Error when adding email to an individual

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pbumc
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:28 pm
Location: San Diego, CA

Error when adding email to an individual

Post by pbumc »

We hit this today, eight years later, on PC 11.55. The user described the sequence of events like this:

- Entered new family record with name only (no street address available).
- Entered new individual. On Contacts tab, added new email address. Several random garbage characters appears in gray Family box at the right of this pane, after the person's name--maybe after clicking Save?
- Back in Family, no individual displayed in list of individuals.
- Tried to enter again--I think she means adding an individual--got message "Data session #5 cannot be released with open transaction(s)." Clicking OK just re-displays the same message. Cannot close PowerChurch.

I connected to her machine:

- All PowerChurch sub-windows were closed with only the main window displayed with the recurring message window.
- Killed PowerChurch from Task Manager.
- Opened PowerChurch as an admin. Re-indexed database. Logged out.
- User logged back on. The individual she had tried to add was saved successfully. I changed the individual's email address and Saved; no error.

It seems maybe the database transaction save/wait/fail loop is a little buggy on the individual email address. I realize it's hard to debug when we can't duplicate the issue, but it might be worth reviewing the transaction code in that module.

Regards,
Last edited by pbumc on Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:52 am, edited 2 times in total.
Mark Berry

NeilZ
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Re: Errors when entering new family

Post by NeilZ »

FWIW .. its always a better idea to start a new topic as what you are seeing is not exactly the same as what happened. The error occurred once, and they were not able to reproduce.
pbumc wrote:We hit this today, eight years later, on PC 11.55. The user described the sequence of events like this:

- Entered new family record with name only (no street address available).
- Entered new individual. On Contacts tab, added new email address. Several random garbage characters appears in gray Family box at the right of this pane, after the person's name--maybe after clicking Save?
- Back in Family, no individual displayed in list of individuals.
- Tried to enter again--I think she means adding an individual--got message "Data session #5 cannot be released with open transaction(s)." Clicking OK just re-displays the same message. Cannot close PowerChurch.

I connected to her machine:

- All PowerChurch sub-windows were closed with only the main window displayed with the recurring message window.
- Killed PowerChurch from Task Manager.
- Opened PowerChurch as an admin. Re-indexed database. Logged out.
- User logged back on. The individual she had tried to add was saved successfully. I changed the individual's email address and Saved; no error.

It seems maybe the database transaction save/wait/fail loop is a little buggy on the individual email address. I realize it's hard to debug when we can't duplicate the issue, but it might be worth reviewing the transaction code in that module.

Regards,
Your error is different in a few ways:

1. You're using a newer version of the software.
2. The user was adding a new family, not trying to update an existing email.

I suspect that they'll look at the code, but considering this is only the second report in 8 years, and can't be duplicated, its going to be really hard to pin down.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

pbumc
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:28 pm
Location: San Diego, CA

Re: Error when adding email to an individual

Post by pbumc »

Neil,

I thought about starting a new thread but it seems likely that this is the same error from 2010, as described in this thread:

https://www.powerchurch.com/forum/viewt ... f=2&t=5167

Pleas note that in our case, the family had already been added. The user was trying to add an individual with an email address.

Yes it is a different version of the software, but considering the messages are identical and both reports are about individual email address, it seems likely that they are related.

Regards,
Mark Berry

NeilZ
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Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
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Re: Error when adding email to an individual

Post by NeilZ »

pbumc wrote:Neil,

I thought about starting a new thread but it seems likely that this is the same error from 2010, as described in this thread:

https://www.powerchurch.com/forum/viewt ... f=2&t=5167

Pleas note that in our case, the family had already been added. The user was trying to add an individual with an email address.

Yes it is a different version of the software, but considering the messages are identical and both reports are about individual email address, it seems likely that they are related.

Regards,
FWIW .. I'm fairly sure that the message is a generic warning that the database instance being used cannot be closed. I suspect its more likely that since your reindex corrected the problem, it was a database indexing issue. Could have had two people trying to write to the membership database at the same time. I'll flag this for the techs to look at.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

Zorak
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Re: Error when adding email to an individual

Post by Zorak »

As Tracy replied in the other thread, it is likely that something failed saving the info in the prior step and the error is just bubbling up after.

Both users mentioning the email address is likely a coincidence, as there isn't any email-specific code in this process. They both probably had names and other info in common as well :D

Two users in eight years reporting a problem means it's going to be a fun one to try and track down. Normally, if a Maintenance Release introduces a new bug, we get two user reports in the first hour after publishing the changes!

pbumc
Posts: 77
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:28 pm
Location: San Diego, CA

Re: Error when adding email to an individual

Post by pbumc »

Thanks, Zorak, I realize it's not a new or frequent issue and I'm not to concerned about it unless it recurs. But if there are other transactional issues appearing from time to time, maybe this adds some helpful info.

Regards,
Mark Berry

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