Tuesday 30 December 2014

Samsung EVO 850 vs Intel SSD 520 Series

I decided to do a small upgrade on my older Lenovo T430s by increasing the SSD capacity. Based on reviews I purchased a Samsung EVO 850 256GB SSD to replace the Intel SSD 520 180GB. Small space upgrade the 180GB was not enough for all the programs, tools, images and large PST files.

NOTE: Keep in mind this an older generation Intel SSD 520. Intel SSD 730 would be on the same generation level as the Samsung EVO 850


Intel SSD 520 Series (180GB)





Samsung SSD 850 Pro (265GB)






RAPID Mode
After installing Samsung Magician and enabling RAPID (Real-time Accelerated Processing of I/O Data) mode. It did give a nice boost because uses the systems RAM to cache hot data. This is show during the 4 KB random multi WRITE test as the mutli writes can not be cached it crippled a bit. Nice free RAM drive hot cache tool from Samsung working inside windows only.






Summary


Wednesday 23 July 2014

QuickBooks - An error occurred. Your QuickBooks installation may have been modified. Reinstall QuickBooks and try again. If the problem persists, contact Intuit Technical Support and provide them with the following error codes: (-6010,-100).

When you launch quickbooks, select your company profile, put in the username and password you get the following error message: 

An error occurred. Your QuickBooks installation may have been modified. Reinstall QuickBooks and try again. If the problem persists, contact Intuit Technical Support and provide them with the following error codes: (-6010,-100).


You can try to reinstall, call QB support all options will get you no where trust me! 

I tried to fix the service switches / arguments and no luck with getting the service to start with the parameters I wanted. Quick fix for now is to execute the following from your QuickBooks directory:

"QBDBMgrN.exe -n QuickBooksDB24"

ie. "C:\PROGRA~2\Intuit\QUICKB~3\QBDBMgrN.exe -n QuickBooksDB24"

The SQL Anywhere interface will start and minimize, make sure not to log off from the server. Best is to run this on the console or as a scheduled tasks with an IF statement so one executable is running.



Now you can log into quickbooks.

P.S. To Intuit, for those users complaining about slow quickbooks wonder no more. The Sysbase database engine is licensed to use 2 physical processor, what about the cores ? Thanks Intuit!

P.S.S. If you want to see other options to for the service execute the tile as "QBDBMgrN.exe -?" the service option had -hv as a parameter, no explanation in the help page.

Thursday 10 July 2014

VMware Horizon View - Error occurred during vCenter operation.

Came across an annoying message and only possible fix I found was to recreate the pool. Thinking that is a bit extreme. When I edit other VMware View 5 Horizon pools no error messages. Rebooted vCenter and the View Connection server with no resolution and no errors in the event logs.

Nothing has changed on vCenter, datastores etc.. for months. The Parent VM and snapshots were all there.

Error Message (Editing a Pool):
"Error Occurred during vCenter operation."












Error Message (Save Pool Settings):
"Could not find the parent VM or snapshot"














Solution:

Select the affected pool, click EDIT, vCenter Settings tab.
For each of the Browse... options click browse and select the same object.
Once you have gone through all the steps click OK and now you can go back and edit the pool.























P.S. If you had to rebuild vCenter Server just refresh the pool and it will all be back to normal.

Friday 9 May 2014

NetGear ReadNAS - Bad Magic Number in Super-Block

Hardware: NetGear ReadyNAS 3200

fsck.ext4: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/c/c
/dev/c/c:
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

Solutions: 

Get a new ReadyNAS. Spend weeks with support engineers from Europe and USA, your data is gone... new unit required.


The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service terminated with service-specific error %%-2147221213.

Problem:

Exchange 2010 DAG has a very high copy queue length.

Non-active node can not start Microsoft Exchange Information Store Service or System Attendant Service.

System Event log error message:

The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service terminated with service-specific error %%-2147221213.
Event ID: 7024












Solution:

1. Make sure your Windows Time Service is running (optional)
2. Note the time difference between your current local clock and domain clock.
2. Run: cmd -> "net time /set" this will pull time from your local ADC site.
3. Shutdown the VM, do not power on.
4. Check the hypervisor clock to make sure it's correct and make sure that the guest VM does not sync time with the host.
5. Wait for the time to pass noted in step 2 and power on the VM.
6. Check Microsoft Exchange Information Store and System Attendant service should be running now.

Exchange 2010 Service Pack upgrade fails because of TMListen service (1 min fix)

Problem:

Service 'tmlisten' failed to stop due to error:'Cannot stop tmlisten service on computer '.'.'.

There is no service "OfficeScan NT Listener" in the Services list and NET STOP TMLISTEN does not work...

FIX: 1 minute, no restart

Exchange Error message when trying up run service pack:
Summary: 12 item(s). 1 succeeded, 1 failed.
Elapsed time: 00:00:30


Preparing Setup
Completed

Elapsed Time: 00:00:02


Stopping Services
Failed

Error:
The following error was generated when "$error.Clear(); 
          & $RoleBinPath\ServiceControl.ps1 -Operation:DisableServices -Roles:($RoleRoles.Replace('Role','').Split(',')) -SetupScriptsDirectory:$RoleBinPath;
          & $RoleBinPath\ServiceControl.ps1 Stop $RoleRoles.Replace('Role','').Split(',')
        " was run: "Service 'tmlisten' failed to stop due to error:'Cannot stop tmlisten service on computer '.'.'.".

Service 'tmlisten' failed to stop due to error:'Cannot stop tmlisten service on computer '.'.'.

Cannot stop tmlisten service on computer '.'.

The requested control is not valid for this service
Click here for help... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms.exch.err.default(EXCHG.141).aspx?v=14.3.123.3&e=ms.exch.err.Ex88D115&l=0&cl=cp

Elapsed Time: 00:00:27

Languages
Cancelled

Remove Exchange Files
Cancelled

Preparing Files
Cancelled

Copy Exchange Files
Cancelled

Language Files
Cancelled

Restoring services
Cancelled

Languages
Cancelled

Mailbox Role
Cancelled

Management Tools
Cancelled

Finalizing Setup
Cancelled


SOLUTION:

Run RegEdit and locate the following key

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Service\tmlisten

Rename the key i.e. tmlisten2







Start exchange service pack install and this time it will work.



Any comments let me know.

Cheers!
Jakub

Thursday 13 March 2014

Windows 2012 R2 & Exchange 2013 SP1 CU3 - DB Corrupted

Problem:
Exchange 2013 mailbox store will not mount after Windows 2012 R2 Upgrade.

Environment:
Windows 2012 Server, upgraded to Windows 2012 R2 Server

NOTE: If your doing a new install make sure to install Windows 2012 R2 Server then exchange. Do not install Windows 2012 server, then install Exchange 2013. After testing you install R2 Update, this will break your exchange. 

Can not mount the database, get the following error:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        ESE
Date:          3/13/2014 1:17:09 PM
Event ID:      613
Task Category: Table/Column/Index Definition
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:     
Description:
Information Store - Mailbox Database 0710374762 (7916) Mailbox Database 0710374762: Database 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\Mailbox Database 0710374762\Mailbox Database 0710374762.edb': The primary index 'GlobalsPK' of table 'Globals' may be corrupt. If there is no later event showing the index being rebuilt, then please defragment the database to rebuild the index.


Resolution:

1. Run CMD or command line as Administrator
2. Stop the Microsoft Exchange Information Store Service
    run: net stop MSExchangeIS

3. Execute the database repair:
  c:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin>eseutil /p "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\Mailbox Database 0710374762\Mailbox Database 0710374762.edb"

4. Execute database defragment:
c:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin>eseutil /d "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Mailbox\Mailbox Database 0710374762\Mailbox Database 0710374762.edb"

5. Start the Microsoft Exchange Information Store Service
    run: net start MSExchangeIS

If your store does not mount you might need to fix your logs.

Monday 10 March 2014

Veeam backups fail - NFC storage connection is unavailable

If your backups are running fine and then stop all of a sudden with the following error message:

Processing 'VM-NAME' Error: Client error: NFC storage connection is unavailable. Storage: [stg:datastore-192,nfchost:host-188,conn:vSphere-Name.fqdn]. Storage display name: [DS03].
Failed to create NFC download stream. NFC path: [nfc://conn:vSphere-Name.fqdn,nfchost:host-188,stg:datastore-192@VM-NAME/VM-NAME-01.vmx].



You checked Veeam KB 1198 and it does not help, all your backup repertoires are there and accessible. Most likely it is a problem with the vCenter Server.

Solution:
Log into your VMware vShphere server and restart the "VMware VirtualCenter Server"
Run your backups now :)