How to Debug a Problem Without an Application or Data?

An error has occurred with your c-tree Server. Due to many constraints, you are unable to provide FairCom the application to reproduce the error condition. Nor are you able to provide data that may cause the error, as perhaps the data is real-time data and not reproducible.

FairCom has a c-tree Server feature which allows you to capture your communications stream with the server. Setting the c-tree Server configuration keyword:

DIAGNOSTICS TRAP_COMM

will create a file called TRAPCOMM.FCS in your c-tree Server directory. This file, and associated data and index files, can be sent to FairCom to replay the exact communications stream where the error was encountered, allowing FairCom engineers to quickly diagnose the problem and find a solution. If you should want the TRAPCOMM.FCS file to be stored in another directory,say another disk, use the following c-tree Server configuration keyword:

DIAGNOSTICS_STR <pathname>

This keyword will prepend <pathname> to the TRAPCOMM.FCS filename such that the communications stream file is located in. Note that the path separators are appended to your string exactly as you have specified them. No assumptions are made when appending this path to the filename.Use the path separator appropriate for your operating system.

DIAGNOSTICS_STR /pathname/TRAPCOMM.FCS

Example

The following example demonstrates a typical use on a Unix type of operating system:

DIAGNOSTICS_STR /volume1/bigdisk/

DIAGNOSTICS TRAP_COMM

As there is a huge performance overhead associated with enabling this feature, it is strongly advised to not use this setting in production environments, and, if so, only for very brief periods to capture the troublesome operation.

Unfortunately, at this time, the TRAP_COMM keyword only captures communications data on the c-tree Server's communication port, and not the c-treeSQL Server's SQL port. This additional functionality is in development for a future release.