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Investigating problems with the feed system

Check the prerequisites

These are specified in the installation and configuration guide. Recent problems we have encountered during installation includes:

  • Lack of the SIMS client software on the installation machine, or out of date SIMS client software.
  • Error 1001 - The lack of Microsoft .Net Framework v4.0 or later on the installation machine.

Please note that these are prerequisites. You will need to uninstall and re-install the feed system if you installed it before installing the prerequisites.

Are the scheduled tasks created and able to run?

Depending on the options you selected during installation, GO 4 Schools will have created up to 6 scheduled tasks called:

  • GO - Attendance Module – Applicable to schools that have subscribed to either Tier 2 or 3 of the attendance module
  • GO - Daily Feed
  • GO - MIS Attendance Lesson
  • GO - MIS Attendance Registration
  • GO - Attendance
  • GO - Timetable class clarification

You should check that one or more of these appear in the task scheduler or in the scheduled tasks control panel (depending on your version of Windows).

You should check the last run date/time and the “Last Run Result” code that indicates success or failure in Windows task scheduler.

Possible causes of schedule tasks failure to run include:

  • A mismatch between the password entered during installation and the current password of the account used to run the scheduled tasks.
  • Lack of the "Log on as a batch job" user-right assignment for the account used to run the scheduled task (if you are not using the built-in "NT AUTHORITY\System" account for running feeds).
  • Lack of local administrative privileges for the account used to run the scheduled task (if you are not using the built-in "NT AUTHORITY\System" account for running feeds).

Unable to save preferences

  • If you can't "Save preferences" you should check that you are logged on using an account that has local administrator rights; these are required to create the scheduled tasks.
  • If you are using an account other than the built-in "NT AUTHORITY\System" account for running the feeds, you should check the Protected Storage service is running (Applicable to Server 2008 R2 and earlier versions of Windows), as this is required to store the encrypted password.
  • Right click on the feed system from the start menu or wherever the shortcut is placed and select “Run as Administrator”.

The scheduled tasks run, but data is not sent from Active Directory

If the scheduled tasks run but are not sending data from Active Directory. The most likely causes include:

  • The account used to run the scheduled task is not a domain account and can therefore not access Active Directory.
  • The installation machine is in a different domain

The resolution is to:

  • Use a domain account, making sure that it, too, has the "Log on as a batch job" right.
  • Install the feed system on a machine that is on the same domain as the staff/student accounts.

Unable to retrieve user accounts from two different domains

If you can’t retrieve additional user accounts from another domain when the “Test Retrieval” button is clicked, you should ensure that the security group specified on the “Users Accounts” tab is a Global group and tick “Retrieve details (e.g. email addresses) of group members from the Global Catalog” box.

The scheduled tasks run, but data is not sent from SIMS

If the scheduled tasks run but are not sending data from SIMS, the most likely cause is that the account used to run the scheduled task is not able to connect to SIMS. The most common problems are:

  • Use of an account that lacks the minimum user role (class teacher) required for student names, SEN status and attendance data, teachers’ names, parents’ names etc.
  • You forgot to import the reports into SIMS using the "Re-import report definitions" on the MIS tab, or the credentials supplied were incorrect, meaning that this step failed. You can check for the presence of the "GO 4 Schools - parents" report under the Student focus in SIMS to check whether this step has succeeded.
  • Use of a "redirect" instruction in connect.ini. Unfortunately, the command-line tools provided by SIMs for running reports do not understand "redirect" instructions.
  • Connect.ini is on a mapped drive (e.g. the S: drive) but the account used to run the scheduled tasks does not have the mapping in place and so cannot access connect.ini.
  • The user account set up for SIMS requires the password to be changed on first use. This can be checked by logging on to SIMS with the account. If you need to change the password in SIMS you will need to change it in the configuration tool too, on the "MIS Settings" tab.
  • You have recently updated SIMS and you have lost access to the Document Server within SIMS. If there is a problem with the Document Server GO 4 Schools will not be able to access and run the reports. You can check this by logging onto SIMS on the server and trying to preview a report.
  • You are using a roaming profile directory as the temporary location for the feed files. The temporary location is specified on the "Schedule" tab. We suggest using a location such as "D:\GO4Schools".
  • You have not deleted the old versions of the reports from SIMS before performing an upgrade. You should delete the old GO 4 Schools reports and use the Re-import button to import the updated definitions, as described in the Installation and Configuration Guide.
  • You have updated your server/SIMS installation from 32-bit to 64-bit Windows or have installed the GO 4 Schools Feed System without uninstalling the previous version first. If the SIMS tools to import and run reports has been moved there are registry entries that may need editing to reflect this. The key in question is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Hyperspheric Solutions Limited\STARS and the values that need changing are SIMSRunReportApplication and SIMSImportReportApplication. In this situation, the values may need changing to add/remove the " (x86)" text from the path, i.e. they need to point to the new location of the EXE files. (The key can be found by searching for 'commandreporter' in your registry.) As always, be very careful when editing your registry. If you cannot see these keys in your registry you are using a newer version of the feed system that does not use these keys. You will also need to change this path in the "MIS Settings" tab of the Feed Configuration tool.
  • If you have just updated SIMS it might be worth checking that the version of the commandReporter tool that you have is up to date. You can do this by opening a command prompt window, changing the path to the location of the commandreporter.exe tool (e.g. cd C:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS\SIMS .net"), and then trying to run the tool. If successful you should see some help text displayed. If you see an error message relating to a "typelib" it suggests that your SIMS update has not updated the tool correctly. This is often caused by people forgetting to update the client software on the server used to run the feed tool.
  • If you use remotely-hosted SIMS and the server name in connect.ini is something like server.serviceprovider.com\SQL2008, but the Windows server name is something like SIMSDB01, you may need to provide SIMSDB01\SQL2008 as the server name in the config tool and make sure that the server name SIMSDB01 resolves to the same IP address as server.serviceprovider.com. You may need to set up a DNS entry or edit your server's hosts file to achieve this.
  • If you are experiencing timeouts consider extending default connection parameters. In Connectivity settings tab check to use settings from connect.ini, open SIMS folder and in connect.ini append:

CommandTimeout=100000
[Reports]
MaxNumberOfTableJoins=499
Timeout=100000

Where there are problems with connect.ini the first thing to try is entering the explicit location and name of the SIMS database in the feed configuration tool; you can get these values from your CONNECT.INI file. On the "MIS Settings" tab, untick the checkbox to "Use settings from CONNECT.INI" and enter your values in the input boxes.

Checking SIMS is operational on the server (if you use SIMS)

Make sure that you can log on to SIMS on the server on which the feed system is installed using the account specified in the MIS tab. If you have recently updated SIMS, you may have overlooked updating this server.

Checking filesystem permissions

The user account used to run the scheduled task will need:

  • "Modify" access to the location used to store temporary feed files. This is the path that is entered on the "Scheduled tasks" tab of the configuration tool. (We recommend using a local path such as "D:\GO4Schools" for this and, in particular, avoid roaming profile locations, network shares or mapped drives.)
  • "Modify" access to the installation directory, e.g. "C:\Program Files\Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd\GO 4 Schools Feed System" so that log files can be written.
  • "Read" access to the SIMS directory, e.g. "C:\Program Files\SIMS" so it can see and run the command-line tools provided by SIMs.

Checking your antivirus software

By default, some antivirus software will prevent the feed system from sending emails. You should check your antivirus logs for indications that applications within the installation folder are being blocked.

Checking the feed log files

The log files can provide valuable clues when investigating problems.

When one of the scheduled tasks runs, it saves a log file in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Hyperspheric Solutions Ltd\GO 4 Schools Feed System\Logs" on your server.

The files in this directory have names that indicate the date and time of the scheduled task which the log files correspond to. You should look at the contents of the more recent files for the text "CommandReporterError". This may indicate an invalid password or an incorrect connect.ini file etc.

Testing SMTP

You can check SMTP connectivity using the "Connectivity Settings" tab in the configuration tool. There are two tests you can perform here. First, check that the Feed Tool can communicate with the specified SMTP server by clicking the "Test SMTP settings" button. If this test fails, it is likely that there is a network firewall blocking access to the SMTP server or antivirus software is blocking the Feed Tool. Such problems will need to be remedied before the installation can be completed.

Assuming connectivity is OK, you can try to send a test email. To perform this test:

  • Enter an 'external' email address in the "Send test email to" input box. Do not use a 'school' email address here - e.g. use a Hotmail or Gmail account.
  • Click the "Send" button
  • Check for receipt of the email

If you see an error message when you click the "Send" button the key information will be at the top of the error. Common problems involve:

  • No access to the SMTP server, e.g. due to a firewall.
  • Incorrect SMTP credentials (please see specific settings for Gmail below).
  • Inability of the software to relay mail through the SMTP server.

The resolution to these problems may involve:

  • Unblocking ports in your firewall - the MX record for the hyperfeeds.com domain is hyperfeeds-com.mail.eo.outlook.com
  • Correcting the SMTP credentials.
  • Configuring your SMTP server to allow relaying.

Note that this tests that a 'simple' email can be sent, i.e. one without any attachments. The actual feed emails are sent to the email address stars@hyperfeeds.com and will have attachments with the extensions .ssn and .xml. In addition to these, logging emails are sent to feeds_stars_logs@hyperspheric.com with .txt attachments to help us troubleshoot any problems you might experience.

If simple emails can be sent but feeds are not sent it may be because:

  • Your mail server/your service provider's mail server blocks (or removes attachments from) emails with attachments of .ssn and/or .xml
  • Your mail server/your service provider's mail server blocks 'large' attachments. The attachment containing your school's timetable can reach 4 MB even when compressed.
  • Your mail server/your service provider's mail server blocks emails to stars@hyperfeeds.com.

The simplest way to investigate this is to check the mailbox for the account used to send the feed emails; this is specified when the feed system is installed within your school. If the account used is a "no-reply" account, you might want to try using your own school email address temporarily as the 'send from' address within the feed configuration tool so you can check for any non-delivery reports that might be being 'lost' for the 'no-reply' address.

Specific settings for Gmail

  • Server: smtp.gmail.com

  • Port: 465, but also try 587
  • Enable TLS

Also out of date root SSL certificates can result in communication with the GMAIL server over TLS being blocked.

Specific settings for Office 365

Settings for POP and IMAP access for Office 365 for business or Microsoft Exchange accounts

If you’re connecting to your Office 365 for business email, you don’t need to look up your settings. For Office 365 for business, use the following settings.

POP3
  • Server name: outlook.office365.com
  • Port: 995
  • Encryption method: SSL
IMAP4
  • Server name: outlook.office365.com
  • Port: 993
  • Encryption method: SSL
SMTP
  • Server name: smtp.office365.com
  • Port: 587
  • Encryption method: TLS

Specific settings for Exchange 2013

If you use Exchange 2013 as your internal mail server, you may need to use port 2525 instead of port 25.

Testing the feeds

You can run feeds manually using the "Run now" buttons on the "Feed Schedule" tab. When you do this, data will be extracted and sent using the account that you are currently logged in with, not the account specified in the "Scheduled Tasks" tab.

To test the Scheduled Tasks, you can set the schedule to run at any time using the "hour" and "minute" controls at the top of the "Feed Schedule" tab. If you are doing this we recommend that you:

  • Open the Windows tool for monitoring scheduled tasks (this will vary according to your version of Windows).
  • Disable all feeds except for the "Parents" feed and the "Staff" feed by unticking the checkboxes on the "Feed Schedule" tab.
  • Set the schedule to run in a minute's time.
  • Click "Save preferences"
  • Monitor the schedule tasks via Windows.

Indicators of success:

  • The scheduled task runs for more than a few seconds.

  • Log files have been written in the location identified above.
  • There are no errors in the log files.
  • Files have been written in the "Temporary feed file" location specified on the "Scheduled tasks" tab of the config tool.

Indicators of failure:

  • The scheduled task does not start or completes in a second or two.

  • Log files have not been written in the location identified above.
  • Log files have been written but contain errors.
  • No files have been written in the "Temporary feed file" location specified on the "Scheduled tasks" tab of the config tool.
  • A message including the word "Exception" appears in the status bar at the bottom of the config tool. In most cases this indicates a problem with the SMTP configuration - please see the section on testing SMTP connectivity above.

Things to check:

  • If you are not using the built-in "NT AUTHORITY\System" account for the scheduled tasks check that the account being used has the "log on as a batch job" right and that its credentials are correct.

  • The account has "Modify" access to the log files directory.
  • The SIMS account credentials are correct and that there are no problems with CONNECT.INI. Also, check that the reports have been imported into SIMS by looking for a report in SIMS called "GO 4 Schools - students2" under the "Student" focus.
  • The account has modify access to the SIMS directory and to the location specified for temporary feed files.

Note that the feed system sends data only when changes are detected in the extracted data. To force data to be sent, you can delete the previously extracted data using the "Delete temporary feed files" button on the "Scheduled tasks" tab. You can also tick the option to “Upload data even if it is unchanged since the last feed run (This affects only feeds run manually)” on the “Feed Schedule” tab.

Once you have resolved any issues, you should re-enable the other feeds and set an appropriate feed schedule.

If you are unable to resolve this internally, the GO 4 Schools support team can assist in accordance with the Service Level Agreement. Please raise a support ticket to request this service and provide a suitable contact number (as school reception is often out of service in school holidays).