DSXchange

I'm running into a peculiar issue with Designer. I am unable to open DRS stages now. Any other stages are fine (I've tested transform, hashed file, sequential file, merge, ODBC, Oracle, UniVerse, etc.), but Designer hangs if I try to open a DRS stage. I can switch to that window, but I can't close it without using task manager (I can't even right click on the window and select "Close").

I've determined that it is neither project, server, nor version specific (I get the same problem in Project A, Server A, version 7.5 as in Project B, Server B, version 7.1). My coworker is able to open DRS stages without issue on his machine, so it appears to be related to my client machine.

I have tried restarting, shutting down, and reinstalling (shut down, uninstalled both 7.1 and 7.5 and deleted the C:\Program Files\Ascential directory when I was done, restarted, installed 7.1, installed the XP patch for DataStage, and still had the issue). Not sure what else to try from here...

I had no issues this morning as I was working. My initial guess was a RAM issue--I had multiple applications open, and 5 or 6 jobs open in Designer, and when I tried opening a DRS stage I only had the "General" tab to choose from. I figured it was a RAM problem, so I closed a few apps and tried again, and I have been getting hanging Designer sessions since then.

I would have thought that any corrupted files would have been replaced by the re-install. I will probably have to submit a ticket to IBM, but I was hoping to avoid that if possible. Does anyone have any suggestions for things to try to clear this up?

When you uninstalled, did you clean out any leftover registry entries as well? That can be key.

How would I go about doing that?

It involves editing the registry. Get some help from someone who's done that before if you haven't - wrong moves there can render Windows totally inoperable.

Run 'regedit' and remove any 'Ascential' keys.

Alrighty, thanks for the suggestion, Craig.

I'll see if I can fix the registry without blowing anything up. I'll post again afterward.

Great success! The Windows guys here suggested using Revo Uninstaller (freeware available at http://www.revouninstaller.com/), and I was able to get back into DRS stages again. Revo only works if the program you want to clean up is currently installed, so I had to reinstall DS in order to uninstall it with Revo, but it helps you take care of the registry cleanup after uninstalling. Since I'm paranoid, I only removed the registry entries that had the word 'DataStage' in them or were a subfolder of a DataStage or Ascential folder. That was enough to do the trick though.

Thanks again for the suggestion, Craig. Much appreciated. I was not particularly looking forward to lugging around the old "spare" laptop all weekend...