There are various recovery actions you can and should take to reinstate system operation after a catastrophic or other failure which has activated OMACHECK. Precisely what actions are appropriate will depend on:
•the type of failure
•whether OMACHECK and a failed application are running on the same or different nodes
•whether or not the program is still running which caused the recovery to be initiated.
This topic offers some guidance on how to decide what actions are possible and how to restart any failed applications and services. Recovery actions generally involve a Windows command file (batch file), which should also be used to notify or log the action.
 | Some actions to be taken by OMACHECK may require that you run OMACHECK elevated. If you need to start OMACHECK elevated when Windows starts, use Task Scheduler to start it with 'highest privileges'. |
Restarting a Running COPIAFACTS Instance
It is often sufficient to restart COPIAFACTS to recover normal operations. Where a system service such as BladeWare is involved, COPIAFACTS defaults to restarting the service when it is restarted.
If COPIAFACTS is still running normally, it can be restarted by executing the CFUTIL CFRESTART program. CFRESTART drops a file named nodename.RESTART into the FAXFACTS folder and this causes the specified node to terminate and restart, after which the .RESTART file is deleted. Because this action is file-based, it can be done from any node that can see the FAXFACTS folder.
To detect whether COPIAFACTS has been restarted, you should wait for a couple of minutes and then look for the .CFRESTART file in the FAXFACTS folder. If the file is still present, you know that COPIAFACTS has not detected it (either because it was not running, or not seeing the file), and so has not been restarted. The only options then are either:
•to reboot the machine
•to forcibly kill the application and then start it afresh.
An example batch file which will reboot if it cannot restart a CopiaFacts instance (running on the same machine) is:
CFUTIL CFRESTART M2
DELAYNT 120
IF NOT EXISTS "%FAXFACTSDIR%M2.RESTART" GOTO END
NTREBOOT \\MACHINE2
:END
Note that the .RESTART file incorporates a CopiaFacts nodename in its name, whereas the NTREBOOT utility needs the Windows machine name.
Killing and Restarting a COPIAFACTS Instance
The KILLFF utility can be used to cleanly shut down a COPIAFACTS instance running on the same mode. It requires a nodename and an optional delay parameter which will force termination if a normal shutdown has not been successful.
KILLFF M2 90
You can also use the Windows TASKKILL command to terminate COPIAFACTS.EXE. This will terminate the process forcibly, abandoning any transmission or reception operations in progress. For details of the TASKKILL syntax, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb491009.aspx. Note that with suitable permissions, you can use this method to terminate processes on another node.
After COPIAFACTS has been shut down, you can start it again on the current node by invoking COPIAFACTS.EXE with the Windows START command:
START /B COPIAFACTS.EXE
To restart COPIAFACTS on another node, it is simplest to start it originally in a command file which re-invokes itself after COPIAFACTS ends. However this method has the disadvantage that it is tricky to actually shut down the program when necessary. We recommend rebooting the node and configuring STARTCOPIA to ensure that COPIAFACTS starts up on reboot.
Killing and Restarting an FFEXTERN Instance
We do not recommend attempting to re-start a broken Document Converter instance: it is safer to re-boot the node in this case. The reason is that when one of the FFEXTERN error timers has fired, it is often caused by one or more instances of Word, Excel, or an Adobe product which are still running and blocking further conversions, or by a problem with the Windows spooler service. Just restarting FFEXTERN will not recover this situation. However if it is not practicable to reboot the machine, you could try a batch file such as:
TASKKILL /IM FFEXTERN.EXE
TASKKILL /IM CVSINGLE.EXE
TASKKILL /IM WINWORD.EXE
TASKKILL /IM ACRORD32.EXE
NET STOP SPOOLER
NET START SPOOLER
FFEXTERN
Rebooting a Machine node
The NTREBOOT utility can be used to reboot the node on which it is run or another node on the network. You will need to ensure that you have suitable Windows privileges to initiate a reboot.
The Windows SHUTDOWN command can be used in a similar way to reboot the same or another machine. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb491003.aspx.
Finally, OMACHECK can automatically reboot a selected node when it is activated. This avoids the need to create a special command file if you always intend to reboot the node. Because OMACHECK works with CopiaFacts nodenames, you must supply it (by right-clicking the name) with a machine name for each node you wish to reboot when the corresponding item is activated.
You should normally have arranged for automatic startup of your CopiaFacts applications on starting Windows. This is done with the STARTCOPIA utility.
OMACK.CMD, OMACKBT.CMD, OMACKBW.CMD
Sample command file is provided for you to modify to match your requirements. These file will need to be customized before you specify it in OMACHECK to be run, and you may not need all of the included commands.
The file OMACKBT.CMD restarts the SR140 service (BOSTSERVICE) before restarting COPIAFACTS
The file OMACKBW.CMD restarts the BLADEWARE service before restarting COPIAFACTS
The file OMACK.CMD is for use when there is no additional service to restart.
All these files are suitable for use only when you run OMACHECK on the same machine that is running COPIAFACTS. They assume that all the CopiaFacts applications reside in a folder on the PATH.
OMACK.CMD currently contains:
rem Sample batch file to restart a desktop instance of COPIAFACTS.exe
rem WITHOUT rebooting the machine. Use OMACKBW.BAT instead of this file
rem to restart BladeWare, or OMACKBT.BAT to retstart SR140, in addition
rem to restarting COPIAFACTS.
rem
rem =================================================================
rem This file **WILL** require editing to suit your requirements. It
rem requires that %programfiles%\copia is on your Windows PATH.
rem =================================================================
rem
rem First append log file information
rem
CD C:\faxtemp
TIME /t >>omalog.txt
DATE /t >>omalog.txt
ECHO machine=%1 node=%2 >>omalog.txt
rem
rem Now ensure COPIAFACTS.exe is fully stopped
rem
START TASKKILL /F /IM copiafacts.exe
CFUTIL DELAYNT 10
rem
rem Finally, restart COPIAFACTS. Add a node parameter %2 at the
rem end of this command if you need to start a specific nodename:
rem
START /I /B copiafacts.exe
rem
rem An EXIT command is required if this batch file is run from
rem CFOMASERVICE, because CMD /C does not close the command
rem session in these circumstances.
rem
EXIT
