Cracking the Vault

SP1 of Vault 2013: What does it include?

Usually a servicepack such as SP1 for Vault 2013 cotains all previous hotfixes.

However this applies only for global hotfixes (something which is fixed for all Vault languages).

Hotfixes which only applies to a specific localized Vault environment (such as German, English, French, Italian etc.) are usually not part of the a servicepack!

Esepecially this German hotfix Unable to invoke the Vault Log In dialog from Inventor Task Scheduler is not part of Vault 2013 SP1!

So if you experience the problem in German Task Scheduler which was described in the previous blog post after installing SP1 of Vault 2013 please make sure you apply this hotfix.

Useful Performance Counters

These counters are useful if you need to analyse performance bottlenecks in your Vault Environment.

SQL
LogicalDisk(D:)\Avg. Disk Queue Length
Memory\Available KBytes
Memory\Page Faults/sec
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:Buffer Manager\Buffer cache hit ratio
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:Databases(_Total)\Transactions/sec
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:Databases(tempdb)\Transactions/sec
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:General Statistics\User Connections
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:Locks(_Total)\Average Wait Time (ms)
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:Locks(_Total)\Lock Requests/sec
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:Locks(_Total)\Lock Wait Time (ms)
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:Locks\Lock Waits/sec
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:Memory Manager\SQL Cache Memory (KB)
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:Memory Manager\Target Server Memory (KB)
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:Memory Manager\Total Server Memory (KB)
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:SQL Statistics\Batch Requests/sec
MSSQL$AUTODESKVAULT:SQL Statistics\SQL Compilations/sec
PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Reads/sec
PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Writes/sec
PhysicalDisk(0 D:)\Avg. Disk Queue Length
Process(_Total)\% Processor Time
Process(sqlservr)\% Processor Time
Processor(*)\% Processor Time
System\Processor Queue Length

IIS\ADMS
W3SVC_W3WP(#####_DefaultAppPool)\Requests / Sec
W3SVC_W3WP(#####_DefaultAppPool)\Active Requests
W3SVC_W3WP(#####_DefaultAppPool)\Total Threads
W3SVC_W3WP(#####_DefaultAppPool)\Active Threads Count
W3SVC_W3WP(#####_DefaultAppPool)\Maximum Threads Count
W3SVC_W3WP(#####_DefaultAppPool)\Current File Cache Memory Usage
W3SVC_W3WP(#####_DefaultAppPool)\Maximum File Cache Memory Usage
W3SVC_W3WP(#####_DefaultAppPool)\Output Cache Current Memory Usage
W3SVC_W3WP(#####_DefaultAppPool)\Current Files Cached
W3SVC_W3WP(#####_DefaultAppPool)\Current Metadata Cached
W3SVC_W3WP(#####_DefaultAppPool)\Total Metadata Cached

CPU
Processor(_Total)\% Interrupt Time
Processor(_Total)\% Privileged Time
Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time
Processor(_Total)\% User Time
System\Context Switches/sec
System\System Calls/sec

Hard Disk
PhysicalDisk(_Total)\% Disk Time
PhysicalDisk(_Total)\% Disk Read Time
PhysicalDisk(_Total)\% Disk Write Time
PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Current Disk Queue Length
PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Reads/sec
PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Writes/sec
PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Avg. Disk Bytes/Read
PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Avg. Disk Bytes/Write

Memory
Memory\Available Bytes
Memory\Cache Faults/sec
Memory\Demand Zero Faults/sec
Memory\Pages/sec
Memory\Transition Faults/sec
Process(inetinfo)\% Processor Time
Process(w3wp)\% Processor Time
Process(w3wp)\Handle Count
Process(w3wp)\ID Process
Process(w3wp)\Private Bytes
Process(w3wp)\Thread Count
Process(w3wp)\Virtual Bytes
Process(w3wp)\Working Set

Network
Network Interface(Name of Network Interface card)\Bytes Total/sec
Network Interface(Name of Network Interface card)\Current Bandwidth

Finding Files where DWF(x) Preview does not exist or is not up to date

You maybe want to find out all files where the DWF(x) preview needs to be updated.

You can use the system property "Visualization Attachment" to find all files which has no preview or the preview nee:

You can even then select all files in the search result and perform an "Update View" - "Queued Update" ("Update Locally" works only on a single file).

One note: the search results are only true with the current version of each file.

Error 303 When Performing a Search in Vault

You have created a user in Vault with the following permissions:


Issue: you perform any search in the Vault (menu Tools - Find) but you got this error message:

"Error 303: You do not have the adequate permissions to perform this operation"

This issue occurred because you picked on "Look For" the option "Any" (this is default) and it will search within the items (where the user doesn´t have permissions) as well.
Solution is to pick the option "Files" (or "Folders"):

Enabling Sharepoint Logging and How to Analyse Them.

To enable logging in Sharepoint 2010

1. Login to "Share 2010 Central Administration"
2. Click "Monitoring"
3. Click "Configure diagnostic logging"
4. Under "Select a Category" tick either "All Categories" or at a minimum "Business Connectivity Services" to capture any errors coming from the Autodesk Vault Sharepoint Integration.
5. Under "Least critical event to report to the event log" select "Verbose"
6. Under "Least critical event to report to the trace log" select "Verbose". (By Default the log files are located here = %CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\LOGS
7. Leave the other options as they are.
8. Click OK

To help analyse the log files, Microsoftt provides a free utility called ULS Viewer that allows filtering by a specific product.

• Click the Filter icon,
• Field = "Product"
• Operation = "Contains"
• Value = "Autodesk Vault BCS Connector"

If there is a Sharepoint "Correlation ID", you can filter on that as well.

 

After you have solved the issue that you are troubleshooting, you may want to turn off verbose logging. :-)

 

 

Expand all Levels in Vault Browser of Inventor

Situation: You are working on a bigger assembly in Inventor and if you look at the Vault Browser you don´t see all levels of the assembly structure expanded:

To expand all levels you need to mark the top level assembly in your browser and press the * button of your numeric keyboard area:

Now you see all levels expanded:

Background: Vault just adapted the windows functionality to expand all subfolders of a marked folder with the * button

"Failed to create full backup task"

If you try to set up a backup from within the ADMS Console, in some environments you can get this message.

Trying to set up an incremental backup you will get the "Failed to create incremental backup task"

This happens because the command being sent to the Windows Task Scheduler is using a MM/DD/YYY format.

You can use one of the following workarounds

1) Manually create the task in Windows Task Scheduler

2) run the following script modifying the variables appropriately

schtasks.exe /Create /SC WEEKLY /D SUN /TN "Vault Full Backup" /TR "\"H:\lib\Debug\VaultFullBackup.bat\"" /ST 23:00:00 /SD 06/28/2012

3) Change the locale of the Vault Server to one that uses a MM/DD/YYYY format (e.g. English US)

Autodesk will be addressing this issue in a future release.

How Do I Open the Firewall Ports For SQL Server on Windows Server 2008

I found MS Knowledgebase Article ID 968872 useful in automating opening up the SQL Ports when configuring Connected Workgroups. It saved me a lot of mouse clicks! :-)

 

@echo =========  SQL Server Ports  ===================
@echo Enabling SQLServer default instance port 1433
netsh firewall set portopening TCP 1433 "SQLServer" 
@echo Enabling Dedicated Admin Connection port 1434
netsh firewall set portopening TCP 1434 "SQL Admin Connection" 
@echo Enabling conventional SQL Server Service Broker port 4022  
netsh firewall set portopening TCP 4022 "SQL Service Broker" 
@echo Enabling Transact-SQL Debugger/RPC port 135 
netsh firewall set portopening TCP 135 "SQL Debugger/RPC" 
@echo =========  Analysis Services Ports  ==============
@echo Enabling SSAS Default Instance port 2383
netsh firewall set portopening TCP 2383 "Analysis Services" 
@echo Enabling SQL Server Browser Service port 2382
netsh firewall set portopening TCP 2382 "SQL Browser" 
@echo =========  Misc Applications  ==============
@echo Enabling HTTP port 80 
netsh firewall set portopening TCP 80 "HTTP" 
@echo Enabling SSL port 443
netsh firewall set portopening TCP 443 "SSL" 
@echo Enabling port for SQL Server Browser Service's 'Browse' Button
netsh firewall set portopening UDP 1434 "SQL Browser" 
@echo Allowing multicast broadcast response on UDP (Browser Service Enumerations OK)
netsh firewall set multicastbroadcastresponse ENABLE 

Increasing Timeouts for Autodesk Project Sync

If you need to synchronise a large amount of data between Vault and Buzzsaw after installing Autodesk Project Sync, you may get a timeout error.

There are three components to Project Sync that would need to be configured:-

• Autodesk Vault Buzzsaw Addin
• Job Processor
• Vault Server

Autodesk Vault Buzzsaw Addin

The "Autodesk Vault Buzzsaw Addin" can be configured in Vault 2012 and 2013 as follows:-

1. Navigate to the "%allusersprofile%\Autodesk\Vault 201x\Extensions\Autodesk.Vault.Buzzsaw.AddIn" folder.
2. Make a Copy of "Autodesk.Vault.Buzzsaw.Interface.dll.config"
3. In Notepad edit the "Autodesk.Vault.Buzzsaw.Interface.dll.config" file
4. Increase the "HttpWebRequestTimeout" value.
5. Save the file.

Job Processor

The Job Processor can be configured in Vault 2012 and Vault 2013 as follows:

1. Navigate to the "%ProgramFiles%\Autodesk\Vault x\Explorer\" folder.
2. Make a Copy of "Autodesk.Vault.Buzzsaw.Interface.dll.config"
3. In Notepad edit the "Autodesk.Vault.Buzzsaw.Interface.dll.config" file
4. Increase the "HttpWebRequestTimeout" value.
5. Save the file.

Example, IN BOTH FILES:

  <appSettings>
    <!-- Http Web Request timeout (in milliseconds) Default is 1000000 (1000 seconds).  Set to -1 for infinity -->
    <add key="HttpWebRequestTimeout" value="10000000" />
  </appSettings>

Vault Server

The Vault Server can be configured in Vault 2012 and Vault 2013

1. Navigate to the "%ProgramFiles%\ADMS Professional 2013\Server\Web\Services\" folder.
2. Make a Copy of "web.config"
3. In Notepad edit the "web.config" file
4. Increase the "executionTimeout" value.
5. Save the file.
6. Restart IIS

Example

<httpRuntime maxRequestLength="51200" executionTimeout="10000" />

In the above examples, a 0 has been added increasing the timeout value by a factor x10, make sure that Timeout settings in all files are the same. After the synchronisation has been completed, set the values back to the default to avoid long delays before any error messages are displayed.

Troubleshooting Vault Professional for SAP Integration issues

If you encounter an issue with the SAP Integration for Vault Professional the first thing to do is to enable debugging in the "vault_sap_interface.xml" file.

This is located in this folder

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Vault Professional 201x\Explorer\Extensions\Integration for SAP.

Edit this file with Notepad and change DEBUG="0" to DEBUG="1"

Then restart the Vault Client and reproduce the error.

Then in the SAP Integration click SAP>About

Click Export to XML

Name the log file as Debug (for example).

Error messages will appear in this debug file.

If you cannot find the solution to the error yourself, you will need to supply both the "vault_sap_interface.xml" and the debug file to Autodesk support for further investigation.

IMPORTANT NOTE - If you leave debugging turned on, the debug file will grow significantly over time. So once you captured the error, remember to set it back to DEBUG="0"