We are upgrading from novell 3.12 to 4.2 and are having problems with GFE's in one of our three arev databases (the biggest and most used one).

The setup is as follows:-

All PC's are running win95 (v4950b)

Novell netware 4.2 (as purchased)

Novell 95 Client (ver 3.1.0.0)

Arev (3.12)

revelation NLM (ver 1.7)

TTS has been turned of on all files.

The Gfe's seem to occur only during large updates and cannot be reproduced (eg rerun the process under the same conditions and all goes well).

Any Idea's???????????

The "large updates" you mention suggest rapid consecutive file writes to the same file. These cause the GFEs. I suspect that caching may be the issue - check that you have caching turned off on the workstation / netware client. Ensure that you have the correct client set (WHO at TCL) Is the AREV.EXE marked Read Only? Check too that the Novell client hasn't been upgraded from 3.1 to a later patch (known problems with the service packs to the 3.1 Netware client).

Disable any BIOS power save features on the PCs both in the BIOS setup and in the Win 95 environment. Disable virus checking too, and also any background concurrent tasks like screensavers.

Steve

Thanks for your prompt reply!!!

We do NOT have caching turned of in the client(3.1). We have already implemented the rest of your solutions.

It troubles me that it works fine on the Novell 3.12 server but not the Novell 4.2 server - is there a difference that would cause this (eg on Novel 3.12 everything works fine but as soon as we go to 4.2 the GFE's start occuring)

Is transaction tracking (TTS) enabled on the 4.2 server on the ARev data directories? If so, disable it immediately.

The Netware product evolved significantly with the advent of NDS (Netware Directory Services) in 4.2. Netware 4.2 is very like 4.11 with all patches applied.

About the time of Netware 4, the Novell API went from Assembler

to C and changed significantly, the VLMs were stabilizing for the workstation client, and Windows support was handled via Novell specific DLLs (if I recall) with multiple upgrades to stomp bugs,

add CD support from the server, handle more than 8 servers on a

LAN, etc.. The 1000 user Netware 3.x was different to all other user

levels (different API in places) and the whole API was unified across all user levels in Netware 4.x

I cannot answer your question directly, other than to suggest that

workstation caching is the likely culprit.

Also check the number of dirty cache buffers, CFCs and retry errors (from the server). It may be a lousy network card in the mix, or it may be you've switched protocols, say from 802.3 to 802.2 and something hasn't liked the transition.

Many users run 4.x Novell without a hitch. Disable TTS as Warren suggests, both on the file flags and from the admin configuration.

Steve

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