Project Server 2003 VIEWDROP folder issue

H

Herve Clement

Hello,

When I am publishing project plan information in Project Server, I don't get
neither error message from the Spooler nor in the Event Log but it is
happening that I have *.xml file stucked in the VIEWDROP folder. I have
tried as I have read to remove the *.xml files from this folder, restart the
View Processing service and then drop back the files in the folder but then
it doesn't work as well.
I have noticed as well that time to time one of the stucked file just
disappear and the information are then published in PWA, my understanding is
this process should happen in a real time manner. Any clue about what might
be wrong? Cheers.

Herve.
 
G

Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)

Herve:

There's a difference between "real-time" and "instant." A package that gives
the server a lot of work to do may take an hour or longer to process
depending on the size of the project, the number of resources, the number of
assignments and what you're doing at the time.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the book on Project Server
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

-
 
H

Herve Clement

Thanks Gary,

Would you call a project plan with 200 lines a big project which might hang
the View Processing process? This is true that after a certain amount of
time all the files just disappear from the ViewDrop folder, still this can
last several hours. I have only 50 plans in my database and I have 3 users
who are updating them sligtly on a weekly basis. It looks like sometime a
project plan update just hangs the process and then blocks all the
subsequent request in the queue. Cheers.
 
G

Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)

Herve:

It's about the number of tasks, as much as it is a matter of the number of
assignments and resources on the tasks and in the system in general. 200
lines is a fairly small plan. If you're seeing this behavior specific to one
plan, then look for corruption in that plan.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the book on Project Server
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

-
 
H

Herve Clement

Thanks Gary.

We have noticed that this behavior is happening most of the time when an
user publishes a project plan with local resources in it. The Spooler
displays an error message that a project manager can't create a new
resource. This behavior is normal since we have disallowed the automatic
creation of enterprise resources based on local resources. Our Project
Server implementation is a limited one where we don't use resources and task
assignments. We just use to store centrally project plans in order to do
reporting against these plans. Still we need to publish project plan data
because we are using PWA for project views and we have a reporting solution
that queries data from the PWA views tables.
Do you think that the fact of having this error (resource creation error)
can generate a side effect error by hanging the View Processing service? We
have today xml files in the ViewDrop folder which has been stucked in there
for 1 day now.
I have removed all the xml files from the ViewDrop folder, restarted the
View Notification service and start again to drop one by one the xml files.
Each file took about 5 minutes to be processed on a 2 CPU box where only the
View Processing and Session Manager are running which seems to be a bit
long. After dropping back 3 files, I have decided to put them back all of
them (about 60) and then the View Processing has seemed not to process again
theses xml files. Any idea? Thanks.

You are talking about potential corrupted plans. Can you be more specific?
Thanks.

Herve.
 
G

Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)

Herve:

To eliminate the spooler error, teach your PMs to set the workgroup value
for their local resources to none in the resource dialog box.

To further diagnose your publishing ills, post the errors you're seeing the
application event log.

The two problems are most likely unrelated.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the book on Project Server
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

-
 
H

Herve Clement

Thanks for the workgroup tip.


Gary L. Chefetz (MVP) said:
Herve:

To eliminate the spooler error, teach your PMs to set the workgroup value
for their local resources to none in the resource dialog box.

To further diagnose your publishing ills, post the errors you're seeing the
application event log.

The two problems are most likely unrelated.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the book on Project Server
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

-
specific Server, but folder.
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