ODMA Incident Report

X000011: Trace Logging Failure

Last updated 2001-03-05-12:09 -0800 (pst)
The latest version of this information is available on the AIIM DMware ODMA site.

---

Category: Fatal Error - Critical	Incident ID: X000011
Priority: 9 - Urgent	Status: Under Investigation
Component: ODMA 2.0 Connection Managers ODMA32.dll 2.0.0 and Odma.dll 2.0.0	Repaired in: tbd Related information: ODMA 2.0 Specification section 7, Connection Manager Trace Logging Q000702: Interpreting Connection Manager Logs Q000603: Latest ODMA Software
Assigned To: tbd	Reported By: Steve Cartacki (1999-12-02)
Date Logged: 2000-08-11 Date Recorded: 2001-03-05	Date Closed: none

---

Content

1. Incident Summary

2. If This Is Happening to You

3. Actions Toward Resolution

4. Investigation of Incident

Contributors

---

1. Incident Summary (2001-03-05)

This incident covers two situations:

• The ODMA 2.0 Trace Log is enabled, but no log is produced.
• The ODMA 2.0 Trace Log is enabled and errors occur in ODMA operations until the Trace Log is disabled.

Why is this incident critical?

Difficulty in troubleshooting an ODMA configuration threatens the usability of ODMA and the confidence of users in being able to operate successfully via ODMA integrations.  Having the troubleshooting mechanisms be reliable and trustworthy is critical to ODMA operation.

2. If This Is Happening to You (2001-03-05)

This situation can be worked-around very easily:

1. Ensure that the latest ODMA 2.0 Connection Manager is installed.
2. When enabling logging by modification of the registy, also specify a specific file to be used for logging.  This file must be in a valid directory location that the user has permission to store data into.
3. When running with logging enabled, only have one ODMA-aware application operating at once.  This avoids possible conflicts and confusion accessing the log file.

3. Actions Toward Resolution (2001-03-05)

The following actions are being taken to resolve this incident:

• Confirm whether the incident was resolved by creation of correct registry entries with an usable file path for the log.
• Create a new FAQtip on using ODMA 2.0 Trace logs that guides users in ensuring that
  • The ODMA 2.0 Connection Manager is installed
  • Logging operation is correctly initiated by registry modification
  • The log is being produced where expected
• Create an enhancement request to include control of Connection Manager Logging as part of trouble-shooting and configuration utilities for ODMA 2.0 and beyond.
• Create an incident report against the ODMA Connection Manager 2.0.0 implementation to ensure that the logging function is efficient and operates reliably under all conditions (e.g., multiple applications operating at once and the log being viewed while being written).  The logging function should also fail benignly, rather than causing repeated error conditions.

4. Investigation of Incident (2001-03-05):

The ODMA 2.0 Connection Manager's logging operations were reviewed to determine ways that it can fail:

• If logging is enabled and no filename is specified, the Connection Manager will use a default log file in the Windows SYSTEM subdirectory.  This location can be off-limits on configurations of Windows NT and Windows 2000.
• If logging is enabled and the specified filename is for an inadmissible location (e.g., improper path or drive designation), the Connection Manager will encounter a failure every time that it attempts to append a new log entry to the log file.

Contributors

Steve Cartacki

encountered and reported the original incident.

Dal Ghotra

provided a worked example of successful logging along with work-around suggestions.

Dennis Hamilton

reviewed old ODMA Tech mail for untracked incidents, logged this incident (2000-08-11) and then recorded the incident (2001-03-05) as part of having all backlog recorded.  Dennis provided the analysis and proposed resolution.

created 2001-03-05-10:31 -0800 (pst) by orcmid
$$Author: Orcmid $
$$Date: 01-03-05 12:31 $
$$Revision: 3 $