Hi Henrik,

We seem to be getting orphan zero length filenames with a GUID as the Name (VisualCron Task ?) remaining in a temp folder after a VisualCron Task has executed.

Wasn't happening in 7.2.1 but is happening in 7.6.4 (Production) and 7.6.5 (Test).

e.g. :
869b7c0f-19b0-4b2f-ad10-48cd3dbc9bd5

Generally the tasks seem to be those that relate to an Execute Task (Command Prompt).

We have examples where they self clean (we can monitor D:\Temp) and examples where they don't.

Is this something you can have a look at for us at your end ?

For us we are talking *many* files (hundreds) depending on activity on that VisualCron Server

Thanks

Kevin

Hi,

When I look in the Temp folder of my VC, I see indeed a lot of files from 2011 till now'(117,024 files total 7Mb in my case). I'm not sure you can delete them, but the are in the Temp folder...
I think VC should delete them...

Funny thing is on another server I don't have files in the TEMP folder, but directory names with GUIDS and XML files in there.

Henrik?

Regards,
Erik

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You can delete them safely. My c:\temp and c:\windows\temp is empty. Which folders do you see Erik and which files?

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Hi,

I went to the Temp folder of VC: C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\VisualCron (in the Folders setting of the server)
Over there I see a lot of folders with GUID as names. most of the folders are empty, but some of them contains xml files, like conditions.xml

I deleted them just before you posted the question, so now there is nothing...

On the other server I see in the same folder a lot of files (117,070 so growing) and are 0kb in size. The names are all GUIDs.
Some of them contain text which looks like task outputs.

regards
Erik

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Thanks EricC & Henrik,

Confirming Eric's Comments:

- In our experience some task types seem to 'self clean', others do not.
- The Execute Task (Command Prompt) is one that sometimes does not.
An example Execute task that does not :
Command: ipconfig
Arguments: /all

- We did not see this prior to upgrade (from Production 7.2.1 to Production 7.5.4).
- It is in the Server's configured Temp Folder (For us D:\Temp) . . .
- Would be nice if all the Tasks self cleaned, given we already have logs and databases (Output) Elsewhere in VisualCron.
- Obviously we can clean up ourselves periodically . . . but would be nice if Application Did.
- and Clarifying . . . . Hundreds = Hundreds / Day / Server (Depending on Server Activity of Course)

Thanks EricC & Henrik,

Confirming Eric's Comments:

- In our experience some task types seem to 'self clean', others do not.
- The Execute Task (Command Prompt) is one that sometimes does not.
An example Execute task that does not :
Command: ipconfig
Arguments: /all

- We did not see this prior to upgrade (from Production 7.2.1 to Production 7.5.4).
- It is in the Server's configured Temp Folder (For us D:\Temp) . . .
- Would be nice if all the Tasks self cleaned, given we already have logs and databases (Output) Elsewhere in VisualCron.
- Obviously we can clean up ourselves periodically . . . but would be nice if Application Did.
- and Clarifying . . . . Hundreds = Hundreds / Day / Server (Depending on Server Activity of Course)

We thought we did some cleanup but apparently not. We have added this for 7.6.6. but we will only cleanup the folder we use when you look at Server settigns->Folders->Temp folder. Is this the folder that you see empty files in?

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We thought we did some cleanup but apparently not. We have added this for 7.6.6. but we will only cleanup the folder we use when you look at Server settigns->Folders->Temp folder. Is this the folder that you see empty files in?

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Correct Henrik, we would only expect you to Clean up the Server Temp Folder, Per the Server Config for the VisualCron Application.

That is exactly what we have deployed as an additional Task in the Interim

i.e. to Delete Sysdate - 1 Files in the Folder Identified by the Variable: {SERVER(TempFolder)}

Note for you . . . . Even An 'Include File Mask' of *-*-*-*-* for us has yielded some files that aren't VisualCron Related:

Where XXX Below is me masking:
BAI2-DDS-XXX-XXX-20150506025032053 (Banking File for Us - Not usually in this folder but a Production example)
NDP451-KD2858728-x86-x64-AllOS-ENU.exe (Patch File we had in D:\Temp on 2 of our VC Servers which was Identified as 'to be Cleaned' Up in our Task Testing)

So for the above we are considering Isolating a Dedicated Temp Folder for VisualCron. . . . Or Filtering on File Size also . . . . depending on what fix you deem appropriate for you in VisualCron (Making sure the Files VC Cleans are the Files VC Created).

. . . And confirming VC is definitely doing some cleanup, as we can see file creation and removal in this folder for *some* tasks. So just not all are being cleared, and I wonder if the ones that aren't are those where Task output or Task Error Output is not in fact produced (note File Size Zero) . . . . but a GUID Temp File is created anyway.

Thanks as always for the Prompt investigation and replies and action from yourself (and ErikC also 🙂 ).

We thought we did some cleanup but apparently not. We have added this for 7.6.6. but we will only cleanup the folder we use when you look at Server settigns->Folders->Temp folder. Is this the folder that you see empty files in?

---

Correct Henrik, we would only expect you to Clean up the Server Temp Folder, Per the Server Config for the VisualCron Application.

That is exactly what we have deployed as an additional Task in the Interim

i.e. to Delete Sysdate - 1 Files in the Folder Identified by the Variable: {SERVER(TempFolder)}

Note for you . . . . Even An 'Include File Mask' of *-*-*-*-* for us has yielded some files that aren't VisualCron Related:

Where XXX Below is me masking:
BAI2-DDS-XXX-XXX-20150506025032053 (Banking File for Us - Not usually in this folder but a Production example)
NDP451-KD2858728-x86-x64-AllOS-ENU.exe (Patch File we had in D:\Temp on 2 of our VC Servers which was Identified as 'to be Cleaned' Up in our Task Testing)

So for the above we are considering Isolating a Dedicated Temp Folder for VisualCron. . . . Or Filtering on File Size also . . . . depending on what fix you deem appropriate for you in VisualCron (Making sure the Files VC Cleans are the Files VC Created).

. . . And confirming VC is definitely doing some cleanup, as we can see file creation and removal in this folder for *some* tasks. So just not all are being cleared, and I wonder if the ones that aren't are those where Task output or Task Error Output is not in fact produced (note File Size Zero) . . . . but a GUID Temp File is created anyway.

Thanks as always for the Prompt investigation and replies and action from yourself (and ErikC also 🙂 ).

There are some things that are important here:

1. verify the path you use in Server settings->Folders->Temp folder. By default, if you are on Windows 8 for example, this folder is: C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\VisualCron - do not alter this folder - at least not the specific sub folder as we will cleanup everything here.
2. what files are you seeing? If you have empty Guid files these are releated to Execute Task. Normally they are cleaned up automatically after Execute Task has run. But if these files are constantly, for every execute, left in this folder then we would like a screenshot of the Execute settings you use.

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Hi Henrik,

We will change the Server Temp Folders to a Dedicated Folder.

D:\Temp\VisualCron
We generally don't want these sorts of files on the System Disk, if we can avoid it, hence the config change from default location.

Please find attached a screen prints as requested, it is using the same sort of task as I described in an earlier message - ipconfig as an example

In Further testing it appears to be credential related.

If you don't have a credential, all is well.

If you do (per screen prints) then files are created and not cleaned up.

Examples attached are running 7.6.6 Beta



Regards

K