Clarion Application on TSplus - is Clarion IP server needed

1

Hi All

We have a customer that runs Clarion application with Top speed database - Server is hosted with TSPLUS - all users connect with RDP.

Im responsible for the platform - application is managed by 3rd party - we are told the locked files “ghost Sessions” issues are due to network/ server - prior to moving to cloud and TSplus - application ran in house on a local lan to server scenario - same issues - 3rd party provider said it was network issues - so customer moved to a TSPLUS solution to eliminate any network issues - problem still persists.

Few questions:

  1. is the Clarion IP server required on a TSPLUS server? (Version 7.3 used)
  2. we see claipdat.exe crashes daily on the server and not much info in event viewer, how do we debug the cause:
    Faulting application name: claipdat.exe, version: 7.300.0.8222, time stamp: 0x4dac7db8
    Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
    Exception code: 0xc0000005
    Fault offset: 0x00000004
    Faulting process id: 0x164c
    Faulting application start time: 0x01db867acce63224
    Faulting application path: C:\ClarionDataServer\claipdat.exe
    Faulting module path: unknown
    Report Id: a388575a-4708-42e8-b949-da6e2d81e056
    Faulting package full name:
    Faulting package-relative application ID:

This is a windows 2019 server with TSPLUS version 18.10.2.11 running( latest version) -

2

You could try running your application without the IP Driver.

Depends on how many concurrent users as to how well it will perform.

There have been quite a lot of improvements since Clarion 7 which was a troublesome release to say the least!

3

You may have a field problem in a file you access.

4

I’ve used tsplus extensively over the years and have never used the Clarion IP server. We also mixed local direct-access and remote users without any significant issues. There were oplock options that needed to configured for that scenario. Right now, all my tsplus users are remote and not local. (Local could also RDP to the server which we’d consider for ‘special’ problem children/users.)

5

I’ve used TS PLus and other “terminal service” type products for a couple of decades.They’ve generally been reliable. I’ve also used the IP Driver since C6.3 and updated it as new releases have been available.

TPS files have been a problem on network shares but not really a problem in a TS Plus environment. I use the IP Driver extensively for multi user TPS files - and even a couple of SQL systems.

The IP Driver has worked on LANs and in Terminal Services without a problem for me. I’ve tested my back office product via long distance Internet, except for latency it generally performs well.

If you’re getting an error, check what you’re doing with the IP Data Dll - in the folder in the ClarionDataServer it will often leave a text file with error details.

As an aside my Jobcard product has it’s own print server/manager (using the IP Driver) that runs on a local PC when the users run TS Plus or cloud type service and the response times are good enough to run a POS printer and cash drawer.

If you have a mismatch between the application’s IP.dll and the IP Data server this has been known to cause problems in the past.

If you can, I would update to the latest IP Server/Driver
cheers
Rohan

6

Hi Jobcard - thanks for taking the time to reply. Customer environment has only has users connecting with remote desktop to the Server (TSPLUS server). this server runs the application as well as the database - so everything is on the one server.

we looking at 40-60 users concurrently connecting.

“check what you’re doing with the IP Data Dll” I dont see this file under clarionDataServer - anywhere else i can find it or what ecactly is the file called?

“If you can, I would update to the latest IP Server/Driver” - we have brought this up several times- why is latest versions of software not being used- with no clear answer.

7

Hi Dmjung - Thanks for taking the time to respond - all users connect to the server using Remote desktop - data and files sit on same server - my understanding Oplocks are only used when files used over network etc. would i still need to disable Oplocks or change Oplock settings in this setup?

8

Hi Rog163
40-60 concurrent users should not be a problem in a Terminal Server environment. The theoretical limit for an IP Server is 1,000 users.

The location of the IP Data DLL will be dependent on how you’ve structured things on the Server.

IP Server best practice, using my product as an example (drive does not have to be C:) is a folder C:\ClarionDataServer\Jobcard that contains your application’s Data Dll .

For my application my ip data dll is IP_Jobcard.DLL - with that dll I supply all of the extra DLLs (Drivers etc the compiler copied into the release folder. In my case I have a subfolder for data e.g. C:\ClarionDataServer\Jobcard\Data - this is not a requirement the data can be in the same folder as the IP Data Dll

When I referred to check what you’re doing with the IP Data Dll I meant look in the source code to see if there were any special procedures that had been written in the Data DLL itself.

The current version of the IP Server is Clarion 11.1.0.13845 - the version (7.3) you’re running was released in 2011.

If you don’t have access to the source code, I’m sorry I don’t know what else you can do because to disable the application from IP Driver mode you would have to recompile the source code.

Exception code: 0xc0000005 is an access violation, which could come from any number of factors including the Windows environment itself. One suggestion is to run sfc/scannow from an administrator command prompt to fix any Windows Error files.

You could also try changing the SoftVelocity IP Data Server Service to run elevated under an admin account. I have no idea whether that would work.

I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. Ideally, you get the source code and recompile in Clarion 11.1.
Rohan

9

Hi Rog,
I have several servers running Clarion applications with TPS files using TSplus for licensing.
I’ve also used Citrix and Microsoft licensing since 1996.
No. The Clarion IP server is not required on a TSplus server. It can be used, but it doesn’t provide much benefit. I do not use it on my servers.
I have 280 user accounts on one of my cloud servers, with a peak usage of about 35 concurrent users. The server is Windows Server 2016 Standard Edition with 16 GB of RAM.
You noted that all users connect with RDP.
Actually, RDP is a protocol, Remote Desktop Protocol. Remote Desktop Connection is an app that you can use to connect to a remote server. It uses RDP and TCP/IP.

There is a special mode of Remote Desktop Services (RDS) called RemoteApp.
See Remote Desktop Services - Wikipedia.
Microsoft has a version of it as well as TSplus has its own and added some nice features. Citrix has Citrix Workspace app.
With RemoteApp, you can make the user’s session only see your Clarion app, and not the desktop on the server. This speed things up some and is a little more secure. When the user exits the Clarion app, it will automatically end their session or disconnect their session if you want it to do that. With RemoteApp, since the user doesn’t see the server’s desktop (and they still see their local desktop), it makes it seem like your Clarion app is running on their local computer.

If you use the MobileWeb Edition of TSplus, then the user can connect via a browser web page, that you can easily configure. Most of my users prefer the RemoteApp connection, but of course my Mac users use the web-based connection.
I recommend using the MobileWeb Edition and definitely using the RemoteApp option.

If I were you, I’d get rid of the IP driver and just keep things simple. I wouldn’t put up with those errors since it really doesn’t speed things up much (on a TSplus server) if any.
You will probably need 24 GB of RAM for 60 concurrent users. On my server, I’ve had 45 users use 82% of memory and got warnings about an overload.

Extra: Remote Desktop Connection app is actually mstsc.exe. Beside letting you connect to a remote server; it has options on the server that let you (with an Administrator account) shadow or control a user’s session. I have a little Clarion app that shows my current users, their idle time, their logon time, their session ID, whether they signed on with RemoteApp or through the web page, their screen resolution, their local IP address, and some other interesting stuff.
It has a button of course to shadow or control a selected user’s session. I use the /noConsentPrompt so I can shadow without the user being consented and can offer help proactively if I see the user struggling.
Bob

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10

I believe you’re correct as I haven’t messed with oplocks once we no longer had any local clients. I believe there were some issues with later SMB versions, but I haven’t thought about network oddities once everything went to remote servers (on AWS) using tsplus. Most users come in via the web portal, but a few, mainly me :), still RDP into the server.

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11

Hi Bob,
I’m wondering how you get idle time and signed on with RemoteApp or through the web page in a tsplus session?

12

Hi Vjacheslav,

Nope, it’s not in RemoteApp or a web page or anything to do with TSplus.

I found a way to get it using Windows API calls.

First, I want to show you my mainframe window. (It has a large toolbar).
The idle time :14 (that is, 14 seconds) shows at the bottom for the user to see it.

I save the idle time from each user running the program (on the server) in a data file.
The program will automatically sign them off if the idle time goes over 45 minutes.

image.png782×486 117 KB

I have another Clarion program that accesses the data file and shows all the users currently signed on and their idle times. It is updated every 5 seconds.

The field shown on the mainframe window is

Loc:IdleTime STRING(8) ! shown on the window
Loc:pLastInputInfo LONG ! internal variable

STRING(@s8),AT(112,241),USE(Loc:IdleTime),FONT(,COLOR:Green),LEFT,COLOR(00B3DEF5h),TRN,#ORDINAL(846)

In the mainframe procedure’s Timer event, I have:

OF EVENT:Timer
?Loc:Time{PROP:Text} = FORMAT(CLOCK(), @t7b)

Loc:pLastInputInfo = GetInactivityTime()
IF Loc:pLastInputInfo = 0
Loc:IdleTime = ‘’
ELSE
Loc:IdleTime = FORMAT(Loc:pLastInputInfo * 100 + 1, @t4)
IF SUB(Loc:IdleTime, 2,4) = ‘0:00’ THEN Loc:IdleTime [2:5] = ’ '.
IF SUB(Loc:IdleTime, 2,3) = ‘0:0’ THEN Loc:IdleTime [2:4] = ’ '.
IF SUB(Loc:IdleTime, 2,2) = ‘0:’ THEN Loc:IdleTime [2:3] = ’ '.
Loc:IdleTime = LEFT(Loc:IdleTime)
END

Idu:UserName = Glo:UserName
GET(IdleUsers, Idu:KeyUserName)
IF ERRORCODE()
Idu:UserName = Glo:UserName
Idu:IdleTime = Loc:pLastInputInfo
ADD(IdleUsers)
ELSE
Idu:IdleTime = Loc:pLastInputInfo
PUT(IdleUsers)
END

Here is the layout of the IdleUsers file:

IdleUsers FILE,DRIVER(‘TOPSPEED’),NAME(‘IdleUsers.tps’),PRE(Idu),CREATE !Track Idle times of current users
KeyUserName KEY(Idu:UserName),PRIMARY,NOCASE
record RECORD
UserName STRING(20)
IdleTime LONG !Number of seconds
END
END

Here are two API calls which are inside the Global Map embed.

MODULE(‘WINAPI’)
GetLastInputInfo (LONG tagLastInputInfo), BOOL ,PASCAL,NAME(‘GetLastInputInfo’)
GetTickCount (), ULONG,PASCAL,NAME(‘GetTickCount’)
END

Here is the declaration of my GetInactivityTime procedure. The prototype is (),LONG

GetInactivityTime FUNCTION

tagLASTINPUTINFO GROUP
cbSize ULONG
dwTime ULONG
END

te UNSIGNED, AUTO
lii LIKE(tagLASTINPUTINFO)

CODE
te = GetTickCount() ! GetTickCount(),ULONG,PASCAL
lii.cbSize = SIZE(tagLASTINPUTINFO)

r# = GetLastInputInfo(ADDRESS(lii)) ! GetLastInputInfo(LONG tagLastInputInfo),BOOL,PASCAL

RETURN (te - lii.dwTime) / 1000 ! time in seconds

Bob

13

Thanks for the information. I tried to get idle time through the WTSQuerySessionInformation call, but it didn’t work. There is another option through calling the quser utility (with a preliminary Wow64DisableWow64FsRedirection), but I would like to use the win api.