We've been getting this message a lot lately, and it usually results in a crash of the server with all applications locked. It happens often when I export or import a large batch of records. (more than 10,000 records.)

Our server is running Dual Xeon Quad-based processors on a 128GB SSD Drive. Memory installed is 8GB with Task Manager showing 6GB free.

What is causing this and how do we prevent this?

Sidenote, it appears that Sesame only runs on 1 or 2 of the CPU cores, and users are often 'waiting' on sesame to finish a big mass update, or import/export. Can we speed things up a bit?

Mark,

Thanks for the info. We finally graduated from several Q&A databases into a couple of mammoth sized Sesame applications. So now that we have all of our 'eggs in one basket', I'm concerned about these server issues.

The 10,000 + records that I import/export are all parent records. No child records in this batch. Usually, if I try to export or import more than 18,000 records, it will always crash the server, so I have to export in small batches. What a pain.

Regarding the 'wait time'; Most of our users have buttons on their forms to run xlookups and xpost into other databases throughout the day. Should we look into limiting xlookups in our office, or perhaps sit tight and hope for a 64-bit version of sesame?

Thanks,
Steve

Mark,

I can successfully export 55,679 records when running standalone, or client/server on MY PC only with no other aps loaded, but not in client/server with several aps loaded across our wired network. My export file is 43MB and contains 106 fields from a flat database.

I don't know how to tell if the server is swapping, but I'll learn up on that and get back to you. (unless you know an easy way to tell).

Thanks!

The database is a Q&A translation. It has no subforms, but I may have added, and then deleted a subform long ago; I don't recall.

Let me know if there is something I can do to test or rebuild the 'integrity' of the database.

Thanks Mark. I'm emailing it now 12.8MB zipped. No problem if you can't get to it.

Steve

I'll watch it this week and let you know.

Thanks again.

update: I tried to export ALL records. about 60% through the 'preperation phase', The server crashed. Sesame client only reported that it lost connection.

I watched memory usage in Task Manager (on the server, as before) and it stayed within the numbers I reported earlier, but I did notice 'dumpprep.exe' showed up on the list just prior to the crash.

Any thoughts?

Steve

I see two mysteries here. Why is your server using 400~500 MB of memory. When I run the same app, my computer ranges between 80 Mb and 200 Mb for an export. When the export completes, the memory is returned. And second, even if it is using 500 MB of memory, why is that an out-of-memory condition, when there should be between 1.5 GB and 4 GB available.

I assume you are seeing the same behavior on any machine you try?

Steve, I think we may be seeing a fault at the point where the 32 bit application and 64 bit operating system meet. Sesame is checking for memory based on a 32 bit value. The operating system reports the amount, but - because it is large, it exceeds the bit space of a 32 bit integer and "rolls over" to a negative number. My only hesitancy here is that I have a 64 bit computers as well, running Vista and Ubuntu Linux for 64 bits and have never seen this.

I will double check the code for 32 bit variables trying to hold 64 bit values. In the meantime, I would suggest that you set some of your server's settings closer to those on a box that is not having this problem and see if that has any effect.

We crashed again while trying to load Sdesigner in addition to our other aps. Since everyone was disconnected, I took the opportunity to change the server pc settings to match my pc  (system memory and processor now set to 'programs') and rebooted the machine.

With all aps unlocked and loaded back up, I don't see any difference, except the windows console is a bit sluggish to respond (not a problem). Also, the sesame GUI again shows 'physical memory remaining' unchanging at 4,294,967,295, matching 'Virtual memory remaining'...quite different than my windows 7 pc. (both machines are 64bit OS).

I hope we are getting close to finding the culprit.

Thanks for all your efforts.

Steve

Other programs running on the server pc seem to use very little memory. The second biggest memory user is SearchIndexer.exe using 125K and then w3dbsmgr.exe using 76K and then Outlook.exe using 50K

Taskmgr shows total 'available' memory at 6.8GB and 'system cache' at 1.3 GB

Kernal memory shows total at 100,300 and paged 60,260 and nonpaged 40,000.

Seems like we have plenty of memory just waiting to be used.

I've never been keen to having all of our aps loaded into one sesame server. In the case of a crash in one database, everything hits the floor. Can we launch a second sesame server on this pc to run some of our bigger aps? They will need to have xlookups run between them, which would cause issues?

Thanks.

Mark, here is list of our aps that load into one sesame server:

I restarted the sesame server gui and loaded up each ap, making notes of 'mem usage' from task manager on the server.

Orders.db
Filesize 166MB 
Mem usage 190MB

Products.db
Filesize 144MB
Mem usage 166MB

Inven-test.db
Filesize 63MB
Mem usage 70MB

Stock.db
filesize 10MB
mem usage 12MB

OldSales.db (only used occasionally. contains 353,000 records. no X commands.)
Filesize 189MB
Mem usage 226MB
(sesame.exe mem usage swelled to 1GB during loading phase.)

With the above aps loaded, Mem usage is sitting at 664K and issues begin to snowball....

Now that these aps are loaded, I cannot get an additional client window to appear to load the zipcodes ap. Connections show 9 of 13 (but I only have 5 client GUI's 'visible' on my pc.)

After closing all sesame clients, connections shows 4 of 13. Don't know how to release the 4 that are still 'connected'. (This happens often.)

Will run same test on my windows 7 pc.

Sorry to put you through all of this, but I am getting truly perplexed. Could you please try some experiments? First, try to connect your max number of clients without loading any apps. After they have connected, disconnect them making sure the connection count goes down with each. If that goes as it should, try the same test with any one of the more likely suspect apps loaded. If that goes well, try loading all of the apps that are regularly loaded, but do not open any forms (do you have any "application open" programming?) and see how that goes.

From the numbers you are telling me, it sounds like you are approaching but not exceeding the 1 GB mark. We have quite a few customers with much larger applications with many more connections, so I am still suspicious that something more is going on here than mere size, especially in light of the network connection problem you are outlining.

If you do have a 32 bit OS machine that is not otherwise occupied, it might be worth a few moments to see how it compares. It might be worth a moment to get Ray or Ben on your server with remote desktop so they can see this first hand. Or, if you prefer, send in all the apps (neatly packaged) and I will run them on my machine, which sounds very similar to yours, and hopefully will exhibit the same symptoms.

BTW: Does your server log indicate any problems?

OK Mark, per your request, here are the results of my test....

In client/server mode serving from the windows server 2003 computer: (i have 13 client seats.)

With no aps loaded, all 13 client GUI's loaded and unloaded with no problems.

I loaded Orders.db and then opened 12 additional client gui's. All 12 opened and closed with no problem. (this one has 'application open programming', which also loaded a tiny db called Pers.db)

Loaded Products.db, in addition to orders.db. 11 client gui's opened and closed just fine. (this also has ap open programming)

Loaded Inven-test.db in addition to above two db's. 10 client's opened and closed fine. (has a default form, but no ap open programming)

Loaded Stock.db and 9 clients opened and closed fine.

Ran the same test for Oldsales.db, 8 clients opened and closed fine.

Loaded zipcodes.db (wow! couldn't do this last night.) but then could not open any new client GUI's but server shows I am connecting each time I launch from icon.

closed Zipcodes.db client, and it released from the sever (as per server admin panel>unload application) and I could then open up another client GUI to load zipcodes again. I'm now showing 13 connections at the server, with only 6 client GUI's on my desktop.

I closed all my GUI's and sesame shows 8 of 13 connections. I am able to open FOUR new client Gui's. Closed them all. Sesame server now shows 9 of 13 connections.

I opened 4 more client GUI's and then they all closed and sesame server closed and popped up numerous (probably 13) notices on my desktop that the client was no longer communicating with the server.

I repeated the above test, loading zipcodes.db third in the list of aps.

After loading zipcodes.db, and then Oldsales.db. Getting a new GUI to open is getting hairy now. one gui did not open, but the next one did.

After loading Orders.db, I can't get any more GUI's. Sesame memory in taskmgr on the server shows 650,000K. Sesame server shows 13 connections. I have 7 GUI's visible on my desktop.

I can run the same test on a 32bit machine tomorrow and I'm fine with any other steps you think we should take. We need to figure this out, so just let me know what's next.

Thanks again for all your time.

Steve

After some experiments here, and with the numbers you have posted, I am forming a picture. I can create similar symptoms if I take memory usage to extremes. I opened 24 different copies of your app, using 24 clients. Then, with Sesame server memory on the edge of 2 GB of usage, I kicked off enough exports to kick the usage over 2 GB. At which point, memory allocations start to fail and, because the conditions are notably controlled, the failures were noted and logged, I can see how in some cases they could result in a dropped connections and communications cessation. Basically, if there is no memory, there is no memory to use to report that there is no memory.

When you report memory usage of Sesame server from task manager, are you reporting the column labeled, "Working Set (Memory)"?

Steve_in_Texas wrote on Nov 18^th, 2010 at 3:08pm:


Did you send it directly to me or to support? I didn't see it go by.

In Task Manager there should be an option in the View menu to add or remove columns in the process table. One of the columns you can add is working set.

I thought you were on Windows 7.

Steve,
I found what may be the cause of some, if not all, of your issues. It has very little to do with memory consumption. It has to do with simultaneous exports. I am looking for a solution. Can you tell me a little about the exports you are doing?

Update: Moving the Sesame server from a Windows computer to Linux (Ubuntu version) has cured our memory issue, connection issues, as well as a few other headaches we were having with large, complex applications. The speed of sesame has also increased substantially.

Steve

To be a bit more precise, Mark did send me a beta version 2.5.3 that fixed a memory issue during exports, but we still had other problems with clients connecting to the server after several large aps were loaded. We finally moved to Linux and the issues were gone (and we went back to version 2.5.2).

I'll post more about sesame on Linux, as we give it more time to test.

Steve

The OS commands in Sesame are themselves completely cross-platform and operate identically on both operating systems. The OS commands they represent originated on Unix. Remember that Unix has always been (since the late 1960s) multi-user and multi-process. Windows is still only single user and only gained multi-process capabilities with Windows 95.  It was not truly multi-process until NT. Additionally, concepts like redirection of I/O and command shells both come from Unix.

Linux has much more software available for it than Windows does. Unfortunately, it tends to be either free (most of it is "open-source") or very expensive. But, generally, for every Windows package there are several Linux alternatives. Many of them are much better, though harder to learn, than the Windows program. Where Linux really shines is in utilities. Linux comes with 600-3000 utility programs and there are several hundred thousand available online.

Where Linux falls well behind Windows is in hardware support. Because MS makes companies sign exclusive use agreements, and Windows is very popular in the US, many hardware manufacturers do not make Linux drivers for their hardware. So it can be difficult to get a printer or a camera working with Linux. Fortunately, the Linux community is very active and often writes 3rd-party drivers for popular devices. Also, because Linux uses a standard driver format, the drivers are not subject to the proprietary mess over on Windows.

But, with all that said, SBasic usually runs on the clients, not the server, so I doubt Steve is running into any issues with these commands.

Bharat_Naik wrote on Apr 1^st, 2011 at 4:38pm:



I was looking at using Linux when we had to update our server (Windows 2000 Server extended support ended about a year ago).  I have done a number of installs at home and am very satisfied with it.  I use Ubuntu Desktop, which is much more user-friendly than most Linux versions.  If you have a spare hard disk, definitely download a copy and install it.  If you would like, I can send you an extremely detailed step-by-step installation process not only for the basic install (which doesn't need it) but also for the minutia.  For instance, there is a package called "Microsoft core fonts" that installs Times New Roman, Arial, etc.

Linux hardware support nowadays is much better than previously.  I have had some problems with combinations of particular video cards with particular motherboards -- but the mobos are from circa 2004 and the video cards are AGP 64-128MB, so they are pretty old too.  You can easily fit an extremely robust install on a 40GB disk.  I'm talking The GIMP, full Libre Office, video editors, video codecs, PDF editing, etc.  If you REALLY go crazy with free software you're looking at maybe 10GB of disk space.  NVidia has full-blown Linux drivers, so their cards work pretty well. Samsung and HP have good printer support.

One caution: If you do do an install, disconnect all your other hard disks first.  If you don't, the install will automatically install multi-boot software and you'll have to uninstall it later (which is a minor annoyance but not a problem).  Just select the boot drive during power up or restart.  Linux will be able to read and interact with your Windows drives once they are reconnected, but Windows won't recognize the Linux drives.

One of my biggest "problems" with Ubuntu is that I turn on the computer and about 20 seconds later the main screen is up.  (2.4GHz socket 478 Celeron, 1.5GB DDR, 80GB Western Digital PATA -- the mobo is pre-SATA.) I keep waiting for the rest of the programs to load and then I remember--if the main screen is up it's ready to go.

Go to You Tube and search for Nixie Pixel.  She's a Linux/Windows 7 guru with a lot of Linux demos.  Definitely check out Compiz Fusion.  It makes Windows 7's Aero interface look like a toy.

I haven't tried Sesame yet on Linux but it is something I plan to do in the near future.  One thing I do like is the fact that it won't involve any rewrites.

... One last thing ... In a very soon upcoming revision to the Linux kernel they will be adding virtualization as a basic feature.

Steve, one caveat with Linux (I'm pretty sure it's not limited to Ubuntu.):

As you probably know, in Windows any hard disk location (HDD0, HDD1, etc.) can be used as the boot drive and unless you have an oddball highly custom setup, Windows will automatically assign that drive partition as C:\.  For instance, I have a 1.5TB drive with XP on a 100GB partition and the rest for data, and a separate 80GB drive with Win 7.  I also have an IDE drive tray and sometimes I have to put a drive in that.  So I can select from 3 completely separate copies of Windows.  If I move a drive from IDE-1 Master to IDE-2 Slave, Windows will still boot.

Not so with Linux.  If you move a disk at all, the whole system won't boot.  There is a boot configuration file that assigns each partition a specific ID.  You will normally have at least 3 partitions in Linux, often more.  You have to edit that file before rebooting. Because the config file is one of the very first things in the boot process, you won't get a "Find Target" dialog or anything similar.

One of the neat differences between Linux and Windows is how Linux handles mount points.  In Windows, you can only mount a drive into an empty directory.  So, you can't copy everything in C:\Program Files to a separate hard disk and then mount that disk at C:\Program Files.  In Linux you can.  That means you can have \Data on your boot disk with, e.g., 2GB of test files and then when everything is working, just mount your production folder at that point.  The data in the original folder will be invisible until the other drive is unmounted. No need to change pointers, references, etc.