Home Forums Discussions Problems Network disaster and a host of error messages:

I AM GETTING KILLED HERE.

I have all sorts of errors appearing on my network while opening and running AC. It was an intermittent error here and there and now it's happening all the time. Every day. Several times each day. I'm not even sure how to fix this anymore. Any advice is greatly appreciated. My clinic is running six Acer Iconia Tablets with Windows 8.1 Mobile (NOT RT) and the tablets are losing connection at least twice an hour..maybe more. I'm running AC 6.6.2 (just upgraded at Christmas) on each tablet and I've spent the last two mornings troubleshooting network and AC database connection errors at 6am. This sucks hard. I'm attaching images to my Posting in the hopes that someone else has seen these before. I turned my AVG Virus software OFF to clear out and open Port 61067 in an effort to hold the connection to the database open, but that is not a long term stable solution either. I tried that earlier this morning and that seems to have helped some but I still have outages. Are my tablets just crap, is AC not connecting and holding a connection, I have no idea. I know that switching the AVG Virus software to off was really the only thing I did to my server in the last few hours, outside of doing a server restart on Monday.

Any advice appreciated. We are in danger of losing Encounter info if my tablets keep dropping connections to the AC dbase.

DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO TO FIX THIS!!!

As a temporary solution I would suggest remoting into your personal computer/desktop. Any drops/disconnects won't result in data loss.

Are the problems ONLY with wireless connection? Screens 3-6 could be due to network problems. If there is NOT a problem with the wired network, the wireless system would be a good starting point. Could be the tablet NC or could be the router. Is it in certain rooms?

Now if it isn't a network issue, it may be time to call Tech Support

You are worrying way too much and working way too hard. This seems to be clearly a networking issue. Wendell is right. This is where support could likely log in and fix it very quickly. I also wouldn't be worried about these error messages. They are all based on the same thing. You can't or you are losing your connection. These aren't Windows errors. That would be frightening. Those can be hard to run down.

The very first error at the top asks if you have run the database tuner. Not sure why this would help and not sure if AC would even run, but to even see that message would mean you haven't run it. If you haven't that is the first thing you should do.

Basically, this boils down to two things. Where is your AC folder. And, can your program find it over the network. Obviously, it has before. There are three paths you want to check.

1. If the name of your computer is GRAEF, then when you access the Amazing Charts folder over the network, you should see at the top \\GRAEF\Amazing Charts\ It may say Network -> GRAEF -> Amazing Charts, but if you click in the address bar, it will default to \\GRAEF\Amazing Charts This is where your AmazingCharts.mdf SQL database is. Square one is to make sure you can access that folder from the computer. You could just open a folder, Windows Explorer or My Computer and on the address window just type \\GRAEF\Amazing Charts\ That should open the AC folder. If you can't do that, then you have problems with your network and that will need to be fixed before you can do anything else.

Now GRAEF is the name of the computer that AC is on. So, you browse to the name of the computer and the name of the folder. Some people have better luck using the IP address. So, in that instance if the computer called GRAEF had an IP address of 192.168.16.2, then you could type \\192.168.16.2\Amazing Charts. If you go that route make sure that the IP address is static and not dynamic.

2. In the main AC folder on the "server" is a file called AmazingCharts.xml. First, make sure it is there, and second, open it and make sure the path it contains is the same path we have been talking about. Mine looks like this:

D:\Amazing Charts\AmazingCharts.mdf For me, D:\ is the drive letter on my server where AC resides. Yours may say:
C:\Amazing Charts\AmazingCharts.mdf. This file, the one you click on when AC is searching for the database, tells your AC program that it can find the SQL database on the C:\ drive in a folder called Amazing Charts. So, if this file doesn't point toward the AC database, you will have issues. To be honest, this file is made when you install AC, and it likely will be correct.

3. Finally, open your AC program until you get to the logon screen. At the top of the screen in the white bar, you will see the name of your practice and just below it the words: Electronic Medical Record System. If you put your mouse pointer between those two phrases and right-click, a new window will open that says: Reset Database Path at the top left. The first line will tell you the port and the name of the server, in your case GRAEF (the one I made up). The second line is the most important. If you are connected properly, it will give you your path. It will say: The path to the main database is:
\\GRAEF\Amazing Charts\AmazingCharts.mdf. Obviously this path needs to basically match the path on the XML file except it will give the server name and not the drive letter.

So, in summary you will have the "server" that AC is on. The folder should have full permissions for now. Let everyone share the folder and give permissions to everyone. So, just take a deep breath, grab and beer and say, OK, 2/3 of the battle is over. I have a perfectly good AC folder with a perfectly good AmazingCharts.mdf database and the two other .mdf databases. I have an xml file which points to the AmazingCharts.mdf database. Click on the AC folder and it will open. I promise you. Once it does close it and realize you are 2/3 of the way there. Just for good measure, turn off all firewalls and all antivirus programs ESPECIALLY the evil Symantec or McAfee. If McAfee, don't just turn it off, turn off its service or uninstall it. It takes over your computer.

Now open an AC program on one of your client computers. Amazing Charts will start to open and then you will get that windows at the bottom which says, Amazing Charts can't find the folder whichever. See, that is not an error message. You don't need that "message" to tell you it can't find it. You ALREADY know that. By the way, if you can't find the database, then you won't see the right path when you do the right-click trick on the login folder. At the bottom, it will ask you if you want to browse to it yourself or Let me browse to another database. Of course, you do. You click that button and it will bring you to a browsing folder. Or you may get a window which says: Amazing Charts Setup Assistant and at the bottom it will say next.

At the bottom of the window will say our old familiar AmazingCharts.xml. You must have and you must click on this file to connect to the database. Now, when you are in this window, it may very well be the computer you are on, which has an AC folder and can be confusing. On the left (in Win 7), should be a Network of computers including your "server" GRAEF.Clicking on that will take you to your folders on your "server." Click on Amazing Charts, and there will be 11 folders and the .XML file. Clicking on the XML file will connect you to AC and AC will open on your desktop.

Just make sure you consider the Database Tuner. And, it always says it is in the folder, but it never is. You have to download it.

So, forget about all those "error" messages and just make sure AC works on the "server" and then connect to it by browsing to it.

Some of this you may already have done. If so, you should be OK. But, don't worry. You really can't screw it up and as Sandeep has already said losing a connection will not lose data.

Bert, we are working on this right now and even trying a hardwire connection in the next two hours to circumvent the connectivity problems if that's what its going to take. I will have more information later today hopefully and will report back.

Graef

We've gotten the first error too, several times, even though we ran the database tuner when we upgraded. For us the solution is to:
1. Make sure AC is open on the server (in previous versions this wasn't necessary)
2. If step 1 doesn't work, we reboot the server and again then make sure AC is open and running
This has fixed the problem every time and once we started leaving AC open and active on the server computer it doesn't happen nearly as often, though still probably once a month.
The other errors we get if we don't correct the first one.
It wasn't a network issue for us, so I just wanted you to have another solution if hardwiring doesn't fix it for you.
Amber

AmberO's solution is interesting. Of course, it would show it is not a network problem. If it fixes the problem, I would be happy for you, and would give kudos to Amber for finding that solution.

Of course having to do that would be a major bug, and AC would need to fix it.

I should have read more closely. I see you have AVG, so no McAfee. That's good. And, your tablets aren't crap.

From reading, do you have both wireless and wired? Is this only happening with the wireless? If so, then that is likely the issue unless Amber's solution fixes it. One of the thing that a lot of users advise on here is to not use wireless connections. Or is your wireless router close enough to your tablets or server?

AVG is still set to OFF on main server and we had to do something quick to not suffer any gaps, so we are hard-wiring right now to circumvent the wireless connection entirely. Still working on it and will report back.

That is an excellent move.

Thank you for everyone's suggestions. Frankly, we had to do something quick to ensure patients wouldn't experience a gap in care and no PHI/Encounter data would be messed up. Here is what we did:

1. We kept the AVG Anti-Virus on the server OFF.
2. We got an additional extension switch with Cat 5 and ran four connection points for each tablet needed for the next shift.
3. We were able to find something called a Rocketfish ethernet adapter (Best Buy; about 20 bucks) which accepts a Cat 5 plug on one end and goes to a USB plug on the other which connected each tablet to ethernet.
4. We shut wireless completely OFF on each tablet and connected direct into the switch/server itself.

After that, the DNS, AmazingChartsXML file and network drive destinations all resolved themselves basically and a stable connection was established at that point. There was no identifiable data loss and we were able to access AC normally (and seemingly much faster) this time.

For right now we have not attempted to try the AC Database Tuner as that same tuner error has no longer been seen. Maybe that was an error triggered by the continual dropped connections, although I don't see why that would be all that related.

I plan to test out the wireless on a quarantined device to see if errors can be resolved but for right now things are stable and back up. I'll let you know more as I discover it, but if you are in the market for wifi tablets, know that their configuration will likely be tricky. And it makes sense, being that tablet manufacturers never intended their tools to be thrust into a high security type environment with strict data security standards and stuff that goes along with HIPAA. I'm not even sure if there is a "HIPAA Approved/Certified" tablet that exists. I'd say probably not at this point.

Good luck with your own networks. And for goodness sake - CHECK AND VERIFY ALL BACKUPS.

I'm interested to see how the situation develops. Over a year ago, our doc used a tablet as his documenting tool until one day the tablet started having problems. The problems worsened until the tablet became unusable. I can't quite remember what kind of error messages we were getting, but I think it said something about memory or cache. I was never able to figure out the cause, but after a few days of using a back-up laptop the doctor decided that he wanted a new laptop instead of a new/repaired tablet and so we got one with 9 hours of battery life.

A few months ago, the laptop started dropping its connectivity to the network. It happens about once every two days (by the way, has anyone had a similar problem?). Luckily, it's not that great of a problem, because connectivity can be restored just resetting the wireless functionality on the router.

So. From my own experiences(professionally AND personally) and from what I've read on this forum, wireless is unreliable.

Also, you might be out of your depth in diagnosing your problem. I know how most people on this forum (myself included) like fixing things on their own, but sometimes outside professional help is needed.

Glad you got it fixed.wired is always better than wireless just by definition. If you do use wireless, it may be helpful to use the plug in adapters. GRAEF you may want to change to either Cat 5e or Cat 6.

GRAEF,

What version or type of AVG are you using on the server, e.g. professional version or free version?

The two issues in the wireless realm are the router and the NIC (wireless interface) on the tablet. Not all routers are created equally, some just periodically drop connections, some have a limited lifespan.

The few android tablets I have played with were intermittently flaky with my router but my iPad is rock solid ( you can fault Apple for a lot of thing but quality is generally not one of them.)

I would start with another router. Borrow one from your house and check it for reliability. Since all the tablets have a problem with connecting ( that is correct, right?), I would suspect the router first.

Most of the cable I have seen at the stores is 5e for the standard stuff. It is better than 5 , and 6 has somewhat better throughput. You likely have 5e.

Another option, depending on your layout of your office would be to get a range extender. This basically takes the initial signal and boosts it up and retransmits. Some routers can be shifted into the mode. The problem is, what if you get one and it doesn't help? Sure, you can return it but the time and energy may not be worth it. The flip side is that you may be able to maintain wireless.

Hard wired is a fair bit simpler once it is in place. Not as flexible, but more reliable.

Newbie alert: The following from Doc Martin must be taken with a large grain of salt as I am known by my friends to be barely computer literate and completely ignorant of just how computer illiterate I am!!


What a great thread. I will cut and paste Bert's tutorial into my folder for computer tips. (said folder is MANILLA and contains real paper I can write notes in the margin on!) Wish I had read it sooner.

We had this same trouble, (basically the same) on Friday last week. The main problem was with laptops, (wireless) then two of the three thin clients we have went down and finally some, but not all workstations. This is with version 6.5.6. AC would show the "memory" error and kick you out. Then when you tried to restart it would announce you have a new version of AC and you need to run the database tuner to continue. We would say no, it would say yes, we would say no and goodbye. Restart AC, same problem. Shut off everything in your hands, (the PC or the lap top or thin client) same problem. I wonder if the memory error that comes up is at all related to my server running out of room because I never delete the backups, (until there is trouble that is). Our IT guy logged on remote and said yes, there was almost no room left for AC in it's partition (?) on the server and he cleaned that up. It did not help. A few machines were still running, so we finished the day walking over to them and sharing them. Friday night I rebooted the server. Then I ran the database tuner as suggested by the software itself. Monday morning our IT guy was all set to come in and help us get AC to fix a suspected problem with AC, but it has worked perfect ever since.

Those literate amoung us: could the crowded server trigger an error, which then corrupts the database, since it kicked people out who had open charts. Now they can't restart and have no chance to reopen, ("it appears you had a chart open when Amazing Charts suddenly closed. Do you wish to recover the chart?") As this happens to additional work stations, the whole system collapses until the space is cleaned up and the database "tuned"

I last ran the tuner when we switched back from the beta version to 6.5.6 That was some time ago, and I never run it unless a bunch of bad stuff is happening. (My basic approach to computer science strongly suggests a genetic predisposition to some activities that involved pentagrams and chicken bones).

I am seriously considering running the tuner, deleting extra backups, etc on a regular basis. But I am probably too lazy to do it.

Martin,

I am sorry to hear what you are going through. My biggest frustration with AC is you just can't install and go and not worry about things like this. I am beta testing (when I say that I mean trying out 6.6 on a sandbox. It is difficult for me to on one hand see all the advantages of 6.6 and the problems.

Here is a rundown of what to think about.

Hard drive space: HDD space has nothing to do with memory except for the page file. You may have 1GB of hard drive space and 32GB of RAM. Hard drive space usually doesn't affect performance. If AC were taking up 60GB of a 70GB partition, you should be fine. You can generally make the partition larger, but it is ALWAYS good to have AC on a separate drive. I, personally, run the system drive and system files on a completely separate hard drive than any data. Some databases do get irritated or just stop playing when there is not enough hard drive space. Exchange server is one such database. If my system drive gets down to around 4GB, it will stop working. That happened once, and it took me quite some time to figure it out. Fortunately, I had somehow backed up the entire computer to a folder on the C:\ drive, so I cleared out 30GB of space right there. So, I don't know what SQL has to say about not enough space.

RAM: Memory usually isn't an issue anymore as it is cheap and 64-bit OS allow you to put at least 32GB and generally more on the PC. You only need so much RAM. I would test your RAM. While it can be run fairly quickly, the recommendation is to run it overnight. You can use the .iso version or the USB version. The latter, of course, is easier. The newest 5.0 or 5.1 version will work on 32-bit or 64-bit. I doubt this is the issue as it would affect all computers, but may as well try. It's free.

Wireless: I won't say much here as some offices have to have wireless, but it just isn't as reliable as wired. But, again, it shouldn't be causing the issue.

DB tuner: I do not see nor have I ever had to run a database tuner after everything has been installed and working. The database tuner is simply to sync your old data with the new database. When a new version comes out, new tables have been added and the old structure needs to change. And, I have no idea why it continues to say it is in the AC folder when it is not. Unless that has changed.

VMs: The paid version of VMWare is a bit pricey but worth it if it solved all these issues. I often wonder if it would be worth running the client AC in a VM environment so one could go COMPLETELY back to a certain point. Not system restore as that doesn't revert everything back, plus you would be restoring the entire computer. With a virtual machine, you would have one app running only, and going back to a snapshot would take seconds. Of course, you would have to pay for another OS, another small amount if it worked.

Errors: During a busy day and during frustration, a lot of people -- including me -- will forget the Event Viewer. Run --> eventvwr. I would check the system and the application under Windows. I typically filter it to critical. Either, it will give you an error that you can understand or Google it. I would post it to here so others along with Indy and Sandeep can unencrypt it.

Database: I am certainly not sure if this is a database issue. If so, you would want to have it looked at. Either by AC or my friend (PM me)

Program: The development of AC is a double-edged sword. First, it was designed for doctors by a doctor, whom I must say is brilliant. To teach yourself Visual Basic while you are working full time is a feat that should be in the Guiness Book of World Records. On the other hand, not being a developer of 15 years experience would likely lead to a code base that may be flawed, etc. Now, I have no idea if the code has been rewritten or not but each new version just has too many bugs.

Have you had a chance to reinstall AC on your server? Do you have a completely separate drive you can run it from? Or move the databases and II folder using AmazingUtilities?

Good luck.

Straight wireless for a client/server application usually doesn't work well. You want to do something like a private cloud where you can remote into your server/other desktops. Then you are just streaming the desktop and not doing any computations on the local machine. That means you can get something really cheap like a Chromebook or some other thin client as opposed to a full laptop.