Category Archives: Troubleshooting

Where is my Custom Reminder window to add reminders to my GP home page?

Posted on by

I was reported with a very vague issue: user could not create a custom reminder from a smartlist. He received an error message as follows:

Snip20130417_3

Basically, below is the window which user is trying to open:

Snip20130417_5

Ideally, you would think that this window is a part of Microsoft Dynamics GP dictionary. But it is NOT. It is a part of Smartlist dictionary.

But trick here is, you cannot see this window listed on when you try to assign this window a particular Security Task using Security Task Setup window. Then, how? How would I give access to this window?

After around an hour or so, with several script logs and profilers misleading me, I found one interesting statement on SQL Profiler trace, that was executed when the user tried opening that window:

Snip20130417_6

Exactly after this SQL statement, the above error message was thrown at the user. Which means, I must focus my troubleshooting efforts on this table; DYNAMICS..SY10000. This table is simply called User Security.

When user tried to open Custom Reminder window, system checked this table and see whether this user has got access to a window whose resource ID is 1452 in dictionary 0 (which is nothing but product Microsoft Dynamics GP) inside company ID 1 (which is my production GP company).

I was always thinking about something in Smartlist (which is, without any doubt), but system was checking something else in a different dictionary altogether. I wanted to see the window in Microsoft Dynamics GP dictionary which is of resource ID 1452. Opened the DYNAMICS.DIC on Dexterity and checked it, only to realise with disbelief that it was referring to following window:

Snip20130417_7

I did not understand first. Why would it check something totally irrelevant from what user wanted to open? Why would it check access to this window, when opening a window in different dictionary? I have no answer to these questions.

But I just thought I would take a chance. I checked this user’s security task setup and found that Reminders window was not assigned. I assigned that window for this user as shown below:

Snip20130417_8

Tested whether he could open Custom Reminder. To my utter disbelief, IT DID.

So, if somebody is facing same issue and has already lost almost all your hair, here you have, a solution that would bring upon peace.

VAIDY

Visual Studio Tools for Dynamics GP – A Weird Flaw/Limitation

Posted on by

I must first admit that I faced this issue (or may be flaw…!?!?!?!) only now after all these years of VS Tools development expertise.

The issue is this: I want to write a custom code on two events; SOP Entry Print Button and POP Entry Print Button. When I initialise the event method for SOP Entry Print Button, following is how it generates the code:

Snip20130221_4

And the event method gets created as follows (if you use TAB to create the methods automatically):

Snip20130221_5

After above, when I try to initialise an event method for POP Entry Print Button, following is how it generates the code:

Snip20130221_6

When you try to press TAB to create the event method automatically, it takes you to previously created method.

Because, print buttons on both windows (SOP Entry & PO Entry) have same name technically, which is WindowPrint, VS Tools doesn’t understand both are from different windows and it just goes on to refer to one single method instead of two.

But you are not stuck there forever. Simple solution is to manually name your method initialisation with logical names, like below:

Snip20130221_7

And like below:

Snip20130221_8

Visual Studio Tools for Dynamics GP does not restrict you from using only names that it suggest.

VAIDY

Fixed Assets Depreciate Button Disabled For User – Solution

Posted on by

This issue was a bit tricky but not THAT tricky, though.

One of the users reported to me that he was not able to run depreciation because when he opened the Depreciation Process Information window (Microsoft Dynamics GP -> Tools -> Routines -> Fixed Assets -> Depreciate), the Depreciate button was disabled. Below was the screenshot that he sent to me (disabled button is highlighted in RED box):

Depreciate Window

 

Reason: After quite a bit of analysis (Dex Script Log & SQL Profiling using SDT), I found that there is a table where FA module temporarily records the depreciation activity initiated by any user and will retain that record the process is complete.

User confirmed to me that last time when he ran the depreciation process, it got stuck at the time of printing the results.

Solution:

The table which records the activity is FA40203 (display name: Book Setup for Depreciation). The table contains three fields: User ID, FA Book Index & FA Book ID.

I took a backup of this table (a simple T-SQL SELECT * INTO…) and removed that stranded activity record for that user.

User confirmed that he could then start depreciation process.

Its always good to start a day with some brainy troubleshooting. But not certainly good for users to start with an issue, though.

VAIDY

Infamous “Sales distribution amount is incorrect” Error

Posted on by

I received an email from one of my users seeking my help in clearing this issue. While posting an invoice, this error message popped up:

SDE-01

 

Upon running the Edit List for this invoice, I realized that it was due to an imbalance in Markdown Amount and corresponding distribution line. Below was the error report that I got:

SDE-02

There seemed to be Markdown entered on one or more line item(s), but there was no distribution line for that amount. But the issue was not THAT simple and didn’t stop there.

When I ran thru’ all line items, none contained a Markdown. Now that’s the problem. After some minutes of thinking, I realized something must be stranded on header record’s Markdown field, for which GP requires a Markdown distribution line, but since line items do not contain any Markdown, it’s not creating one. Strange.

I decided to query the records from SOP10100 (SOP Header) and SOP10200 (SOP Line) to understand the issue. Below is what I found:

SDE-03

SERIOUSLY…?!?!?!?!

But yes, that was the issue. And most baffling thing is, when I tried to reconcile this sales document, this major mishap didn’t get cleared at all.

Obvious solution for this abnormal situation is as follows:

1. Take backup of this SOP10100 record.

2. Update Markdown fields with ZERO.

3. Reconcile this sales document again to see if the above update had caused any imbalance.

Happy new year and happy troubleshooting…!!!

VAIDY

DBCC SHRINKFILE

Posted on by

There is an amazingly simpler yet highly informative post up on TECHNET portal, which proved very handy this morning.

My systems admin reported to me that our SharePoint server ran out of storage for some reason unknown to him, but he could identify that it was SQL Server program files folder which consumed 80% of storage.

I immediately knew what could be the reason. It’s those crazy log files problem. To truncate and clear these overeating log files, I had to use this command: DBCC SHRINKFILE.

SP-Log-FileGrowth

Once I cleared out all unnecessary file space from these log files, I had to setup the File Growth and Maximum File Size (shown in the screenshot beside):

Never for a DB log file, we should setup the file growth as “In Percent”. This would prove disastrous over a period of time. Instead, always set it up to “In Megabytes” and enter a least sensible value; in my case I had set it up to 5MB.

For a DB Log file, 2GB should be reasonable amount of file space to hold the logs. To learn more about Log files, read this post on TECHNET: The Transaction Log (SQL Server).

We must understand one thing, that shrinking the DB log has got it’s own impact.

VAIDY

Performance Issue with Received/Not Invoiced Report in POP

Posted on by

Angela Ebensteiner (Technical Lead, Microsoft Dynamics) share a fix on Microsoft Dynamics GP Support blog for the performance issue with Received Not Invoiced report in Purchase Order Processing (POP).

To brief you here on why this performance issue occur, it’s because of huge pile of PO records staying on POP open tables, even after they are closed. When you run the report, it goes through each and every record on POP open table, due to which you got to wait for some time till query processing finishes.

Fix is to remove completed POs from open tables to history, which we have a standard utility available in GP.

VAIDY

Cashbook Bank Transfer Error: Date entered is not a current period for checkbook [Checkbook ID]

Posted on by

This was a menace for the past 4 days, to say the least.

I was reported of this issue, where a user when trying to enter a bank transfer for a checkbook, on a date in previous month, he got this error message (in the title of this post) as shown below:

The above message occurred only for one particular checkbook and not for others.

First step was to ensure the fiscal period was not closed. It was not.

Second step was to ensure that they had not run the reconciliation for this checkbook, so genuinely it had closed the period. It was not.

Third step was to run check links for Checkbook Master, to ensure that things are fine with Checkbook ID master record. It was perfect.

Fourth step was to take SQL Profile and see where exactly this message pops up. When I took twice, the results were different. Due to Analytical Accounting. But that I never got to know since, my focus was more on CB tables.

I referred to the ONLY AVAILABLE forum post, Date Entered is not for Current Period for CashBook, which was way back in year 2010. No solution was provided though.

I decided to take the SQL profile again, but this time without Analytical Accounting to avoid extra lines on the trace file. I took the profile twice and both matched line by line.

The last table where the buck stopped was CBINT605 (Reconciled Amounts) on DYNAMICS database. When I queried this table manually, following was the result:

As you see above, there was a record for this checkbook ID, with a date 30-Apr-2012. Due to which, if you enter any date on or before 30-Apr-2012, it fails.

I checked the user again to ensure that he had not run any reconciliation for this checkbook. He assured that he didn’t, but he also mentioned that he was demonstrating this process to a user, but did not complete it. Bad. Demonstrating on a live company is very bad.

I took a backup of this table and then deleted this record.

Now, my checkbook accepts any date for it’s bank transfer entry.

MORAL OF STORY #1: Messages never lie. If there is a message, it will most probably be correct.

MORAL OF STORY #2: Never ever do any R&D on live company. Never ever demonstrate anything on a live company. That’s why test companies are for.

VAIDY

Analytical Accounting “aagCreateTree” Dimension Creation Error Message & Reason

Posted on by

I received an email from one of the users with an attachment that displayed an error message while trying to create a new Analytical Accounting Dimension. Below is the screenshot that I received:

Upon debugging the stored procedure aagCreateTree, I realized that another stored procedure named aagGetCompanyStatus returned this error number 22004.

This stored procedure validates the version of Analytical Account and the status of particular company, from where you are trying to create a dimension. In my case, there was no record of this company at all.

I finally realized that Analytical Accounting company information was missing on table AAG00104 in DYNAMICS database. I am not sure how and why this could be missing, unless I forgot to run the AA company setup routines (which I did, to my best knowledge).

Solution: I had to rerun the AA company setup options again and recreate the records.

Just in case, someone faces this issue, make sure that you check AA company setup records.

VAIDY

User Access Setup Error: GPS Error RevokeUserAudit: 58

Posted on by

I faced this error message from the time I upgraded to GP2010 R2. The error message is thrown when we revoke access to a user on a company. Below is the exact sequence of error messages that I received:

Since I had not doing this frequently (it’s maximum 3 users in 6 months) and also the purpose of revoking access was working without any issues, I did not consider this as a harmful message.

Yesterday, I had to revoke access to users for an existing company due to some maintenance. Minimum of 10 users and I started receiving this error message each time I select a user and revoke access. It’s then I decided to check this out and clear it once for all.

I could get only one link with exact error message, which I found on our Community Forum. User Access Setup Error: GPS Error RevokeUserAudit: 58.

Let me explain what I did to get rid of this.

1. Check the second error message. It says it did not find the stored procedure *mxCallRevokeUserAudit*.

2. I checked whether this stored procedure is available on any other company that I had on my GP environment. I could not find one on any company.

3. I was intrigued by the name of this stored procedure since, it’s not similar to any Microsoft Dynamics GP SQL object naming convention.

4. I then launched GP and opened Tables Resource Description (Microsoft Dynamics GP -> Tools -> Resource Descriptions -> Tables).

5. Since the message said something about *Audit*, I thought I would first check with *Audit Trails* module. To my surprise (and joy, of course), Physical Name of all tables started with *MX*.

6. I then concluded that the SQL Stored Procedure what I am looking at, is also of *Audit Trails* module.

Now I could not do much with that, since I could not find that stored procedure anywhere. I checked my GP licenses and it did not cover *Audit Trails* module at all.

When I upgraded to Microsoft Dynamics GP2010 R2, I had selected this module also for installation. Since this module is not covered under my license, it installed the dictionary but it did not create the SQL procedures (that’s my assumption and I may be wrong).

The only option that was left; to remove this product from my environment (by removing DYNAMICS.SET file contents alone and not the dictionary itself).

This removed that now (in)famous error message.

VAIDY

"Unknown error 0 – 800AC351 occurred saving the project file" – Error & Solution

Posted on by

My last post discussed about an error message faced by users once GP2010 R2 upgrade was over. This post gives you a solution for that.

The following error message was faced by users when they log off from GP:

Initially I thought it was occurring only on “sa” login. But couple of users today reported the same error when they logged off from GP.

When I analyzed this further, I realized that users who have access to Field Service processes in GP alone were getting this error message. Those who do not have access never reported this issue at all.

That made me to think about next step in solving this. No one has reported this issue yet, thus leaving me in the lurch.

I finally found a solution for this menace.

SOLUTION:

1. I logged off all users from GP environment, as it is Terminal Server environment for us.
2. Launched GP and opened Visual Basic editor.
3. Opened Field Service VBA project.
4. Did some harmless edits (like adding some comments, etc.).
5. Opened the “References” wizard.
6. Unselected all references and selected it back.
7. Compiled the entire project to check whether I am getting any error message.
8. Saved VBA project.
9. Logged off from GP.

Surprisingly (but expectedly) the error message never appeared again.

Those who are looking for some solution for this menace, here it is for you.

VAIDY