.SCHEDULE_PROPAGATION or DBMS_PROPAGATION_ADM.CREATE_PROPAGATION if using Streams) has access to the database link for the destination. 4.5. Has Propagation Been Correctly Scheduled? Check that the propagation schedule has been created and that a job queue process has been assigned. Look for the entry in DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES and SYS.AQ$_SCHEDULES for your schedule. For 10g and below, check that it has a JOBNO entry in SYS.AQ$_SCHEDULES, and that there is an entry in DBA_JOBS with that JOBNO. For 11g and above, check that the schedule has a JOB_NAME entry in SYS.AQ$_SCHEDULES, and that there is an entry in DBA_SCHEDULER_JOBS with that JOB_NAME. Check the destination is as intended and spelled correctly. SQL> select SCHEMA, QNAME, DESTINATION, SCHEDULE_DISABLED, PROCESS_NAME from DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES;SCHEMA QNAME DESTINATION S PROCESS------- ---------- ------------------ - -----------AQADM MULTIPLEQ AQ$_LOCAL N J000 AQ$_LOCAL in the destination column shows that the queue to which we are propagating to is in the same database as the source queue. If the propagation was to a remote (different) database, a database link will be in the DESTINATION column. The entry in the SCHEDULE_DISABLED column, N, means that the schedule is NOT disabled. If Y (yes) appears in this column, propagation is disabled and the schedule will not be executed. If not using Oracle Streams, propagation should resume once you have enabled the schedule by invoking DBMS_AQADM.ENABLE_PROPAGATION_SCHEDULE (for 10.2 Oracle Streams and above, the DBMS_PROPAGATION_ADM.START_PROPAGATION procedure should be used). The PROCESS_NAME is the name of the job queue process currently allocated to execute the schedule. This process is allocated dynamically at execution time. If the PROCESS_NAME column is null (empty) the schedule is not currently executing. You may need to execute this statement a number of times to verify if a process is being allocated. If a process is at some time allocated to the schedule, it is attempting to execute. SQL> select SCHEMA, QNAME, LAST_RUN_DATE, NEXT_RUN_DATE from DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES;SCHEMA QNAME LAST_RUN_DATE NEXT_RUN_DATE------ ----- ----------------------- ----------------------- AQADM MULTIPLEQ 13-FEB-2002 13:18:57 13-FEB-2002 13:20:30 In 11g, these dates are expressed in TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE datatypes. If the NEXT_RUN_DATE and NEXT_RUN_TIME columns are null when this statement is executed, the scheduled propagation is currently in progress. If they never change it would suggest that the schedule itself is never executing. If the next scheduled execution is too far away, change the NEXT_TIME parameter of the schedule so that schedules are executed more frequently (assuming that the window is not set to be infinite). Parameters of a schedule can be changed using the DBMS_AQADM.ALTER_PROPAGATION_SCHEDULE call. In 10g and below, scheduling propagation posts a job in the DBA_JOBS view. The columns are more or less the same as DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES so you just need to recognize the job and verify that it exists. SQL> select JOB, WHAT from DBA_JOBS where WHAT like '%sys.dbms_aqadm.aq$_propaq(job)%';JOB WHAT---- ----------------- 720 next_date := sys.dbms_aqadm.aq$_propaq(job); For 11g, scheduling propagation posts a job in DBA_SCHEDULER_JOBS instead: SQL> select JOB_NAME from DBA_SCHEDULER_JOBS where JOB_NAME like 'AQ_JOB$_%';JOB_NAME------------------------------AQ_JOB$_41 If no job exists, check DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES to make sure that the schedule has not been disabled. For 10g and below, the job number is dynamic for AQ propagation schedules. The procedure that is executed to expedite a propagation schedule runs, removes itself from DBA_JOBS, and then reposts a new job for the next scheduled propagation. The job number should therefore always increment unless the schedule has been set up to run indefinitely. 4.6. Is the Schedule Executing but Failing to Complete? Run the following query: SQL> select FAILURES, LAST_ERROR_MSG from DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES;FAILURES LAST_ERROR_MSG------------ -----------------------1 ORA-25207: enqueue failed, queue AQADM.INQ is disabled from enqueueingORA-02063: preceding line from SHANE816 The failures column shows how many times we have attempted to execute the schedule and failed. Oracle will attempt to execute the schedule 16 times after which it will be removed from the DBA_JOBS or DBA_SCHEDULER_JOBS view and the schedule will become disabled. The column DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES.SCHEDULE_DISABLED will show 'Y'. For 11g and above, the DBA_SCHEDULER_JOBS.STATE column will show 'BROKEN' for the job corresponding to DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES.JOB_NAME. Prior to 10g the back off algorithm for failures was exponential, whereas from 10g onwards it is linear. The propagation will become disabled on the 17th attempt. Only the last execution failure will be reflected in the LAST_ERROR_MSG column. That is, if the schedule fails 5 times for 5 different reasons, only the last set of errors will be recorded in DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES. Any errors need to be resolved to allow propagation to continue. If propagation has also become disabled due to 17 failures, first resolve the reason for the error and then re-enable the schedule using the DBMS_AQADM.ENABLE_PROPAGATION_SCHEDULE procedure, or DBMS_PROPAGATION_ADM.START_PROPAGATION if using 10.2 or above Oracle Streams. As soon as the schedule executes successfully the error message entries will be deleted. Oracle does not keep a history of past failures. However, when using Oracle Streams, the errors will be retained in the DBA_PROPAGATION view even after the schedule resumes successfully. See the following note for instructions on how to clear out the errors from the DBA_PROPAGATION view:Document 808136.1 How to clear the old errors from DBA_PROPAGATION view?If a schedule is active and no errors are being reported then the source queue may not have any messages to be propagated. 4.7. Do the Propagation Notification Queue Table and Queue Exist? Check to see that the propagation notification queue table and queue exist and are enabled for enqueue and dequeue. Propagation makes use of the propagation notification queue for handling propagation run-time events, and the messages in this queue are stored in a SYS-owned queue table. This queue should never be stopped or dropped and the corresponding queue table never be dropped. 10g and belowThe propagation notification queue table is of the format SYS.AQ$_PROP_TABLE_n, where 'n' is the RAC instance number, i.e. '1' for a non-RAC environment. This queue and queue table are created implicitly when propagation is first scheduled. If propagation has been scheduled and these objects do not exist, try unscheduling and rescheduling propagation. If they still do not exist contact Oracle Support. SQL> select QUEUE_TABLE from DBA_QUEUE_TABLES2 where QUEUE_TABLE like '%PROP_TABLE%' and OWNER = 'SYS';QUEUE_TABLE------------------------------AQ$_PROP_TABLE_1SQL> select NAME, ENQUEUE_ENABLED, DEQUEUE_ENABLED2 from DBA_QUEUES where owner='SYS'3 and QUEUE_TABLE like '%PROP_TABLE%';NAME ENQUEUE DEQUEUE------------------------------ ------- -------AQ$_PROP_NOTIFY_1 YES YESAQ$_AQ$_PROP_TABLE_1_E NO NO If the AQ$_PROP_NOTIFY_1 queue is not enabled for enqueue or dequeue, it should be so enabled using DBMS_AQADM.START_QUEUE. However, the exception queue AQ$_AQ$_PROP_TABLE_1_E should not be enabled for enqueue or dequeue.11g and aboveThe propagation notification queue table is of the format SYS.AQ_PROP_TABLE, and is created when the database is created. If they do not exist, contact Oracle Support. SQL> select QUEUE_TABLE from DBA_QUEUE_TABLES2 where QUEUE_TABLE like '%PROP_TABLE%' and OWNER = 'SYS';QUEUE_TABLE------------------------------AQ_PROP_TABLESQL> select NAME, ENQUEUE_ENABLED, DEQUEUE_ENABLED2 from DBA_QUEUES where owner='SYS'3 and QUEUE_TABLE like '%PROP_TABLE%';NAME ENQUEUE DEQUEUE------------------------------ ------- -------AQ_PROP_NOTIFY YES YESAQ$_AQ_PROP_TABLE_E NO NO If the AQ_PROP_NOTIFY queue is not enabled for enqueue or dequeue, it should be so enabled using DBMS_AQADM.START_QUEUE. However, the exception queue AQ$_AQ$_PROP_TABLE_E should not be enabled for enqueue or dequeue. 4.8. Does the Remote Queue Exist and is it Enabled for Enqueueing? Check that the remote queue the propagation is transferring messages to exists and is enabled for enqueue: SQL> select DESTINATION from USER_QUEUE_SCHEDULES where QNAME = 'OUTQ';DESTINATION-----------------------------------------------------------------------------"AQADM"."INQ"@M2V102.ESSQL> select OWNER, NAME, ENQUEUE_ENABLED, DEQUEUE_ENABLED from [email protected];OWNER NAME ENQUEUE DEQUEUE-------- ------ ----------- -----------AQADM INQ YES YES 4.9. Do the Target and Source Database Charactersets Differ? If a message fails to propagate, check the database charactersets of the source and target databases. Investigate whether the same message can propagate between the databases with the same characterset or it is only a particular combination of charactersets which causes a problem. 4.10. Check the Queue Table Type Agreement Propagation is not possible between queue tables which have types that differ in some respect. One way to determine if this is the case is to run the DBMS_AQADM.VERIFY_QUEUE_TYPES procedure for the two queues that the propagation operates on. If the types do not agree, DBMS_AQADM.VERIFY_QUEUE_TYPES will return '0'.For AQ propagation between databases which have different NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS settings, propagation will not work, unless the queues are Oracle Streams ANYDATA queues.See the following notes for issues caused by lack of type agreement:Document 1079577.1 Advanced Queuing Propagation Fails With "ORA-22370: incorrect usage of method"Document 282987.1 Propagated Messages marked UNDELIVERABLE after Drop and Recreate Of Remote QueueDocument 353754.1 Streams Messaging Propagation Fails between Single and Multi-byte Charactersets when using Chararacter Length Semantics in the ADT 4.11. Enable Propagation Tracing 4.11.1. System Level This is set it in the init.ora/spfile as follows: event="24040 trace name context forever, level 10" and restart the instanceThis event cannot be set dynamically with an alter system command until version 10.2: SQL> alter system set events '24040 trace name context forever, level 10'; To unset the event: SQL> alter system set events '24040 trace name context off'; Debugging information will be logged to job queue trace file(s) (jnnn) as propagation takes place. You can check the trace file for errors, and for statements indicating that messages have been sent. For the most part the trace information is understandable. This trace should also be uploaded to Oracle Support if a service request is created. 4.11.2. Attaching to a Specific Process We can also attach to an existing job queue processes that is running a propagation schedule and trace it individually using the oradebug utility, as follows:10.2 and below connect / as sysdbaselect p.SPID, p.PROGRAM from v$PROCESS p, DBA_JOBS_RUNNING jr, V$SESSION s, DBA_JOBS j where s.SID=jr.SID and s.PADDR=p.ADDR and jr.JOB=j.JOB and j.WHAT like '%sys.dbms_aqadm.aq$_propaq(job)%';-- For the process id (SPID) attach to it via oradebug and generate the following traceoradebug setospid <SPID>oradebug unlimitoradebug Event 10046 trace name context forever, level 12oradebug Event 24040 trace name context forever, level 10-- Trace the process for 5 minutesoradebug Event 10046 trace name context offoradebug Event 24040 trace name context off-- The following command returns the pathname/filename to the file being written tooradebug tracefile_name 11g connect / as sysdbacol PROGRAM for a30select p.SPID, p.PROGRAM, j.JOB_NAMEfrom v$PROCESS p, DBA_SCHEDULER_RUNNING_JOBS jr, V$SESSION s, DBA_SCHEDULER_JOBS j where s.SID=jr.SESSION_ID and s.PADDR=p.ADDR and jr.JOB_NAME=j.JOB_NAME and j.JOB_NAME like '%AQ_JOB$_%';-- For the process id (SPID) attach to it via oradebug and generate the following traceoradebug setospid <SPID>oradebug unlimitoradebug Event 10046 trace name context forever, level 12oradebug Event 24040 trace name context forever, level 10-- Trace the process for 5 minutesoradebug Event 10046 trace name context offoradebug Event 24040 trace name context off-- The following command returns the pathname/filename to the file being written tooradebug tracefile_name 4.11.3. Further Tracing The previous tracing steps only trace the job queue process executing the propagation on the source. At times it is useful to trace the propagation receiver process (the session which is enqueueing the messages into the target queue) on the target database which is associated with the job queue process on the source database.These following queries provide ways of identifying the processes involved in propagation so that you can attach to them via oradebug to generate trace information.In order to identify the propagation receiver process you need to execute the query as a user with privileges to access the v$ views in both the local and remote databases so the database link must connect as a user with those privileges in the remote database. The <DBLINK> in the queries should be replaced by the appropriate database link.The queries have two forms due to the differences between operating systems. The value returned by 'Rem Process' is the operating system identifier of the propagation receiver on the remote database. Once identified, this process can be attached to and traced on the remote database using the commands given in Section 4.11.2.10.2 and below - Windows select pl.SPID "JobQ Process", pl.PROGRAM, sr.PROCESS "Rem Process" from v$PROCESS pl, DBA_JOBS_RUNNING jr, V$SESSION s, DBA_JOBS j, V$SESSION@<DBLINK> sr where s.SID=jr.SID and s.PADDR=pl.ADDR and jr.JOB=j.JOB and j.WHAT like '%sys.dbms_aqadm.aq$_propaq(job)%' and pl.SPID=substr(sr.PROCESS, instr(sr.PROCESS,':')+1); 10.2 and below - Unix select pl.SPID "JobQ Process", pl.PROGRAM, sr.PROCESS "Rem Process" from V$PROCESS pl, DBA_JOBS_RUNNING jr, V$SESSION s, DBA_JOBS j, V$SESSION@<DBLINK> sr where s.SID=jr.SID and s.PADDR=pl.ADDR and jr.JOB=j.JOB and j.WHAT like '%sys.dbms_aqadm.aq$_propaq(job)%' and pl.SPID=sr.PROCESS; 11g - Windows select pl.SPID "JobQ Process", pl.PROGRAM, sr.PROCESS "Rem Process" from V$PROCESS pl, DBA_SCHEDULER_RUNNING_JOBS jr, V$SESSION s, DBA_SCHEDULER_JOBS j, V$SESSION@<DBLINK> sr where s.SID=jr.SESSION_ID and s.PADDR=pl.ADDR and jr.JOB_NAME=j.JOB_NAME and j.JOB_NAME like '%AQ_JOB$_%%' and pl.SPID=substr(sr.PROCESS, instr(sr.PROCESS,':')+1); 11g - Unix select pl.SPID "JobQ Process", pl.PROGRAM, sr.PROCESS "Rem Process" from V$PROCESS pl, DBA_SCHEDULER_RUNNING_JOBS jr, V$SESSION s, DBA_SCHEDULER_JOBS j, V$SESSION@<DBLINK> sr where s.SID=jr.SESSION_ID and s.PADDR=pl.ADDR and jr.JOB_NAME=j.JOB_NAME and j.JOB_NAME like '%AQ_JOB$_%%' and pl.SPID=sr.PROCESS;   5. Additional Troubleshooting Steps for AQ Propagation of User-Enqueued and Dequeued Messages 5.1. Check the Privileges of All Users Involved Ensure that the owner of the database link has the necessary privileges on the aq packages. SQL> select TABLE_NAME, PRIVILEGE from USER_TAB_PRIVS;TABLE_NAME PRIVILEGE------------------------------ ----------------------------------------DBMS_LOCK EXECUTEDBMS_AQ EXECUTEDBMS_AQADM EXECUTEDBMS_AQ_BQVIEW EXECUTEQT52814_BUFFER SELECT Note that when queue table is created, a view called QT<nnn>_BUFFER is created in the SYS schema, and the queue table owner is given SELECT privileges on it. The <nnn> corresponds to the object_id of the associated queue table. SQL> select * from USER_ROLE_PRIVS;USERNAME GRANTED_ROLE ADM DEF OS_------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---- ---- ---AQ_USER1 AQ_ADMINISTRATOR_ROLE NO YES NOAQ_USER1 CONNECT NO YES NOAQ_USER1 RESOURCE NO YES NO It is good practice to configure central AQ administrative user. All admin and processing jobs are created, executed and administered as this user. This configuration is not mandatory however, and the database link can be owned by any existing queue user. If this latter configuration is used, ensure that the connecting user has the necessary privileges on the AQ packages and objects involved. Privileges for an AQ Administrative user Execute on DBMS_AQADM Execute on DBMS_AQ Granted the AQ_ADMINISTRATOR_ROLE Privileges for an AQ user Execute on DBMS_AQ Execute on the message payload Enqueue privileges on the remote queue Dequeue privileges on the originating queue Privileges need to be confirmed on both sites when propagation is scheduled to remote destinations. Verify that the user ID used to login to the destination through the database link has been granted privileges to use AQ. 5.2. Verify Queue Payload Types AQ will not propagate messages from one queue to another if the payload types of the two queues are not verified to be equivalent. An AQ administrator can verify if the source and destination's payload types match by executing the DBMS_AQADM.VERIFY_QUEUE_TYPES procedure. The results of the type checking will be stored in the SYS.AQ$_MESSAGE_TYPES table. This table can be accessed using the object identifier OID of the source queue and the address database link of the destination queue, i.e. [schema.]queue_name[@destination]. Prior to Oracle 9i the payload (message type) had to be the same for all the queue tables involved in propagation. From Oracle9i onwards a transformation can be used so that payloads can be converted from one type to another. The following procedural call made on the source database can verify whether we can propagate between the source and the destination queue tables. connect aq_user1/[email protected] serverout onDECLARErc_value number;BEGINDBMS_AQADM.VERIFY_QUEUE_TYPES(src_queue_name => 'AQ_USER1.Q_1', dest_queue_name => 'AQ_USER2.Q_2',destination => 'dbl_aq_user2.es',rc => rc_value);dbms_output.put_line('rc_value code is '||rc_value);END;/ If propagation is possible then the return code value will be 1. If it is 0 then propagation is not possible and further investigation of the types and transformations used by and in conjunction with the queue tables is required. With regard to comparison of the types the following sql can be used to extract the DDL for a specific type with' %' changed appropriately on the source and target. This can then be compared for the source and target. SET LONG 20000 set pagesize 50 EXECUTE DBMS_METADATA.SET_TRANSFORM_PARAM(DBMS_METADATA.SESSION_TRANSFORM, 'STORAGE',false); SELECT DBMS_METADATA.GET_DDL('TYPE',t.type_name) from user_types t WHERE t.type_name like '%'; EXECUTE DBMS_METADATA.SET_TRANSFORM_PARAM(DBMS_METADATA.SESSION_TRANSFORM, 'DEFAULT'); 5.3. Check Message State and Destination The first step in this process is to identify the queue table associated with the problem source queue. Although you schedule propagation for a specific queue, most of the meta-data associated with that queue is stored in the underlying queue table. The following statement finds the queue table for a given queue (note that this is a multiple-consumer queue table). SQL> select QUEUE_TABLE from DBA_QUEUES where NAME = 'MULTIPLEQ';QUEUE_TABLE --------------------MULTIPLEQTABLE For a small amount of messages in a multiple-consumer queue table, the following query can be run: SQL> select MSG_STATE, CONSUMER_NAME, ADDRESS from AQ$MULTIPLEQTABLE where QUEUE = 'MULTIPLEQ';MSG_STATE CONSUMER_NAME ADDRESS-------------- ----------------------- -------------READY AQUSER2 [email protected] AQUSER1READY AQUSER3 AQADM.INQ In this example we see 2 messages ready to be propagated to remote queues and 1 that is not. If the address column is blank, the message is not scheduled for propagation and can only be dequeued from the queue upon which it was enqueued. The MSG_STATE column values are discussed in Document 102330.1 Advanced Queueing MSG_STATE Values and their Interpretation. If the address column has a value, the message has been enqueued for propagation to another queue. The first row in the example includes a database link (@M2V102.ES). This demonstrates that the message should be propagated to a queue at a remote database. The third row does not include a database link so will be propagated to a queue that resides on the same database as the source queue. The consumer name is the intended recipient at the target queue. Note that we are not querying the base queue table directly; rather, we are querying a view that is available on top of every queue table, AQ$<queue_table_name>.A more realistic query in an environment where the queue table contains thousands of messages is8.0.3-compatible multiple-consumer queue table and all compatibility single-consumer queue tables select count(*), MSG_STATE, QUEUE from AQ$<queue_table_name>  group by MSG_STATE, QUEUE; 8.1.3 and 10.0-compatible queue tables select count(*), MSG_STATE, QUEUE, CONSUMER_NAME from AQ$<queue_table_name>group by MSG_STATE, QUEUE, CONSUMER_NAME; For multiple-consumer queue tables, if you did not see the expected CONSUMER_NAME , check the syntax of the enqueue code and verify the recipients are declared correctly. If a recipients list is not used on enqueue, check the subscriber list in the AQ$_<queue_table_name>_S view (note that a single-consumer queue table does not have a subscriber view. This view records all members of the default subscription list which were added using the DBMS_AQADM.ADD_SUBSCRIBER procedure and also those enqueued using a recipient list. SQL> select QUEUE, NAME, ADDRESS from AQ$MULTIPLEQTABLE_S;QUEUE NAME ADDRESS---------- ----------- -------------MULTIPLEQ AQUSER2 [email protected] AQUSER1 In this example we have 2 subscribers registered with the queue. We have a local subscriber AQUSER1, and a remote subscriber AQUSER2, on the queue INQ, owned by AQADM, at M2V102.ES. Unless overridden with a recipient list during enqueue every message enqueued to this queue will be propagated to INQ at M2V102.ES.For 8.1 style and above multiple consumer queue tables, you can also check the following information at the target: select CONSUMER_NAME, DEQ_TXN_ID, DEQ_TIME, DEQ_USER_ID, PROPAGATED_MSGID from AQ$<queue_table_name> where QUEUE = '<QUEUE_NAME>'; For 8.0 style queues, if the queue table supports multiple consumers you can obtain the same information from the history column of the queue table: select h.CONSUMER, h.TRANSACTION_ID, h.DEQ_TIME, h.DEQ_USER, h.PROPAGATED_MSGIDfrom AQ$<queue_table_name> t, table(t.history) h where t.Q_NAME = '<QUEUE_NAME>'; A non-NULL TRANSACTION_ID indicates that the message was successfully propagated. Further, the DEQ_TIME indicates the time of propagation, the DEQ_USER indicates the userid used for propagation, and the PROPAGATED_MSGID indicates the message ID of the message that was enqueued at the destination. 6. Additional Troubleshooting Steps for Propagation in an Oracle Streams Environment 6.1. Is the Propagation Enabled? For a propagation job to propagate messages, the propagation must be enabled. For Streams, a special view called DBA_PROPAGATION exists to convey information about Streams propagations. If messages are not being propagated by a propagation as expected, then the propagation might not be enabled. To query for this: SELECT p.PROPAGATION_NAME, DECODE(s.SCHEDULE_DISABLED, 'Y', 'Disabled','N', 'Enabled') SCHEDULE_DISABLED, s.PROCESS_NAME, s.FAILURES, s.LAST_ERROR_MSGFROM DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES s, DBA_PROPAGATION pWHERE p.DESTINATION_DBLINK = NVL(REGEXP_SUBSTR(s.DESTINATION, '[^@]+', 1, 2), s.DESTINATION) AND s.SCHEMA = p.SOURCE_QUEUE_OWNER AND s.QNAME = p.SOURCE_QUEUE_NAME AND MESSAGE_DELIVERY_MODE = 'PERSISTENT' order by PROPAGATION_NAME; At times, the propagation job may become "broken" or fail to start after an error has been encountered or after a database restart. If an error is indicated by the above query, an attempt to disable the propagation and then re-enable it can be made. In the examples below, for the propagation named STRMADMIN_PROPAGATE where the queue name is STREAMS_QUEUE owned by STRMADMIN and the destination database link is ORCL2.WORLD, the commands would be:10.2 and above exec dbms_propagation_adm.stop_propagation('STRMADMIN_PROPAGATE'); exec dbms_propagation_adm.start_propagation('STRMADMIN_PROPAGATE'); If the above does not fix the problem, stop the propagation specifying the force parameter (2nd parameter on stop_propagation) as TRUE: exec dbms_propagation_adm.stop_propagation('STRMADMIN_PROPAGATE',true); exec dbms_propagation_adm.start_propagation('STRMADMIN_PROPAGATE'); The statistics for the propagation as well as any old error messages are cleared when the force parameter is set to TRUE. Therefore if the propagation schedule is stopped with FORCE set to TRUE, and upon restart there is still an error message in DBA_PROPAGATION, then the error message is current.9.2 or 10.1 exec dbms_aqadm.disable_propagation_schedule('STRMADMIN.STREAMS_QUEUE','ORCL2.WORLD'); exec dbms.aqadm.enable_propagation_schedule('STRMADMIN.STREAMS_QUEUE','ORCL2.WORLD'); If the above does not fix the problem, perform an unschedule of propagation and then schedule_propagation: exec dbms_aqadm.unschedule_propagation('STRMADMIN.STREAMS_QUEUE','ORCL2.WORLD'); exec dbms_aqadm.schedule_propagation('STRMADMIN.STREAMS_QUEUE','ORCL2.WORLD'); Typically if the error from the first query in Section 6.1 recurs after restarting the propagation as shown above, further troubleshooting of the error is needed. 6.2. Check Propagation Rule Sets and Transformations Inspect the configuration of the rules in the rule set that is associated with the propagation process to make sure that they evaluate to TRUE as expected. If not, then the object or schema will not be propagated. Remember that when a negative rule evaluates to TRUE, the specified object or schema will not be propagated. Finally inspect any rule-based transformations that are implemented with propagation to make sure they are changing the data in the intended way.The following query shows what rule sets are assigned to a propagation: select PROPAGATION_NAME, RULE_SET_OWNER||'.'||RULE_SET_NAME "Positive Rule Set",NEGATIVE_RULE_SET_OWNER||'.'||NEGATIVE_RULE_SET_NAME "Negative Rule Set"from DBA_PROPAGATION; The next two queries list the propagation rules and their conditions. The first is for the positive rule set, the second is for the negative rule set: set long 4000select rsr.RULE_SET_OWNER||'.'||rsr.RULE_SET_NAME RULE_SET ,rsr.RULE_OWNER||'.'||rsr.RULE_NAME RULE_NAME,r.RULE_CONDITION CONDITION fromDBA_RULE_SET_RULES rsr, DBA_RULES rwhere rsr.RULE_NAME = r.RULE_NAME and rsr.RULE_OWNER = r.RULE_OWNER and RULE_SET_NAME in(select RULE_SET_NAME from DBA_PROPAGATION) order by rsr.RULE_SET_OWNER, rsr.RULE_SET_NAME;   set long 4000select c.PROPAGATION_NAME, rsr.RULE_SET_OWNER||'.'||rsr.RULE_SET_NAME RULE_SET ,rsr.RULE_OWNER||'.'||rsr.RULE_NAME RULE_NAME,r.RULE_CONDITION CONDITION fromDBA_RULE_SET_RULES rsr, DBA_RULES r ,DBA_PROPAGATION cwhere rsr.RULE_NAME = r.RULE_NAME and rsr.RULE_OWNER = r.RULE_OWNER andrsr.RULE_SET_OWNER=c.NEGATIVE_RULE_SET_OWNER and rsr.RULE_SET_NAME=c.NEGATIVE_RULE_SET_NAMEand rsr.RULE_SET_NAME in(select NEGATIVE_RULE_SET_NAME from DBA_PROPAGATION) order by rsr.RULE_SET_OWNER, rsr.RULE_SET_NAME; 6.3. Determining the Total Number of Messages and Bytes Propagated As in Section 3.1, determining if messages are flowing can be instructive to see whether the propagation is entirely hung or just slow. If the propagation is not in flow control (see Section 6.5.2), but the statistics are incrementing slowly, there may be a performance issue. For Streams implementations two views are available that can assist with this that can show the number of messages sent by a propagation, as well as the number of acknowledgements being returned from the target site: the V$PROPAGATION_SENDER view at the Source site and the V$PROPAGATION_RECEIVER view at the destination site. It is helpful to query both to determine if messages are being delivered to the target. Look for the statistics to increase.Source: select QUEUE_SCHEMA, QUEUE_NAME, DBLINK,HIGH_WATER_MARK, ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, TOTAL_MSGS, TOTAL_BYTESfrom V$PROPAGATION_SENDER; Target: select SRC_QUEUE_SCHEMA, SRC_QUEUE_NAME, SRC_DBNAME, DST_QUEUE_SCHEMA, DST_QUEUE_NAME, HIGH_WATER_MARK, ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, TOTAL_MSGS from V$PROPAGATION_RECEIVER; 6.4. Check Buffered Subscribers The V$BUFFERED_SUBSCRIBERS view displays information about subscribers for all buffered queues in the instance. This view can be queried to make sure that the site that the propagation is propagating to is listed as a subscriber address for the site being propagated from: select QUEUE_SCHEMA, QUEUE_NAME, SUBSCRIBER_ADDRESS from V$BUFFERED_SUBSCRIBERS; The SUBSCRIBER_ADDRESS column will not be populated when the propagation is local (between queues on the same database). 6.5. Common Streams Propagation Errors 6.5.1. ORA-02082: A loopback database link must have a connection qualifier. This error can occur if you use the Streams Setup Wizard in Oracle Enterprise Manager without first configuring the GLOBAL_NAME for your database. 6.5.2. ORA-25307: Enqueue rate too high. Enable flow control DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES will display this informational message for propagation when the automatic flow control (10g feature of Streams) has been invoked.Similar to Streams capture processes, a Streams propagation process can also go into a state of 'flow control. This is an informative message that indicates flow control has been automatically enabled to reduce the rate at which messages are being enqueued into at target queue.This typically occurs when the target site is unable to keep up with the rate of messages flowing from the source site. Other than checking that the apply process is running normally on the target site, usually no action is required by the DBA. Propagation and the capture process will be resumed automatically when the target site is able to accept more messages.The following document contains more information:Document 302109.1 Streams Propagation Error: ORA-25307 Enqueue rate too high. Enable flow controlSee the following document for one potential cause of this situation:Document 1097115.1 Oracle Streams Apply Reader is in 'Paused' State 6.5.3. ORA-25315 unsupported configuration for propagation of buffered messages This error typically occurs when the target database is RAC and usually indicates that an attempt was made to propagate buffered messages with the database link pointing to an instance in the destination database which is not the owner instance of the destination queue. To resolve the problem, use queue-to-queue propagation for buffered messages. 6.5.4. ORA-600 [KWQBMCRCPTS101] after dropping / recreating propagation For cause/fixes refer to:Document 421237.1 ORA-600 [KWQBMCRCPTS101] reported by a Qmon slave process after dropping a Streams Propagation 6.5.5. Stopping or Dropping a Streams Propagation Hangs See the following note:Document 1159787.1 Troubleshooting Streams Propagation When It is Not Functioning and Attempts to Stop It Hang 6.6. Streams Propagation-Related Notes for Common Issues Document 437838.1 Streams Specific PatchesDocument 749181.1 How to Recover Streams After Dropping PropagationDocument 368912.1 Queue to Queue Propagation Schedule encountered ORA-12514 in a RAC environmentDocument 564649.1 ORA-02068/ORA-03114/ORA-03113 Errors From Streams Propagation Process - Remote Database is Available and Unschedule/Reschedule Does Not ResolveDocument 553017.1 Stream Propagation Process Errors Ora-4052 Ora-6554 From 11g To 10201Document 944846.1 Streams Propagation Fails Ora-7445 [kohrsmc]Document 745601.1 ORA-23603 'STREAMS enqueue aborted due to low SGA' Error from Streams Propagation, and V$STREAMS_CAPTURE.STATE Hanging on 'Enqueuing Message'Document 333068.1 ORA-23603: Streams Enqueue Aborted Eue To Low SGADocument 363496.1 Ora-25315 Propagating on RAC StreamsDocument 368237.1 Unable to Unschedule Propagation. Streams Queue is InvalidDocument 436332.1 dbms_propagation_adm.stop_propagation hangsDocument 727389.1 Propagation Fails With ORA-12528Document 730911.1 ORA-4063 Is Reported After Dropping Negative Prop.RulesetDocument 460471.1 Propagation Blocked by Qmon Process - Streams_queue_table / 'library cache lock' waitsDocument 1165583.1 ORA-600 [kwqpuspse0-ack] In Streams EnvironmentDocument 1059029.1 Combined Capture and Apply (CCA) : Capture aborts : ORA-1422 after schedule_propagationDocument 556309.1 Changing Propagation/ queue_to_queue : false -> true does does not work; no LCRs propagatedDocument 839568.1 Propagation failing with error: ORA-01536: space quota exceeded for tablespace ''Document 311021.1 Streams Propagation Process : Ora 12154 After Reboot with Transparent Application Failover TAF configuredDocument 359971.1 STREAMS propagation to Primary of physical Standby configuation errors with Ora-01033, Ora-02068Document 1101616.1 DBMS_PROPAGATION_ADM.DROP_PROPAGATION FAILS WITH ORA-1747 7. Performance Issues A propagation may seem to be slow if the queries from Sections 3.1 and 6.3 show that the message statistics are not changing quickly. In Oracle Streams, this more usually is due to a slow apply process at the target rather than a slow propagation. Propagation could be inferred to be slow if the message statistics are changing, and the state of a capture process according to V$STREAMS_CAPTURE.STATE is PAUSED FOR FLOW CONTROL, but an ORA-25307 'Enqueue rate too high. Enable flow control' warning is NOT observed in DBA_QUEUE_SCHEDULES per Section 6.5.2. If this is the case, see the following notes / white papers for suggestions to increase performance:Document 335516.1 Master Note for Streams Performance RecommendationsDocument 730036.1 Overview for Troubleshooting Streams Performance IssuesDocument 780733.1 Streams Propagation Tuning with Network ParametersWhite Paper: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/features/availability/maa-wp-10gr2-streams-performance-130059.pdfWhite Paper: Oracle Streams Configuration Best Practices: Oracle Database 10g Release 10.2, http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/features/availability/maa-10gr2-streams-configuration-132039.pdf, See APPENDIX A: USING STREAMS CONFIGURATIONS OVER A NETWORKFor basic AQ propagation, the network tuning in the aforementioned Appendix A of the white paper 'Oracle Streams Configuration Best Practices: Oracle Database 10g Release 10.2' is applicable. References NOTE:102330.1 - Advanced Queueing MSG_STATE Values and their InterpretationNOTE:102771.1 - Advanced Queueing Propagation using PL/SQLNOTE:1059029.1 - Combined Capture and Apply (CCA) : Capture aborts : ORA-1422 after schedule_propagationNOTE:1079577.1 - Advanced Queuing Propagation Fails With "ORA-22370: incorrect usage of method"NOTE:1083608.1 - 11g Streams and Oracle SchedulerNOTE:1087324.1 - ORA-01405 ORA-01422 reported by Adavanced Queueing Propagation schedules after RAC reconfigurationNOTE:1097115.1 - Oracle Streams Apply Reader is in 'Paused' StateNOTE:1101616.1 - DBMS_PROPAGATION_ADM.DROP_PROPAGATION FAILS WITH ORA-1747NOTE:1159787.1 - Troubleshooting Streams Propagation When It is Not Functioning and Attempts to Stop It HangNOTE:1165583.1 - ORA-600 [kwqpuspse0-ack] In Streams EnvironmentNOTE:118884.1 - How to unschedule a propagation schedule stuck in pending stateNOTE:1203544.1 - AQ PROPAGATION ABORTED WITH ORA-600[OCIKSIN: INVALID STATUS] ON SYS.DBMS_AQADM_SYS.AQ$_PROPAGATION_PROCEDURE AFTER UPGRADENOTE:1204080.1 - AQ Propagation Failing With ORA-25329 After Upgraded From 8i or 9i to 10g or 11g.NOTE:219416.1 - Advanced Queuing Propagation fails with ORA-22922NOTE:222992.1 - DBMS_AQADM.DISABLE_PROPAGATION_SCHEDULE Returns ORA-24082NOTE:253131.1 - Concurrent Writes May Corrupt LOB Segment When Using Auto Segment Space Management (ORA-1555)NOTE:282987.1 - Propagated Messages marked UNDELIVERABLE after Drop and Recreate Of Remote QueueNOTE:298015.1 - Kwqjswproc:Excep After Loop: Assigning To SelfNOTE:302109.1 - Streams Propagation Error: ORA-25307 Enqueue rate too high. Enable flow controlNOTE:311021.1 - Streams Propagation Process : Ora 12154 After Reboot with Transparent Application Failover TAF configuredNOTE:332792.1 - ORA-04061 error relating to SYS.DBMS_PRVTAQIP reported when setting up StatspackNOTE:333068.1 - ORA-23603: Streams Enqueue Aborted Eue To Low SGANOTE:335516.1 - Master Note for Streams Performance RecommendationsNOTE:353325.1 - ORA-24056: Internal inconsistency for QUEUE and destination NOTE:353754.1 - Streams Messaging Propagation Fails between Single and Multi-byte Charactersets when using Chararacter Length Semantics in the ADT.NOTE:359971.1 - STREAMS propagation to Primary of physical Standby configuation errors with Ora-01033, Ora-02068NOTE:363496.1 - Ora-25315 Propagating on RAC StreamsNOTE:365093.1 - ORA-07445 [kwqppay2aqe()+7360] reported on Propagation of a Transformed MessageNOTE:368237.1 - Unable to Unschedule Propagation. Streams Queue is InvalidNOTE:368912.1 - Queue to Queue Propagation Schedule encountered ORA-12514 in a RAC environmentNOTE:421237.1 - ORA-600 [KWQBMCRCPTS101] reported by a Qmon slave process after dropping a Streams PropagationNOTE:436332.1 - dbms_propagation_adm.stop_propagation hangsNOTE:437838.1 - Streams Specific PatchesNOTE:460471.1 - Propagation Blocked by Qmon Process - Streams_queue_table / 'library cache lock' waitsNOTE:463820.1 - Streams Combined Capture and Apply in 11gNOTE:553017.1 - Stream Propagation Process Errors Ora-4052 Ora-6554 From 11g To 10201NOTE:556309.1 - Changing Propagation/ queue_to_queue : false -> true does does not work; no LCRs propagatedNOTE:564649.1 - ORA-02068/ORA-03114/ORA-03113 Errors From Streams Propagation Process - Remote Database is Available and Unschedule/Reschedule Does Not ResolveNOTE:566622.1 - ORA-22275 when propagating >4K AQ$_JMS_TEXT_MESSAGEs from 9.2.0.8 to 10.2.0.1NOTE:727389.1 - Propagation Fails With ORA-12528NOTE:730036.1 - Overview for Troubleshooting Streams Performance IssuesNOTE:730911.1 - ORA-4063 Is Reported After Dropping Negative Prop.RulesetNOTE:731292.1 - ORA-25215 Reported On Local Propagation When Using Transformation with ANYDATA queue tablesNOTE:731539.1 - ORA-29268: HTTP client error 401 Unauthorized Error when the AQ Servlet attempts to Propagate a message via HTTPNOTE:745601.1 - ORA-23603 'STREAMS enqueue aborted due to low SGA' Error from Streams Propagation, and V$STREAMS_CAPTURE.STATE Hanging on 'Enqueuing Message'NOTE:749181.1 - How to Recover Streams After Dropping PropagationNOTE:780733.1 - Streams Propagation Tuning with Network ParametersNOTE:787367.1 - ORA-22275 reported on Propagating Messages with LOB component when propagating between 10.1 and 10.2NOTE:808136.1 - How to clear the old errors from DBA_PROPAGATION view ?NOTE:827184.1 - AQ Propagation with CLOB data types Fails with ORA-22990NOTE:827473.1 - How to alter propagation from queue_to_queue to queue_to_dblinkNOTE:839568.1 - Propagation failing with error: ORA-01536: space quota exceeded for tablespace ''NOTE:846297.1 - AQ Propagation Fails : ORA-00600[kope2upic2954] or Ora-00600[Kghsstream_copyn]NOTE:944846.1 - Streams Propagation Fails Ora-7445 [kohrsmc]

    Read the article

  • Convert Video and Remove Commercials in Windows 7 Media Center with MCEBuddy 1.1

    - by DigitalGeekery
    Today look at MCEBuddy for Windows 7 Media Center. This handy app automatically takes your recorded TV files and converts them to MP4, AVI, WMV, or MPEG format. It even has the option to cut out those annoying commercials during the conversion process. Installation and Configuration Download and extract MCE Buddy. (Download link below) Run the setup.exe file and take all the default settings.   Open MCEBuddy Configuration by going to Start > All Programs > MCEBuddy > MCEBuddy Configuration.   Video Paths The MCEBuddy application is comprised of a single window. The first step you’ll want to take is to define your Source and Destination paths. The “Source” will most likely be your Recorded TV directory. The Destination should NOT be the same as the Source folder. Note: The Recorded TV directory in Windows 7 Media Center will only display and play WTV & DVR-MS files. To watch the converted MP4, AVI, WMV, or MPEG files in Windows Media Center you’ll need to add them to your Video Library or Movie Library. Video Conversion Next, choose your preferred format for conversion from the “Convert to” drop down list. The default is MP4 with the H.264 codec. You’ll find a wide variety of formats. The first set of conversion options in the drop down list will resize the video to 720 pixels wide. The next two sections maintain the original size, and the final section is for a variety of portable devices.   Next, you’ll see a group of check boxes below the “Convert to” drop down list. The Commercial Skipping option will cut the commercials while converting the file. Sort By Series will create a sub-folder in your Destination folder for each TV show. Delete Original will delete the WTV file after conversion is complete. (This option is not recommended unless you are sure your files are converting properly and you no longer need the WTV file.) Start Minimized is ideal if you want to run MCEBuddy on Windows startup. Note: MCEBuddy installs and uses Comskip for commercial cutting by default. However, if you have ShowAnalyzer installed, it will use that application instead. Advanced Options To choose a specific time of day to perform the conversions, click the checkbox under the “Advanced Options,” and select the starting and ending times for conversion. For example, convert between 2 hours and 5 hours would be between 2 am and 5am. If you want MCEBuddy to constantly look for and immediately convert new recordings, leave the box unchecked.   The “Video age” option lets you choose a specific number of days to wait before performing the conversion. This can be useful if you want to watch the recordings first and delete those you don’t wish to convert. You can also choose the “Sub Directories” if you’d like MCEBuddy to convert files that are in a sub-folder in your “Source” directory. Second Conversion As you might expect, this option allows MCEBuddy to perform a second conversion of your file. This can be useful if you want to use your first conversion to create a higher quality MP4 or AVI file for playback on a larger screen, and a second one for a portable device such as Zune or iPhone. The same options from the first conversion are also available for the second. You’ll want to choose a separate Destination folder for the second conversion.   Start and Monitor Progress To start converting your video files, simply press the “Start” button at the bottom. You’ll be able to follow the progress in the “Current Activity” section. When all the video files have finished converting, or there are no current files to convert, MCEBuddy will display a “Started – Idle” status. Click “Stop” if you don’t want MCEBuddy to continue scanning for new files.   Conclusion MCEBuddy 1.1 will convert all WTV files in it’s source folder. If you want to pick and choose which recordings to convert, you may want to define a source folder different than the Recorded TV folder and then just copy or move the files you wish to convert into the new source folder. The conversion process does take a good bit of time. If you choose the commercial skipping and second conversion options it can take several hours to fully convert one TV recording. Overall, MCEBuddy makes a nice Media Center addition for those that want to save some space with smaller size files, convert Recorded TV files for their portable device, or automatically remove commercials. If you’re looking for a different method to skip commercials check out our post on how to skip commercials in Windows 7 Media Center. Download MCEBuddy 1.1 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)How To Skip Commercials in Windows 7 Media CenterHow To Convert Video Files to MP3 with VLCStartup Customizations for Media Center in Windows 7Add Folders to the Movie Library in Windows 7 Media Center TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional The Ultimate Excel Cheatsheet Convert the Quick Launch Bar into a Super Application Launcher Automate Tasks in Linux with Crontab Discover New Bundled Feeds in Google Reader Play Music in Chrome by Simply Dragging a File 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam

    Read the article

  • Silverlight 5 Hosting :: Features in Silverlight 5 and Release Date

    - by mbridge
    Silverlight 5 is finally announced in the Silverlight FireStarter Event on the 2nd December, 2010. This new version of Silverlight which was earlier labeled as 'Future of Microsoft Silverlight' has now come much closer to go live as the first Silverlight 5 Beta version is expected to be shipped during the early months of 2011. However for the full fledged and the final release of Silverlight 5, we have to wait many more months as the same is likely to be made available within the Q3 2011. As would have been usually expected, this latest edition would feature many new capabilities thereby extending the developer productivity to a whole new dimension of premium media experience and feature-rich business applications. It comes along with many new feature updates as well as the inclusion of new technologies to improve the standard of the Silverlight applications which are now fine-tuned to produce next generation business and media solutions that is capable to meet the requirements of the advanced web-based app development. The Silverlight 5 is all set to replace the previous fourth version which now includes more than forty new features while also dropping various deprecated elements that was prevalent earlier. It has brought around some major performance enhancements and also included better support for various other tools and technologies. Following are some of the changes that are registered to be available under the Silverlight 5 Beta edition which is scheduled to be launched during the Q1 2011. Silverlight 5 : Premium Media Experiences The media features of Silverlight 5 has seen some major enhancements with a lot of optimizations being made to deliver richer solutions. It's capability has now been extended to make things easier, faster and capable of performing the desired tasks in the most efficient manner. The Silverlight media solutions has already been a part of many companies in the recent days where various on-demand Silverlight services were featured but with the arrival of the next generation premium media solution of Silverlight 5, it is expected to register new heights of success and global user acclamation for using it with many esteemed web-based projects and media solutions. - The most happening element in the new Silverlight 5 will be its support for utilizing the GPU based hardware acceleration which is intended to lower down the CPU load to a significant extent and thereby allowing faster rendering of media contents without consuming much resources. This feature is believed to be particularly helpful for low configured machines to run full HD media content without any lagging caused due to processor load. It will hence be one great feature to revolutionize the new generation high quality media contents to be available within the web in a more efficient manner with its hardware decoded video playback capabilities. - With the inclusion of hardware video decoding to minimize the processor load, the Silverlight 5 also comes with another optimization enhancement to also reduce the power consumption level by making new methods to deal with the power-saver settings. With this optimization in effect, the computer would be automatically allowed to switch to sleep mode while no video playback is in progress and also to prevent any screensavers to popup and cause annoyances during any video playback. There would also be other power saver options which will be made available to best suit the users requirements and purpose. - The Silverlight trickplay feature is another great way to tweak any silverlight powered media content as is used for many video tutorial sites or for dealing with any sort of presentations. This feature enables the user to modify the playback speed to either slowdown or speedup during the playback durations based on the requirements without compromising on the quality of output. Normally such manipulations always makes the content's audio to go off-pitch, but the same will not be the case with TrickPlay and the audio would seamlessly progress with the video without skipping any of its part. - In addition to all of the above, the new Silverlight 5 will be featuring wireless control of all the media contents by making use of remote controllers. With the use of such remote devices, it will be easier to handle the various media playback controls thereby providing more freedom while experiencing the premium media services. Silverlight 5 : Business Application Development The application development standard has been extended with more possibilities by bringing forth new and useful technologies and also reviving the existing methods to work better than what it was used to. From the UI improvements to advanced technical aspects, the Silverlight 5 scores high on all grounds to produce great next generation business delivered applications by putting in more creativity and resourceful touch to all the apps being produced with it. - The WPF feature of Silverlight is made more effective by introducing new standards of Databinding which is intended to improve the productivity standards of the Silverlight application developer. It brings in a lot of convenience in debugging the databinding components or expressions and hence making things work in a flawless manner. Some additional features related to databinding includes that of Ancestor RelativeSource, Implicit DataTemplates and Model View ViewModel (MVVM) support with DataContextChanged event and many other new features relating it. - It now comes with a refined text and printing service which facilitates better clarity of the text rendering and also many positive changes which are being applied to the layout pattern. New supports has been added to include OpenType font, multi-column text, linked-text containers and character leading support to name a few among the available features.This also includes some important printing aspects like that of Postscript Vector Printing API which allows to program our printing tasks in a user defined way and Pivot functionality for visualization concerns of informations. - The Graphics support is the key improvements being incorporated which now enables to utilize three dimensional graphics pattern using GPU acceleration. It can manage to provide some really cool visualizations being curved to provide media contents within the business apps with also the support for full HD contents at 1080p quality. - Silverlight 5 includes the support for 64-bit operating systems and relevant browsers and is also optimized to provide better performance. It can support the background thread for the networking which can reduce the latency of the network to a considerable extent. The Out-of-Browser functionality adds the support for utilizing various libraries and also the Win32 API. It also comes with testing support with VS 2010 which is mostly an automated procedure and has also enabled increased security aspects of all the Silverlight 5 developed applications by using the improved version of group policy support.

    Read the article

  • WebLogic Server Performance and Tuning: Part I - Tuning JVM

    - by Gokhan Gungor
    Each WebLogic Server instance runs in its own dedicated Java Virtual Machine (JVM) which is their runtime environment. Every Admin Server in any domain executes within a JVM. The same also applies for Managed Servers. WebLogic Server can be used for a wide variety of applications and services which uses the same runtime environment and resources. Oracle WebLogic ships with 2 different JVM, HotSpot and JRocket but you can choose which JVM you want to use. JVM is designed to optimize itself however it also provides some startup options to make small changes. There are default values for its memory and garbage collection. In real world, you will not want to stick with the default values provided by the JVM rather want to customize these values based on your applications which can produce large gains in performance by making small changes with the JVM parameters. We can tell the garbage collector how to delete garbage and we can also tell JVM how much space to allocate for each generation (of java Objects) or for heap. Remember during the garbage collection no other process is executed within the JVM or runtime, which is called STOP THE WORLD which can affect the overall throughput. Each JVM has its own memory segment called Heap Memory which is the storage for java Objects. These objects can be grouped based on their age like young generation (recently created objects) or old generation (surviving objects that have lived to some extent), etc. A java object is considered garbage when it can no longer be reached from anywhere in the running program. Each generation has its own memory segment within the heap. When this segment gets full, garbage collector deletes all the objects that are marked as garbage to create space. When the old generation space gets full, the JVM performs a major collection to remove the unused objects and reclaim their space. A major garbage collect takes a significant amount of time and can affect system performance. When we create a managed server either on the same machine or on remote machine it gets its initial startup parameters from $DOMAIN_HOME/bin/setDomainEnv.sh/cmd file. By default two parameters are set:     Xms: The initial heapsize     Xmx: The max heapsize Try to set equal initial and max heapsize. The startup time can be a little longer but for long running applications it will provide a better performance. When we set -Xms512m -Xmx1024m, the physical heap size will be 512m. This means that there are pages of memory (in the state of the 512m) that the JVM does not explicitly control. It will be controlled by OS which could be reserve for the other tasks. In this case, it is an advantage if the JVM claims the entire memory at once and try not to spend time to extend when more memory is needed. Also you can use -XX:MaxPermSize (Maximum size of the permanent generation) option for Sun JVM. You should adjust the size accordingly if your application dynamically load and unload a lot of classes in order to optimize the performance. You can set the JVM options/heap size from the following places:     Through the Admin console, in the Server start tab     In the startManagedWeblogic script for the managed servers     $DOMAIN_HOME/bin/startManagedWebLogic.sh/cmd     JAVA_OPTIONS="-Xms1024m -Xmx1024m" ${JAVA_OPTIONS}     In the setDomainEnv script for the managed servers and admin server (domain wide)     USER_MEM_ARGS="-Xms1024m -Xmx1024m" When there is free memory available in the heap but it is too fragmented and not contiguously located to store the object or when there is actually insufficient memory we can get java.lang.OutOfMemoryError. We should create Thread Dump and analyze if that is possible in case of such error. The second option we can use to produce higher throughput is to garbage collection. We can roughly divide GC algorithms into 2 categories: parallel and concurrent. Parallel GC stops the execution of all the application and performs the full GC, this generally provides better throughput but also high latency using all the CPU resources during GC. Concurrent GC on the other hand, produces low latency but also low throughput since it performs GC while application executes. The JRockit JVM provides some useful command-line parameters that to control of its GC scheme like -XgcPrio command-line parameter which takes the following options; XgcPrio:pausetime (To minimize latency, parallel GC) XgcPrio:throughput (To minimize throughput, concurrent GC ) XgcPrio:deterministic (To guarantee maximum pause time, for real time systems) Sun JVM has similar parameters (like  -XX:UseParallelGC or -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC) to control its GC scheme. We can add -verbosegc -XX:+PrintGCDetails to monitor indications of a problem with garbage collection. Try configuring JVM’s of all managed servers to execute in -server mode to ensure that it is optimized for a server-side production environment.

    Read the article

  • What&rsquo;s New in ASP.NET 4.0 Part Two: WebForms and Visual Studio Enhancements

    - by Rick Strahl
    In the last installment I talked about the core changes in the ASP.NET runtime that I’ve been taking advantage of. In this column, I’ll cover the changes to the Web Forms engine and some of the cool improvements in Visual Studio that make Web and general development easier. WebForms The WebForms engine is the area that has received most significant changes in ASP.NET 4.0. Probably the most widely anticipated features are related to managing page client ids and of ViewState on WebForm pages. Take Control of Your ClientIDs Unique ClientID generation in ASP.NET has been one of the most complained about “features” in ASP.NET. Although there’s a very good technical reason for these unique generated ids - they guarantee unique ids for each and every server control on a page - these unique and generated ids often get in the way of client-side JavaScript development and CSS styling as it’s often inconvenient and fragile to work with the long, generated ClientIDs. In ASP.NET 4.0 you can now specify an explicit client id mode on each control or each naming container parent control to control how client ids are generated. By default, ASP.NET generates mangled client ids for any control contained in a naming container (like a Master Page, or a User Control for example). The key to ClientID management in ASP.NET 4.0 are the new ClientIDMode and ClientIDRowSuffix properties. ClientIDMode supports four different ClientID generation settings shown below. For the following examples, imagine that you have a Textbox control named txtName inside of a master page control container on a WebForms page. <%@Page Language="C#"      MasterPageFile="~/Site.Master"     CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="WebApplication1.WebForm2"  %> <asp:Content ID="content"  ContentPlaceHolderID="content"               runat="server"               ClientIDMode="Static" >       <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtName" /> </asp:Content> The four available ClientIDMode values are: AutoID This is the existing behavior in ASP.NET 1.x-3.x where full naming container munging takes place. <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"        id="ctl00_content_txtName" /> This should be familiar to any ASP.NET developer and results in fairly unpredictable client ids that can easily change if the containership hierarchy changes. For example, removing the master page changes the name in this case, so if you were to move a block of script code that works against the control to a non-Master page, the script code immediately breaks. Static This option is the most deterministic setting that forces the control’s ClientID to use its ID value directly. No naming container naming at all is applied and you end up with clean client ids: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName"         type="text" id="txtName" /> Note that the name property which is used for postback variables to the server still is munged, but the ClientID property is displayed simply as the ID value that you have assigned to the control. This option is what most of us want to use, but you have to be clear on that because it can potentially cause conflicts with other controls on the page. If there are several instances of the same naming container (several instances of the same user control for example) there can easily be a client id naming conflict. Note that if you assign Static to a data-bound control, like a list child control in templates, you do not get unique ids either, so for list controls where you rely on unique id for child controls, you’ll probably want to use Predictable rather than Static. I’ll write more on this a little later when I discuss ClientIDRowSuffix. Predictable The previous two values are pretty self-explanatory. Predictable however, requires some explanation. To me at least it’s not in the least bit predictable. MSDN defines this value as follows: This algorithm is used for controls that are in data-bound controls. The ClientID value is generated by concatenating the ClientID value of the parent naming container with the ID value of the control. If the control is a data-bound control that generates multiple rows, the value of the data field specified in the ClientIDRowSuffix property is added at the end. For the GridView control, multiple data fields can be specified. If the ClientIDRowSuffix property is blank, a sequential number is added at the end instead of a data-field value. Each segment is separated by an underscore character (_). The key that makes this value a bit confusing is that it relies on the parent NamingContainer’s ClientID to build its own ClientID value. This effectively means that the value is not predictable at all but rather very tightly coupled to the parent naming container’s ClientIDMode setting. For my simple textbox example, if the ClientIDMode property of the parent naming container (Page in this case) is set to “Predictable” you’ll get this: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"         id="content_txtName" /> which gives an id that based on walking up to the currently active naming container (the MasterPage content container) and starting the id formatting from there downward. Think of this as a semi unique name that’s guaranteed unique only for the naming container. If, on the other hand, the Page is set to “AutoID” you get the following with Predictable on txtName: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"         id="ctl00_content_txtName" /> The latter is effectively the same as if you specified AutoID because it inherits the AutoID naming from the Page and Content Master Page control of the page. But again - predictable behavior always depends on the parent naming container and how it generates its id, so the id may not always be exactly the same as the AutoID generated value because somewhere in the NamingContainer chain the ClientIDMode setting may be set to a different value. For example, if you had another naming container in the middle that was set to Static you’d end up effectively with an id that starts with the NamingContainers id rather than the whole ctl000_content munging. The most common use for Predictable is likely to be for data-bound controls, which results in each data bound item getting a unique ClientID. Unfortunately, even here the behavior can be very unpredictable depending on which data-bound control you use - I found significant differences in how template controls in a GridView behave from those that are used in a ListView control. For example, GridView creates clean child ClientIDs, while ListView still has a naming container in the ClientID, presumably because of the template container on which you can’t set ClientIDMode. Predictable is useful, but only if all naming containers down the chain use this setting. Otherwise you’re right back to the munged ids that are pretty unpredictable. Another property, ClientIDRowSuffix, can be used in combination with ClientIDMode of Predictable to force a suffix onto list client controls. For example: <asp:GridView runat="server" ID="gvItems"              AutoGenerateColumns="false"             ClientIDMode="Static"              ClientIDRowSuffix="Id">     <Columns>     <asp:TemplateField>         <ItemTemplate>             <asp:Label runat="server" id="txtName"                        Text='<%# Eval("Name") %>'                   ClientIDMode="Predictable"/>         </ItemTemplate>     </asp:TemplateField>     <asp:TemplateField>         <ItemTemplate>         <asp:Label runat="server" id="txtId"                     Text='<%# Eval("Id") %>'                     ClientIDMode="Predictable" />         </ItemTemplate>     </asp:TemplateField>     </Columns>  </asp:GridView> generates client Ids inside of a column in the master page described earlier: <td>     <span id="txtName_0">Rick</span> </td> where the value after the underscore is the ClientIDRowSuffix field - in this case “Id” of the item data bound to the control. Note that all of the child controls require ClientIDMode=”Predictable” in order for the ClientIDRowSuffix to be applied, and the parent GridView controls need to be set to Static either explicitly or via Naming Container inheritance to give these simple names. It’s a bummer that ClientIDRowSuffix doesn’t work with Static to produce this automatically. Another real problem is that other controls process the ClientIDMode differently. For example, a ListView control processes the Predictable ClientIDMode differently and produces the following with the Static ListView and Predictable child controls: <span id="ctrl0_txtName_0">Rick</span> I couldn’t even figure out a way using ClientIDMode to get a simple ID that also uses a suffix short of falling back to manually generated ids using <%= %> expressions instead. Given the inconsistencies inside of list controls using <%= %>, ids for the ListView might not be a bad idea anyway. Inherit The final setting is Inherit, which is the default for all controls except Page. This means that controls by default inherit the parent naming container’s ClientIDMode setting. For more detailed information on ClientID behavior and different scenarios you can check out a blog post of mine on this subject: http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/54760.aspx. ClientID Enhancements Summary The ClientIDMode property is a welcome addition to ASP.NET 4.0. To me this is probably the most useful WebForms feature as it allows me to generate clean IDs simply by setting ClientIDMode="Static" on either the page or inside of Web.config (in the Pages section) which applies the setting down to the entire page which is my 95% scenario. For the few cases when it matters - for list controls and inside of multi-use user controls or custom server controls) - I can use Predictable or even AutoID to force controls to unique names. For application-level page development, this is easy to accomplish and provides maximum usability for working with client script code against page controls. ViewStateMode Another area of large criticism for WebForms is ViewState. ViewState is used internally by ASP.NET to persist page-level changes to non-postback properties on controls as pages post back to the server. It’s a useful mechanism that works great for the overall mechanics of WebForms, but it can also cause all sorts of overhead for page operation as ViewState can very quickly get out of control and consume huge amounts of bandwidth in your page content. ViewState can also wreak havoc with client-side scripting applications that modify control properties that are tracked by ViewState, which can produce very unpredictable results on a Postback after client-side updates. Over the years in my own development, I’ve often turned off ViewState on pages to reduce overhead. Yes, you lose some functionality, but you can easily implement most of the common functionality in non-ViewState workarounds. Relying less on heavy ViewState controls and sticking with simpler controls or raw HTML constructs avoids getting around ViewState problems. In ASP.NET 3.x and prior, it wasn’t easy to control ViewState - you could turn it on or off and if you turned it off at the page or web.config level, you couldn’t turn it back on for specific controls. In short, it was an all or nothing approach. With ASP.NET 4.0, the new ViewStateMode property gives you more control. It allows you to disable ViewState globally either on the page or web.config level and then turn it back on for specific controls that might need it. ViewStateMode only works when EnableViewState="true" on the page or web.config level (which is the default). You can then use ViewStateMode of Disabled, Enabled or Inherit to control the ViewState settings on the page. If you’re shooting for minimal ViewState usage, the ideal situation is to set ViewStateMode to disabled on the Page or web.config level and only turn it back on particular controls: <%@Page Language="C#"      CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="Westwind.WebStore.WebForm2"        ClientIDMode="Static"                ViewStateMode="Disabled"     EnableViewState="true"  %> <!-- this control has viewstate  --> <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtName"  ViewStateMode="Enabled" />       <!-- this control has no viewstate - it inherits  from parent container --> <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtAddress" /> Note that the EnableViewState="true" at the Page level isn’t required since it’s the default, but it’s important that the value is true. ViewStateMode has no effect if EnableViewState="false" at the page level. The main benefit of ViewStateMode is that it allows you to more easily turn off ViewState for most of the page and enable only a few key controls that might need it. For me personally, this is a perfect combination as most of my WebForm apps can get away without any ViewState at all. But some controls - especially third party controls - often don’t work well without ViewState enabled, and now it’s much easier to selectively enable controls rather than the old way, which required you to pretty much turn off ViewState for all controls that you didn’t want ViewState on. Inline HTML Encoding HTML encoding is an important feature to prevent cross-site scripting attacks in data entered by users on your site. In order to make it easier to create HTML encoded content, ASP.NET 4.0 introduces a new Expression syntax using <%: %> to encode string values. The encoding expression syntax looks like this: <%: "<script type='text/javascript'>" +     "alert('Really?');</script>" %> which produces properly encoded HTML: &lt;script type=&#39;text/javascript&#39; &gt;alert(&#39;Really?&#39;);&lt;/script&gt; Effectively this is a shortcut to: <%= HttpUtility.HtmlEncode( "<script type='text/javascript'>" + "alert('Really?');</script>") %> Of course the <%: %> syntax can also evaluate expressions just like <%= %> so the more common scenario applies this expression syntax against data your application is displaying. Here’s an example displaying some data model values: <%: Model.Address.Street %> This snippet shows displaying data from your application’s data store or more importantly, from data entered by users. Anything that makes it easier and less verbose to HtmlEncode text is a welcome addition to avoid potential cross-site scripting attacks. Although I listed Inline HTML Encoding here under WebForms, anything that uses the WebForms rendering engine including ASP.NET MVC, benefits from this feature. ScriptManager Enhancements The ASP.NET ScriptManager control in the past has introduced some nice ways to take programmatic and markup control over script loading, but there were a number of shortcomings in this control. The ASP.NET 4.0 ScriptManager has a number of improvements that make it easier to control script loading and addresses a few of the shortcomings that have often kept me from using the control in favor of manual script loading. The first is the AjaxFrameworkMode property which finally lets you suppress loading the ASP.NET AJAX runtime. Disabled doesn’t load any ASP.NET AJAX libraries, but there’s also an Explicit mode that lets you pick and choose the library pieces individually and reduce the footprint of ASP.NET AJAX script included if you are using the library. There’s also a new EnableCdn property that forces any script that has a new WebResource attribute CdnPath property set to a CDN supplied URL. If the script has this Attribute property set to a non-null/empty value and EnableCdn is enabled on the ScriptManager, that script will be served from the specified CdnPath. [assembly: WebResource(    "Westwind.Web.Resources.ww.jquery.js",    "application/x-javascript",    CdnPath =  "http://mysite.com/scripts/ww.jquery.min.js")] Cool, but a little too static for my taste since this value can’t be changed at runtime to point at a debug script as needed, for example. Assembly names for loading scripts from resources can now be simple names rather than fully qualified assembly names, which make it less verbose to reference scripts from assemblies loaded from your bin folder or the assembly reference area in web.config: <asp:ScriptManager runat="server" id="Id"          EnableCdn="true"         AjaxFrameworkMode="disabled">     <Scripts>         <asp:ScriptReference          Name="Westwind.Web.Resources.ww.jquery.js"         Assembly="Westwind.Web" />     </Scripts>        </asp:ScriptManager> The ScriptManager in 4.0 also supports script combining via the CompositeScript tag, which allows you to very easily combine scripts into a single script resource served via ASP.NET. Even nicer: You can specify the URL that the combined script is served with. Check out the following script manager markup that combines several static file scripts and a script resource into a single ASP.NET served resource from a static URL (allscripts.js): <asp:ScriptManager runat="server" id="Id"          EnableCdn="true"         AjaxFrameworkMode="disabled">     <CompositeScript          Path="~/scripts/allscripts.js">         <Scripts>             <asp:ScriptReference                    Path="~/scripts/jquery.js" />             <asp:ScriptReference                    Path="~/scripts/ww.jquery.js" />             <asp:ScriptReference            Name="Westwind.Web.Resources.editors.js"                 Assembly="Westwind.Web" />         </Scripts>     </CompositeScript> </asp:ScriptManager> When you render this into HTML, you’ll see a single script reference in the page: <script src="scripts/allscripts.debug.js"          type="text/javascript"></script> All you need to do to make this work is ensure that allscripts.js and allscripts.debug.js exist in the scripts folder of your application - they can be empty but the file has to be there. This is pretty cool, but you want to be real careful that you use unique URLs for each combination of scripts you combine or else browser and server caching will easily screw you up royally. The script manager also allows you to override native ASP.NET AJAX scripts now as any script references defined in the Scripts section of the ScriptManager trump internal references. So if you want custom behavior or you want to fix a possible bug in the core libraries that normally are loaded from resources, you can now do this simply by referencing the script resource name in the Name property and pointing at System.Web for the assembly. Not a common scenario, but when you need it, it can come in real handy. Still, there are a number of shortcomings in this control. For one, the ScriptManager and ClientScript APIs still have no common entry point so control developers are still faced with having to check and support both APIs to load scripts so that controls can work on pages that do or don’t have a ScriptManager on the page. The CdnUrl is static and compiled in, which is very restrictive. And finally, there’s still no control over where scripts get loaded on the page - ScriptManager still injects scripts into the middle of the HTML markup rather than in the header or optionally the footer. This, in turn, means there is little control over script loading order, which can be problematic for control developers. MetaDescription, MetaKeywords Page Properties There are also a number of additional Page properties that correspond to some of the other features discussed in this column: ClientIDMode, ClientTarget and ViewStateMode. Another minor but useful feature is that you can now directly access the MetaDescription and MetaKeywords properties on the Page object to set the corresponding meta tags programmatically. Updating these values programmatically previously required either <%= %> expressions in the page markup or dynamic insertion of literal controls into the page. You can now just set these properties programmatically on the Page object in any Control derived class on the page or the Page itself: Page.MetaKeywords = "ASP.NET,4.0,New Features"; Page.MetaDescription = "This article discusses the new features in ASP.NET 4.0"; Note, that there’s no corresponding ASP.NET tag for the HTML Meta element, so the only way to specify these values in markup and access them is via the @Page tag: <%@Page Language="C#"      CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="Westwind.WebStore.WebForm2"      ClientIDMode="Static"                MetaDescription="Article that discusses what's                      new in ASP.NET 4.0"     MetaKeywords="ASP.NET,4.0,New Features" %> Nothing earth shattering but quite convenient. Visual Studio 2010 Enhancements for Web Development For Web development there are also a host of editor enhancements in Visual Studio 2010. Some of these are not Web specific but they are useful for Web developers in general. Text Editors Throughout Visual Studio 2010, the text editors have all been updated to a new core engine based on WPF which provides some interesting new features for various code editors including the nice ability to zoom in and out with Ctrl-MouseWheel to quickly change the size of text. There are many more API options to control the editor and although Visual Studio 2010 doesn’t yet use many of these features, we can look forward to enhancements in add-ins and future editor updates from the various language teams that take advantage of the visual richness that WPF provides to editing. On the negative side, I’ve noticed that occasionally the code editor and especially the HTML and JavaScript editors will lose the ability to use various navigation keys like arrows, back and delete keys, which requires closing and reopening the documents at times. This issue seems to be well documented so I suspect this will be addressed soon with a hotfix or within the first service pack. Overall though, the code editors work very well, especially given that they were re-written completely using WPF, which was one of my big worries when I first heard about the complete redesign of the editors. Multi-Targeting Visual Studio now targets all versions of the .NET framework from 2.0 forward. You can use Visual Studio 2010 to work on your ASP.NET 2, 3.0 and 3.5 applications which is a nice way to get your feet wet with the new development environment without having to make changes to existing applications. It’s nice to have one tool to work in for all the different versions. Multi-Monitor Support One cool feature of Visual Studio 2010 is the ability to drag windows out of the Visual Studio environment and out onto the desktop including onto another monitor easily. Since Web development often involves working with a host of designers at the same time - visual designer, HTML markup window, code behind and JavaScript editor - it’s really nice to be able to have a little more screen real estate to work on each of these editors. Microsoft made a welcome change in the environment. IntelliSense Snippets for HTML and JavaScript Editors The HTML and JavaScript editors now finally support IntelliSense scripts to create macro-based template expansions that have been in the core C# and Visual Basic code editors since Visual Studio 2005. Snippets allow you to create short XML-based template definitions that can act as static macros or real templates that can have replaceable values that can be embedded into the expanded text. The XML syntax for these snippets is straight forward and it’s pretty easy to create custom snippets manually. You can easily create snippets using XML and store them in your custom snippets folder (C:\Users\rstrahl\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Code Snippets\Visual Web Developer\My HTML Snippets and My JScript Snippets), but it helps to use one of the third-party tools that exist to simplify the process for you. I use SnippetEditor, by Bill McCarthy, which makes short work of creating snippets interactively (http://snippeteditor.codeplex.com/). Note: You may have to manually add the Visual Studio 2010 User specific Snippet folders to this tool to see existing ones you’ve created. Code snippets are some of the biggest time savers and HTML editing more than anything deals with lots of repetitive tasks that lend themselves to text expansion. Visual Studio 2010 includes a slew of built-in snippets (that you can also customize!) and you can create your own very easily. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to spend a little time examining your coding patterns and find the repetitive code that you write and convert it into snippets. I’ve been using CodeRush for this for years, but now you can do much of the basic expansion natively for HTML and JavaScript snippets. jQuery Integration Is Now Native jQuery is a popular JavaScript library and recently Microsoft has recently stated that it will become the primary client-side scripting technology to drive higher level script functionality in various ASP.NET Web projects that Microsoft provides. In Visual Studio 2010, the default full project template includes jQuery as part of a new project including the support files that provide IntelliSense (-vsdoc files). IntelliSense support for jQuery is now also baked into Visual Studio 2010, so unlike Visual Studio 2008 which required a separate download, no further installs are required for a rich IntelliSense experience with jQuery. Summary ASP.NET 4.0 brings many useful improvements to the platform, but thankfully most of the changes are incremental changes that don’t compromise backwards compatibility and they allow developers to ease into the new features one feature at a time. None of the changes in ASP.NET 4.0 or Visual Studio 2010 are monumental or game changers. The bigger features are language and .NET Framework changes that are also optional. This ASP.NET and tools release feels more like fine tuning and getting some long-standing kinks worked out of the platform. It shows that the ASP.NET team is dedicated to paying attention to community feedback and responding with changes to the platform and development environment based on this feedback. If you haven’t gotten your feet wet with ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010, there’s no reason not to give it a shot now - the ASP.NET 4.0 platform is solid and Visual Studio 2010 works very well for a brand new release. Check it out. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  

    Read the article

  • ASP.NET MVC HandleError Attribute

    - by Ben Griswold
    Last Wednesday, I took a whopping 15 minutes out of my day and added ELMAH (Error Logging Modules and Handlers) to my ASP.NET MVC application.  If you haven’t heard the news (I hadn’t until recently), ELMAH does a killer job of logging and reporting nearly all unhandled exceptions.  As for handled exceptions, I’ve been using NLog but since I was already playing with the ELMAH bits I thought I’d see if I couldn’t replace it. Atif Aziz provided a quick solution in his answer to a Stack Overflow question.  I’ll let you consult his answer to see how one can subclass the HandleErrorAttribute and override the OnException method in order to get the bits working.  I pretty much took rolled the recommended logic into my application and it worked like a charm.  Along the way, I did uncover a few HandleError fact to which I wasn’t already privy.  Most of my learning came from Steven Sanderson’s book, Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework.  I’ve flipped through a bunch of the book and spent time on specific sections.  It’s a really good read if you’re looking to pick up an ASP.NET MVC reference. Anyway, my notes are found a comments in the following code snippet.  I hope my notes clarify a few things for you too. public class LogAndHandleErrorAttribute : HandleErrorAttribute {     public override void OnException(ExceptionContext context)     {         // A word from our sponsors:         //      http://stackoverflow.com/questions/766610/how-to-get-elmah-to-work-with-asp-net-mvc-handleerror-attribute         //      and Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework by Steven Sanderson         //         // Invoke the base implementation first. This should mark context.ExceptionHandled = true         // which stops ASP.NET from producing a "yellow screen of death." This also sets the         // Http StatusCode to 500 (internal server error.)         //         // Assuming Custom Errors aren't off, the base implementation will trigger the application         // to ultimately render the "Error" view from one of the following locations:         //         //      1. ~/Views/Controller/Error.aspx         //      2. ~/Views/Controller/Error.ascx         //      3. ~/Views/Shared/Error.aspx         //      4. ~/Views/Shared/Error.ascx         //         // "Error" is the default view, however, a specific view may be provided as an Attribute property.         // A notable point is the Custom Errors defaultRedirect is not considered in the redirection plan.         base.OnException(context);           var e = context.Exception;                  // If the exception is unhandled, simply return and let Elmah handle the unhandled exception.         // Otherwise, try to use error signaling which involves the fully configured pipeline like logging,         // mailing, filtering and what have you). Failing that, see if the error should be filtered.         // If not, the error simply logged the exception.         if (!context.ExceptionHandled                || RaiseErrorSignal(e)                   || IsFiltered(context))                  return;           LogException(e); // FYI. Simple Elmah logging doesn't handle mail notifications.     }

    Read the article

  • Adopting DBVCS

    - by Wes McClure
    Identify early adopters Pick a small project with a small(ish) team.  This can be a legacy application or a green-field application. Strive to find a team of early adopters that will be eager to try something new. Get the team on board! Research Research the tool(s) that you want to use.  Some tools provide all of the features you would need while some only provide a slice of the pie.  DBVCS requires the ability to manage a set of change scripts that update a database from one version to the next.  Ideally a tool can track database versions and automatically apply updates.  The change script generation process can be manual, but having diff tools available to automatically generate it can really reduce the overhead to adoption.  Finally, an automated tool to generate a script file per database object is an added bonus as your version control system can quickly identify what was changed in a commit (add/del/modify), just like with code changes. Don’t settle on just one tool, identify several.  Then work with the team to evaluate the tools.  Have the team do some tests of the following scenarios with each tool: Baseline an existing database: can the migration tool work with legacy databases?  Caution: most migration platforms do not support baselines or have poor support, especially the fad of fluent APIs. Add/drop tables Add/drop procedures/functions/views Alter tables (rename columns, add columns, remove columns) Massage data – migrations sometimes involve changing data types that cannot be implicitly casted and require you to decide how the data is explicitly cast to the new type.  This is a requirement for a migrations platform.  Think about a case where you might want to combine fields, or move a field from one table to another, you wouldn’t want to lose the data. Run the tool via the command line.  If you cannot automate the tool in Continuous Integration what is the point? Create a copy of a database on demand. Backup/restore databases locally. Let the team give feedback and decide together, what tool they would like to try out. My recommendation at this point would be to include TSqlMigrations and RoundHouse as SQL based migration platforms.  In general I would recommend staying away from the fluent platforms as they often lack baseline capabilities and add overhead to learn a new API when SQL is already a very well known DSL.  Code migrations often get messy with procedures/views/functions as these have to be created with SQL and aren’t cross platform anyways.  IMO stick to SQL based migrations. Reconciling Production If your project is a legacy application, you will need to reconcile the current state of production with your development databases.  Find changes in production and bring them down to development, even if they are old and need to be removed.  Once complete, produce a baseline of either dev or prod as they are now in sync.  Commit this to your VCS of choice. Add whatever schema changes tracking mechanism your tool requires to your development database.  This often requires adding a table to track the schema version of that database.  Your tool should support doing this for you.  You can add this table to production when you do your next release. Script out any changes currently in dev.  Remove production artifacts that you brought down during reconciliation.  Add change scripts for any outstanding changes in dev since the last production release.  Commit these to your repository.   Say No to Shared Dev DBs Simply put, you wouldn’t dream of sharing a code checkout, why would you share a development database?  If you have a shared dev database, back it up, distribute the backups and take the shared version offline (including the dev db server once all projects are using DB VCS).  Doing DB VCS with a shared database is bound to cause problems as people won’t be able to easily script out their own changes from those that others are working on.   First prod release Copy prod to your beta/testing environment.  Add the schema changes table (or mechanism) and do a test run of your changes.  If successful you can schedule this to be run on production.   Evaluation After your first release, evaluate the pain points of the process.  Try to find tools or modifications to existing tools to help fix them.  Don’t leave stones unturned, iteratively evolve your tools and practices to make the process as seamless as possible.  This is why I suggest open source alternatives.  Nothing is set in stone, a good example was adding transactional support to TSqlMigrations.  We ran into situations where an update would break a database, so I added a feature to do transactional updates and rollback on errors!  Another good example is generating change scripts.  We have been manually making these for months now.  I found an open source project called Open DB Diff and integrated this with TSqlMigrations.  These were things we just accepted at the time when we began adopting our tool set.  Once we became comfortable with the base functionality, it was time to start automating more of the process.  Just like anything else with development, never be afraid to try to find tools to make your job easier!   Enjoy -Wes

    Read the article

  • What’s New for Oracle Commerce? Executive QA with John Andrews, VP Product Management, Oracle Commerce

    - by Katrina Gosek
    Oracle Commerce was for the fifth time positioned as a leader by Gartner in the Magic Quadrant for E-Commerce. This inspired me to sit down with Oracle Commerce VP of Product Management, John Andrews to get his perspective on what continues to make Oracle a leader in the industry and what’s new for Oracle Commerce in 2013. Q: Why do you believe Oracle Commerce continues to be a leader in the industry? John: Oracle has a great acquisition strategy – it brings best-of-breed technologies into the product fold and then continues to grow and innovate them. This is particularly true with products unified into the Oracle Commerce brand. Oracle acquired ATG in late 2010 – and then Endeca in late 2011. This means that under the hood of Oracle Commerce you have market-leading technologies for cross-channel commerce and customer experience, both designed and developed in direct response to the unique challenges online businesses face. And we continue to innovate on capabilities core to what our customers need to be successful – contextual and personalized experience delivery, merchant-inspired tools, and architecture for performance and scalability. Q: It’s not a slow moving industry. What are you doing to keep the pace of innovation at Oracle Commerce? John: Oracle owes our customers the most innovative commerce capabilities. By unifying the core components of ATG and Endeca we are delivering on this promise. Oracle Commerce is continuing to innovate and redefine how commerce is done and in a way that drive business results and keeps customers coming back for experiences tailored just for them. Our January and May 2013 releases not only marked the seventh significant releases for the solution since the acquisitions of ATG and Endeca, we also continue to demonstrate rapid and significant progress on the unification of commerce and customer experience capabilities of the two commerce technologies. Q: Can you tell us what was notable about these latest releases under the Oracle Commerce umbrella? John: Specifically, our latest product innovations give businesses selling online the ability to get to market faster with more personalized commerce experiences in the following ways: Mobile: the latest Commerce Reference Application in this release offers a wider range of examples for online businesses to leverage for iOS development and specifically new iPad reference capabilities. This release marks the first release of the iOS Universal application that serves both the iPhone and iPad devices from a single download or binary. Business users can now drive page content management and layout of search results and category pages, as well as create additional storefront elements such as categories, facets / dimensions, and breadcrumbs through Experience Manager tools. Cross-Channel Commerce: key commerce platform capabilities have been added to support cross-channel commerce, including an expanded inventory model to maintain inventory for stores, pickup in stores and Web-based returns. Online businesses with in-store operations can now offer advanced shipping options on the web and make returns and exchange logic easily available on the web. Multi-Site Capabilities: significant enhancements to the Commerce Platform multi-site architecture that allows business users to quickly launch and manage multiple sites on the same cluster and share data, carts, and other components. First introduced in 2010, with this latest release business users can now partition or share customer profiles, control users’ site-based access, and manage personalization assets using site groups. Internationalization: continued language support and enhancements for business user tools as well and search and navigation. Guided Search now supports 35 total languages with 11 new languages (including Danish, Arabic, Norwegian, Serbian Cyrillic) added in this release. Commerce Platform tools now include localized support for 17 locales with 4 new languages (Danish, Portuguese (European), Finnish, and Thai). No development or customization is required in order for business users to use the applications in any of these supported languages. Business Tool Experience: valuable new Commerce Merchandising features include a new workflow for making emergency changes quickly and increased visibility into promotions rules and qualifications in preview mode. Oracle Commerce business tools continue to become more and more feature rich to provide intuitive, easy- to-use (yet powerful) capabilities to allow business users to manage content and the shopping experience. Commerce & Experience Unification: demonstrable unification of commerce and customer experience capabilities include – productized cartridges that provide supported integration between the Commerce Platform and Experience Management tools, cross-channel returns, Oracle Service Cloud integration, and integrated iPad application. The mission guiding our product development is to deliver differentiated, personalized user experiences across any device in a contextual manner – and to give the business the best tools to tune and optimize those user experiences to meet their business objectives. We also need to do this in a way that makes it operationally efficient for the business, keeping the overall total cost of ownership low – yet also allows the business to expand, whether it be to new business models, geographies or brands. To learn more about the latest Oracle Commerce releases and mission, visit the links below: • Hear more from John about the Oracle Commerce mission • Hear from Oracle Commerce customers • Documentation on the new releases • Listen to the Oracle ATG Commerce 10.2 Webcast • Listen to the Oracle Endeca Commerce 3.1.2 Webcast

    Read the article

  • Big Data – Buzz Words: Importance of Relational Database in Big Data World – Day 9 of 21

    - by Pinal Dave
    In yesterday’s blog post we learned what is HDFS. In this article we will take a quick look at the importance of the Relational Database in Big Data world. A Big Question? Here are a few questions I often received since the beginning of the Big Data Series - Does the relational database have no space in the story of the Big Data? Does relational database is no longer relevant as Big Data is evolving? Is relational database not capable to handle Big Data? Is it true that one no longer has to learn about relational data if Big Data is the final destination? Well, every single time when I hear that one person wants to learn about Big Data and is no longer interested in learning about relational database, I find it as a bit far stretched. I am not here to give ambiguous answers of It Depends. I am personally very clear that one who is aspiring to become Big Data Scientist or Big Data Expert they should learn about relational database. NoSQL Movement The reason for the NoSQL Movement in recent time was because of the two important advantages of the NoSQL databases. Performance Flexible Schema In personal experience I have found that when I use NoSQL I have found both of the above listed advantages when I use NoSQL database. There are instances when I found relational database too much restrictive when my data is unstructured as well as they have in the datatype which my Relational Database does not support. It is the same case when I have found that NoSQL solution performing much better than relational databases. I must say that I am a big fan of NoSQL solutions in the recent times but I have also seen occasions and situations where relational database is still perfect fit even though the database is growing increasingly as well have all the symptoms of the big data. Situations in Relational Database Outperforms Adhoc reporting is the one of the most common scenarios where NoSQL is does not have optimal solution. For example reporting queries often needs to aggregate based on the columns which are not indexed as well are built while the report is running, in this kind of scenario NoSQL databases (document database stores, distributed key value stores) database often does not perform well. In the case of the ad-hoc reporting I have often found it is much easier to work with relational databases. SQL is the most popular computer language of all the time. I have been using it for almost over 10 years and I feel that I will be using it for a long time in future. There are plenty of the tools, connectors and awareness of the SQL language in the industry. Pretty much every programming language has a written drivers for the SQL language and most of the developers have learned this language during their school/college time. In many cases, writing query based on SQL is much easier than writing queries in NoSQL supported languages. I believe this is the current situation but in the future this situation can reverse when No SQL query languages are equally popular. ACID (Atomicity Consistency Isolation Durability) – Not all the NoSQL solutions offers ACID compliant language. There are always situations (for example banking transactions, eCommerce shopping carts etc.) where if there is no ACID the operations can be invalid as well database integrity can be at risk. Even though the data volume indeed qualify as a Big Data there are always operations in the application which absolutely needs ACID compliance matured language. The Mixed Bag I have often heard argument that all the big social media sites now a days have moved away from Relational Database. Actually this is not entirely true. While researching about Big Data and Relational Database, I have found that many of the popular social media sites uses Big Data solutions along with Relational Database. Many are using relational databases to deliver the results to end user on the run time and many still uses a relational database as their major backbone. Here are a few examples: Facebook uses MySQL to display the timeline. (Reference Link) Twitter uses MySQL. (Reference Link) Tumblr uses Sharded MySQL (Reference Link) Wikipedia uses MySQL for data storage. (Reference Link) There are many for prominent organizations which are running large scale applications uses relational database along with various Big Data frameworks to satisfy their various business needs. Summary I believe that RDBMS is like a vanilla ice cream. Everybody loves it and everybody has it. NoSQL and other solutions are like chocolate ice cream or custom ice cream – there is a huge base which loves them and wants them but not every ice cream maker can make it just right  for everyone’s taste. No matter how fancy an ice cream store is there is always plain vanilla ice cream available there. Just like the same, there are always cases and situations in the Big Data’s story where traditional relational database is the part of the whole story. In the real world scenarios there will be always the case when there will be need of the relational database concepts and its ideology. It is extremely important to accept relational database as one of the key components of the Big Data instead of treating it as a substandard technology. Ray of Hope – NewSQL In this module we discussed that there are places where we need ACID compliance from our Big Data application and NoSQL will not support that out of box. There is a new termed coined for the application/tool which supports most of the properties of the traditional RDBMS and supports Big Data infrastructure – NewSQL. Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss about NewSQL. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

    Read the article

  • Review of Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7

    - by mbcrump
    I recently acquired a Samsung Focus Windows Phone 7 device from AT&T and wanted to share what I thought of it as an end-user. Before I get started, here are several of my write-ups for the Windows Phone 7. You may want to check out the second article titled: Hands-on WP7 Review of Prototype Hardware. From start to finish with the final version of Visual Studio Tools for Windows Phone 7 Hands-on : Windows Phone 7 Review on Prototype Hardware. Deploying your Windows Phone 7 Application to the actual hardware. Profile your Windows Phone 7 Application for Free Submitting a Windows Phone 7 Application to the Market. Samsung Focus i917 Phone Size: Perfect! I have been carrying around a Dell Streak (Android) and it is about half the size. It is really nice to have a phone that fits in your pocket without a lot of extra bulk. I bought a case for the Focus and it is still a perfect size.  The phone just feels right. Screen: It has a beautiful Super AMOLED 480x800 screen. I only wish it supported a higher resolution. The colors are beautiful especially in an Xbox Live Game.   3G: I use AT&T and I've had spotty reception. This really can't be blamed on the phone as much as the actual carrier. Battery: I've had excellent battery life compared to my iPhone and Android devices. I usually use my phone throughout the day on and off and still have a charge at the end of the day.  Camera/Video: I'm still looking for the option to send the video to YouTube or the Image to Twitter. The images look good, but the phone needs a forward facing camera. I like the iPhone/Android (Dell Streak) camera better. Built-in Speaker: Sounds great. It’s not a wimpy speaker that you cannot hear.  CPU: Very smooth transitioning from one screen to another. The prototype Windows Phone 7 that I had, was no where near as smooth. (It was also running a slower processor though). OS: I actually like the OS but a few things could be better. CONS: Copy and Paste (Supposed to come in the next update) We need more apps (Pandora missing was a big one for me and Slacker’s advertisement sucks!). As time passes, and more developers get on board then this will be fixed. The browser needs some major work. I have tried to make cross-platform (WP7, Android, iPhone and iPad) web apps and the browser that ships with WP7 just can’t handle it.  Apps need to be organized better. Instead of throw them all on one screen, it would help to allow the user to create categories. PROS: Hands down the best gaming experience on a phone. I have all three major phones (iphone, android and wp7). Nothing compares to the gaming experience on the WP7. The phone just works. I’ve had a LOT of glitches with my Android device. I’ve had maybe 2 with my WP7 device. Exchange and Office support are great. Nice integration with Twitter/Facebook and social media. Easy to navigate and find the information you need on one screen. Let’s look at a few pictures and we will wrap up with my final thoughts on the phone. WP7 Home Screen. Back of the phone is as stylish. It is hard to see due to the shadow but it is a very thin phone. What’s included? Manuals Ear buds Data Cable plus Power Adapter Phone Click a picture to enlarge So, what are my final thoughts on the Phone/OS? I love the Samsung Focus and would recommend it to anyone looking for a WP7 device. Like any first generation product, you need to give it a little while to mature. Right now the phone is missing several features that we are all used to using. That doesn’t mean a year from now it will be in the same situation. (I sure hope we won’t). If you are looking to get into mobile development, I believe WP7 is the easiest platform to develop from. This is especially true if you have a background in Silverlight or WPF.    Subscribe to my feed

    Read the article

  • Test-Drive ASP.NET MVC Review

    - by Ben Griswold
    A few years back I started dallying with test-driven development, but I never fully committed to the practice. This wasn’t because I didn’t believe in the value of TDD; it was more a matter of not completely understanding how to incorporate “test first” into my everyday development. Back in my web forms days, I could point fingers at the framework for my ignorance and laziness. After all, web forms weren’t exactly designed for testability so who could blame me for not embracing TDD in those conditions, right? But when I switched to ASP.NET MVC and quickly found myself fresh out of excuses and it became instantly clear that it was time to get my head around red-green-refactor once and for all or I would regretfully miss out on one of the biggest selling points the new framework had to offer. I have previously written about how I learned ASP.NET MVC. It was primarily hands on learning but I did read a couple of ASP.NET MVC books along the way. The books I read dedicated a chapter or two to TDD and they certainly addressed the benefits of TDD and how MVC was designed with testability in mind, but TDD was merely an afterthought compared to, well, teaching one how to code the model, view and controller. This approach made some sense, and I learned a bunch about MVC from those books, but when it came to TDD the books were just a teaser and an opportunity missed.  But then I got lucky – Jonathan McCracken contacted me and asked if I’d review his book, Test-Drive ASP.NET MVC, and it was just what I needed to get over the TDD hump. As the title suggests, Test-Drive ASP.NET MVC takes a different approach to learning MVC as it focuses on testing right from the very start. McCracken wastes no time and swiftly familiarizes us with the framework by building out a trivial Quote-O-Matic application and then dedicates the better part of his book to testing first – first by explaining TDD and then coding a full-featured Getting Organized application inspired by David Allen’s popular book, Getting Things Done. If you are a learn-by-example kind of coder (like me), you will instantly appreciate and enjoy McCracken’s style – its fast-moving, pragmatic and focused on only the most relevant information required to get you going with ASP.NET MVC and TDD. The book continues with the test-first theme but McCracken moves away from the sample application and incorporates other practical skills like persisting models with NHibernate, leveraging Inversion of Control with the IControllerFactory and building a RESTful web service. What I most appreciated about this section was McCracken’s use of and praise for open source libraries like Rhino Mocks, SQLite and StructureMap (to name just a few) and productivity tools like ReSharper, Web Platform Installer and ASP.NET SQL Server Setup Wizard.  McCracken’s emphasis on real world, pragmatic development was clearly demonstrated in every tool choice, straight-forward code block and developer tip. Whether one is already familiar with the tools/tips or not, McCracken’s thought process is easily understood and appreciated. The final section of the book walks the reader through security and deployment – everything from error handling and logging with ELMAH, to ASP.NET Health Monitoring, to using MSBuild with automated builds, to the deployment  of ASP.NET MVC to various web environments. These chapters, like those prior, offer enough information and explanation to simply help you get the job done.  Do I believe Test-Drive ASP.NET MVC will turn you into an expert MVC developer overnight?  Well, no.  I don’t think any book can make that claim.  If that were possible, I think book list prices would skyrocket!  That said, Test-Drive ASP.NET MVC provides a solid foundation and a unique (and dare I say necessary) approach to learning ASP.NET MVC.  Along the way McCracken shares loads of very practical software development tips and references numerous tools and libraries. The bottom line is it’s a great ASP.NET MVC primer – if you’re new to ASP.NET MVC it’s just what you need to get started.  Do I believe Test-Drive ASP.NET MVC will give you everything you need to start employing TDD in your everyday development?  Well, I used to think that learning TDD required a lot of practice and, if you’re lucky enough, the guidance of a mentor or coach.  I used to think that one couldn’t learn TDD from a book alone. Well, I’m still no pro, but I’m testing first now and Jonathan McCracken and his book, Test-Drive ASP.NET MVC, played a big part in making this happen.  If you are an MVC developer and a TDD newb, Test-Drive ASP.NET MVC is just the book for you.

    Read the article

  • Finding the problem on a partially succeeded build

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    Now that I have the Build failing because of a genuine bug and not just because of a test framework failure, lets see if we can trace through to finding why the first test in our new application failed. Lets look at the build and see if we can see why there is a red cross on it. First, lets open that build list. On Team Explorer Expand your Team Project Collection | Team Project and then Builds. Double click the offending build. Figure: Opening the Build list is a key way to see what the current state of your software is.   Figure: A test is failing, but we can now view the Test Results to find the problem      Figure: You can quite clearly see that the test has failed with “The device is not ready”. To me the “The Device is not ready” smacks of a System.IO exception, but it passed on my local computer, so why not on the build server? Its a FaultException so it is most likely coming from the Service and not the client, so lets take a look at the client method that the test is calling: bool IProfileService.SaveDefaultProjectFile(string strComputerName) { ProjectFile file = new ProjectFile() { ProjectFileName = strComputerName + "_" + System.DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMddhhmmsss") + ".xml", ConnectionString = "persist security info=False; pooling=False; data source=(local); application name=SSW.SQLDeploy.vshost.exe; integrated security=SSPI; initial catalog=SSWSQLDeployNorthwindSample", DateCreated = System.DateTime.Now, DateUpdated = System.DateTime.Now, FolderPath = @"C:\Program Files\SSW SQL Deploy\SampleData\", IsComplete=false, Version = "1.3", NewDatabase = true, TimeOut = 5, TurnOnMSDE = false, Mode="AutomaticMode" }; string strFolderPath = "D:\\"; //LocalSettings.ProjectFileBasePath; string strFileName = strFolderPath + file.ProjectFileName; try { using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(strFileName, FileMode.Create)) { DataContractSerializer serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(ProjectFile)); using (XmlDictionaryWriter writer = XmlDictionaryWriter.CreateTextWriter(fs)) { serializer.WriteObject(writer, file); } } } catch (Exception ex) { //TODO: Log the exception throw ex; return false; } return true; } Figure: You can see on lines 9 and 18 that there are calls being made to specific folders and disks. What is wrong with this code? What assumptions mistakes could the developer have made to make this look OK: That every install would be to “C:\Program Files\SSW SQL Deploy” That every computer would have a “D:\\” That checking in code at 6pm because the had to go home was a good idea. lets solve each of these problems: We are in a web service… lets store data within the web root. So we can call “Server.MapPath(“~/App_Data/SSW SQL Deploy\SampleData”) instead. Never reference an explicit path. If you need some storage for your application use IsolatedStorage. Shelve your code instead. What else could have been done? Code review before check-in – The developer should have shelved their code and asked another dev to look at it. Use Defensive programming – Make sure that any code that has the possibility of failing has checks. Any more options? Let me know and I will add them. What do we do? The correct things to do is to add a Bug to the backlog, but as this is probably going to be fixed in sprint, I will add it directly to the sprint backlog. Right click on the failing test Select “Create Work Item | Bug” Figure: Create an associated bug to add to the backlog. Set the values for the Bug making sure that it goes into the right sprint and Area. Make your steps to reproduce as explicit as possible, but “See test” is valid under these circumstances.   Figure: Add it to the correct Area and set the Iteration to the Area name or the Sprint if you think it will be fixed in Sprint and make sure you bring it up at the next Scrum Meeting. Note: make sure you leave the “Assigned To” field blank as in Scrum team members sign up for work, you do not give it to them. The developer who broke the test will most likely either sign up for the bug, or say that they are stuck and need help. Note: Visual Studio has taken care of associating the failing test with the Bug. Save… Technorati Tags: WCF,MSTest,MSBuild,Team Build 2010,Team Test 2010,Team Build,Team Test

    Read the article

  • Windows Azure VMs - New "Stopped" VM Options Provide Cost-effective Flexibility for On-Demand Workloads

    - by KeithMayer
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/KeithMayer/archive/2013/06/22/windows-azure-vms---new-stopped-vm-options-provide-cost-effective.aspxDidn’t make it to TechEd this year? Don’t worry!  This month, we’ll be releasing a new article series that highlights the Best of TechEd announcements and technical information for IT Pros.  Today’s article focuses on a new, much-heralded enhancement to Windows Azure Infrastructure Services to make it more cost-effective for spinning VMs up and down on-demand on the Windows Azure cloud platform. NEW! VMs that are shutdown from the Windows Azure Management Portal will no longer continue to accumulate compute charges while stopped! Previous to this enhancement being available, the Azure platform maintained fabric resource reservations for VMs, even in a shutdown state, to ensure consistent resource availability when starting those VMs in the future.  And, this meant that VMs had to be exported and completely deprovisioned when not in use to avoid compute charges. In this article, I'll provide more details on the scenarios that this enhancement best fits, and I'll also review the new options and considerations that we now have for performing safe shutdowns of Windows Azure VMs. Which scenarios does the new enhancement best fit? Being able to easily shutdown VMs from the Windows Azure Management Portal without continued compute charges is a great enhancement for certain cloud use cases, such as: On-demand dev/test/lab environments - Freely start and stop lab VMs so that they are only accumulating compute charges when being actively used.  "Bursting" load-balanced web applications - Provision a number of load-balanced VMs, but keep the minimum number of VMs running to support "normal" loads. Easily start-up the remaining VMs only when needed to support peak loads. Disaster Recovery - Start-up "cold" VMs when needed to recover from disaster scenarios. BUT ... there is a consideration to keep in mind when using the Windows Azure Management Portal to shutdown VMs: although performing a VM shutdown via the Windows Azure Management Portal causes that VM to no longer accumulate compute charges, it also deallocates the VM from fabric resources to which it was previously assigned.  These fabric resources include compute resources such as virtual CPU cores and memory, as well as network resources, such as IP addresses.  This means that when the VM is later started after being shutdown from the portal, the VM could be assigned a different IP address or placed on a different compute node within the fabric. In some cases, you may want to shutdown VMs using the old approach, where fabric resource assignments are maintained while the VM is in a shutdown state.  Specifically, you may wish to do this when temporarily shutting down or restarting a "7x24" VM as part of a maintenance activity.  Good news - you can still revert back to the old VM shutdown behavior when necessary by using the alternate VM shutdown approaches listed below.  Let's walk through each approach for performing a VM Shutdown action on Windows Azure so that we can understand the benefits and considerations of each... How many ways can I shutdown a VM? In Windows Azure Infrastructure Services, there's three general ways that can be used to safely shutdown VMs: Shutdown VM via Windows Azure Management Portal Shutdown Guest Operating System inside the VM Stop VM via Windows PowerShell using Windows Azure PowerShell Module Although each of these options performs a safe shutdown of the guest operation system and the VM itself, each option handles the VM shutdown end state differently. Shutdown VM via Windows Azure Management Portal When clicking the Shutdown button at the bottom of the Virtual Machines page in the Windows Azure Management Portal, the VM is safely shutdown and "deallocated" from fabric resources.  Shutdown button on Virtual Machines page in Windows Azure Management Portal  When the shutdown process completes, the VM will be shown on the Virtual Machines page with a "Stopped ( Deallocated )" status as shown in the figure below. Virtual Machine in a "Stopped (Deallocated)" Status "Deallocated" means that the VM configuration is no longer being actively associated with fabric resources, such as virtual CPUs, memory and networks. In this state, the VM will not continue to allocate compute charges, but since fabric resources are deallocated, the VM could receive a different internal IP address ( called "Dynamic IPs" or "DIPs" in Windows Azure ) the next time it is started.  TIP: If you are leveraging this shutdown option and consistency of DIPs is important to applications running inside your VMs, you should consider using virtual networks with your VMs.  Virtual networks permit you to assign a specific IP Address Space for use with VMs that are assigned to that virtual network.  As long as you start VMs in the same order in which they were originally provisioned, each VM should be reassigned the same DIP that it was previously using. What about consistency of External IP Addresses? Great question! External IP addresses ( called "Virtual IPs" or "VIPs" in Windows Azure ) are associated with the cloud service in which one or more Windows Azure VMs are running.  As long as at least 1 VM inside a cloud service remains in a "Running" state, the VIP assigned to a cloud service will be preserved.  If all VMs inside a cloud service are in a "Stopped ( Deallocated )" status, then the cloud service may receive a different VIP when VMs are next restarted. TIP: If consistency of VIPs is important for the cloud services in which you are running VMs, consider keeping one VM inside each cloud service in the alternate VM shutdown state listed below to preserve the VIP associated with the cloud service. Shutdown Guest Operating System inside the VM When performing a Guest OS shutdown or restart ( ie., a shutdown or restart operation initiated from the Guest OS running inside the VM ), the VM configuration will not be deallocated from fabric resources. In the figure below, the VM has been shutdown from within the Guest OS and is shown with a "Stopped" VM status rather than the "Stopped ( Deallocated )" VM status that was shown in the previous figure. Note that it may require a few minutes for the Windows Azure Management Portal to reflect that the VM is in a "Stopped" state in this scenario, because we are performing an OS shutdown inside the VM rather than through an Azure management endpoint. Virtual Machine in a "Stopped" Status VMs shown in a "Stopped" status will continue to accumulate compute charges, because fabric resources are still being reserved for these VMs.  However, this also means that DIPs and VIPs are preserved for VMs in this state, so you don't have to worry about VMs and cloud services getting different IP addresses when they are started in the future. Stop VM via Windows PowerShell In the latest version of the Windows Azure PowerShell Module, a new -StayProvisioned parameter has been added to the Stop-AzureVM cmdlet. This new parameter provides the flexibility to choose the VM configuration end result when stopping VMs using PowerShell: When running the Stop-AzureVM cmdlet without the -StayProvisioned parameter specified, the VM will be safely stopped and deallocated; that is, the VM will be left in a "Stopped ( Deallocated )" status just like the end result when a VM Shutdown operation is performed via the Windows Azure Management Portal.  When running the Stop-AzureVM cmdlet with the -StayProvisioned parameter specified, the VM will be safely stopped but fabric resource reservations will be preserved; that is the VM will be left in a "Stopped" status just like the end result when performing a Guest OS shutdown operation. So, with PowerShell, you can choose how Windows Azure should handle VM configuration and fabric resource reservations when stopping VMs on a case-by-case basis. TIP: It's important to note that the -StayProvisioned parameter is only available in the latest version of the Windows Azure PowerShell Module.  So, if you've previously downloaded this module, be sure to download and install the latest version to get this new functionality. Want to Learn More about Windows Azure Infrastructure Services? To learn more about Windows Azure Infrastructure Services, be sure to check-out these additional FREE resources: Become our next "Early Expert"! Complete the Early Experts "Cloud Quest" and build a multi-VM lab network in the cloud for FREE!  Build some cool scenarios! Check out our list of over 20+ Step-by-Step Lab Guides based on key scenarios that IT Pros are implementing on Windows Azure Infrastructure Services TODAY!  Looking forward to seeing you in the Cloud! - Keith Build Your Lab! Download Windows Server 2012 Don’t Have a Lab? Build Your Lab in the Cloud with Windows Azure Virtual Machines Want to Get Certified? Join our Windows Server 2012 "Early Experts" Study Group

    Read the article

  • Computer crashes on resume from standby almost every time

    - by Los Frijoles
    I am running Ubuntu 12.04 on a Core i5 2500K and ASRock Z68 Pro3-M motherboard (no graphics card, hd is a WD Green 1TB, and cd drive is some cheap lite-on drive). Since installing 12.04, my computer has been freezing after resume, but not every time. When I start to resume, it starts going normally with a blinking cursor on the screen and then sometimes it will continue on to the gnome 3 unlock screen. Most of the time, however, it will blink for a little bit and then the monitor will flip modes and shut off due to no signal. Pressing keys on the keyboard gets no response (num lock light doesn't respond, Ctrl-Alt-F1 fails to drop it into a terminal, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace doesn't work) and so I assume the computer is crashed. The worst part is, the logs look entirely normal. Here is my system log during one of these crashes and my subsequent hard poweroff and restart: Jun 6 21:54:43 kcuzner-desktop udevd[10448]: inotify_add_watch(6, /dev/dm-2, 10) failed: No such file or directory Jun 6 21:54:43 kcuzner-desktop udevd[10448]: inotify_add_watch(6, /dev/dm-2, 10) failed: No such file or directory Jun 6 21:54:43 kcuzner-desktop udevd[10448]: inotify_add_watch(6, /dev/dm-1, 10) failed: No such file or directory Jun 6 21:54:43 kcuzner-desktop udevd[12419]: inotify_add_watch(6, /dev/dm-0, 10) failed: No such file or directory Jun 6 21:54:43 kcuzner-desktop udevd[10448]: inotify_add_watch(6, /dev/dm-0, 10) failed: No such file or directory Jun 6 22:09:01 kcuzner-desktop CRON[9061]: (root) CMD ( [ -x /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime ] && [ -d /var/lib/php5 ] && find /var/lib/php5/ -depth -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type f -cmin +$(/usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime) ! -execdir fuser -s {} 2>/dev/null \; -delete) Jun 6 22:17:01 kcuzner-desktop CRON[22142]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) Jun 6 22:39:01 kcuzner-desktop CRON[26909]: (root) CMD ( [ -x /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime ] && [ -d /var/lib/php5 ] && find /var/lib/php5/ -depth -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type f -cmin +$(/usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime) ! -execdir fuser -s {} 2>/dev/null \; -delete) Jun 6 22:54:21 kcuzner-desktop kernel: [57905.560822] show_signal_msg: 36 callbacks suppressed Jun 6 22:54:21 kcuzner-desktop kernel: [57905.560828] chromium-browse[9139]: segfault at 0 ip 00007f3a78efade0 sp 00007fff7e2d2c18 error 4 in chromium-browser[7f3a76604000+412b000] Jun 6 23:05:43 kcuzner-desktop kernel: [58586.415158] chromium-browse[21025]: segfault at 0 ip 00007f3a78efade0 sp 00007fff7e2d2c18 error 4 in chromium-browser[7f3a76604000+412b000] Jun 6 23:09:01 kcuzner-desktop CRON[13542]: (root) CMD ( [ -x /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime ] && [ -d /var/lib/php5 ] && find /var/lib/php5/ -depth -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type f -cmin +$(/usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime) ! -execdir fuser -s {} 2>/dev/null \; -delete) Jun 6 23:12:43 kcuzner-desktop kernel: [59006.317590] usb 2-1.7: USB disconnect, device number 8 Jun 6 23:12:43 kcuzner-desktop kernel: [59006.319672] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdg] Synchronizing SCSI cache Jun 6 23:12:43 kcuzner-desktop kernel: [59006.319737] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdg] Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK Jun 6 23:17:01 kcuzner-desktop CRON[26580]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) Jun 6 23:19:04 kcuzner-desktop acpid: client connected from 29925[0:0] Jun 6 23:19:04 kcuzner-desktop acpid: 1 client rule loaded Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop rtkit-daemon[1835]: Successfully made thread 30131 of process 30131 (n/a) owned by '104' high priority at nice level -11. Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop rtkit-daemon[1835]: Supervising 1 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop rtkit-daemon[1835]: Successfully made thread 30162 of process 30131 (n/a) owned by '104' RT at priority 5. Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop rtkit-daemon[1835]: Supervising 2 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop rtkit-daemon[1835]: Successfully made thread 30163 of process 30131 (n/a) owned by '104' RT at priority 5. Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop rtkit-daemon[1835]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop bluetoothd[1140]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.239 path=/MediaEndpoint/HFPAG Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop bluetoothd[1140]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.239 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop bluetoothd[1140]: Endpoint registered: sender=:1.239 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSink Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop rtkit-daemon[1835]: Successfully made thread 30166 of process 30166 (n/a) owned by '104' high priority at nice level -11. Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop rtkit-daemon[1835]: Supervising 4 threads of 2 processes of 1 users. Jun 6 23:19:07 kcuzner-desktop pulseaudio[30166]: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running. Jun 6 23:19:10 kcuzner-desktop acpid: client 2942[0:0] has disconnected Jun 6 23:19:10 kcuzner-desktop acpid: client 29925[0:0] has disconnected Jun 6 23:19:10 kcuzner-desktop acpid: client connected from 1286[0:0] Jun 6 23:19:10 kcuzner-desktop acpid: 1 client rule loaded Jun 6 23:19:31 kcuzner-desktop bluetoothd[1140]: Endpoint unregistered: sender=:1.239 path=/MediaEndpoint/HFPAG Jun 6 23:19:31 kcuzner-desktop bluetoothd[1140]: Endpoint unregistered: sender=:1.239 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource Jun 6 23:19:31 kcuzner-desktop bluetoothd[1140]: Endpoint unregistered: sender=:1.239 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSink Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop kernel: imklog 5.8.6, log source = /proc/kmsg started. Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="5.8.6" x-pid="1053" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] start Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop rsyslogd: rsyslogd's groupid changed to 103 Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop rsyslogd: rsyslogd's userid changed to 101 Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop rsyslogd-2039: Could not open output pipe '/dev/xconsole' [try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2039 ] Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop modem-manager[1070]: <info> Loaded plugin Ericsson MBM Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop modem-manager[1070]: <info> Loaded plugin Sierra Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop modem-manager[1070]: <info> Loaded plugin Generic Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop modem-manager[1070]: <info> Loaded plugin Huawei Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop modem-manager[1070]: <info> Loaded plugin Linktop Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop bluetoothd[1072]: Failed to init gatt_example plugin Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop bluetoothd[1072]: Listening for HCI events on hci0 Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop NetworkManager[1080]: <info> NetworkManager (version 0.9.4.0) is starting... Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop NetworkManager[1080]: <info> Read config file /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop NetworkManager[1080]: <info> VPN: loaded org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pptp Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop NetworkManager[1080]: <info> DNS: loaded plugin dnsmasq Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop kernel: [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset Jun 6 23:28:12 kcuzner-desktop kernel: [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu Sorry it's so huge; the restart happens at 23:28:12 I believe and all I see is that chromium segfaulted a few times. I wouldn't think a segfault from an individual program on the computer would crash it, but could that be the issue?

    Read the article

  • Oracle Database 12c: Oracle Multitenant Option

    - by hamsun
    1. Why ? 2. What is it ? 3. How ? 1. Why ? The main idea of the 'grid' is to share resources, to make better use of storage, CPU and memory. If a database administrator wishes to implement this idea, he or she must consolidate many databases to one database. One of the concerns of running many applications together in one database is: ‚what will happen, if one of the applications must be restored because of a human error?‘ Tablespace point in time recovery can be used for this purpose, but there are a few prerequisites. Most importantly the tablespaces are strictly separated for each application. Another reason for creating separated databases is security: each customer has his own database. Therefore, there is often a proliferation of smaller databases. Each of them must be maintained, upgraded, each allocates virtual memory and runs background processes thereby wasting resources. Oracle 12c offers another possibility for virtualization, providing isolation at the database level: the multitenant container database holding pluggable databases. 2. What ? Pluggable databases are logical units inside a multitenant container database, which consists of one multitenant container database and up to 252 pluggable databases. The SGA is shared as are the background processes. The multitenant container database holds metadata information common for pluggable databases inside the System and the Sysaux tablespace, and there is just one Undo tablespace. The pluggable databases have smaller System and Sysaux tablespaces, containing just their 'personal' metadata. New data dictionary views will make the information available either on pdb (dba_views) or container level (cdb_views). There are local users, which are known in specific pluggable databases and common users known in all containers. Pluggable databases can be easily plugged to another multitenant container database and converted from a non-CDB. They can undergo point in time recovery. 3. How ? Creating a multitenant container database can be done using the database configuration assistant: There you find the new option: Create as Container Database. If you prefer ‚hand made‘ databases you can execute the command from a instance in nomount state: CREATE DATABASE cdb1 ENABLE PLUGGABLE DATABASE …. And of course this can also be achieved through Enterprise Manager Cloud. A freshly created multitenant container database consists of two containers: the root container as the 'rack' and a seed container, a template for future pluggable databases. There are 4 ways to create other pluggable databases: 1. Create an empty pdb from seed 2. Plug in a non-CDB 3. Move a pdb from another pdb 4. Copy a pdb from another pdb We will discuss option2: how to plug in a non_CDB into a multitenant container database. Three different methods are available : 1. Create an empty pdb and use Datapump in traditional export/import mode or with Transportable Tablespace or Database mode. This method is suitable for pre 12c databases. 2. Create an empty pdb and use GoldenGate replication. When the pdb catches up with the non-CDB, you fail over to the pdb. 3. Databases of Version 12c or higher can be plugged in with the help of the new dbms_pdb Package. This is a demonstration for method 3: Step1: Connect to the non-CDB to be plugged in and create an xml File with description of the database. The xml file is written to $ORACLE_HOME/dbs per default and contains mainly information about the datafiles. Step 2: Check if the non-CDB is pluggable in the multitenant container database: Step 3: Create the pluggable database, connected to the Multitenant container database. With nocopy option the files will be reused, but the tempfile is created anew: A service is created and registered automatically with the listener: Step 4: Delete unnecessary metadata from PDB SYSTEM tablespace: To connect to newly created pdb, edit tnsnames.ora and add entry for new pdb. Connect to plugged-in non_CDB and clean up Data Dictionary to remove entries now maintained in multitenant container database. As all kept objects have to be recompiled it will take a few minutes. Step 5: The plugged-in database will be automatically synchronised by creating common users and roles when opened the first time in read write mode. Step 6: Verify tablespaces and users: There is only one local tablespace (users) and one local user (scott) in the plugged-in non_CDB pdb_orcl. This method of creating plugged_in non_CDB from is fast and easy for 12c databases. The method for deplugging a pluggable database from a CDB is to create a new non_CDB and use the the new full transportable feature of Datapump and drop the pluggable database. About the Author: Gerlinde has been working for Oracle University Germany as one of our Principal Instructors for over 14 years. She started with Oracle 7 and became an Oracle Certified Master for Oracle 10g and 11c. She is a specialist in Database Core Technologies, with profound knowledge in Backup & Recovery, Performance Tuning for DBAs and Application Developers, Datawarehouse Administration, Data Guard and Real Application Clusters.

    Read the article

  • PHP OCI8 and Oracle 11g DRCP Connection Pooling in Pictures

    - by christopher.jones
    Here is a screen shot from a PHP OCI8 connection pooling demo that I like to run. It graphically shows how little database host memory is needed when using DRCP connection pooling with Oracle Database 11g. Migrating to DRCP can be as simple as starting the pool and changing the connection string in your PHP application. The script that generated the data for this graph was a simple "Parts" query application being run under various simulated user loads. I was running the database on a small Oracle Linux server with just 2G of memory. I used PHP OCI8 1.4. Apache is in pre-fork mode, as needed for PHP. Each graph has time on the horizontal access in arbitrary 'tick' time units. Click the image to see it full sized. Pooled connections Beginning with the top left graph, At tick time 65 I used Apache's 'ab' tool to start 100 concurrent 'users' running the application. These users connected to the database using DRCP: $c = oci_pconnect('phpdemo', 'welcome', 'myhost/orcl:pooled'); A second hundred DRCP users were added to the system at tick 80 and a final hundred users added at tick 100. At about tick 110 I stopped the test and restarted Apache. This closed all the connections. The bottom left graph shows the number of statements being executed by the database per second, with some spikes for background database activity and some variability for this small test. Each extra batch of users adds another 'step' of load to the system. Looking at the top right Server Process graph shows the database server processes doing the query work for each web user. As user load is added, the DRCP server pool increases (in green). The pool is initially at its default size 4 and quickly ramps up to about (I'm guessing) 35. At tick time 100 the pool increases to my configured maximum of 40 processes. Those 40 processes are doing the query work for all 300 web users. When I stopped the test at tick 110, the pooled processes remained open waiting for more users to connect. If I had left the test quiet for the DRCP 'inactivity_timeout' period (300 seconds by default), the pool would have shrunk back to 4 processes. Looking at the bottom right, you can see the amount of memory being consumed by the database. During the initial quiet period about 500M of memory was in use. The absolute number is just an indication of my particular DB configuration. As the number of pooled processes increases, each process needs more memory. You can see the shape of the memory graph echoes the Server Process graph above it. Each of the 300 web users will also need a few kilobytes but this is almost too small to see on the graph. Non-pooled connections Compare the DRCP case with using 'dedicated server' processes. At tick 140 I started 100 web users who did not use pooled connections: $c = oci_pconnect('phpdemo', 'welcome', 'myhost/orcl'); This connection string change is the only difference between the two tests. At ticks 155 and 165 I started two more batches of 100 simulated users each. At about tick 195 I stopped the user load but left Apache running. Apache then gradually returned to its quiescent state, killing idle httpd processes and producing the downward slope at the right of the graphs as the persistent database connection in each Apache process was closed. The Executions per Second graph on the bottom left shows the same step increases as for the earlier DRCP case. The database is handling this load. But look at the number of Server processes on the top right graph. There is now a one-to-one correspondence between Apache/PHP processes and DB server processes. Each PHP processes has one DB server processes dedicated to it. Hence the term 'dedicated server'. The memory required on the database is proportional to all those database server processes started. Almost all my system's memory was consumed. I doubt it would have coped with any more user load. Summary Oracle Database 11g DRCP connection pooling significantly reduces database host memory requirements allow more system memory to be allocated for the SGA and allowing the system to scale to handled thousands of concurrent PHP users. Even for small systems, using DRCP allows more web users to be active. More information about PHP and DRCP can be found in the PHP Scalability and High Availability chapter of The Underground PHP and Oracle Manual.

    Read the article

  • And the Winners of Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards in Data Integration are…

    - by Irem Radzik
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} At OpenWorld, we announced the winners of Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards 2012. Raymond James and Morrison Supermarkets were selected for the data integration category for their innovative use of Oracle’s data integration products and the great results they have achieved. In this blog I would like to briefly introduce you to these award winning projects. Raymond James is a diversified financial services company, which provides financial planning, wealth management, investment banking, and asset management. They are using Oracle GoldenGate and Oracle Data Integrator to feed their operational data store (ODS), which supports application services across the enterprise. A major requirement for their project was low data latency, as key decisions are made based on the data in the ODS. They were able to fulfill this requirement due to the Oracle Data Integrator’s integrated solution with Oracle GoldenGate. Oracle GoldenGate captures changed data from different systems including Oracle Database, HP NonStop and Microsoft SQL Server into a single data store on SQL Server 2008. Oracle Data Integrator provides data transformations for the ODS. Leveraging ODI’s integration with GoldenGate, Raymond James now sees a 9 second median latency (from source commit to ODS target commit). The ODS solution delivers high quality, accurate data for consuming applications such as Raymond James’ next generation client and portfolio management systems as well as real-time operational reporting. It enables timely information for making better decisions. There are more benefits Raymond James achieved with this implementation of Oracle’s data integration solution. The software developers and architects of this solution, Tim Garrod and Ryan Fonnett, have told us during their presentation at OpenWorld that they also reduced application complexity significantly while improving developer productivity through trusted operational services. They were able to utilize CDC to generate alerts for business users, and for applications (for example for cache hydration mechanisms). One cool innovation example among many in this project is that using ODI's flexible architecture, Tim and Ryan could build 24/7 self-healing processes. And these processes have hardly failed. Integration processes fixes the errors itself. Pretty amazing; and a great solution for environments that need such reliability and availability. (You can see Tim and Ryan’s photo with the Innovation Award above.) The other winner of this year in the data integration category, Morrison Supermarkets, is the UK’s 4th largest grocery retailer. The company has been migrating all their legacy applications on to a new-world application set based on Oracle and consolidating all BI on to a single Oracle platform. The company recently implemented Oracle Exadata as the data warehouse engine and uses Oracle Business Intelligence EE. Their goal with deploying GoldenGate and ODI was to provide BI data to the enterprise in a way that it also supports operational decision making requirements from a wide range of Oracle based ERP applications such as E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Oracle Retail Suite. They use GoldenGate’s log-based change data capture capabilities and Oracle Data Integrator to populate the Oracle Retail Data Model. The electronic point of sale (EPOS) integration solution they built processes over 80 million transactions/day at busy periods in near real time (15 mins). It provides valuable insight to Retail and Commercial teams for both intra-day and historical trend analysis. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, the right data integration platform can transform the business. Here is another example: The point-of-sale integration enabled the grocery chain to optimize its stock management, leading to another award: Morrisons won the Grocer 33 award in 2012 - beating all other major UK supermarkets in product availability. Congratulations, Morrisons,on another award! Celebrating the innovation and the success of our customers with Oracle’s data integration products was definitely a highlight of Oracle OpenWorld for me. I look forward to hearing more from Raymond James, Morrisons, and the other customers that presented their data integration projects at OpenWorld, on how they are creating more value for their organizations.

    Read the article

  • Simple Excel Export with EPPlus

    - by Jesse Taber
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2013/10/30/simple-excel-export-with-epplus.aspxAnyone I’ve ever met who works with an application that sits in front of a lot of data loves it when they can get that data exported to an Excel file for them to mess around with offline. As both developer and end user of a little website project that I’ve been working on, I found myself wanting to be able to get a bunch of the data that the application was collecting into an Excel file. The great thing about being both an end user and a developer on a project is that you can build the features that you really want! While putting this feature together I came across the fantastic EPPlus library. This library is certainly very well known and popular, but I was so impressed with it that I thought it was worth a quick blog post. This library is extremely powerful; it lets you create and manipulate Excel 2007/2010 spreadsheets in .NET code with a high degree of flexibility. My only gripe with the project is that they are not touting how insanely easy it is to build a basic Excel workbook from a simple data source. If I were running this project the approach I’m about to demonstrate in this post would be front and center on the landing page for the project because it shows how easy it really is to get started and serves as a good way to ease yourself in to some of the more advanced features. The website in question uses RavenDB, which means that we’re dealing with POCOs to model the data throughout all layers of the application. I love working like this so when it came time to figure out how to export some of this data to an Excel spreadsheet I wanted to find a way to take an IEnumerable<T> and just have it dumped to Excel with each item in the collection being modeled as a single row in the Excel worksheet. Consider the following class: public class Employee { public int Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public decimal HourlyRate { get; set; } public DateTime HireDate { get; set; } } Now let’s say we have a collection of these represented as an IEnumerable<Employee> and we want to be able to output it to an Excel file for offline querying/manipulation. As it turns out, this is dead simple to do with EPPlus. Have a look: public void ExportToExcel(IEnumerable<Employee> employees, FileInfo targetFile) { using (var excelFile = new ExcelPackage(targetFile)) { var worksheet = excelFile.Workbook.Worksheets.Add("Sheet1"); worksheet.Cells["A1"].LoadFromCollection(Collection: employees, PrintHeaders: true); excelFile.Save(); } } That’s it. Let’s break down what’s going on here: Create a ExcelPackage to model the workbook (Excel file). Note that the ‘targetFile’ value here is a FileInfo object representing the location on disk where I want the file to be saved. Create a worksheet within the workbook. Get a reference to the top-leftmost cell (addressed as A1) and invoke the ‘LoadFromCollection’ method, passing it our collection of Employee objects. Behind the scenes this is reflecting over the properties of the type provided and pulling out any public members to become columns in the resulting Excel output. The ‘PrintHeaders’ parameter tells EPPlus to grab the name of the property and put it in the first row. Save the Excel file All of the heavy lifting here is being done by the ‘LoadFromCollection’ method, and that’s a good thing. Now, this was really easy to do, but it has some limitations. Using this approach you get a very plain, un-styled Excel worksheet. The column widths are all set to the default. The number format for all cells is ‘General’ (which proves particularly interesting if you have a DateTime property in your data source). I’m a “no frills” guy, so I wasn’t bothered at all by trading off simplicity for style and formatting. That said, EPPlus has tons of samples that you can download that illustrate how to apply styles and formatting to cells and a ton of other advanced features that are way beyond the scope of this post.

    Read the article

  • Building InstallShield based Installers using Team Build 2010

    - by jehan
    Last few weeks, I have been working on Application Packaging stuff using all the widely used tools like InstallShield, WISE, WiX and Visual Studio Installer. So, I thought it would be good to post about how to Build the Installers developed using these tools with Team Build 2010. This post will focus on how to build the InstallShield generated packages using Team Build 2010. For the release of VS2010, Microsoft has partnered with Flexera who are the makers of InstallShield to create InstallShield Limited Edition, especially for the customers of Visual Studio. First Microsoft planned to release WiX (Windows Installer Xml) with VS2010, but later Microsoft dropped  WiX from VS2010 due to reasons which are best known to them and partnered with InstallShield for Limited Edition. It disappointed lot of people because InstallShield Limited Edition provides only few features of InstallShield and it may not feasable to build complex installer packages using this and it also requires License, where as WiX is an open source with no license costs and it has proved efficient in building most complex packages. Only the last three features are available in InstallShield Limited Edition from the total features offered by InstallShield as shown in below list.                                                                                            Feature Limited Edition for Visual Studio 2010 Standalone Build System Maintain a clean build machine by using only the part of InstallShield that compiles the installations. InstallShield Best Practices Validation Suite Avoid common installation issues. Try and Die Functionality RCreate a fully functional trial version of your product. InstallShield Repackager Create Windows Installer setups from any legacy installation. Multilingual Support Present installation text in up to 35 languages. Microsoft App-V™ Support Deploy your applications as App-V virtual packages that run without conflict. Industry-Standard InstallScript Achieve maximum flexibility in your installations. Dialog Editor Modify the layout of existing end-user dialogs, create new custom dialogs, and more. Patch Creation Build updates and patches for your products. Setup Prerequisite Editor Easily control prerequisite restart behavior and source locations. String Editor View Control the localizable text strings displayed at run time with this spreadsheet-like table. Text File Changes View Configure search-and-replace actions for content in text files to be modified at run time. Virtual Machine Detection Block your installations from running on virtual machines. Unicode Support Improve multi-language installation development. Support for 64-Bit COM Extraction Extract COM data from a 64-bit COM server. Windows Installer Installation Chaining Add MSI packages to your main installation and chain them together. XML Support Save time by quickly testing XML configuration changes to installation projects. Billboard Support for Custom Branding Display Adobe Flash billboards and other graphic files during the install process. SaaS Support (IIS 7 and SSL Technologies) Easily deploy Windows-based Web applications. Project Assistant Jumpstart a project by using a simplified set of views. Support for Digital Signatures Save time by digitally signing all your files at build time. Easily Run Custom Actions Schedule a custom action to run at precisely the right moment in your installation. Installation Prerequisites Check for and install prerequisites before your installation is executed. To create a InstallShield project in Visual Studio and Build it using Team Build 2010, first you have to add the InstallShield Project template  to your Solution file. If you want to use InstallShield Limited edition you can add it from FileàNewà project àother Project Types àSetup and Deploymentà InstallShield LE and if you are using other versions of InstallShield, then you have to add it from  from FileàNewà project àInstallShield Projects. Here, I’m using  InstallShield 2011 Premier edition as I already have it Installed. I have created a simple package for TailSpin Application which has a Feature called Web, few components and a IIS Web Site for  TailSpin application.   Before started working on this, I thought I may need to build the package by calling invoke process activity in build process template or have to create a new custom activity. But, it got build without any changes to build process template. But, it was failing with below error message. C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\InstallShield\2011\InstallShield.targets (68): The "InstallShield.Tasks.InstallShield" task could not be loaded from the assembly C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\InstallShield\2010Limited\InstallShield.Tasks.dll. Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Program Files(x86)\MSBuild\InstallShield\2011\InstallShield.Tasks.dll' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format. Confirm that the <UsingTask> declaration is correct, that the assembly and all its dependencies are available, and that the task contains a public class that implements Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITask. This error is due to 64-bit build machine which I’m using. This issue will be replicable if you are queuing a build on a 64-bit build machine. To avoid this you have to ensure that you configured the build definition for your InstallShield project to load the InstallShield.Tasks.dll file (which is a 32-bit file); otherwise, you will encounter this build error informing you that the InstallShield.Tasks.dll file could not be loaded. To select the 32-bit version of MSBuild, click the Process tab of your build definition in Team Explorer. Then, under the Advanced node, find the MSBuild Platform setting, and select x86. Note that if you are using a 32-bit build machine, you can select either Auto or x86 for the MSBuild Platform setting.  Once I did above changes, the build got successful.

    Read the article

  • Unit testing is… well, flawed.

    - by Dewald Galjaard
    Hey someone had to say it. I clearly recall my first IT job. I was appointed Systems Co-coordinator for a leading South African retailer at store level. Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with an honest day’s labor and in fact I highly recommend it, however I’m obliged to refer to the designation cautiously; in reality all I had to do was monitor in-store prices and two UNIX front line controllers. If anything went wrong – I only had to phone it in… Luckily that wasn’t all I did. My duties extended to some other interesting annual occurrence – stock take. Despite a bit more curious affair, it was still a tedious process that took weeks of preparation and several nights to complete.  Then also I remember that no matter how elaborate our planning was, the entire exercise would be rendered useless if we couldn’t get the basics right – that being the act of counting. Sounds simple right? We’ll with a store which could potentially carry over tens of thousands of different items… we’ll let’s just say I believe that’s when I first became a coffee addict. In those days the act of counting stock was a very humble process. Nothing like we have today. A staff member would be assigned a bin or shelve filled with items he or she had to sort then count. Thereafter they had to record their findings on a complementary piece of paper. Every night I would manage several teams. Each team was divided into two groups - counters and auditors. Both groups had the same task, only auditors followed shortly on the heels of the counters, recounting stock levels, making sure the original count correspond to their findings. It was a simple yet hugely responsible orchestration of people and thankfully there was one fundamental and golden rule I could always abide by to ensure things run smoothly – No-one was allowed to audit their own work. Nope, not even on nights when I didn’t have enough staff available. This meant I too at times had to get up there and get counting, or have the audit stand over until the next evening. The reason for this was obvious - late at night and with so much to do we were prone to make some mistakes, then on the recount, without a fresh set of eyes, you were likely to repeat the offence. Now years later this rule or guideline still holds true as we develop software (as far removed as software development from counting stock may be). For some reason it is a fundamental guideline we’re simply ignorant of. We write our code, we write our tests and thus commit the same horrendous offence. Yes, the procedure of writing unit tests as practiced in most development houses today – is flawed. Most if not all of the tests we write today exercise application logic – our logic. They are based on the way we believe an application or method should/may/will behave or function. As we write our tests, our unit tests mirror our best understanding of the inner workings of our application code. Unfortunately these tests will therefore also include (or be unaware of) any imperfections and errors on our part. If your logic is flawed as you write your initial code, chances are, without a fresh set of eyes, you will commit the same error second time around too. Not even experience seems to be a suitable solution. It certainly helps to have deeper insight, but is that really the answer we should be looking for? Is that really failsafe? What about code review? Code review is certainly an answer. You could have one developer coding away and another (or team) making sure the logic is sound. The practice however has its obvious drawbacks. Firstly and mainly it is resource intensive and from what I’ve seen in most development houses, given heavy deadlines, this guideline is seldom adhered to. Hardly ever do we have the resources, money or time readily available. So what other options are out there? A quest to find some solution revealed a project by Microsoft Research called PEX. PEX is a framework which creates several test scenarios for each method or class you write, automatically. Think of it as your own personal auditor. Within a few clicks the framework will auto generate several unit tests for a given class or method and save them to a single project. PEX help to audit your work. It lends a fresh set of eyes to any project you’re working on and best of all; it is cost effective and fast. Check them out at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/ In upcoming posts we’ll dive deeper into how it works and how it can help you.   Certainly there are more similar frameworks out there and I would love to hear from you. Please share your experiences and insights.

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764  | Next Page >