If the backup is at cause, you should probably see a file conflict occur. Filemon from sysinternals will show this for you.

Split the logs automatically into months in Mercury.ini with ~ 

like: logfile: D:\mail\logs\sys~y~m.log # Traffic logging file

Makes it much easier to maintain and purge old stuff.

Hello all,

I am having occasional crashes of Mercury (actually what I notice more is when it hangs rather than crashes, so does not restart). How can I determine what might be causing this? I need to sort it out quickly. There is no antivirus working on this machine. There is a backup of Mercury done at night, but if a file is in use the backup simply fails with an error message saying the reason. This did not happen at the times of the crashes, but I am trying to explore all possibilities. The same backup has been done for years with no issues, so I can't see that this would be the cause.

Is there any way I can find out the cause? I am on Windows XP SP2.

Thanks!

Ellie

> I am having occasional crashes of Mercury (actually what I notice more
> is when it hangs rather than crashes, so does not restart). How can I
> determine what might be causing this? I need to sort it out quickly.
> There is no antivirus working on this machine. There is a backup of
> Mercury done at night, but if a file is in use the backup simply fails
> with an error message saying the reason. This did not happen at the
> times of the crashes, but I am trying to explore all possibilities.
> The same backup has been done for years with no issues, so I can't see
> that this would be the cause.

It certainly can be the cause though if it happens to get the file being processed by Mercury for backup before Mercury can lock it out.  You really need to pause Mercury during the backup process.   I had the same problem with my SQL type applications on the server.  

[quote user="Thomas R. Stephenson"]> It certainly can be the cause though if it happens to get the file being processed by Mercury for backup before Mercury can lock it out.  You really need to pause Mercury during the backup process.   I had the same problem with my SQL type applications on the server. 
[/quote]

Is there a way to automatically pause Mercury at some predetermined time and then have it start up again? My backups occur at night when I am unable to pause Mercury manually.

Some of the crashes did not seem related to backup times. If I can set Mercury to pause somehow automatically so the backup process is taken out of the equation, I will be able to see better. My backup program can start a process when the backup starts, but it can't pause a program!

Cheers!

Ellie

Some of the crashes did not seem related to backup times. If I can set

Mercury to pause somehow automatically so the backup process is taken

out of the equation, I will be able to see better. My backup program

can start a process when the backup starts, but it can't pause a

program!

Tell your backup program to bypass all directories used by Mercury/32 (including the TEMP directory) for awhile to see if this solves the problem. If it does then you'll know why it's happening; if it does not you can start looking further.

[quote user="Thomas R. Stephenson"]

Tell your backup program to bypass all directories used by Mercury/32 (including the TEMP directory) for awhile to see if this solves the problem. If it does then you'll know why it's happening; if it does not you can start looking further.[/quote]

It is a Mercury backup, so I will simply stop backing up Mercury to see if the problem goes away.

Cheers!

Ellie

[quote user="Thomas R. Stephenson"]

Tell your backup program to bypass all directories used by Mercury/32 (including the TEMP directory) for awhile to see if this solves the problem. If it does then you'll know why it's happening; if it does not you can start looking further.[/quote]

Hi Thomas,

I stopped the Mercury backup completely and the freeze happened again early this morning some time. There is a backup of the mail folders into which Mercury dumps the mail that happens early in the morning. Could that be a problem? The folders are not even on the same drive as the Mercury program is installed on.

If that couldn't be the problem, then something else is going on.

Ellie

Does the crash and/or freeze happen during backup time or also during "normal" operation hours? And, more importantly, are you using the IMAP server to access mailfolders? If yes:

Your crashes might be related to corrupt mailfolder files: Mercury can run afoul of certain corrupt index files (*.PMI) or even mailfolder files (*.PMM). The new MBXMAINT.EXE tool is a great way to check all mailfolders of one maildirectory, but it is tedious work to check more than a few. If you are looking for corrupt files, also always check the file HIERARCH.PM, since some corruption of mailfolder headers can find their way into the hierarchy file.

At the moment, I know of no way to pinpoint the corrupt file, or even the user in question, since mercury crashes before it can write anything into a logfile, or rather, access of mailfolders does not seem to be logged.

Greetings

Markus Borst

[quote user="Markus"]

Does the crash and/or freeze happen during backup time or also during "normal" operation hours? And, more importantly, are you using the IMAP server to access mailfolders? If yes:

Your crashes might be related to corrupt mailfolder files: Mercury can run afoul of certain corrupt index files (*.PMI) or even mailfolder files (*.PMM). The new MBXMAINT.EXE tool is a great way to check all mailfolders of one maildirectory, but it is tedious work to check more than a few. If you are looking for corrupt files, also always check the file HIERARCH.PM, since some corruption of mailfolder headers can find their way into the hierarchy file.

At the moment, I know of no way to pinpoint the corrupt file, or even the user in question, since mercury crashes before it can write anything into a logfile, or rather, access of mailfolders does not seem to be logged.[/quote]

Hi Markus,

I have no way of knowing at what time the crash occurs. I could stop the Mailfolder backup, or run it at a specific time and stop it happening during the night, just to test it. But I have a feeling it has nothing to do with that.

In my Hierarch.pm I have several lines like this:

0,0,"270CDBCA:1D6A:FOL050D5","0C4F4800:ELLIE - WORK AND",Name_Unavailable

and 

 0,0,"W22IWFS9:3D77:FOL0347B","1F384250:   Digital Workf",Name_Unavailable

What should be done with those? Could they be causing this choking?

Ellie

Hi Thomas,

I stopped the Mercury backup completely and the freeze happened again

early this morning some time. There is a backup of the mail folders

into which Mercury dumps the mail that happens early in the morning.

Could that be a problem? The folders are not even on the same drive as

the Mercury program is installed on.

Sorry, what I meant when I said to bypass the Mercury/32 directories I especially meant the users mailboxes.  Any access of a file that Mercury/32 needs can cause this sort of problem and since Mercury/32 is not running on the same drive that is also the possibility of drive access causing a problem. 

I do split the program and mailboxes with Netware and Mercury/32 though obviously and every once in a while Mercury/32 will crash when the connection to the Netware server is lost but since it's running as a service it's restored.

[quote user="Ellie Kennard"] Is there any way I can find out the cause? I am on Windows XP SP2[/quote]

Time to put on the Sherlock hat and spectacles. 

• What version of Mercury?
• is M/32 running as a service?
• Are the files on a local drive? - if not, how is your file-system split on drives/unc paths, what server/NAS do you use?, and does that one have AntiVir installed - if so - what sw & version?
• When a freeze happens, what is M/32 doing (if you have access to the UI) - or does the entire machine freeze up?
• Can you trace down the various logs, and see if M/32 is in the middle of a process?

Thanks Sherlock!

• What version of Mercury?: 4.52
• is M/32 running as a service?: Not as far as I am aware.
  
• Are the files on a local drive?: - yes. The computer has a single C drive on which Mercury runs. The machine contains 4 drives also run as a Raid 1 Configuration, which contain the mailboxes.
  
• When a freeze happens, what is M/32 doing (if you have access to the UI) - or does the entire machine freeze up? I have no access to the UI (it shows, but I am unable to scroll on the box to see what it was doing. When I click to acknowledge that it has frozen, it leaves the screen and I have to restart it. The entire machine does not freeze up.
  
• Can you trace down the various logs, and see if M/32 is in the middle of a process?: Where would I find these?
• No AV is running on this machine.
  

 Thanks again,

Ellie

[quote user="Ellie Kennard"]

• When a freeze happens, what is M/32 doing (if you have access to the UI) - or does the entire machine freeze up? I have no access to the UI (it shows, but I am unable to scroll on the box to see what it was doing. When I click to acknowledge that it has frozen, it leaves the screen and I have to restart it. The entire machine does not freeze up.
  
• 
  

[/quote]

Two causes come to mind here: Either a file conflict, or an affinity problem. In either case, if you're not running MercuryX, I'd upgrade to the latest version (4.72) before going further. If you're reluctant to do that, install filemon from sysinternals filter it to the Mercury paths, and see if there is a file conflict somehow. The event logs are also interesting. If you f.ex. have write cache on your mirrored system, you're most likely to find some disk related events in the system logs.

You're the doctor here, and have to look for clues, note what you see and report back then we'll see if we can find the common denominator.

[quote user="Ellie Kennard"]

• is M/32 running as a service?: Not as far as I am aware.
  
• Can you trace down the various logs, and see if M/32 is in the middle of a process?: Where would I find these?

[/quote]

To see whether Mercury is running as a service, look in the Windows Task Manager - if the user name is SYSTEM or LOCAL SERVICE, it's a service, if it's your own Windows logon then it's not a service.

Various logs are available and they all seem to be set up in slightly different ways - for the core, go to Configuration > Mercury Core Module, Files tab, and add a filename to the last box. For each of the modules, open their configuration screens (further down the menu) and find the place to give a file name. Then run Mercury and look in the Mercury folder, or whichever sub folders you told it to use, for the log files. It may take a bit of experimenting to find all the logs!

[quote user="Chris Bolton"]

To see whether Mercury is running as a service, look in the Windows Task Manager - if the user name is SYSTEM or LOCAL SERVICE, it's a service, if it's your own Windows logon then it's not a service.

Various logs are available and they all seem to be set up in slightly different ways - for the core, go to Configuration > Mercury Core Module, Files tab, and add a filename to the last box. For each of the modules, open their configuration screens (further down the menu) and find the place to give a file name. Then run Mercury and look in the Mercury folder, or whichever sub folders you told it to use, for the log files. It may take a bit of experimenting to find all the logs!

[/quote]

It's not running as a service.

I have entered a filename and path for the Core Module, as suggested in the help files. Should be easy to find.

I will also check the other logs. I have not had any crashes since I stopped the backup procedures while Mercury was running. A minor hassle to close down both mail programs and Mercury and then run a backup in the day, but I expect I shall get used to the procedure. I like things to be automated, but if it is not to be, then it is not to be.

Cheers!

Ellie

Those logs are long! I guess I should know what I am looking for?

Ellie

If the crashes stopped when you disabled the backup then the question is already answered. Otherwise look at the last entries before the crash in the log to see what was going on at the time.

We backup all mail folders without having to shut down Mercury, but I guess different backup programs can have different ways to access files.

/Rolf

[quote user="Rolf Lindby"]

We backup all mail folders without having to shut down Mercury, but I guess different backup programs can have different ways to access files.[/quote]

Strange thing was we have backed up using this software and on this machine for years. Never had a freeze like this until the last little while.