AX 2009 Rollup 6 and KB 2278963 (SharePoint 2010)

Finally I'm doing a complete install of Dynamics AX 2009 on a new plattform for a customer! While performing the installation of the core solution, my verified plan (verified by Microsoft) was to install in this sequence:

1. AX 2009 RTM patched with binaries from the KB
2. AX 2009 SP1
3. AX 2009 SP1 RU6
4. Initialize
5. Apply application fix for the KB

Everything went according to plan until step 5. This step failed with the following message:

This update is not applicable to your installation of Microsoft Dynamics AX because wrong version of application files is installed. This update is applicable to version 5.0.1000.52-5.0.1500.3560 of application files.

Setup could not complete the installation.

After checking my sources and discussing with Microsoft without any progress, I decided to install a second application in this sequence:

1. AX 2009 RTM
2. AX 2009 SP1
3. Initialize
4. KB 2278963
5. AX 2009 SP1 RU6

This time everything went according to plan and based on my experience, one of the following are true for this issue:

• KB2278963 application hotfix is forgotten with regards to RU6

or

• KB2278963 is included but not documented as part of RU6 (or RU5)

or

• Wrong version is used when the axupdate process verifies the application version (max is 5.0.1500.3760 - RU6 gives 3761)

The worst thing is that I had to spend extra time and effort doing a new install and 2 compilations in addition to installing a separate AOS and a Client to work on the same versionlevel.

AX 2009 64-bit AOS instance memory usage

I have seen some people asking if the 64-bit "edition" of the AOS kernel is capable of utilizing memory above 2 Gb (search microsoft.public.axapta which by the way is or is going to be retired). The snapshot below is taken from a customer site.

Working Set equal to 2 Gb and Peak Working Set equal to 4,1 Gb - say no more.

Question

A little challenge to my readers:

Can You tell me what I'm trying to illustrate in the graph below?

A couple of tips along the way

• it's closely related to Microsoft and Dynamics AX 2009 SP1...
• the average is almost 69...

Please leave your answer as a comment.

Follow Up on Event ID 110 and 117 (annoying database error)

I wrote about this a while ago and since this still is what I call an annoying database error (noice) and something very common to AX 4.0/AX 2009 solutions, I would like to call on my readers to vote for a change in the AOS kernels (x32/x64) to filter out this information to prevent bombing the event log with errors not beeing errors at all. The voting can be done at Microsoft Connect.

Finally I would like to quote a paragraph in Microsoft KB article 143339:

Applications need to code their error handling routines for SQL Server connections to call SQLError() until it returns SQL_NO_DATA_FOUND, and act on any messages other than the ones that return a pfNative code of 5701 or 5703.

Maybe it's impossible to change this behaviour, but as long as Microsoft don't state this in their feedback on Connect, it's still an issue that I find hard to accept...

AX 2009 - deadlocks

I recently conducted a system review at a customer site and discovered a message totally new to me beeing logged in on all AOS: "Object Server xx: Dialog issued for client-less session 1: Cannot edit a record in LastValue (SysLastValue). User ID: ,AdminUserSetup. Deadlock where one or more users have simultaneously locked the hole table or part of it."

The database at hand was not configured to use Read Committed Snapshot Isolation (RCSI) as recommended by the AX Performance Team. Enabling RCSI on the database solved the issue.

Missing information

I recently was asked about the difference between the 4 alternative values for "Cache Settings" found on the tab labeled "Performance" in the AX Configuration Utility (client) - se example below.

The different options are explained directly in the GUI, but I would like to know how this mechanism is implemented (technically). I have searched all possible sources (formal and informal) without finding any information at all. It's not unusual to hit "blind spots" like this regarding formal documentation around Dynamics AX, but it should not be necessary to open a support case every time this happens.

Anyone having a reference or are willing to share some experience regarding the effect of this setting?

Comments

I have changed the possibility to post comments from anonymous (all) to Registered Users. Reason: loads of spam comments in my mailbox.

Event ID 110 and 117 (annoying database error)

I observe the issue described below in both AX 4.0.x and AX 2009 SP1 x solutions running SQL Server 2005 and 2008 (the version of SQL Server Native Client is the same). This is also reported by others in several Communities like microsoft.public.axapta (last one beeing a post by Mike titled "AOS errors" from February 25 2010 where one suggestion is to syncronize the SYSLASTVALUE table).

Eventlog, application

#1 Event ID 110

Object Server 01: Dialog issued for client-less session 1: Cannot edit a record in LastValue (SysLastValue). User ID: , AdminUserSetup.
The SQL database has issued an error.

#2 Event ID 117

Object Server 01:
The database reported (session 1 (-AOS-)):
[Microsoft][SQL Native Client][SQL Server]Changed language setting to us_english.
The SQL statement was:
"UPDATE SYSLASTVALUE SET VALUE=?,RECVERSION=? WHERE (((((((USERID=?) AND (RECORDTYPE=?)) AND (ELEMENTNAME=?)) AND (DESIGNNAME=?)) AND (ISKERNEL=?)) AND (COMPANY=?)) AND (RECVERSION=?))"

I don't know if this has any impact on the solutions at all and I have also found some information on Partnersource describing this as "noice". And I also find it a little bit hard to understand why a syncronization of the system table SYSLASTVALUE should be needed since the real error message in fact is stating "Changed language setting to us_english.".

The reason for posting this is that I find it a little bit hard to understand why something is logget as an error situation if this is "just noice". AX is in general bad at categorizing events in event log application, but I would like to share some experience with others regarding this. Since it's reported from the ODBC layer it could be related to settings like default language for the DBO user (aka AOS Service Account) or inproper settings for Regional Settings for the same Service Account. This is a couple of my own teories left to verify, but bottom line I find it hard to be "just noice".

Hopefully we can start a good discussion around this and bring the issue forward to the system vendor instead of reporting it individually (perhaps a bigger impact).

Update March 10 2010:
For those of you not reading the comments, I would like to point out that Chris pointed to an important KB-article from Microsoft. After looking a little bit more at the details (Googled for NativeError 5703), I found another reference on MSDN. Quote:

The SQL Server ODBC driver returns SQL_SUCCESS_WITH_INFO on a successful SQLConnect, SQLDriverConnect, or SQLBrowseConnect. When an ODBC application calls SQLError after getting SQL_SUCCESS_WITH_INFO, it can receive the following messages:

5701—indicates SQL Server initially putting the user's context into the default database defined at the server for the login ID used in the connection
5703—indicates the language being used on the server

If either the ODBC data source has a default database specified or the application specified the DATABASE keyword on SQLDriverConnect or SQLBrowseConnect, there will be a second 5701 message that indicates the user's context has been switched to the database requested.

My conclusion is that the AOS kernel treat every error raised from the ODBC layer as an error. If Microsoft could implement a change to filter out NativeError 5701 and 5703, a lot of confusion could be saved and not at least a lot of time investigating this issue could also be saved.

Until further notice, this is my conclusion.

Again, thank you Chris for leaving this valuable information.

Update #2 March 11 2010:

I have today posted this as a suggestion on the MS Dynamics AX Suggestions Home page at Microsoft Connect. Please sign in at Connect and vote this up if you find this issue to be a valuable improvement.

Update #3 May 11 2010:

The EMEA Dynamics AX Support team recently released a post giving another explanation. It can be found here.

AX Load Balancing

A tree tiered architecture has been around since AX 4.0. In AX 2009 you have 3 possible AOS configurations:

1. Single AOS instance(s)
2. Load Balanced AOS instances without a dedicated load balancer
3. Load Balanced AOS instances with a dedicted load balancer

After experimenting a little bit with all of the possible configurations, I find it a little bit difficult to separate configuration 2 and 3 above. The only difference is the presence of one (or several) AOS instance(s) defined as dedicated load balancers only handling the load balancing functionality (no end user sessions) for AX clients that whish to log on to AX (handshake). So the big question is when to use a configuration with a dedicated load balancer. I can't see any reason or benefit other than limiting the need to adjust the client configurations when AOS instances move out and in of the cluster. The only benefit deploying a dedicated load balancer is that this will be the only AOS instance referenced by the clients and that this makes the client configuration more static compared to configuration 2 when every AOS instance in fact both is acting as a load balancer and handling client sessions.

And information from Microsoft states that a dedicated load balancer only is needed when you have more than 4 AOS instances in the same cluster.

All combinations in the client configurations will work (no difference wheter you only reference the dedicated load balancing instance and/or all AOS instances).

Any comments around this matter will be appreciated.

Short note on AX and database mirroring in SQL Server 2008

The last days, I have been working with a customer running AX 2009 and SQL Server 2008 SP1 Standard (x64) on Windows Server 2008 SP2. The solution suffered from general performance issues that possibly could have a lot of sources. As usual my attention was around SQL Server and this time I started looking at Wait Stats which showed a waste amount of waits related to mirroring. After some Googling, I was a little bit confused about this beeing normal or not. The nature of database mirroring could in fact result in high Wait Stat values since the processes involved, is mostly sleeping (suspended). But I choosed to consider this as a possible source since the nature of database mirroring in my oppinion, does'nt fit the nature of AX as a classic OLTP application. And since disabling database mirroring is an isolated and low risk operation, we choosed to stop mirroring for all database (around 10). After this, the overall performance increased and the customer reported this almost immediately. It's a little bit early to conclude, but the initial responce seems pretty promising.

Minor observation installing AX 2009

Some time back, I did a QA run on one installation suffering some performance issues. The consultant originally installing AX choosed to use the installer to create the database (shown in the picture below). Personally I prefer to create the database manually, both to get control over every aspect and it usually don't take more than 30 minutes to get everything in place manually. The solution at hand was running SQL Server 2008.

While looking into the database configuration (sp_helpdb), I noticed that the compatibility level was set to 90 which corresponds to SQL Server 2005. At this stage, I asked the consultant doing the installation why he had choosen to set the compatibility level to 90 and he then answered that he always used the AX installer to create the database.

Without testing this option when installing AX, it seems like Microsoft has provided a template database beeing attached to the specified SQL Server instance by the installer in the security context of the setup user. I guess the installer asks for some information like collation, file locations etc. but compatibility level keeps untouched.

Compatibility level is a database level configuration option and it is used by the database instance to decide which functionality the database instance should "activate" for each database. It's mostly used to provide backwards compatibility during migration of databases, but it could also impact the ability to utilize new features.

A good reference can be found at MSDN and compatibility level could possibly be a source for some time consuming investigations. It seems like compatibility level = 90 is OK even for an AX database running on SQL Server 2008, but I don't see any reason for not setting it to 100 to make sure all new features in SQL Server 2008 is enabled for the AX database.

Or always create the database manually using the system database model as the template (will in most situations match the version of SQL Server).