Connection can not be established.  Server name, port number, or credentials may be invalid.

I just got that message when trying to enter a perfectly valid set of connection/credential info into an SSIS package.  But testing the connection failed.

Turns out my issue, and maybe your issue too, is that SSIS doesn't remove white space from the server name textbox.  So if you pasted in the name of the FTP server, as I did, you might have fallen victim to the "trailing space" that is frequently copied with your text, and instead of trying to connect to "ftp.com" it tried to connect to "ftp.com " notice the extra space.

If you are like me, you don't like the fact that the first time you realize that a data driven subscriptions in SQL Server Reporting Services has been failing is when someone comes up to you and says "Hey, I did XYZ and I never saw the server kick off an email." 

Really?  Let me check.... oh, looks like it has been broken for god knows how long.  What the heck?

Well, I wrote a script to notify you when there are errors on the report server.

First, you need to setup Database Mail.  Expand Management, and pick Database Mail.  For my script I used the name "Email Profile" for the "Email Profile" get it?

Then create a trigger on the ExecutionLogStorage table like this:

          
            USE [ReportServer]
GO /******
Object: Trigger [dbo].[ExecutionLogStorage_Insert] Script Date: 05/13/2009 10:20:44
******/SETANSI_NULLSON GO SETQUOTED_IDENTIFIERON GO ALTERTRIGGER [dbo].[ExecutionLogStorage_Insert] ON [dbo].[ExecutionLogStorage]
AFTER INSERTASBEGIN     DECLARE @sStatus ASNVARCHAR(32)
    SET @sStatus
= (SELECT Status FROM inserted)
         IF(@sStatus
<> 'rsSuccess')
    BEGIN         DECLARE @sReportName ASNVARCHAR(425)
        DECLARE @sPath ASNVARCHAR(425)
        DECLARE @ReportId ASUNIQUEIDENTIFIER         DECLARE @sUserName ASNVARCHAR(260)
        DECLARE @sParameters ASNVARCHAR(4000)
        DECLARE @dTimeEnd ASDATETIME         DECLARE @iTimeProcessing asint         
                 SELECT         
@sReportName = Name,          @sPath =PATH,
         @ReportId = ReportId,         
@sUserName = username,          @sParameters
= (selectCAST(ISNULL(ELS.Parameters,'') ASNVARCHAR(4000)) from ExecutionLogStorage
ELS Where LogEntryId
= Inserted.LogEntryId),          @dTimeEnd
= TimeEnd,          @iTimeProcessing = ISNULL(TimeProcessing,0)
        FROM inserted INNERJOIN [Catalog]
        ON inserted.ReportId
= CATALOG.[ItemID]                  DECLARE @sBody VARCHAR(8000)
        SET @sBody
= 'Error
with SQL Report '                     + CAST(@sReportName ASVARCHAR(100))
                    + '
at path '                     + CAST (@sPath ASVARCHAR(250))
                    + '
with ReportId '                     + CAST(@ReportId ASVARCHAR(100))
                    + '
and username '                     + CAST(@sUserName ASVARCHAR(100))
                    + '
Parameters '                     + CAST(@sParameters ASVARCHAR(5000))
                    + '
End time '                     + CAST(@dTimeEnd ASVARCHAR(50))
                    + '
Status '                     + CAST(@sStatus ASVARCHAR(50))
                    + '
Time Processing '                     + CAST(@iTimeProcessing ASVARCHAR(50));
                 DECLARE @sSubject VARCHAR(500)
        SET @sSubject
= 'Error
With Report ' + @sReportName         
        EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail
         @profile_name = 'Email
Profile',          @recipients = 'email@address.com',
         @body = @sBody ,         
@subject = @sSubject;     END      END
        

Presto!

UPDATE: Added logic to get the status and parameters.

I'm working on something where I wanted to know if some parameters to a SQL Server Stored Procedure were nullable (or, in otherwords, if they had a default value).

The API I was working with provided a way to find info about the SP, but the isNullable value was never accurate.

I tried working with with the MS DAABs which have a way to fetch SP parameter info, but this method also produced faulty information.

Looking into the code of the DAAB, it was internally calling:

          
            Dim
            command
            As SqlCommand
SqlCommandBuilder.DeriveParameters(command) 
        

Somewhere I came across some code for the DeriveParameters method (I think from the Mono project maybe?) which showed it calling this system SP:

          sp_procedure_params_rowset
        

Which returns output fields,:

          PARAMETER_HASDEFAULT


IS_NULLABLE
        

But, again, neither of these appear correctly.

However, I finally came across this thread where a MSFT poster indicates that this data is simply not available:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/transactsql/thread/900756fd-3980-48e3-ae59-a15d7fc15b4c/

Instead, you need to parse the SP definition to see what the default parameter value is, which is a pain, but at least I know why these other methods kept not working.

One of the challenges of using code generation is to avoid overwriting your custom changes when you re-generate the code later.

This is a trick I am using to avoid overwriting my stored procedures if I update them manually.  The trick is to include a comment indicating that the SP has been code generated, and then to remove that comment if you update the SP.  So lets say that you generate:

          
            CREATE
            PROCEDURE OrderDetails_Get
@OrderId asintAS--
CODE GENERATEDSELECT * FROM OrderDetails WHERE OrderId
= @OrderId
        

and you made some customizations to the SP so it now looks like this:

          
            CREATE
            PROCEDURE OrderDetails_Get
@OrderId asintASSELECT * FROM OrderDetails INNERJOIN Orders ON Orders.OrderId
= OrderDetails.OrderId WHERE OrderId
= @OrderId
        

The following code will help you when generating your SPs to avoid overwriting this change:

          
            IF
            EXISTS( SELECT [definition] AS objectText FROM sys.sql_modules WHERE [object_id]
= OBJECT_ID(N'OrderDetails_Get', 'P') AND definition LIKE'%CODE
GENERATED%') BEGIN--
overwrite is okEND
        

Do you frequently get ConnectionError1 when using Mozy?

Try this: change your scheduled backup time to something more random than 2:00am.  Try 2:09 or 2:41.

It's that simple.

My lenovo came with Sierra Wireless MC5725 for use with Verizon's EVDO network.

VZAccess manager (Verizons POS software) told me today that there was a firmware update for my Sierra Wireless device.

This update failed, and now my device won't work.  I basically can't enable the device.  It doen't show up in my network list, and I can't turn it on using the fn+F5 screen.

Where can I get the firmware for this thing?  Sierra Wireless says they don't support these OEM devices, and Lenovo has nothing regarding firmware on their site, only drivers.

VZAccess Manager is one of the worst pieces of software I have ever had the chance to work with.  It never stops suprising me how crappy it can be, and yet I am still forced to use it every day.  I hate Verizon for doing this to me.

I have written before about some of the problems that a frequently recycling asp.net application can cause, espically if you are using session for anything.

ASP.NET Process Recycling Too Often

But I ran into a situation where the recycle was caused by the application itself for a client of mine.  I had bought and customized a asp.net application that allows my client to give THEIR clients access to a section of their site where they can upload/download/manage files very nicely.  But after moving to a new hosting environment, users kept losing their login sessions very quickly.

After some research, I found out that session was being used to track if the user was logged in, and session was being lost very quickly because the application was recycling.

I used the following code to help diagnose the cause for the application restarting:

(this goes in Application_End)

          
            Dim runtime As HttpRuntime =GetType(System.Web.HttpRuntime).InvokeMember("_theRuntime",
_ BindingFlags.NonPublic Or _
BindingFlags.StaticOr _
BindingFlags.GetField, _ Nothing, Nothing, Nothing) If runtime IsNothingThen logger.Error("The
application is closing at " & Now.ToShortDateString
& "
" & Now.ToLongTimeString) ReturnEndIfDim shutDownMessage AsString= runtime.GetType().InvokeMember("_shutDownMessage",
BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.Instance Or BindingFlags.GetField, Nothing,
runtime, Nothing) 'If
shutDownMessage = "HostingEnvironment caused shutdown" Then'
'*** this is normal, you can include this commented out section or not'
Return'End
IfDim shutDownStack AsString= runtime.GetType().InvokeMember("_shutDownStack",
BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.Instance Or BindingFlags.GetField, Nothing,
runtime, Nothing) '***
email this error logger.Error(String.Format("The
application is closing at " & Now.ToShortDateString
& "
" & Now.ToLongTimeString
& "
" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "_shutDownMessage={0}" &
vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "_shutDownStack={1}",
shutDownMessage, shutDownStack)) DimlogAsNew EventLog log.Source=".NET
Runtime"log.WriteEntry(String.Format(vbCrLf
& vbCrLf & "_shutDownMessage={0}" &
vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "_shutDownStack={1}",
shutDownMessage, shutDownStack), EventLogEntryType.Error) 
        

The cause was:

          Directory
rename change notification for 'APP PATH HERE. Clients dir change or directory rename
HostingEnvironment caused shutdown 
        

Because this app was now hosted with a 3rd party, I didn't have control over the environment to go see if there was an AV scanner or backup manager running that was touching the files.

However, I because I was able to reproduce the error in my dev environment, I was confident I could rule out those causes.

I eventually found that the problem was 2 fold:

1) The application allows the user to upload files/create folders that reside in subfolders of the application.  The app could think these changes require a recycle.

2) The application creates a temp folder for the user for each session under the root as well.  Changing folder structure can cause a recycle.

So what can be done?

Well, I adapted some code from a few places to turn off the FCN (File change notifications) for sub directories of the website.  This isn't easy to do if you don't have something to go off of, becaues you basically have to hijack your way into private methods on classes in the .net framework, using reflection to call methods that you shouldn't be accessing, in order to turn off specific behavior.

Here are the methods I created to help me do this.  I also have some log4net code in here, so you'll have to pull that out if you want to use this.

          
            Private
            Sub TurnOffDirectoryMonitoring() TryDim p As System.Reflection.PropertyInfo =GetType(System.Web.HttpRuntime).GetProperty("FileChangesMonitor",
BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.PublicOr BindingFlags.Static) Dim o AsObject= p.GetValue(Nothing, Nothing) Dim f As FieldInfo = o.GetType.GetField("_dirMonSubdirs",
BindingFlags.Instance Or BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.IgnoreCase) Dim monitor AsObject= f.GetValue(o) Dim asdf As System.Reflection.MethodInfo() = monitor.GetType.GetMethods() Dim propIsMonitoring As System.Reflection.MethodInfo = monitor.GetType.GetMethod("IsMonitoring",
System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance Or System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic) Dim bIsMonitoring AsBoolean= propIsMonitoring.Invoke(monitor, Nothing) Dim logger As log4net.ILog = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger("File")
logger.Info("Directory
monitoring IsMonitoring was " & bIsMonitoring) Dim m As System.Reflection.MethodInfo = monitor.GetType.GetMethod("StopMonitoring",
System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance Or System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic) Dim objArray() AsObject= {}
m.Invoke(monitor, objArray) logger.Info("Directory
monitoring IsMonitoring after change is " & bIsMonitoring) Catch ex As Exception Dim logger As log4net.ILog = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger("File")
logger.Error(ex) EndTryEndSubPrivateSub CheckDirectoryMonitoring() TryDim p As System.Reflection.PropertyInfo =GetType(System.Web.HttpRuntime).GetProperty("FileChangesMonitor",
BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.PublicOr BindingFlags.Static) Dim o AsObject= p.GetValue(Nothing, Nothing) Dim f As FieldInfo = o.GetType.GetField("_dirMonSubdirs",
BindingFlags.Instance Or BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.IgnoreCase) Dim monitor AsObject= f.GetValue(o) Dim asdf As System.Reflection.MethodInfo() = monitor.GetType.GetMethods() Dim propIsMonitoring As System.Reflection.MethodInfo = monitor.GetType.GetMethod("IsMonitoring",
System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance Or System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic) Dim bIsMonitoring AsBoolean= propIsMonitoring.Invoke(monitor, Nothing) Dim logger As log4net.ILog = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger("File")
logger.Info("In
CheckDirectoryMonitoring, Directory monitoring IsMonitoring is " & bIsMonitoring) Catch ex As Exception Dim logger As log4net.ILog = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger("File")
logger.Error(ex) EndTryEndSubPrivateSub CheckFCNMode() TryDim p As System.Reflection.PropertyInfo =GetType(System.Web.HttpRuntime).GetProperty("FileChangesMonitor",
BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.PublicOr BindingFlags.Static) Dim o AsObject= p.GetValue(Nothing, Nothing) Dim f As FieldInfo = o.GetType.GetField("_FCNMode",
BindingFlags.Instance Or BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.IgnoreCase) Dim iFCNMode AsInteger= f.GetValue(o) Dim logger As log4net.ILog = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger("File")
logger.Info("In
CheckFCNMode, FCNMode is " & iFCNMode) Catch ex As Exception Dim logger As log4net.ILog = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger("File")
logger.Error(ex) EndTryEndSub
        

These methods are not refactored or "best practice" at all, there is a lot of copy/paste code in here, but you'll get the idea of what I'm doing.

You can call these methods from the beginning on Application_Start. 

1 thing to note.  I found that my code that checks to make sure that logging was turned off, doesn't seem to report the right value the first time I check it.  But by the time the first session starts, it has indeed stopped monitoring.

Just try calling these methods from a few places after application_start and you can see what happens.

Rocky Lhotka had this over on his site:

I don't think etrade has learned the lessons in my posts on floating point numbers/variables.

SQL Server Decimal/Money/Float datatypes

Javascript (and apparently other programming languages) can't do math

Click here for a screen shot of the full page.

But, on the other hand, I wonder what I will do with that extra .00000000000005 dollars?

It took me a while to figure out that I didn't have a driver problem.

I was looking everywhere to find the switch for the wifi on this HP Elitebook 8730w, but it turns out the LED icon in the upper left that shows the WIFI status IS the button, but clicking it does nothing.. why?

Well, b/c HP is using "LAN/WLAN switching" which means that it automatically turns off the wifi connection if you are plugged in.

Just unplug your network cable and your wifi card will enable! 

Ever get this error?

More than one data set, data region, or grouping in the report has 


the name 'SOMENAME'.  Data set, data region, and grouping names 


must be unique within a report. 

Basically what happened was, somehow VS lost track of an existing datasource you were using, why I don't know. When you went to add a new field or change something it added a 2nd copy of the same datasource, and now you have 2 datasources with same name. You can't do that. To fix this, when you are editing the report, choose Report --> Data Sources from the menu and remove one of the duplicate datasource names.

In a related error, you may notice that you can't use some fields that are part of your dataset.  For example, in my app, I had a field called "CreatedDate".  This was a public property of my object, and it showed up in my data source that I was using to bind to the report, but the report refused to acknowledge it.

So in this case you need to delete the original datasource using the same steps as above, and do something to cause it to add a new copy of the correct datasource (like drag a field onto the report).

I have been looking around for a quick easy load testing package.  Right now I'm trying out OpenSTA.  I can't say that it has been very direct, but I am still holding out hope that it will work.

This is the Getting Started Guide that I have been using.

Problem:

We have a server that gets all files from TFS and uses Nant w/ Visual studio to compile our projects.  Basically nant issues a command line statement to get VS to build a given solution.

Everything was working great, until I upgraded our clients to 2008.

I went through and upgraded all our solutions.

I installed vs 2008 on the server.  But when I try to build from the command line, it tells me that the solution file "is from a previous version of this application and must be converted in order to build in this version of the application."

I tried directly copying my solution file (skipping the source control step) directly to the server but I get the same message.

If I try to build it from the command line with VS 2005 it tells me that the solution is too new!! 

So 2005 says the solution is too new, 2008 says it is too old!

The solution on the server has the "version 9" icon, just like on my laptop.

The solution file starts with:
Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00
# Visual Studio 2008

Resolution:

Even thought I compared the solution files and found them to be exactly the same using a diff compare tool, I allowed the server to run the "upgrade" process on the solutions.  I didn't save any of the changes it made, but from then on it recognized those files as having been already upgraded.

I even replaced the "server upgraded" solution files with the old solution files that it didn't like and it continued to work just fine.

There must be some other files stored somewhere that made it think that it hadn't been upgraded yet.

This isn't a great solution, but it works at least.

ASP.NET has a limited number of threads that it uses to service incoming requests.  Thes threads from the its thread pool, and when its collection of threads are busy, requests have to queue up waiting for an open thread.

But, what happens when you have threads that are blocking waiting for another process to complete?  This could we a database call, or a webservice call, or an IO operation etc.

Well, what happens is that the thread, while doing no real work, is unavailable to service requests.

So, if your database is crunching on some long queries, other simple web requests may be sitting in the queue unable to be handled, even though the webserver CPU is idle.

One solution to this is to use Async pages/methods in ASP.NET 2 or greater.

Async operations allow the thread to be returned back to the thread pool instead of blocking, while some process is executed.

There is more than 1 way to do async operations like this from asp.net pages. 

One is to use RegisterAsyncTask and the other to user AddOnPreRenderCompleteAsync as well as declare the page as Async="true".

I won't go into all the details, but AddOnPreRenderCompleteAsync is probably simpler, but you can't define a timeout, you can't call it multiple times in parallel, and in the EndAsyncOperation event handler you can't access things like the httpcontext object.

Here are 2 examples of pages that are asynchronously serving up a PDF document (which is itself served from a page DownloadPDF.aspx, which has a 5 second thread sleep in it to simulate the processing of the report on another server.

Using AddOnPreRenderCompleteAsync:

                    
                      Imports System.Net Imports System.IO PartialClass AsyncServer Inherits System.Web.UI.Page Dim _request As WebRequest ProtectedSub Page_Load(ByVal sender AsObject, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) HandlesMe.Load
AddOnPreRenderCompleteAsync(New BeginEventHandler(AddressOf BeginAsyncOperation),
_ New EndEventHandler(AddressOf EndAsyncOperation)) EndSubFunction BeginAsyncOperation(ByVal sender AsObject, ByVal e As EventArgs, ByVal cb As AsyncCallback, ByVal state AsObject) As IAsyncResult
_request = WebRequest.Create(HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.Scheme
& _ "://" &
HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.Authority & _ Page.ResolveUrl("DownloadPDF.aspx")) Return _request.BeginGetResponse(cb,
state) EndFunctionSub EndAsyncOperation(ByVal ar As IAsyncResult) Dim reportResponse As WebResponse = _request.EndGetResponse(ar) Dim reader AsNew BinaryReader(reportResponse.GetResponseStream()) Dim buffer(reportResponse.ContentLength) AsByte buffer = reader.ReadBytes(buffer.Length)
         Response.Clear()
Response.ClearHeaders() Response.ClearContent() Response.ContentType ="Application/pdf" Response.BinaryWrite(buffer) EndSubEndClass
                  

But I prefer to use RegisterAsyncTask.  Now, keep in mind that many operations will already support async versions (webrequests, webservice calls, databases calls, file IO etc), but if there isn't already built in support for an async call, you can make your own method work in this framework with an async delegate.  Check out the commented code below for how you could do this, but because webrequests already support making the call in an asynchronous fashion, I don't need to.

          
            Imports System.Net Imports System.IO PartialClass RegisterAsyncTaskServer Inherits System.Web.UI.Page ProtectedSub Page_Load(ByVal sender AsObject, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) HandlesMe.Load
Page.AsyncTimeout =New System.TimeSpan(0,
0, 8) Dim task AsNew PageAsyncTask(New BeginEventHandler(AddressOf BeginGetAsyncData),
_ New EndEventHandler(AddressOf EndGetAsyncData),
_ New EndEventHandler(AddressOf TimeoutGetAsyncData), "task1", True)
RegisterAsyncTask(task) EndSub'***************
This is one way to do this if not using an async download method by creating an async
delegate'Dim
taskDelegate As AsyncTaskDelegate''
Create delegate.'Delegate
Sub AsyncTaskDelegate()'Private
Function BeginGetAsyncData(ByVal src As Object, ByVal args As EventArgs, ByVal cb
As AsyncCallback, ByVal state As Object) As IAsyncResult'
Dim extraData As New Object'
taskDelegate = New AsyncTaskDelegate(AddressOf DownloadReport)'
Dim result As IAsyncResult = taskDelegate.BeginInvoke(cb, extraData)'
Return result'End
Function'Private
Sub DownloadReport()'End
SubPrivate reportRequest As WebRequest PrivateFunction BeginGetAsyncData(ByVal src AsObject, ByVal args As EventArgs, ByVal cb As AsyncCallback, ByVal state AsObject) As IAsyncResult
reportRequest = WebRequest.Create(HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.Scheme
& "://" &
_ HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.Authority & _ Page.ResolveUrl("DownloadPDF.aspx")) Return reportRequest.BeginGetResponse(cb,
state) EndFunctionPrivateSub TimeoutGetAsyncData(ByVal ar As IAsyncResult)
Response.Write("TIMEOUT") EndSubPrivateSub EndGetAsyncData(ByVal ar As IAsyncResult) Dim reportResponse As WebResponse = reportRequest.EndGetResponse(ar) Dim reader AsNew BinaryReader(reportResponse.GetResponseStream()) Dim buffer(reportResponse.ContentLength - 1) AsByte buffer = reader.ReadBytes(buffer.Length)
Response.Clear()
Response.ClearHeaders() Response.ClearContent() Response.ContentType ="Application/pdf" Response.BinaryWrite(buffer)
Response.Flush() EndSubEndClass
        

Nice!