HELP!
No one really likes to call for help however in many cases it's better to call sooner than later because problems can grow worse by doing nothing or even more so by doing the wrong thing. Some situations can be easily remedied with a quick call and others can be resolved by doing some basic troubleshooting before picking up the phone or submitting a request. That's why we make it easy and convenient to to talk with a Genius, simply call the support line at (888)765-7962 or schedule a booking when it's convenient for you.
You can also submit a request or consult the documentation on our helpful Knowledge Base, User Guide or General Information web pages. For issues of a less urgent nature you can follow us on our blog, twitter or participate in our Community Forums.
The question is, how do you decide when it's time and who to call. StorePorter is engineered to supply a great deal of troubleshooting information and the sheer volume can be daunting to the beginner. Here are some helpful tips to make that decision easier.
Divide and Conquer
The first thing that should be done is to identify where the problem is occurring. Once the problem is isolated it is easy to identify if and or whom needs to be called.
- Many problems are caused by some form of connectivity. Workstations connect to a server and the Internet, if either connection is compromised there will be communication errors that can cause StorePorter to have errors. Most often the error message that is displayed will identify what is causing the problem and provide information to resolve it.
- Some connectivity problems are transient and will resolve themselves with time and others are persistent until something is done to resolve them. In very busy networks the connectivity can be diminished with heavy traffic, which is commonly caused by what is called a DOS or Denial of Service Attack. Once the traffic subsides or the attack circumvented the connectivity will return however a physical disconnection or failing network component will require intervention before the problem is resolved.
- It can be easily determined if the issue is with the connection to the internet or to the server by browsing to another site such as https://www.google.com/ or http://www.bing.com/ as they will be generally available. If the connection to the server is unavailable you will not be able to see server file shares from your mycomputer folder. If the internet is not working from one computer it may be isolated to that machine, check to see if other workstations are able to browse the internet or access the file shares. Depending on what you find you will probably need to contact your Network Administrator or Internet Service Provider.
- Index corruption is another easily repaired problem that can cause unexpected behaviors. StorePorter has two tools that can quickly rebuild it's database indexes. Under the tools menu there are two options: Reindex and Fix Uniqueness Violations both tools require exclusive access to the database so all other users need to be out of StorePorter. In the event you notice that there seem to be missing or incorrectly linked records, choose the option for Reindex, select all tables and pack. Pack will remove any of the records that have already been marked for deletion and in some cases those records can be used to recover data that has been inadvertently deleted. If that is the case uncheck the pack and click Reindex. The other option is for the event you receive a very explicit message that there has been a Uniqueness Violation. In that case choose that option and answer the next dialog box yes.
If one of the above situations does not resolve the issue and you are able to a reproduce the problem, if an error message is displayed it is always helpful to carefully note what process led to the error and the error information provided such as Error#, Error Line, Error Procdure and Error Message.
When submitting a request our support system will provide suggested articles based on what you type into the Subject Line.
The suggested articles may have information that can resolve your issue immediately so please enter as descriptive a subject as possible, it will also help us resolve problems for other customers that may experience the same issue in the future. Please also include screen shots, they are often very helpful in diagnosing problems and can be easily attached to requests.
Your ideas for improving StorePorter are always welcome and we thank you for helping us make StorePorter better with each new release.
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