We are having some issues with our main job server that runs visual cron. The behavior seems to happen on both versions 5 and version 6. The jobs will all be running just fine and then they will all hang in the "running" state. The only way to fix this is to restart the server (not just the service, this does not work).

There is nothing in the logs that looks to be helpful in version 5. Version 6 shows a bunch off errors leading up to the crash saying: Could not kill process, err: There is no process associated with this object. Is this an issue? Why is this happening? We do not use the task KILL PROCESS so its a bit strange to be getting this.

Also a question on user credentials. There are 2 check boxes, Local and Load profile. What impact do these 2 boxes have?

This issue causes downtime so prompt response is appreciated. THANKS!

What sort of jobs/tasks are being ran or are stuck running when this occurrs? The more details you provide about the specifics of the jobs/tasks the better Support will be able to help.

Based on what you stated, i'd assume you may have put a timeout on the job or tasks, and it was unable to stop after a designated runtime.

I can't answer the user credentials question.

Brian

There are quite a few jobs (77 in all). Some are file movement operations, most are script executions (.VBS). The scripts also move files and execute SQL commands against databases. This server is our main data load server so it gets a good deal of volume.

1. Can you confirm if this only concern the state of the Task/Job or that the problem is that the process never completes (is the process still running in Task manager).

2. do your processes spawn child processes - are these still running in memory?

3. do you use Timeout on your Jobs/Tasks?


I recommend downloading processexplorer tool from Microsoft to get a full overview.

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1) The logs for their jobs do not indicate that anything started and never finished, so that points to VC, but they'll look the next time the system hangs to see if cscript.exe is still in task manager

2) There are child processes. Usually sqlplus.exe. The next time this happens, they'll look for these to still be running

3) They do use timeouts, and there are log entries in version 6 saying that it cannot kill the process (see earlier post on this). They appear too numerous to be timeout message however, so I am not sure they are related. In any case, even once the timeout is reached, it does not kill the job. It stays running.


Process Explorer is now available to our off-shift support so they'll use it when the issue happens again. It shows nothing right now.

OK, it happened again.

None of the cscript.exe or sqlplus.exe are running when it hangs. It looks like VC starts the jobs, but doesn't actually do or launch anything. The jobs will stay in the running state forever unless we kill them or restart the server (which fixes the problem)

Henrik,
Thank you for our chat earlier today. It helped a lot.

Wanted to update you. We did get the configuration running on version 6.1.3 in the same way it was running on 5.5.5 (using wscript).

A few hours afterward, it hung in version 6.1.3 the same way it has been doing on version 5.5.5. Its a bit difficult for me to tell exactly what job or process was the initiator of the hang. We are game to look at our scripts, but we need some guidance as to which one may be causing the issue. Could I send you the log file and config and have you take a peek at it?

I only see one thing that may give a clue. Right at the time of the failure, this was logged in the tray client log:

10/24/2012 12:38:56 PM Ping failed, ex: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at BOANPKPNPJHOGNCDNBHABJKPDJLGJNAGHADB.BFKKBFHNMCPNGKDAMGHAALAAGFILDGDNGLPK.AENHFKOMDOELCJJKFJCDPBLMPIFDPLMEIOHL(Object )
at BOANPKPNPJHOGNCDNBHABJKPDJLGJNAGHADB.BFKKBFHNMCPNGKDAMGHAALAAGFILDGDNGLPK.CABHALEMBBLGLBEJGAOMNEDLNCGBBIADJFIE()

10/24/2012 12:38:56 PM Error in PingCheck, err: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at BOANPKPNPJHOGNCDNBHABJKPDJLGJNAGHADB.BFKKBFHNMCPNGKDAMGHAALAAGFILDGDNGLPK.AENHFKOMDOELCJJKFJCDPBLMPIFDPLMEIOHL(Object )
at BOANPKPNPJHOGNCDNBHABJKPDJLGJNAGHADB.BFKKBFHNMCPNGKDAMGHAALAAGFILDGDNGLPK.FJICFLCONLLFDJMFDIBNCOIEEOLLFFJJPBIL(Object )

10/24/2012 12:39:26 PM Ping failed, ex: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at BOANPKPNPJHOGNCDNBHABJKPDJLGJNAGHADB.BFKKBFHNMCPNGKDAMGHAALAAGFILDGDNGLPK.AENHFKOMDOELCJJKFJCDPBLMPIFDPLMEIOHL(Object )
at BOANPKPNPJHOGNCDNBHABJKPDJLGJNAGHADB.BFKKBFHNMCPNGKDAMGHAALAAGFILDGDNGLPK.CABHALEMBBLGLBEJGAOMNEDLNCGBBIADJFIE()

10/24/2012 12:39:26 PM Error in PingCheck, err: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at BOANPKPNPJHOGNCDNBHABJKPDJLGJNAGHADB.BFKKBFHNMCPNGKDAMGHAALAAGFILDGDNGLPK.AENHFKOMDOELCJJKFJCDPBLMPIFDPLMEIOHL(Object )
at BOANPKPNPJHOGNCDNBHABJKPDJLGJNAGHADB.BFKKBFHNMCPNGKDAMGHAALAAGFILDGDNGLPK.FJICFLCONLLFDJMFDIBNCOIEEOLLFFJJPBIL(Object )

10/24/2012 12:39:54 PM Connected to Server