Connections and DTC

[Winston]

Whoops, posted this in Welcome boards by accident....

My setup is as follows:

1 metastorm engine, development environment, V9.1

1 database server, sql server on cluster

Within the designer I'm trying to run a simple query and populate a drop down.  I end up getting a DTC error, which it seems may be DTC settings.

"Communication with the underlying transaction manager has failed. The MSDTC transaction manager was unable to pull the transaction from the source transaction manager due to communication problems."

But, when I un-check use DTC, I still receive the same error...  Can someone please explain this?  And can someone explain the benefits of these different settings?

[Jerome҉ · Accepted solution]

Have you installed SP4 for SQL Server?

see here:
http://metastorm.processmapping.com.au/post/SQL-Server-Service-Pack-Requirements-for-v9-5449289

[pdenton]

The following link is to a third party blog that has some details that might help with this issue:

Matt Williamson's Blog

[Paul]

Hi Winston,

You do not say what environments you are running and this may have an impact on what the issue is. We have seen more issues with MSDTC on Win2008 than 2003.

The blog indentified by PD highlights some issues so check the inbound/outbound settings (the install guide tells you to check this anyway), firewall is always a good one particularly in Win2008 together with authentication.

As you have a remote DB check the settings of MSDTC here too as all too often the DBA hasn't configured these to match what is required by the Metastorm install.

Hope this helps.

[Winston]

I'll follow up once I get a dev Sql Server 2005 sp4 environment up. 

The environment is for development only...

The engine is sitting on Windows 7 enterprise.

The DB will be sitting on Vista sp2 (6.0.6002).

I've already disabled firewalls on the engine and db servers.  I have also changed DTC settings to match Install guide.

I'll post an update here in a bit.

Thanks for all responses so far. 

[Winston]

Thanks Jerome, right on the money -  it appears that SP4 was what I needed. 

Just for kicks, I created a Metastorm connection / Business Object to query a table in our financial system which is running sp2.  I binded the BO to a drop down and started a process which resulted in a DTC error.

[Jeff Garcia]

We have an interesting problem with DTC which is causing some transactions to be aborted. The issue is intermittent and does not happen all the time. Folloing is our setup"

Application/Web Sever

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

Metastorm 9.0.3.7

Database Server (Fail-Over Cluster)

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

SQL Server 2008 (SP1) Enterprise

[John Cooper]

Jeff, did you ever resolve this problem? - I'm working with customer that has hit the problem and is using the same versions.

[Paul]

There are specific configuration requirements for MSDTC on 2008 clusters and you should follow the MS support notes quite carefully. DTC on 2008 needs to be setup differently from 2003 and 2000 clusters.

[Jeff Garcia]

Yes we have resolve this problem and resolved the DTC queue which made transactions more reliable. I will be sharing those information later.