Cloverleaf 5.8 Rev 5 Patch issue….

[Tom Rioux]

I have seen a couple of issues with the SMAT tool while testing the Rev Patch in our test environment.   I was wondering if anyone else has seen this issue.

Issue #1  – I have an inbound/outbound thread pair.   I have both corresponding threads SMAT files open.  I’m doing some checking of messages on the outbound side for errors or whatever.   I resend some messages from the inbound SMAT files to the outbound thread.   Let’s say I have 5 messages in the outbound threads SMAT file and want to resend 3 messages from the inbound threads SMAT file.   I resend the 3 messages, then click on load to reload the outbound threads SMAT file.   I still see only 5 messages in the outbound SMAT file when I should expect 8 messages.  If I close the SMAT GUI for that file and reopen the SMAT tool, then reload the outbound SMAT file, I NOW see the 8 messages.

Issue #2 – I have an inbound threads SMAT file open.   I’m checking messages or whatever.   If messages come into that thread while I have the SMAT file open, then the engine is cycling my SMAT file to a .old.  I get a message saying the SMAT files are out of sync or something like that.   Now I have 2 SMAT files for the same day.  This could be problematic if for some reason I have the GUI open for an extended period.  I haven’t tested it but what if the engine tries to cycle it again. I now have the potential for lost messages in my SMAT files.  

Has anyone noticed this behavior and if so, have any solutions.   Issue #1 we can probably live with, but Issue #2 will probably be a showstopper from putting in the patch.

Thanks….

Tom Rioux

Baylor Health Care

Topic

[Jim Kosloskey]

Tom,

Issue #2 – Do you have auto SMAT cycling activated?

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[Tom Rioux]

Jim,

Where would I turn that on/off?

Tom

[Jim Kosloskey]

Tom,

Open the NetConfig then Click on Process in teh Menu bar, then click on Configure.

In the Dialogue box that appears:

   Select the process

   Select the Properties Tab

       In the Properties container there is a check box for ‘Automatic SMAT Cycling’ and some settings.

Check to see if that is on.

If it is I suppose the timing could be such that cycling took place while you were viewing.

If it is not on then something else must be going on.

         

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email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[Tom Rioux]

Nope…auto SMAT cycling is off

[Robert Milfajt]

I remember reading about the first one in another message, but don’t have the ability to find that now, so if someone could assist, that would be great.  Think the bottom line is that its a FAD (function as designed).

The second one seems to defeat the purpose of being able to open a SMAT file while a thread is running, because getting an old file is what we used to have to do.  I’d like to hear more about this as we are migrating to 5.8.

Two SMAT files for the same day, however should not be a big problem.  However, once you get an old file, you want to preserve it, lest another cycle_save should blow it away.  Right now running 5.5, I cycle_save to get old file, save it to Inboundsave/Outboundsave (depending on thread).  Since our files are SMATfile.$jdate.nnn.msg, where nnn is a sequential number 1..n, this allows for multiple SMAT files for one day, which is a by product of hcicyclesavemsgs script we run nightly.

As far as awsome Cloverleaf SMAT enhancements:

1.  If we could standardize on a naming convention (path/directory) and file naming, like what hcicyclesavemsgs uses.

2.  If Cloverleaf built in standard archiving of the SMAT files and let you turn it on/off by thread, perhaps even schedule it by thread.

3.  If Cloverleaf allowed the cycle_save process to automatically put the files in the archive location with proper name, and not as an old file.

Thanks,

Bob

Robert Milfajt
Northwestern Medicine
Chicago, IL

[Ian Morris]

I can confirm that we have the same issue as described in #1 in 5.8.5.

Thomas Rioux wrote:

I have seen a couple of issues with the SMAT tool while testing the Rev Patch in our test environment.

[Tom Rioux]

I have been working at attempting to replicate issue #2.  So far, I haven’t been able to “knowingly” replicate it.   It must be something about the work flow that I’m doing that causes it and I just can’t figure out what it is.   I know I’m not cycling the SMAT files, we have that procedure automated, even in test.  

I will let you know if I figure it out.

Thanks…

Tom Rioux

[Tiffany Bohall]

Our SMAT files are not cycling.  We just upgraded our TEST environment from 5.7 to 5.8.5 on Tuesday, April 24th and only have a handful of files per each of our 11 sites.  These few files are from the 24th only and nothing has cycled since then.  I have verified that at least a few threads on each site have recent reads so I know messages are crossing fine, we just can’t actually retrieve them.  We have verified that automatic SMAT cycling is turned OFF.  

We have a script that cycles our files once a day in test.  It first takes the .old smat file and moves them to the Archive directory.  Then it issues the following commands to cycle the current smat files to .old.  Been working for years in 5.7.

hcicmd -p $proc -c “$thrd save_cycle in” > /dev/null 2>&1

hcicmd -p $proc -c “$thrd save_cycle out” > /dev/null 2>&1

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

[Jim Kosloskey]

Tiffany,

Can you cycle a SMAT file manually?

Do your files get archived?[/code]

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[Ian Morris]

Tiffany,

Do you shut down your threads to cycle save them?  I noticed that cycle save won’t work if the thread is shut down.  I’m not sure if that’s just that way with 5.8.5 or all versions of Cloverleaf.

Tiffany Bohall wrote:

Our SMAT files are not cycling.

[Tiffany Bohall]

Jim:

I ran this from the command line and it worked fine.  Verified the messages are retrievable in SMAT archive from Friday and as of today messages are also filing to current for this file.  The true test will come at 11pm tonight, when the .old is to cycle to archive.  

Please tell me we won’t have to do this for our 400+ connections??   😥

$ setsite fr_cerner

$ hcicmd -p cer_res

hcicmd> crt_res_in save_cycle in

Response:

inbound message saving cycled

Friday we did turn on automatic SMAT cycling for our master site only and set the threshold very low to observe.  Messages starting collecting in current but we had no luck on cycling of the files.  We manually cycled them this morning and the files just disappeared they did not go to .old.  

As of this morning I turned off autocycle on our master site until we can get this resolved.

Ian:

We do NOT shut down our threads to cycle save them.

[Ian Morris]

I just ran a test to confirm on my own test box (Red Hat 5.6, CL 5.8.5) and found that the scripted cycle save occurred without issue.

[Tiffany Bohall]

I guess the true question from us would be:  If we change nothing related to SMAT files in the 5.8 application post upgrade.  Will our cron job script work exactly the same as it did for rel 5.7?  It’s looking like the answer is a no but now to figure out why and correct it.

[Ian Morris]

Tiffany Bohall wrote:

I guess the true question from us would be:

[Bob Richardson]

One suggestion to triage the problem:  pipe your cycle command output to a log file and check it for errors or other symptoms.  Dev/null is a bit bucket to dump the output right now.   Maybe too simplistic a start but thought to post.

Good luck!  We wil watch this as we are currently planning to upgrade from 5.7 to 5.8.5 on AIX 6.1 TL7.

[Terry Shelton]

Tom, We have been on CL 5.8.5 for several months and what you are experiencing with the SMAT files we have discovered as well. As you mentioned, a new SMAT session has to be reopened and file reloaded to get a refresh. Also, if the SMAT file is open and the process is cyled, the SMAT file gets cycle saved. Very annoying for development work for both issues. Another issue we are seeing is the copy / paste feature within an xlate quits working. Closing and reopening the xlate will usually solve but will return. Again very annoying for development work as we are here with Epic go-live fast approaching. I consider these issues that should have been discovered and corrected before release. My 2 cents worth.

[Bill Marsch]

Look at release notes as they had changed handling of smat files in 5.8.5 that is why we did not apply it as well as the issue of the netmonitor thread labels no lonnger have the option of being inside the thread.

[Author]

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