Fiscalsoft Products  
Providing innovative software solutions for Counties, Cities and Special Districts since 1983
 
 
 
There are several issues that can occur with your computers, network, and other applications software that may prevent the Web Update feature in our software from working correctly. These issues have nothing to do with bugs in our software; they are caused by communications problems on your computer/network, and must be fixed in order for our software to continue to function properly.

If you do not currently have an IT company supporting your computers and network please check out our IT Partners page for our recommendation.


ADVANTAGE DATABASE ERRORS

ERROR CODE 6420

(1) Is the Advantage Database Server process actually running on your server? Call up Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) on the server computer, click the Processes tab, and make sure the Advantage Database Server (ADS.exe) process is listed. If not, run the Advantage Database configuration utility (ads_cfg.exe), and click the button at the bottom of the window "Start Service". After Starting the service, try running your Fiscalsoft program again to see if that fixes the 6420 error. If not, see answers #2, #3 and #4 below.

(2) For Client/Server (multi-user) setups, your Windows Firewall must be configured to allow our program executable files to be shared across your network, or you will get Advantage Database Error 6420. This means our software could not connect to the Advantage Database Server service running on your file server computer. Once Windows is told to disallow a connection, you have to manually add our program file name to the permitted applications list within the firewall software, in order to make a connection again.

(3) Try the 6420 Knowledgebase Search at SAP's Advantage Developer Network.

(4) Create an ADS.INI file to tell the Fiscalsoft program where to connect to Advantage. If you run into timeout issues or discovery problems on your server you can make an ADS.INI file and that will stop the discovery process and connect directly to Advantage at the LAN IP address you put in the Ads.INI file. See the section Advantage ADS.INI File below for details.


ERROR CODE 7008

The users/permissions on the server are not configured correctly for the workstation users receiving this error. This is critical for proper operation of client-server software.

When configuring the workstations, if not using a domain, ensure that all computers involved are on the same workgroup.

Make sure that the username on the workstation matches the username on the server that users will use to connect to the share. The username on the workstation may not be what is shown on computer properties. The true username will be the name of the user folder under C:\Users. This is the username Advantage sees when dealing with file permissions, and it must match the username that connects to the share or else there will be a permissions mismatch.

The shared network drive hosting Fiscalsoft programs must have the permissions set correctly. On the server that is hosting the shared folder, check the Advanced Sharing window found in the Sharing tab in its Properties. Make sure that the users/groups listed there match what the client workstation is using to connect to the share drive. The users/groups set in this window that will be connecting to the share need to have Full Control permissions.

Check the Security tab in the shared network drive's Properties. Make sure that the user connecting to the share has full access to the share. In Advanced Security Settings, make sure that the all subfolders and folders are inheriting permissions from the share with the correct user/group.



ADVANTAGE ADS.INI FILE

Save the text below in a text file named "ads.ini". This file must be saved in all Fiscalsoft application folders. When the Fiscalsoft application is run, it won't bother to try to discover where Advantage is, and will immediately connect to the process.

[SERVER]
LAN_IP=192.168.1.101
LAN_PORT=6262
[SETTINGS]
RETRY_ADS_CONNECTS=1

Substitute SERVER with the actual name of your server computer inside the brackets.

Substitute 192.168.1.101 after LAN_IP= with the IP address of your server computer on your Local Area Network.

By default, Advantage uses UDP protocol on port 6262 on the server, so you need to configure any advanced Windows network communications features to not use port 6262, or you may end up in a situation whereby Advantage is being "throttled" by the Windows Server Operating System.


ERROR CODE 6

(1) Are you actually connected to the Internet? Run your Web Browser program and see if you can connect to a website. If you can't, then that's why you are getting Error Code 6.

(2) Your network router must allow an SFTP connection to our web server at ftp.fiscalsoft2.com. Port 22 on your computer cannot be blocked or the connection will fail. This will result in an "Error Code 6" error message when our program is run. You can click the OK button to close the error message window, but you should get this problem fixed or you will nevere be able to get another program web update. If you cannot get Web Updates, you can inspect a log file named WUPDATE.LOG (this is a text file saved in the Fiscalsoft application folder and can be opened with Windows Notepad) for clues about the problem with establising an SFTP connection to our web server.

(3) If you have verified that you are connected to the Internet, our SFTP server may be temporarily off-line. If this is the case, then all that has happened is the program you are running tried to make a connection to our web server to see if an update is available, and that connection failed. Simply click the OK button and use the program as you normally would.



ANTI VIRUS SOFTWARE

If your anti-virus software produces a false-positive for one or more of our program files (including update executables), you may see an error message "Cannot create output file", and the anti-virus program will put our update file in your quarantine folder. This royally messes up our very easy update process. If this should happen to you we recommend that you use a different anti-virus software, or add our program file name to the anti-virus program exception list. Contact your anti-virus software vendor for help with this.

Your anti-virus protection software running on your workstation must be configured to allow downloadable executable files from www.fiscalsoft.com, and also permit our program file names to run without interfering with our web updates.

While we do not recommend Anti-Virus software, our customers often ask us what we use here at Fiscalsoft for computer virus and malware protection. We have enjoyed good protection over the years by using the desktop premium version of MalwareBytes, and the built-in Windows Defender in Windows 10. For Windows 7 we use Microsoft Essentials. Both Windows Defender and Essentials co-exist well with MalwareBytes. We setup MalwareBytes, Essentials and Defender to run with real-time protection always on, and to run a full scan every evening. As well, none of these programs interfere with our software updates.


Proper Configuration of the Advantage DataBase Server for Fiscalsoft Client/Server Products

Proper Configuration of the Advantage DataBase Server
Configuration Utility / Language Tab - ANSI Character Set

Language Tab
     

Proper location of Advantage Error Log files
Configuration Utility / File Locations Tab - Error and Assert Log Path

Error Logs

These screen shots of the Advantage Configuration Utility (ads_cfg.exe) define the Language setting needed and the File location for the Errors Logs related to the Advantage DataBase Server.

The two values above in the left image MUST be as shown in the above image example.

The image on the right sets the path for Advantage Error Logs, the error logs MUST be saved in the root of the share folder on the server computer. In the above example, the share name is "Fiscalsoft Share". The name of your share folder may be different, so substitute "Fiscalsoft Share" with the name of your share folder on the server.

As the Advantage DataBase Server software is owned and maintained by another company (SAP) any support issues with that software must be directed to SAP.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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