Strange interaction between 2000 Service and GUI

Sorry... me again.

24x7 multi-platform edition 4.1 has been behaving weirdly for me (under Windows 2000).

I started the service with

	Code:
	24x7srv /install ddd\uuu ppp

The service is running according to the Windows Services tool.

I start the GUI with master.bat

I think the GUI doesn't know the service is running: you can still do Run Now from the GUI, and changes to the job database aren't being saved.

I've tried rebooting Windows. What's the next step?

(
Other weird behaviour over the last 4 nights:

- only a few of the expected jobs ran
- everything ran OK
- only some of the jobs ran; some ran once I started the 24x7 GUI, and one sent an e-mail but there's nothing in the log; also a number of semaphore files are missing
)

You should not use the GUI on the same machine while the service is running. You may end-up with corrupted jobs and files as the service and GUI will simultaneously update same files which could lead to many different problems. If you need to communicate with the service either use the command console or use the web-based multi-user graphical interface.

The command console can be started using cons.bat or cons.sh command depending on the platform. After you start the console, type "help" command for additional information or "help connect"

If you want to use the GUI mode, please stop the service and then start the GUI. After you are done and the GUI is closed, you can restart the service.

Also please ensure you are using JDK or JRE 1.4.2 for running the 24x7 code.

Enable the trace mode in the options if things look really weird. Let it run for a little while and then pick at the debug.log for any processing exceptions or errors recorded in that trace file.

Hope this helps.

	SysOp wrote:
	If you want to use the GUI mode, please stop the service and then start the GUI. After you are done and the GUI is closed, you can restart the service.

OK, seems a little bit tedious but I can automate that with a batch file.

If I want to run jobs when I'm logged off, and use the GUI editor, is this the only way on a single machine? I haven't missed something obvious? (I can't use the Windows version because of other issues)

I've shut down the service. I go into the GUI, edit a job, save, exit, but the .dat file isn't being updated and the changes are forgotten next launch.

Java in the control panel says Standard Edition 6, 1.6.0
JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_02

What next?

Debug log says:

Code:

2007-08-25 15:44:34,732 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.JSchedulerStarter - main(...) : start
2007-08-25 15:44:34,732 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.JSchedulerStarter - startup() : start
2007-08-25 15:44:34,826 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.JSchedulerStarter - startup() : creating business objects
2007-08-25 15:44:35,091 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.JSchedulerStarter - startup() : creating UI controller
2007-08-25 15:44:35,216 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.JSchedulerStarter - startup() : initializing business objects
2007-08-25 15:44:35,232 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.business.preferences.AbstractPrefDatabase - Creating backup for preferences file preferences.xml
2007-08-25 15:44:35,232 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.business.preferences.AbstractPrefDatabase - Preferences file has been copied to preferences.bak
2007-08-25 15:44:35,513 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.business.jobtemplates.JobTemplateSetImpl - loadDescription: path: Template/test_template.ini
2007-08-25 15:44:36,248 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - buildIndex(): totalRecordsNumber: 34
2007-08-25 15:44:36,248 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - buildIndex(): deletedRecordsNumber: 17
2007-08-25 15:44:38,123 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.JSchedulerStarter - startup() : end
2007-08-25 15:44:38,123 [main] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.JSchedulerStarter - main(...) : end
2007-08-25 15:44:40,638 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.ui.C.void.E - show() : start
2007-08-25 15:44:41,451 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.ui.C.void.E - show() : end
2007-08-25 15:44:44,560 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.ui.C.void.E - onFinish() : start
2007-08-25 15:44:44,591 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.ui.C.void.E - onFinish() : end
2007-08-25 15:44:44,591 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.JobDbImpl - updateJob(JobProperties) : start
2007-08-25 15:44:44,591 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - update(...) : start
2007-08-25 15:44:44,591 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - update(...) : end
2007-08-25 15:44:44,591 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.JobDbImpl - updateJob(JobProperties) : end
2007-08-25 15:44:45,716 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - save() : start
2007-08-25 15:44:45,716 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - isRequirePurge(): totalRecordsNumber: 34
2007-08-25 15:44:45,716 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - isRequirePurge(): deletedRecordsNumber: 17
2007-08-25 15:44:45,716 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - isRequirePurge(): result: true
2007-08-25 15:44:45,716 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - purge started!
2007-08-25 15:44:45,748 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - buildIndex(): totalRecordsNumber: 34
2007-08-25 15:44:45,748 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - buildIndex(): deletedRecordsNumber: 17
2007-08-25 15:44:45,748 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.db.drivers.file.FileJobDbStorage - purge finished!
2007-08-25 15:44:47,763 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.business.H - shutdown() start
2007-08-25 15:44:47,763 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.business.runner.JobExecutorImpl - killAll() start
2007-08-25 15:44:47,779 [AWT-EventQueue-0] DEBUG com.softtreetech.jscheduler.business.H - shutdown() end

1. The GUI is just a copy of the scheduler running in the GUI mode, it is not a client for the service. The right way is to use ether the web based 24x7 interface, which is a true client-server system capable to interact with both local and remote schedulers via the network wire or use the local command console; the console can be also used to run batch scripts for mass-job updates and other purposes.

2. Stop the scheduler and don't continue until you get JDK 1.4 installed and setup for use with 24x7. JDK 1.6 is not backward compatible; just forget about "write once, run anywhere" myth. 24x7 doesn't work well with 1.6. There are so many anomalies that it doesn't make sense to talk about them. Please note that you don't have to replace 1.6. You can simply install 1.4 into a separate directory and add a line (as a first line) to all .batch files in 24x7 directory the following: SET JAVA_HOME=C:\Path\To\JDK1.4

Java 1.4.2 was already installed and no other programs use JAVA_HOME, so I just switched that.

The GUI's certainly behaving itself now, I'll get back to you if the scheduling is still screwy.

Note the readme.txt says "1.4.x or better" which is probably why I chose 1.6.

Thanks for the prompt help.

The batch file mods work well. If anybody else needs it here's what I came up with for master.bat:

	Code:
	[...] if "%1"=="/JOBFILE" goto start_console net stop "24x7 Scheduler Multi-Platform Edition" "%JAVA_HOME%\bin\javaw.exe" -Xms64m -Xmx96m -jar jscheduler.jar %1 %2 net start "24x7 Scheduler Multi-Platform Edition" exit %ERRORLEVEL% :start_console [...]

Not sure how this could work, I think the described change should break the service, detached jobs and a number of other things. master.bat is called from many different places with different parameters. It is not a good idea to make it restart the service. I suggest to create a separate batch file for interactive GUI starting.

Gotcha, thanks. I broke those 3 lines out into another batch file and restored the original.