DSXchange

Hi everyone.
While in a Transformer: When defining output derivations for a column, or when defining a constraint, right clicking and selecting any of the following options: macro, function, constant, routine, and transforms causes my pc to lock up (mouse does not work, and I cannot use any keys). Only a CTRL-ALT-DEL will allow me to get out of this situation. I have stopped and restarted the DS Engine, but the problem remains.
The problem is across all pc's, and all projects, and on two servers (DEV and PRD).
This has never been a problem before, I can't think of anything we (DataStage developers) have done that may have caused this.

Thanks in advance

Hi & Welcome ,
well your client is actually requesting this info from the repository on the server side.
so there are several possible reasons:
1. busy server.
2. busy network.
3. real heavy transformer.
and you might think of others yourself.
now if you have no timeout on your clients and you have not closed your pc for a long time you could be facing this as well.
so check for anything from client problems (real easy rebooting a client pc) to zomby processes on your server or a chocked server for some reason (which might not be DS related even).

Good Luck,

Is it every Transformer stage, or one particular Transformer stage, that manifests this problem?
It might be worth re-installing the DataStage client software, or doing a clean install on a spare PC, to see whether it's a problem at the client end.

Hi Ray and Roy

Firstly, thanks very much for your help and advice.
I should mention that we are running an unsupported combination of AIX 5.2 and DataStage 6.0.1 , Ascential support advise that we upgrade to 7.1. This is something that I have wanted for some time, but management desicions get in the way.

This problem still remains.

I have taken a number of actions this morning following your advise:

I have rebooted my pc and reinstalled the client software.
I have checked server setup with Unix guys. They advise me that everything is working fine.
I have done a clean install on another pc, and the same problem exists.

Ray, this problem exists in all transformers.

Garth

Support may have asked you to do this already.

To find out where the hang is, enable server-side tracing (either from the Administrator client or from the DS.TOOLS menu on the server).

Next, open a Designer. You will get a warning that server side tracing is enabled.

Open a job that contains a Transformer stage.

Attempt to open the Transformer stage properties. It's at this point (I'm assuming) that things hang.

Disable server side tracing.

Inspect the log file to see whether there's anything obvious (it will be near the end if there is). The trace log file lives in the &COMO& directory on the server, and has the fairly obvious name DSRTRACE_user-pid !

Ray,

I have tested what you suggested, and I've not noticed anything wrong in the tracing logs.

I can happily view transformer stage properties, it's when right clicking and selecting a transform or Routine etc, in a column derivation or constraint, that the pc hangs.

As I'm currently in a very quiet spell of development, I will use the next few days to upgrade to version 7.1 (once the sotftware arrives). Maybe this will solve the problem?

Thanks again for your help

Who knows?

DataStage clients are a complex inter-relationship of executables, libraries, ActiveX controls and all kinds of other stuff. Like most Windows software! Version 7.x of DataStage is built on a .NET framework, and is thus slightly different.

So, if by "solve" you simply mean that the problem might not be there after the upgrade, this is distinctly possible.

If you mean "diagnose the cause", then no. But most folks aren't interested in the cause once a problem vanishes, are they?

An update: This is no longer a problem. I haven't change anything, and I have been told by the Unix admin guys that nothing has been tampered with on the server!?

I still plan to upgrade to version 7.1 r1 very soon.

I'm interested to know what caused this, but I fear that I would waste a lot of time in the process!

Garth