We have version 5.7, a debug build that was created in response to issues with http tasks through a proxy server. I see there is no newer build that has been released as of yet.

Today, my boss was troubleshooting one of our jobs and decided he wanted to look at the log. He right-clicked the job (while connected from the localhost), chose "Job Log" and subsequently the service crashed and he got disconnected. When he tried to reconnect, he got an error message. He checked the Windows services, saw the service was not running, started it, and was able to connect again.

I am able to reproduce the problem. When I follow his same steps, the message I get on attempting to reconnect is

Connection failed to 'localhost'. Connection failed with error 'Failed to connect to an IPC Port: The system cannot find the file specified.'

After starting the service again, I'm able to log in OK (once I configure the password correctly for the default admin). I'm not 100% sure whether the password config somehow got lost in the server crash, or if I just never set the password after installing this version of the server (I normally access the server remotely, and my boss rarely access it at all).

However, I tried again, this time going to the menu at the top of the display, and choosing "Show log" from the server tab. This time, I got a System.OutOfMemoryException, and restarting the server does *not* enable me to log on from the local machine, though I cna still log in remotely.

Help!

I'd like to get a non-debug build that has the http over proxy server fix in it, or at least resolve the problem of not being able to log in locally and find out why I'm getting an OutOfMemoryException and crashing the server when trying to read the log file.

Thanks,

Rebeccah

More information:
1. The size of today's log_server20101203.txt file is 47,610 KB.
2. A comparison of the current settings directory against yesterday's backup shows that the current one is missing:
- Connections.xml
- Credentials.xml
- InternalSettings.xml
- UserPermissions.xml
and it has the following, that are not present in yesterday's backup:
- ftpconnections.xml
- lasttick.dat
- license.xml
- networkcredentials.xml
- settings_server.xml
- settings_trayclient.xml
- users.xml
Present in both, but changed, is
- Jobs.xml

Should I just import settings from the backup?
I'm not sure why some of these files are not being backed up, I'll need to check into that.

Rebeccah

OK, more information.

I'm comparing the similarly named files, and I see that
Connections.xml file in yesterday's backup is identical to
ftpconnections.xml in current server instance.
Credentials.xml in yesterday's backup is identical to
networkcredentials.xml in current server instance.
InternalSettings.xml in backup is almost identical to
settings_server.xml in current server instance, BUT THEY HAVE DIFFERENT VERSION NUMBERS! Backup has 5.7.0 and the current one has 5.6.8.
Userpermissions.xml in backup is almost identical to
users.xml in current server instance.
In the backup copy, it looks like one of the active users (name, id, and e-mail address are encrypted) has <IsADUser>false</IsADUser>, while the current instance has that user with no <IsADUser> element.
In the current copy, there is an extra space in one element tagname (<Exec ute>), the element is truncated before the closing tag, and the closing tag for its parent element (<TEExceptions>) is missing, as is the closing tag for *its* parent (<Sec>). <IsADUser>false</IsADUser> is also missing for this user (but present in the backup).
In another user, it looks like both my backup file and the current instance have corruption in them - backup has <FTP Connect ions=""> and no closing tag where the current instance has a <FTPConnections> element. OTOH, the current instance has entity-escaped opening and closing brackets for a <Delete> tag (&lt;Delete&gt;Yes) and no closing tag (within that same FTPConnections element). In this user, it is the backup copy that is missing the closing </Sec> tag. The current instance is again missing <IsADUser>false</IsADUser>, and the backup is missing the closing </SecUserClass> tag.
In another user, the name has a linebreak in the backup copy but not in the current isntance. Once again, the current instance lacks <IsADUser>false</IsADUser>
In the final user, the current instance again lacks <IsADUser>false</IsADUser>

So, you can see it appears that my users configuration has been getting corrupted, and not only with this recent OutOfMemory exception. Also, that somehow our version has reverted to 5.6.8 at least in the configuration file - I don't know about in the execution of the code.

What do you recommend?

I can send log files and/or the corrupted config files, if that will help.

To reiterate:
1. What should we do to clean up our corrupted config file mess?
2. Please fix the memory handling issue that led to the OutOfMemoryException when attempting to read the large log file.
3. Please consider ways to handle caching and writing the config files so that an error such as this one doesn't cause them to be overwritten with garbage.
4. Please investigate why we have evidence of ongoing (asymptomatic) UserPermissions.xml file corruption previous to this.
5. Please release a nondebug version of VisualCron that contains the fix for the HTTP task via proxy server problem.

Thanks,

Rebeccah

Hi,

thank you for your report.

Even though the setting files are different they should not affect performance, unless there is some setting that is obsolete and not converted to new version properly (not likely).

1. So, you cannot startup now without getting this exception?
2. The exception is probably related to a Trigger setting in one of the Jobs. What if you just copy the Jobs.xml to another location when starting up - does it still fail then?

If so, please zip settings and log file and send to support@visualcron.com and we can analyze which Job is causing the failure.

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