This technote describes network-related troubleshooting for netOctopus users. This technote lists common network-related problems that netOctopus users may see and their solutions. The problems described fall into four categories:

• Zones
• Templates and computer information windows
• Filters
• Reports

If you cannot find your particular problem described here, you may also want to check the index of the netOctopus 3.0 user's manual - located with your administrative installation in PDF format - for relevant information.

Zones:

Problem: No protocols and no zones appear in the Zones window.

Solution: You may have performed a custom install and did not select any network protocol layers for installation. Go back to the installer and install at least the AppleTalk protocol. See Installing the netOctopus application on page 11 of the User's Guide for further information.

Problem: When performing a zone search in netOctopus, no PCs are visible in the IPX zone.

Solution: If there are no problems communicating among the PCs in the IPX network, the most likely reason for this is a misconfigured MacIPX control panel. In some networks there are devices broadcasting several different frame types, causing the control panel's auto-configuration option to select the wrong one. Make sure the frame type is set properly. If you are not sure which one is required, try each until you are able to detect the PCs.

Note: Because of the details of the IPX networking protocol, it may take up to five minutes for all Agents which communicate over IPX to register themselves with the administrator after the administrator has been started. This does not indicate a problem but is normal.

Problem: When searching in TCP/IP zones with substantial amounts of traffic, some client computers do not appear in any of netOctopus' windows.

Solution: If you are not using an IP List file to specify the computers to look for, or if you are using an IP List file containing network number and mask specifications, netOctopus looks for clients on TCP/IP networks using broadcast calls. When the network traffic or the workload of an individual client is high, answers to these broadcasts may take some time.

Try setting longer timeout delays in the Broadcast section of the TCP/IP panel in the Preferences dialog. See Broadcast on page 248 of the User's Guide for further information.

If you are using an IP List file but do either use only direct IP numbers and direct IP ranges or could not solve the problem by extending the timeout delay, check whether the IP numbers in the list are still correct.

Problem: Mac OS computers that are contacted over TCP/IP and that are connected to the TCP/IP network through an Apple IP Gateway do not appear in template windows after searches.

Solution: This problem is due to a limitation in the Apple IP Gateway. It affects only Mac OS computers that can be contacted only on TCP/IP - i.e., not on AppleTalk - and that are not directly connected to the TCP/IP network but through an Apple IP Gateway.

These computers cannot be reached by broadcast calls, which is netOctopus' normal way to contact TCP/IP clients on local zones. Instead, their addresses must be entered into the IP List file. See IP List File on page 249 of the User's Guide.

Problem: Some computers on which netOctopus Agents are installed do not appear in the Computer's window, even though the netOctopus Agent processes appear in the Network window.

Solution: There may be a filter set for the Computers window which the computers do not pass. If that is not the case, the Agents are most likely bonded to another copy of the netOctopus Administrator application.

To bond them to your copy, remove the netOctopus Agent Preferences file on all computers which fail to appear in the Computer's window. Restart these computers and search their zones as soon as possible after that.

Problem: After performing a zone search, not all computers on which net-Octopus Agent is installed are visible in the Computer's window.

Solution:Computers that do not appear may be switched off, their network connection may be disabled or they may be physically disconnected from the network.

If the problem does not seem to lie with the individual computers, make sure that you search for netOctopus Agents only, not for all network devices. Searching for all named network devices may cause netOctopus' buffers to overflow in large networks.

To search for netOctopus Agents only, select the zones to search in the Zones window and choose Search Selected Zones for netOctopus Agents from the Communication menu. If this does not help, tune netOctopus' network search parameters.

For further information on this issue, see Searching large networks on page 88 of the User's Guide.

Problem: Some computers appear with two entries in the Computer's window. Both entries are similar, except that one has a "1" appended to its name.

Solution: Most likely, there are two copies of netOctopus Agent installed on the computer. Only one copy of netOctopus Agent should be active on a computer.

Common netOctopus network errors:

Error= -1273 open connection request was denied (ADSP error)

Probably the Agent couldn't handle additional open requests from the admin (normal return by 1.x Agents)

Error= -1277 open connection request failed (ADSP error)

The client wasn't found in the network

Error=-3180 The command was cancelled (OpenTransport TCP)

Probably problems during initializing TCP

Templates and computer information windows:

Problem: Changes you made on a client computer do not appear in open template or computer information windows. For example, a file you just copied to a client computer does not appear in the Files window.

Solution: This behavior is caused by netOctopus' basic principle of operation. All information displayed in netOctopus is a snapshot of the state of a client computer. This means that the information is still available when something changes (e.g., the client computer is switched off), but it also means that the contents of template and computer information windows does not change automatically.

To update the information displayed in these windows to reflect recent changes, choose Update Info for This Computer, Update Info for Selection, on Update All Records from the Commands menu.

Filters:

Problem: When I try to save a newly created simple filter, I get an "Unknown Error ID=-1728" error message.

Solution: This happens when you try to create a filter by dragging a renamed column from a template into the Filters window.

Either restore the original name of the column before dragging it to the Filters window or create the filter in a different manner, e.g., by dragging the information item from the Information Items window into the Filters window.

See Creating and editing simple filters on page 79 of the User's Guide for further information.

Reports:

Problem: When I try to import a software reference list, netOctopus fails to import all records.

Solution: When netOctopus finds a formatting error in a software reference list file that it tries to import, it stops importing the file at this point but keeps all lines that have already been imported. For example, when there is an error in the 51st line, only the first 50 lines will be imported.

Common formatting errors are having the wrong number of fields in a line or the wrong length of type and creator codes. Fields must always be separated by a single tab character and codes must be exactly four characters long. See Preparing a software reference list on page 112 of the User's Guide for detailed information on the required format.

Summary:

This technote lists common network-related problems in four categories:

• Zones
• Templates and computer information windows
• Filters
• Reports

If you cannot find your particular problem described here, you may also want to check the index of the netOctopus 3.0 user's manual - located with your administrative installation in PDF format - for relevant information.