1 Reply by kbalmer

  • kbalmer
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  • From: Bedford
  • Registered: 12-05-2006
  • Posts: 162

Re: Network upgrade from 6.9.3 to 6.10.4 and R2002 to R6 transfer

I thought I’d share my experiences with uninstalling R6.9.3, installing 6.10.4 network upgrade from the CD and transferring data from R2002, as the feedback may be helpful:

1) I uninstalled 6.9.3 and MSDE, then checked that R2002 was still working okay – it wasn’t. Four of the addins were missing and I also got the following error transcript:

Exception occurred in application Recorder 2002 at 23/08/2007 10:18:54.
Version : 2.3.7.8

Exception path:
EAccessViolation : Access violation at address 00779AC3 in module 'Recorder2000.ex_'. Read of address 0000000C

Last event\actions:
  actLocations invoked

Operating System : Windows 2000  5.00.2195  Service Pack 4
Physical Memory available : 1,048,096 KB

DLLs loaded:
  advapi32.dll (5.0.2195.7038)
  comctl32.dll (5.81.4968.2500)
  comdlg32.dll (5.0.3700.6693)
  gdi32.dll (5.0.2195.7138)
  HHCtrl.ocx (5.2.3790.620)
  kernel32.dll (5.0.2195.7135)
  mpr.dll (5.0.2195.7134)
  MS4.Dll (5.0.0.1)
  MS4User.dll (4.0.0.3)
  ole32.dll (5.0.2195.7059)
  oleaut32.dll (2.40.4531.0)
  shell32.dll (5.0.3900.7105)
  user32.dll (5.0.2195.7133)
  version.dll (5.0.2195.6623)
  winmm.dll (5.0.2161.1)
  winspool.drv (5.0.2195.6659)
  wsock32.dll (5.0.2195.6603)

After re-installing the four addins, R2002 appears to be running okay again (fingers crossed) and the above transcript hasn’t recurred.

2) I installed 6.10.4 network upgrade from the CD onto my PC (acting as the server), firstly doing the R6 server install, then the workstation setup. This was uneventful.

3) After completing the workstation install it took me to a main menu which included the R2002->R6 transfer option, which I selected. After answering all the questions and hitting the Transfer button I instantly got a dialogue saying ERROR: “The operation completed successfully”, which was obviously an error in itself!

4) I therefore switched to trying the R2002->R6 transfer option on the CD’s auto-run menu. After stepping through the Login Settings, then the Transfer Settings dialogues and hitting Next I got the Login Settings again, following by the Transfer Settings, then the Login Settings, then the Transfer Settings,…!

5) After giving up on that method I went back to the R2002->R6 transfer option on the workstation setup and this time I didn’t get the error message and the transfer occurred, taking about 45 minutes to transfer 532,170 species observations.

At (or near) the end of this transfer, after copying lots of files (rucksacks etc.)  I got an “Invalid floating point operation” and a set of summary statistics flashed briefly before Windows killed off the application. Not sure if it completed successfully? (Sally has suggested things for me to check).

6) I looked at the size of the NBNData_Data.MDF file and it is 2,073,536KB, i.e. only 24MB below the 2G limit!

I have 532,170 species observations in R2002 and the whole of its Database folder’s contents (database, dictionaries, etc.) totals only 901,748KB.  i.e. in transferring to R6 the size of the equivalent databases has more than doubled! Is this supposed to happen? (The R2002 nbndata.mdb file is 365,424KB).

I am therefore fearing that I’ll immediately have to switch to the unsupported SQL Server 2005 Express…?

7) I looked at the UpgradeErrors. These fell into two categories:

a) Those caused by NBNSYS, NHMSYS and JNCC related references that Sally says I can ignore, and

b) MEASUREMENT_QUALIFIER term list items that I’d added for “Sett”, “Queen”, “Nymph”, etc. which had failed to transfer across to R6. They are marked with “-1” in the SYSTEM_SUPPLIED_DATA field in R2002. I think the Import Wizard added these, so it probably set the flag wrongly when doing so. I’ll need to edit these to 0 and try again…

8) R6 appears to be running and I haven’t tested or explored it thoroughly yet, but…

a) I did notice that the “Report” button on the Locations window is missing and isn’t amongst the addins provided. Sally said this button is intended to be missing and is replaced by an xml report equivalent, but the one provided isn’t a patch on the button in R2002 which provides a neatly formatted report and I use a dozen times a day! Is there an equivalent in R6 that I haven't found yet? If not, can we have the button back please?

b) In order to specify taxon abundances in the report wizard I seem to need to tick 33 boxes to cover all the different possible types and then get 33 columns in the report grid! In R2002 I get two columns, the abundance and its qualifier, which is what I actually want. Is the R2002 equivalent available somehow?

As someone that does daily reports for consultants both of the above seem retrograde steps, reducing my efficiency and the service provided.

9) When will the dictionaries for R2002 be updated?

Regards,

Keith Balmer
Beds and Luton LRC

kbalmer's Website

2 Reply by Sarah Shaw

  • Sarah Shaw
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  • Registered: 23-06-2006
  • Posts: 267

Re: Network upgrade from 6.9.3 to 6.10.4 and R2002 to R6 transfer

Dear Keith

Sincere apologies for the delay in my reply.

Sorry to hear about your problems with data transer. Recently I have put together some guidance on using the new V6.10 CD's for transferring data from Recorder 2002 - Recorder 6 (a bit late for you I know). This is by no means fully comprehensive, but covers the basics and also lists some possible problems with the data being transferred/how to investigate or fix them). See the following post for details - http://forums.nbn.org.uk/viewtopic.php?id=449.

The Location_Reports addin was removed from the new V6.10 CDs, as in many cases this addin no longer worked, and at the time we thought that the XML - Site Reports would replace this.

If this addin did work for you in Recorder 6 (and you want to continue to use it) you could always re-install this addin from your previous Recorder 6 CD (e.g. V6.7.2).

To do this (given a quick test and seems ok):

Put Recorder 6 CD into CD-Drive and <exit> welcome screen displayed. Using Windows Explorer browse to the CD-Drive, right click and select Open.

Go to the Install Files\Addins folder. Copy the 'LocationReports.ocx' file to your desktop and remove CD.

Open Recorder 6 and go to Tools - Install - Addin Module. Click on the <install> button, browse to the .ocx file on your desktop and click on <Open>. You should then get a message to stay this addin has been successfuly installed, then click <ok>.

Hope the above helps.

Please let me know if you don't have access to the above file or if this doesn't work.

Best wishes,

Sarah

Sarah Shaw
Biodiversity Information Assistant
JNCC

Sarah Shaw
Biodiversity Information Assistant
JNCC

3 Reply by kbalmer

  • kbalmer
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  • From: Bedford
  • Registered: 12-05-2006
  • Posts: 162

Re: Network upgrade from 6.9.3 to 6.10.4 and R2002 to R6 transfer

I have now tried a fresh R2002->R6 transfer on my new PC (the old one died under the strain) and have the following additional observations/problems:


3) Old Problem. This problem can be worked around by exiting the entire dialogue and restarting. Going from step 1 to step 2 directly causes the problem.


10) New problem. During the R2002 -> R6 transfer it died with:

“Error copying from table 3.LOCATION_TYPE
EOleException
Could not find the file ‘C:\Documents and Settings\keith\My Documents\BRMC\Species\Recorder 2002\Database\UpgradeErrors.mdb”

Repeated attempts caused the same error. In the end I manually created an empty Access database for it to populate and it was then happy!!! (I suspect it isn’t coping with the non-default location of the R2002 database?)


11) New problem. Later in the R2002->R6 transfer, having transferred a lot of data it died with

“ODBC – connection to ‘SQL ServerBRC\RECORDER’ failed”

As the MSDE server is called ‘KEITH-DELLV400\RECORDER’ I’m not surprised it failed!

The transfer at this point died completely so I don’t know if my database is valid, corrupted or just short of some things.

I do know that none of the Maps, Rucksacks etc. were copied across, so I am definitely missing some things (but possibly not records?). Can these be copied manually or is the R6 format different?


6) Old Concern. This time the NBNData_Data.MDF file is 1,884,992KB i.e. smaller than last time (maybe because of the early termination?) but is still worryingly full.

(I can’t use SQL Server Express 2005 as its R2002->R6 flow dies (see http://forums.nbn.org.uk/viewtopic.php?id=475)).


7b) These problems have now gone, by setting the flag to 0.


7c) New Problem. I have 21 TAXON_DETERMINATION errors that I didn't have last time.


8a) Old Problem. Thanks for the suggestion Sarah. I will give it a try and let you know.


Regards, Keith
Beds and Luton LRC

kbalmer's Website

4 Reply by kbalmer

  • kbalmer
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  • Registered: 12-05-2006
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Re: Network upgrade from 6.9.3 to 6.10.4 and R2002 to R6 transfer

The new TAXON_DETERMINATION errors were tracked to 5 species that had been added to dictionaries on the old PC. When R2002 was reinstalled on the new machine I'd failed to copy the dictionaries across.

A subsequent R2002 to R6 transfer was clean of unexplained UpgradeErrors but again crashed with the “ODBC – connection to ‘SQL ServerBRC\RECORDER’ failed” error.

As the subsequent message says "Aborting the transfer of data at this point is very likely to leave the data and programme unusable", and I know none of the rucksacks, etc. were copied, then I'm obviously not going to trust this LRC's records to R6 yet (again).

Can anyone suggest a workaround to the “ODBC – connection to ‘SQL ServerBRC\RECORDER’ failed” problem please? (I don't have a server called "SQL ServerBRC"!).

Regards, Keith
Beds and Luton LRC

kbalmer's Website

5 Reply by charlesroper

  • charlesroper
  • charlesroper
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  • From: Field Studies Council
  • Registered: 26-03-2006
  • Posts: 906

Re: Network upgrade from 6.9.3 to 6.10.4 and R2002 to R6 transfer

Hi Keith, I can't offer any solutions I'm afraid, but have you tried contacting your Recorder Expert? It sounds like you might need a bit of one-on-one help.

Charles Roper
Digital Development Manager | Field Studies Council
http://www.field-studies-council.org | https://twitter.com/charlesroper | https://twitter.com/fsc_digital

charlesroper's Website

6 Reply by sallyrankin

  • sallyrankin
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  • Registered: 07-04-2006
  • Posts: 371

Re: Network upgrade from 6.9.3 to 6.10.4 and R2002 to R6 transfer

I got the “ODBC – connection to ‘SQL Server…’ failed” error on one of the first transfers I did with v6.10.4 and the server mentioned did not exist. It was also followed by the “Aborting the transfer …” message to which I said Yes to abort it but on close inspection I found that all the data in the database had transferred. I was not trying to transfer rucksacks etc. or mapping files so I don’t know whether these would have transferred. I have reported this to JNCC and given Sarah a copy of the database concerned for further investigation. The thing to do is check that items at the lowest levels in the hierarchies have been transferred. If they have transferred everything above them should have transferred. Referential integrity should ensure that.

Once you have got your data across into a Recorder 6 SQL Server 2000/MSDE database you can then swap over to using SQL Server 2005/Express provided you accept that it is not officially supported by JNCC yet. It is just that the R2002 to R6 transfer doesn’t work with SQL Server 2005. When setting up SQL Server 2005 Express on my laptop I found Stuart Ball’s document on the subject very helpful – see the File Uploads section of the Forum. I don’t know what he used to zip it but I couldn’t unzip it initially using the Windows XP facility. However I downloaded BitZipper to do something else then found that I could unzip Stuart’s document. He says “You should ensure that any previous installation of Recorder 6 has been completely removed including any MSDE instance associated with it.” but I have SQL Server 2005 Express on the C: drive on my laptop and MSDE on the D: drive and I haven’t detected any problems yet.

Sally Rankin, JNCC Recorder Approved Expert
E-mail: s.rankin@btinternet.com
Telephone: 01491 578633
Mobile: 07941 207687