Question:
Our Informix 7.31 TC2 server has had some troubles recently. It worked properly for about four or five hours but then it rejected any request! Users who are already on the server can still work properly, too! Why? This never happened before.
I can’t find any error messages from onstat -m or the NT message log. It just rejects any request, including any Informix commands like onmode, ontape, dbaccess, etc.
We need your help!
P.S. From the onstat -m information, it stopped recording any message until I rebooted the server.
Answer:
I need a little more information to give you a definitive answer, but I believe the key fact is that existing users can continue to work. This indicates that there’s a problem with the actual login process. The database is still working.
How many users do you have? Is it possible that you’re reaching the limit to the number of connections that your server supports? Are you running NT Workstation or Server?
Do a netstat -a from a DOS prompt. Do you see a lot of open or dead connections? If so, you may have lots of connections hanging around (this seems to happen a lot on NT systems). I’ve never seen a problem caused by the NT zombie processes, but you may be hitting volume issues.
What happens when one of the users (already in the system when it locks up) subsequently logs off? If someone else can then log in, check your onconfig file for the NETTYPE settings. If the NETTYPE has some letters, followed by something like “,10”, that’s the number of poll threads for your system. Increase this number and see what happens.
