Troubleshooting multi-machine installations of NAV 2009
Today I found a really good and interesting blog about general troubleshooting of multi-machine scenarios in NAV 2009. Most of the blog is checking SPN settings, delegations settings and different problems with those.
Intro
The NAV 2009 documentation walkthroughs provide step-by-step instructions for installing NAV 2009 on 2 or 3 machines. However, we have found that some of the same configuration issues come up time after time after installation.
When on calls with partners and customers, it seemed to me that this information was spread out all over the place, so I wanted to organize it in a different way for troubleshooting purposes so that I would have most everything in one place. Hopefully this will be helpful to others as well.
The intention of this post is to provide a checklist of sorts for troubleshooting some of the areas where we frequently find errors or omissions in configuration after NAV 2009 has been installed.
Find the whale blog here: http://blogs.msdn.com/nav_developer/archive/2009/08/17/troubleshooting-multi-machine-installations-of-nav-2009.aspx
How to combine Split files in Windows
Last weekend I did some cleanup of my Linux machine and transferred all files over to the Windows machine. I ran into problem to transfer bigger files than 4GB so I needed to split the files before transfer and put them back together in the windows machine.
To split a file in Linux to 100MB per piece write:
split –b 100m /path/to/large/file /path/to/output/file/prefix
To put them together again on windows write in the command prompt
copy /b /path/to/output/file/prefix* files.tgz /b
Manager multiple service tiers in NAV 2009
Did find an interesting tool developed by Kine yesterday about managing multiple service in NAV 2009. So what can this tool do?
1. Start/Stop the NAV services
2. Create new instances of the services
3. Configure the services (change DB server, DB name, and enable/disable debugging on them)
4. Remove the services (excluding the default one)
5. Do it all on remote machine (remote registry access required)
Kine’s post about the tool: Here
Zip: NAV2009_NST_Management_1_0_0_debug.zip
Source code: http://github.com/kine/NAV_NST_Management
Changing stored procedure to 64 bit in NAV 2009
Did install Dynamics NAV 2009 on windows 2008 64 bit. When trying to connect to the database in classic client I got this error.
The following SQL server error or errors occurred:
17750,“42000”,[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Could not load the DLL C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft Dynamics NAV60Databasexp_ndo.dll, or one of the DLLs it references. Reason: 193(failed to retrieve text for this error. Reason: 15100).
SQL:
INSERT INTO [#$ndo$groups] {CALL [master]..[xp_ndo_enumusergroups](?,?)}
The reason for this error is that the installed xp_ndo.dll is 32 bit and not 64 bit. My solution was simple to replace xp_ndo.dll with the 64 bit version.
1. Stop SQL server
2. Copy \vedfssrv01DynamicsNAV2009W1DVDSql_espx64 xp_ndo_x64.dll to C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft Dynamics NAV60Database
3. Rename existing xp_ndo.dll to xp_ndo_x32.dll
4. Rename xp_ndo_x64.dll to xp_ndo.dll
5. Start SQL server
What do-do when the setup.exe doesn’t start in Dynamics NAV 2009
The reason that setup.exe doesn’t start can be many. But I will try to give you ha checklist that you can work through if you end up in this situation.
1. Ensure that the user account running setup.exe have administrator rights.
2. Try the DVD/download one another computer. If this work you have eliminated that it’s any wrong on the installation media.
3. Start the task manager and check if any setup.exe is running. Sometimes under very special circumstances the setup.exe crash and will prevent any other attempt to start it again by staying running. If you find any setup.exe process kill them. And try to run the setup.exe again.
4. Start the task manager and check if any msiexec.exe is running. This may happen when a windows update is running or that another installation process is running or have crashed. The best solution in this case is to restart the machine and check again and try to run the setup.exe again. In most cases the msiexec.exe process will be gone.
5. If msiexe.exe are still there it probably mean that windows installer are running something. You can on your own risk try to kill all of those processes. The risk you take here is that you may end up with something half installed from windows update or other source. So it’s recommended to run windows update after this to ensure its ok.
How to install more than one Dynamics NAV 2009 Demo Database alternative 2
Earlier I did describe how to duplicate an installed and existing database in post “How to install more than one Dynamics NAV 2009 Demo Database”. This time I will attached the DB directly from DVD.
The steps is as follow
1. Create the directory where you would like to have the new database.
2. Copy the database from DVDSQLDemoDatabasePFilesMicrosoft Dynamics NAV60Database Demo Database NAV (6-0)_Data.mdf to the new directory.
3. Run the following command in SQL manager studio and replace the @physname path with the new created on and set @dbname to the database name you would like to use.
sp_attach_single_file_db @dbname= ‘new_Demo Database NAV (6-0)’, @physname= ‘C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft Dynamics NAV60Database – CopyDemo Database NAV (6-0)_Data.mdf’
You need to ensure that the SQL server user have correct permissions to ‘C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft Dynamics NAV60Database – Copy’ or where you put the db files. I’m using ‘NETWORK SERVICE” as the SQL server user account, the NAV will use this account by default when doing demo installation.
To set permission
1. Open properties for the directory.
2. Click security tab
3. Click advance
4. Click edit
5. If the SQL server user is not present press add and pick the user else select the SQL server user and click edit
6. Change the permission so that the following permission is checked
a. Read attributes
b. Read extended attributes
c. Create files / write data
d. Create folders / append data
e. Write attributes
f. Write extended attributes
g. Delete subfolders and files
h. Delete
7. Click OK
8. Click Ok
9. Click OK
10. Click OK
Multiple Service Tiers – NAV 2009 SP1
Freddy have update his blog about how to run multiple service tiers in NAV 2009 SP1. One of the new things in SP1 is that you can use named instance of SQL server. On the blog post he has some nice bat script that can set everything up.
The post can be found here http://blogs.msdn.com/freddyk/archive/2009/08/05/multiple-service-tiers-sp1.aspx
Online resource for Dynamic NAV
Found this pages today
Dynamics book online.
A wiki with a lot of information about dynamics NAV
http://wiki.dynamicsbook.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Developer and IT Pro Help
The Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Developer and IT Pro Help provides information about developing, installing, and managing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009. The latest help includes new content that describes new functionality in Microsoft Dynamics 2009 SP1. If you are not yet running SP1, a prior version of the help, which does not include Microsoft NAV 2009 SP1 functionality, is also available.
http://www.microsoft.com/DownLoads/details.aspx?familyid=EEC997BE-50C8-4D27-8BF2-FA93C9AC282A&displaylang=en
Installing Dynamics NAV 2009 on windows 7
In 2009 it’s not possible to-do a demo installation out of the box. Before starting the NAV installation you need to install SQL server since the version shipped with NAV 2009 doesn’t work on windows 7. When SQL server is installed you can run the NAV installer normally. This problem should be fixed in NAV 2009 SP1.
SQL server express SP3 32 bit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=65212
SQL server express SP3 64 bit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=83387
Multiple Service Tiers in Dynamics NAV 2009
Freddy have posted an interesting blog about having multiple service tiers.
From the post “A very typical scenario with both partners and customers is to have more than one database. This can be because you have a development database and a production database – or it could be the partner having a copy of all customer databases locally for troubleshooting.
You could of course install the Service Tier locally on all computers – and then change the CustomSettings.config to point to a new database every time you need to logon, but that doesn’t really sound like something we want people to do.
The setup we would like to have is:
• One or more SQL Server boxes with a bunch of databases on
• One or more Service Tier boxes with at least one Service Tier pr. database
• The Client installed locally on all machines being able to connect to these Service Tiers.
This post will go into detail about how to accomplish this.”