History did not record for two days

[clinthammer]

In our trial version the History database has been working fine for a week. But I just realised today that for the past two days the history database dint record data for Feb 21 and 22. Now I can see the history db changing in size each time a user accesses the net - hence its updating. But its not putting in the data.

Today I backed up the db as I do everyday and purged the db. Now it has started recording again.

Note the db was max 35mb in size.

Please help :)

[Pascal]

Clint, if you open the copy of that database with an external viewer, such as Excel can you see the contents? Does that show the data for that timeframe?

[clinthammer]

Hi Pascal,

I actually only use excel to view the history file. Ofcourse I make a copy of the history file before viewing it and no even in excel I could not see the two days which were missing.

It's weird but anyways its the weekend right now and when I get back on Sunday ill see if this happens again. Although have you come across this before?

[clinthammer]

Well the problem is back again. Today morning I checked the history database and it recorded usage through the weekend from Thu 23 to Sat 25. But then in the middle of the day on Sat 25 it stopped recording. Even today mornings (Feb 26) activities were not recorded. I had to backup and purge the db for it to start recording again.

This is quite a big problem for us cuz we will rely on this history db report heavily in the future when budgeting Internet usage.

another thing I noticed is the History tab in Gatekeeper was blank. Only after i purged the db did it start showing data again.

What is the problem???

[adrien]

Hi Clint

How big was the file when you had to purge it? Do you have a lot of users going through this machine?

Adrien

[clinthammer]

Hello Adrien,

The file was a maximum of 20mb. History set to record for 500 days.

I have a maximum of 11 users going through the machine. Most concurrent is 9.

[clinthammer]

Once again today the history db did nt record entries. I can see it updating and increasing in size but it does not add the new entries.

DB size was 29.xx mb and stopped recording sometime around 10pm on the 27th.

I have a feeling that I will have to save the db, then purge it to start recording again - as a sort of measure to record daily entries :(

[Pascal]

Does stopping/starting the engine or reconnecting GateKeeper make any difference?

[clinthammer]

Actually it didn't. Yesterday morning I restarted the service because the history tab wasnt updating.

FYI I have Windows XP PRo sp2 on my system.

[Pascal]

Any chance you could email me one of the files that shows a time-frame it does not record for? (Preferably with the indicated timeframe)

If so, address is in my profile. I'll only be able to look at it once I'm back in the office tomorrow, though.

[clinthammer]

Hi Pascal,

I will email you the ftp info where you can download my unedited log files from. Along with the details of why it was not recording etc.

Regards,
CD

[Pascal]

Ok, saw you recalled the message - so let me know what the status is.

[Pascal]

Alright. There are two situations here that are contributing to this.

Excel only displays 65535 rows. If the table has more rows than that you won't see any others. In you case, this is the time when it cut out.

If you open the second DB file you sent me with a regular database viewer you can see that the last entry recorded was on 5 March 2006 at around 5:30 am.

Then, GateKeeper restricts what it shows you. The last post in this topic will show you now to disable that.

[clinthammer]

I knew it wasn't a bug with Wingate :)

Thanks for the prompt support Pascal. I viewed the db in a shareware program and everything was there.

Can you recommend to me a db viewer program - which has the option to convert the "time" field - since I do it manually now in excel?

Thanks again - i really appreciate the support.

[Pascal]

Agood DB Viewer? I'm not too familiar with any freeware ones, sorry. Personally I prefer DBExplorer, which comes with the Borland suite of products but that is because I grew up with it and find it's interface relatively simple and easy to use.

You might want to consider some of the WinGate log analysers though. Alternatively, I always find good stuff using Tucows - you can narrow to Freeware and sort by their rating which should give you a reasonable approximation of what's good. (Having difficulties accessing the site now, internet connection from home seems REAAAAL slow)

[Pascal]

Sorry, as a side thought. Any viewer capable of running a SQL query should be able to display it properly. I don't have the list of fields in front of me, but something like:

select x,y,z, cast( (datetime * /86400)+25569 ) as timestamp from history.dbf order by datetime;

(Or roughly like that) should do it. That has the formula for conversion and the cast to a timestamp (date+time) so should display properly in any grid format.