I have a notion of what's going on here...May I venture a guess that the data you are having trouble with is coming through an interconnect? I mention that because in the event that data moves from an ASCII to an EBCDIC machine a character conversion needs to take place - and sometimes your delimiters will get mangled in the process.
Here at ICC we could configure your mailbox so that all inbound terminators were mapped to any character (in fact up to 3 characters) of your choosing (at no charge) - this could alleviate your problem - perhaps Sterling could do that for you as well.
The intermittant nature of the problem could be caused by the fact that only certain trading partners (interconnected TP's?) are causing the problem or perhaps only interconnected TP's coming from a certain other VAN (GEIS, ATT, Advantis, etc) might be the cause?
I hope this helps you in resolving what obviously can be a very taxing issue (no pun intended) ---Russ
At 11:00 AM 9/15/00 -0700, you wrote:
>>>>
I have had a problem where Sterling has mangled my data by inserting some weird character. It has happened twice with no changes on my end (and gone away twice with no changes on my end). What happenes it the data will show up on their report website with some funny gaelic AE character sprinkled through it.<<<<
The frustrating part is trying to get them to realize that they have mangled it... They blame me at first then I send the original file with no corruption. By the time I get past level one support to someone who is aware of the issue, the problem has stopped and they say there is nothing they can do since it isn't happening now, just keep my eyes open for it.
The first time it happened over a period of three days, the second time it was just a day. I do know that Sterling doesn't just store and forward - They do some delimiter conversion.
Anthony
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Test, Brian [<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, September 15, 2000 10:33 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Is anyone else having the same Sterling Issues? No, I don't
> mean the over paying issue.
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> We are using a frame-relay connection using FTP to Sterling,
> and we've been
> having a problem of late with getting data to our customers through
> Sterling, and I was wondering if anyone else has this
> problem, and could
> advise.
>
> Here's the story: When we send data out to Sterling, our
> communication audit
> reports will show that transfer is complete. You would think that
> everything is going great. However, after a couple of days
> we would get a
> call from our customer(s) asking where our ASN is, or if I'm
> lucky enough, I
> will spot it on our delinquent FA report before they call.
>
> After doing some initial investigation with Sterling it
> appears that even
> though our reports say transfer complete, their audit reports
> may show that
> the line was dropped. Digging a little further, and after
> talking to one of
> their networking people, he admitted that they have been
> having FTP server
> load problems over the last couple of months.
>
> I do not have a problem with servers going down and
> connections dropping,
> but I do have a problem with not being notified about it.
> The information
> that I'm sending with is critical, and no one on their end is
> proactively
> monitoring it as promised by their sales rep when selling us
> their service.
> It is my understanding that Sterling is suppose to maintain
> all the systems
> and connections on their side, so why no notification?
>
> I hope that I'm not alone on this.
>
> Thank you,
> Brian Test
> E-Commerce Analyst
> ACCO North America
> 300 Tower Parkway
> Lincolnshire, IL 60069-3640
> (800) 222-6462 x3973
> (847) 419-4140 FAX
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] <<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> "WorldSecure" made the following
> annotations on 09/15/00 12:25:56
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russel Matson
Internet Commerce Corporation
805 3rd Avenue
New York NY 10022
212-271-7640 x7539
http://www.icc.net
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