Using Arev 1.16 Novell 3.12, recently have been having a problem where two or more stations can access a record and no message appears that this record is in use elsewhere each station can save the record and the last one saved is how the record appears. I believe this has been happening in the past but very sporadic, it appears to be happening a lot more often now. We are running AREV under Windows 98SE and using Microsoft Client for Netware Networks. If you log the machines out of AREV then log back in Locking works for a short time then the same problem happens again. Trying to determine where to start looking for the solution. Is this a Novell problem a cabling problem or a AREV problem? Any advice would be appreciated.

which network client (windows or netware or all networks) and which version for locking?

other factors that can play a factor are frame types and netware client version.

We are using Microsoft Client for Netware Networks which comes on the Windows 98SE Disk, I don't know how to determine which version of locking.

Karen probably meant which network driver you are using in Arev. Type WHO at a TCL prompt to find out.

Advanced Netware 2.0 Drv. 1.6

I have been doing a number of tests and the results are not very consistent, yesterday afternoon locking of records was working fine, this morning their were sporadic results. I looked into taking the locking off of the table and writing it into the application it will work but it seems like a lot of extra work and potential problems. I have read about the %SK% problem and some of the discussions point toward writing your own routine, not all of the record locking problem is with this issue, %SK% seems to be working OK, when a user opens a record and it is not locked then the %SK% does not go to the next number, it is the Locking of the record which fails. The bottom line is the locking function is built into the AREV software, I would rather use it then write totally new code for each of the Templates.. Is their a patch for this or is this even an answerable question, their are a lot of discussions about the Locking issue, We are using an old version of Arev, I understand that and this will probably not change unless upgrading will solve this problem. The thing that perplexes me is that it will be working fine then we have issues..

Thanks for any input which can put me in a positive direction, everyone who has always responded to my questions have been very helpful.

I don't know if I've ever used your combination of Arev version and Netware version, but I certainly haven't used that combination with modern Windows. If memory serves, starting with Windows 95, there were some locking issues that were triggered by certain situations. This problem was resolved with the NLM. I don't know if there is an NLM that will work with Arev 1.16. I would, however, recommend upgrading to version 2.12 if you can. That version was very stable, and upgrading from 1.16 should be straightforward. And I know it will work with the various NLMs. If someone else knows that version 1.16 will work with an NLM, please jump in.

If my idea is right, the problem will also go away if you run Arev from DOS (not just a DOS prompt from Windows), Windows 3.1x or Windows for Workgroups, and possibly Windows NT. Of course, none of those are current operating systems, but that hasn't seemed to stop you .

Mark - I can't recall the older versions of windows and the arev driver you use, so this might not apply to your situation…

–check the @station for the arev session that isn't locking. If it's all zero's for the mac address, then i think all users with a mac of zeros are the same user to the locking scheme. Then this set of users are sharing one lock and edit each others records.

– check the netware client and make sure the protocol is set right and your default protocal is set to arev's (probably ipx?)

–

Good idea. And I think the sequential number AREVPID.DAT was not used in version 1.16.

I've had clients running ARev 1.16 on Netware v3.12 on Win98SE for years without locking problems. Currently one of them is running ARev 1.16 with Win98SE workstations on a Netware 6.0x server.

You need to use the Novell Client32 for Win98 and not the Microsoft Novell Drivers as the locking in Microsoft's drivers is obviously defective.

You can download the Win9x clients from here:

http://www.salfordsoftware.co.uk/downloads.html

I don't recall which version works best but start with v3.4 and work backwards on the versions. If you get extremely sluggish performance downgrade to an earlier release.

Oh, and uninstall the Microft drivers before install the Novell client. Also after installing the Novell client set the primary network login to the Netware client.

Thanks for everyone's advice I am changing over to the Novell Client, I am hoping this will solve the problem.

Thanks Again!

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