Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Recommended Reading: Dynamics GP and SQL Server Connection Issues and Disconnects

By Steve Endow

I'm working with a Dynamics GP customer that is experiencing some SQL Server connection issues and errors.  They started to notice the issue with a third party GP product that was logging SQL connection failures.  After looking into it further, they found that GP users on a Citrix application server were regularly being disconnected.

Network connectivity issues are often very difficult to diagnose and resolve, and they can be caused by several different things.  Network card drivers, driver settings, network cards, wiring, network switches, and routers could all potentially play a role.  I've had a customer report that upgrading the network drivers on their Dell server resolved the issue.  Another replaced a faulty network switch.  At another we found a bad network jack in a user's cubicle.  I've had a few cases where switching from shared dictionaries to local dictionaries resolved numerous GP errors--we speculate that dragging the large dictionary files across the network was causing the errors.

The customer I'm working with now did some searching and found this very interesting article by Kayla Schilling at The Resource Group, posted on the Dynamics University site.  

http://dynamicsuniversity.com/blog/fp-couldnt-close-table-one-setting-may-end-random-disconnects-your-gp-databases

It's a fascinating explanation of some Dynamics GP errors that may be caused by network connectivity issues with SQL Server.  In my experience, such network issues are relatively uncommon, so it is rare to have an article written with such authority by someone who has dealt with the issue multiple times.

I think it's a very impressive write up and recommend that all GP consultants review it, at least so that they are familiar with some of the possible symptoms of a network issue.


Steve Endow is a Dynamics GP Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified IT Professional in Los Angeles.  He is also the owner of Precipio Services, which provides Dynamics GP integrations, customizations, and automation solutions.

You can also find him on Google+ and Twitter

No comments: