I stand corrected. The Migrator login timeout problem is STILL not fixed in 7.6.04 SP3, in spite of the fact that they got me a hotfix in November 2011. Installing SP3 over a system with the hotfix in place reintroduces the error. Considering that I first reported the problem in mid-February 2011, and they had a YEAR to figure it out and get the fix into SP3, their track record on fixing broken stuff is just plain pitiful. I checked the SW bug, and it is in fact still open, "Tentatively Targeted" for a "Future Patch Release." I suspect that hell will freeze over first.
Christopher Strauss, Ph.D. Call Tracking Administration Manager University of North Texas Computing & IT Center http://itsm.unt.edu/ -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of strauss Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 11:19 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Message in Error log and AR Server timeout We reported this problem with 7.6.04.01 last summer and have been living with it ever since. The mid-tier caches incorrect login names or incorrect case login names that are passed to AREA LDAP, especially when people try to use the mid-tier with a mobile device that capitalizes their login, and then kills threads on the AR Server when AREA allows them in and they do not exist in the User table in that form (Jsmith versus jsmith). These incorrect or invalid account names are cached by the mid-tier, especially the ones where non-case-sensitive LDAP will authenticate them whereas case-sensitive ARS would not have. On the end of the next prefetch, the mid-tier throws them at the AR Server without passwords and they are in turn thrown at AREA and you get three or four thread crashes per account. I have seen the production mid-tier unusable for 30 minutes after a restart (a different mid-tier already connected is unaffected) as thread after thread crashed on the AR Server - exactly the same problem you experienced. Real high quality code, here; I don't think BMC ever tested the ehcache prefetching on systems with AREA authentication enabled. We also saw the same thread deaths when someone used an ipad to hit our Kinetic portal - invariably a capitalized version of their login name - so AREA would let them in, then Kinetic would halt them when it could not match their credentials (Jsmith != jsmith) and could not pull their customer data. We finally killed that off with javascript in the Kinetic login page that forced the login name to lower case; we may have to do exactly the same thing on the mid-tier login.jsp pages (anyone have a working snippet of code for that??). I am testing now to see if this is fixed in SP3; we identified so many fatal installer problems in SP2 (ARS, mid-tier, Atrium, ITSM - against ITSM Suite servers upgraded from 7.1/7.0.02) last November that I have refused to use it for ANYTHING ever since. This defect is definitely NOT fixed if you only update the mid-tier to SP3 and the AR Server is still on SP1; I tried that first. I only just today got a full ARS SP3 over SP1 install completed on a clone of production, with a local and remote SP3 mid-tier, so I should be able to tell if they really fixed it tomorrow. If not, then I'll give up and start forcing the login to lower case on each mid-tier. That will keep Demo and similar mixed-case "system" accounts out too, but that's what the User Tool is still essential for. SP3 does fix the date-range crystal report problem we reported last summer (must be SP3 on BOTH the AR Server and mid-tier), as well as the Firefox-Work Info-text box defect we reported at the same time, so _some_ issues have been fixed that have caused us problems on production for the last 7 months. I think they fixed the Migrator login timeout problem introduced in 7.6.04.00 and retained in .01 and .02 (they finally gave me a post-SP2 hotfix that worked) but I have to test that as well. I'll post an update tomorrow. Christopher Strauss, Ph.D. Call Tracking Administration Manager University of North Texas Computing & IT Center _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"
