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Unable to change DBMS Cache setting

gbpgbp Member Posts: 3
edited 2004-06-23 in Navision Financials
Greetings,

I'm new to this forum and this is my first post (sorry, quite long). Hope to seek your help regarding changing DBMS cache setting.

I'm running NF 2.60.E on a dedicated Windows 2000 server with the following configuration: 1x1GHz processor, 512MB RAM, 4x18GB SCSI HDD with RAID. Clients are of mixed Win98s and XPs. I have a 7 user licenses and it allows a maximum of 32GB database. At the moment my database has a size of 10GB and is currently 45% used.

NF was running slower and slower over the past 2 years. For example, it takes more than 10 minutes to print the first report of the day. I read somewhere that it could be due to my limited RAM. Last week, I've upgraded the server's RAM from 512MB to 2GB (confirmed during startup RAM checked) in hope to speed it up.

According to "Installation & System Management" manual, DBMS cache could be set to a maximum of 1GB. I've tried changing DBMS cache size on the Tools|Options screen as follow:
Object Cache (KB)	20000
DBMS Cache (KB)	1000000
Commit Cache	<Yes>
Status Bar	                <Yes>
Close Forms On Esc	<Yes>
Marquee Full Selection <No>
Quick Find	                <Yes>

NF server was restarted, however, the changes didn't reflect on the Database Information screen. The Information screen still keeps the existing DBMS cache value of 256MB (which was set during 1st installation by vendor) and the Option screen still keeps the 1GB setting. I've tried setting it to many other figures with service restarted, but regardless of whatever I've changed in the Option screen, the DBMS cache value in the Information screen still remains as 256MB.

I've also tried the followings with no avail:

- execute server command in DOS prompt with cache=1000000, ......installasservice. The DOS command was executed successfully but services failed to start properly. It only came alive again when I set the DBMS cache back to 256MB or less.

- remove and reinstall NF server by setting DBMS cache to 1000000KB during installation. The installation halted halfway. But strangely, it went thru smoothly once I reset the DBMS cache to 256MB or less.

I understand that changing DBMS cache setting using any of the above methods should work fine but just wondering what went wrong for my case. Could it be due to my 10GB database size? Does size matter in this case? I would appreciate greatly for any help from anyone.

Thank you in advance.

Regards,
gbp

Comments

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    Tommy_SchouTommy_Schou Member Posts: 117
    Sounds odd! :)

    I have heard somewhere (I think) that you should not use 1GB as a cache size. Sorry I cannot substantiate it a bit more but I would recommed you try and lower it to ie. 850mb just to try it out.

    Changing the cache size should be easy enough and you have tried everything it seems so I don't really have a clue what is wrong with your installation but I would try

    Server.exe uninstallasservice

    followed by

    server.exe <all your parameters incl. new cache size> WITHOUT installasservice just to see if you can start the server.exe in a command-prompt. If it won't start.. maybe it will tell you why.

    If it starts ok then just stop it and do a

    server.exe installasservice

    Then it should work.

    Good luck :wink:
    Best regards
    Tommy
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    fbfb Member Posts: 246
    Do you have an anti-virus scanner active on the server? A post in the microsoft.public.navision newsgroup explained the 'long start-up in the morning' as follows:
    ... the server releases all cache memory when no one is connected to the database, [and] it also closes the database file. This means that whenever the first user connects to the server, the database file is reopened. All virus scanners that I know of will by default scan files whenever they are opened ... and scanning a database file can take quite some time....
    The solution is to exclude the Navision database from scanning...
  • Options
    gbpgbp Member Posts: 3
    Tommy,

    Thanks for your reply. After trying your method using 850MB and run it without installasservice at command-prompt, I got the following message:

    The operating system returned the error <87>:
    The parameter is incorrect.

    Again, it runs successfully by just changing the cache=850000 to 256000. Sigh.... Anyway, thank you.


    fb,

    The server doesn't have anti-virus program running. Nevertheless, thanks for highlighting this piece of info to me.
  • Options
    DoomhammerDoomhammer Member Posts: 211
    Our customer installed additional 1GB of RAM into his server. On server we changed size of DBMS cache from 256 MB to 1GB (does not work) and then to 900 000 MB (worked from command line and installed as service). But in last few days, thier navision server service fails to start automatically (terminates with event ID 7011 in sytem log: 3000 miliseconds timeout and ID 109 Error in 87 in module 1 e:\NF260A\7896\source\ide\server\server.c (504))
    When administrator of this server starts Navision server service from Service manager, then navision server starts correctly...

    Is it due big DBMS cache?

    On this server, there are much services (it is Win2K Small Business server with Exchange and MS SQL server 2000).

    Does anybody know, how to correct this problem?

    Thanks in advance
    Martin Bokůvka, AxiomProvis
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    mfvanderpoolmfvanderpool Member Posts: 1
    gbp,

    I know this doesn't help much :x - but I have the exact same problem. A few months ago I tried the methods you describe to increase our DBMS from 650 to 900, same exact results...no matter which method I tried, the DBMS would either not increase, or the service would actually fail to start. All the experts I know were dumb-founded. I'm getting ready to install a new server, creating new DB's (specifying 900mb DBMS) & running a restore to rid this issue for good....

    Mike
  • Options
    nelsonnelson Member Posts: 107
    1) From Administrative Tools, Services, stop the Navision Server from running.
    It will usually fail with an error message stating that the service did not respond in a timely fashion, ignore that and check (with Task Manager) that server.exe and slave.exe are slowly decreasing the used memory.
    2) When those processes have finally released all the memory and died, open a Command Prompt.
    From the Database Server installation folder do "server uninstallasservice", that will remove the Database Server service.
    3) Although the maximum advertised cache memory for Navision's proprietary Database Server is 1 GB, there is a known bug which sometimes prevents values above 800 MB from being used. I don't have any detailed information on this bug, you will have to search this site or http://www.mbsonline.org/http://www.navision.net for further info.
    4) Still on the Command Prompt, type "server [options] cache=750000" and check that the server is running and the client program can access the server. [options] should be replaced with the correct option for your installation.
    5) After checking that the server is running OK (maybe you can experiment with the cache size to see how high you can set it before it stops working), you should install the server as a service using "server [options] cache=750000 installasservice".
    6) Again back to Administrative Tools, Services start the service and that's it.

    I don't know why so many people have problems with setting up a server and changing cache sizes... :roll:

    Everything I wrote can be found in the "Installation & System Management: Microsoft Business Solution-Navision Database Server" PDF-Manual located in the Doc folder of the Product-CD.
    If you don't have a Product-CD, you can download a copy of the Doc folder for version 3.70 right here on this site:
    http://www.mibuso.com/dlinfo.asp?FileID=267
    Nelson Alberto
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