Central 5.5 hanging/stuck while producing PDF output

Question

Hi
We have been using Central 5.5 has been in use 3+ yrs with 80+ designs producing output to Printer & PDF. Generally speaking things are OK. Recently we have encountered a problem whereby Central appears to be hanging and it has been when processing a .dat to produce a PDF. the problem does not always occur so its hard to pinpoint the problem.
I have reported the problem to Adobe VAR & Adobe for their support, meanwhile I would appreciate if any forum users could advise as to possible causes of the problems we are encountering.
the following is the problem description - probably best to start at bottom of this posting and work up thru the mails
thanks in advance
George
[email protected]
=================================
18/11/2008
User site are encountering an intermittent problem on the JF Server, first occurred 29/10 and then occurred yesterday and today
They tell me it seems to be specific to one particular IFD/Design when its used to create a PDF output file. It does not fail each time that the IFD/Design is used.
Typically when they get errors with .dat .IFD mismatches etc. a file would be created in /error/ and the next file in /data/ would be processed, but in this instance the JF Server is freezing intermittently - when processing particular files - no files created/posted to the /error/ directory
User site identify the problem file by filename of lowest sequence no. / date-time stamp - they then remove the file from the /data directory and then stop and start the JF service to get going again. When they put the offending .dat back in /data then it fails again, however if they copy the file creating copy_of_filename.dat and put copy_of_filename.dat in /data then the copied file processes ok !!!
could there be something funny about the original file, some sort of byte corruption that is resolved when the file is copied/saved again.
have you ever experienced anything like this ?
User site get an error message on the JF server when the problem file causes the hang/stuck service - its the most immediate e-mail below - there is a complete snail on this problem staring at the bottom of this mail working back up.
Do Adobe have any information regarding problems that could cause the JF Server to hang/freeze.
Have you any thoughts/suggestions - could you forward this problem to Adobe
Additionally, could any problem arise if McAfee Anti-Virus On-Access scan is turned "ON" on the JF Server, could there be any conflict of McAffee and JF both accessing a file at same time.
Rgds
George
-----Original Message-----
Subject: FW: HostMon Test Failure !!!
Importance: High
-----Original Message-----
Sent: 18 November 2008 12:50
Subject: HostMon Test Failure !!!
Importance: High
Message from HostMonitor (host changed status)
Test : Application Log - Error on SRV-JET
Method: check NT Event Log
Status : Bad
Date : 18/11/2008 12:49:50
Reply : Faulting application jfmerge.exe, version 5.5.0.308, faulting
module jfmerge.exe, version 5.5.0.308, fault address 0x000a2960.
Recurrences : 1
Last status: Ok
Total tests: 32822
Alive ratio : 99.86 %
Dead ratio: 0.13 %
Folder: Event Log Errors
***Disclaimer***
in your original mail when problem 1st occurred, the problem file was the creation of a PDF, in this latest problem is the problem file also the creation of a PDF?
Jean yes it is pdf related
the problems seems to be occurring in TEST account when users are creating PDFs - could PDF of same name be already present, created earlier by the LIVE account processing.
Jean no its not the case if a pdf with the same name is already present it will be overwritten with the latest file (I had already tested this)
Your Scenarios in the original e-mail, generally
Scenario 1, 2, 4 :- you amended/copied the file to re-direct the output to the printer and it worked OK
Scenario 3:- you amended the file to cha

Answer 1

Hi
This problem has been experienced again, although this times its with a different Design/Form, still using version 5.5
The "business application" creates the dat files using a unique sequential filename and then copies the files to the JF-data directory. While JFserver processing a dat to produce a PDF the following error occurred on the server.
===================================================
Message from HostMonitor (host changed status)
Test : Application Log - JFMERGE Error on PRTSRV-JET
Method: check NT Event Log
Status : Bad
Date : 13/01/2009 14:59:28
Reply : Faulting application jfmerge.exe, version 5.5.0.308, faulting module jfmerge.exe, version 5.5.0.308, fault address 0x000a2960.
Recurrences : 1
Last status: Ok
Total tests: 13939
Alive ratio : 99.91 %
Dead ratio: 0.09 %
Folder: Event Logs
===================================================
From a user perspective, when they look in the JF-data directory there could be one or a no. of files present. It would be the earliest of these files that is causing the problem, that JF is failing to process/merge the earliest of the dat files, and the server throws an error.
FL299127.dat
from the JFServer.log
2009/01/13 14:55:56 C:\Central\Bin\jfserver.exe: [305]Scanning for data files, directory 'C:\Central\Server\Data\'.
2009/01/13 14:55:56 C:\Central\Bin\jfserver.exe: [306]Processing file 'FL299127.dat', '^job MVL31JP03 -afxon -asppdf2 -z"\\prtsrv-jet\PDF\MSV000207332601.pdf"'.
2009/01/13 14:55:56 C:\Central\Bin\jfserver.exe: [307]Launching task '"C:\Central\Bin\jfmerge" "MVL31JP03" "C:\Central\Server\Data\FL299127.dat" -l -apr"" -all"C:\Central\Server\jfserver.log" -asl1 -amq0 -ams"" -m -z"\\prtsrv-jet\PDF\MSV000207332601.pdf" -afxon -asppdf2 -aii"C:\Central\Server\jfmerge.ini"'.
2009/01/13 14:55:56 C:\Central\Bin\jfmerge: [125]* Processing data file: 'C:\Central\Server\Data\FL299127.dat'.
2009/01/13 14:55:56 C:\Central\Bin\jfmerge: [289]MDF file `c:\central\server\forms\MVL31JP03.mdf' opened.
2009/01/13 14:55:56 C:\Central\Bin\jfmerge: [130]Downloading font 'Arial MT (W1)':
2009/01/13 14:55:58 C:\Central\Bin\jfserver.exe: [314]Agent exit message: [313]*** Spawn of agent may have failed ***
2009/01/13 14:55:58 C:\Central\Bin\jfserver.exe: [373]Unable to rename file 'C:\Central\Server\Data\FL299127.dat' to 'C:\Central\Server\Error\FL299127.dat'.
2009/01/13 14:55:58 C:\Central\Bin\jfserver.exe: [309]Shutting down client agents.
2009/01/13 14:55:58 C:\Central\Bin\jfserver.exe: [312]Warning: skipping disabled task JfShutDn.
2009/01/13 14:55:58 C:\Central\Bin\jfserver.exe: [310]Exit.
When the "problematic" dat file is removed from the data directory the other files process OK.
There are approx 100 different Designs/forms being produced and these could be either printer or PDF outputs. Remote users of the application receive PDF outputs.
The Design/MDF file in question has not changed in recent months.
The Design/Form where the problem occurs would be used a no. of times every day, on same day both ealier and later documents produced OK for the same form. This would therefore indicate that the cause of the problem is specific to the .dat file, that the file is either corrupted or that some value in the .dat is causing the problem.
Each dat file for PDF generates a new unique PDF filename to be created, to ensure destination-output pdf filename does not already exist on the jfserver.
The problematic dat file was copied to another machine and the following scenarios tested:-
1) one of the data field values was changed, the file saved and then re-submitted to the JFserver, the problem still occurred.
2) amended the job line to just change the destination pdf filename, the file then re-submitted to the JFserver and the problem did not occur, PDF produced OK.
3) without changing the destination pdf filename, amended the job line to include the logging commands -v-10 -n0 , the file then re-submitted to the JFserver and the problem did not occur, PDF produced OK.
This seems to indicate that by making a change to the JOB line and saving the file and resubmitting that it works OK.
System is printing hundreds and sometimes thousands of documents per day and this problem occurs only occasionally, all very strange.
I have been reluctant to turn on the logging commands -v-10 -n0 fulltime for all the forms as I rekon this may result in an overhead on the JFserver while may affect the production time of documents and have a negative impact on users if print production time is noticably slower.
I also have available the log file produced with the increased verbosity, but this is from a successful production of the pdf.
(I can make this available - e-mail me on [email protected]).
Any suggestions on cause/identification of this problem appreciated
thanks
George