Personal Edition and Informix

[dborn]

Hi,

personal edition on W2K3 32 Bit, Quickweb, connected to an IBM Informix 11.5 running on a different server.
Browsing the database works ok, all tables show up. I can click on "columns" for a table and all columns show up. As soon as i click "Browse" the following error comes up:

While browsing the ODBC For Informix database (name of my database) - to get information about available columns, a problem arose!
The issue reported from the database is:
94 : Invalid use of Null

Same error comes up if i create a new report based on a table of this database.
Second problem: as soon as i try to delete one of these new, incomplete reports everything freezes and the connection to localhost:81 is lost. I have to stop the Quickweb Service twice (!), then restart it, and than the connection is back.

At the moment it-s quite unusable ...

Thanks

Dirk

[Carsten Sørensen]

Hi Dirk,

Sorry for the inconvenience of bouncing software!!

Lets try to figure out why the Informix table is causing problems...

Anything that might be special about column names? Or do you think it is a general problem? (It's been a while since I last tested on an Informix database).

We'll see whether we can re-produce and get back to you with a solution!

Best regards,
Carsten

[dborn]

Hey Carsten,

nothing special about the columns, just simple datatypes, all colum names follow the rules:

- not longer than 18 letters
- consist only of letters and "_"

No special constraints, nothing. I-ve used the ODBC-Connection with other programs without any problems.
Tried with Informix Connect 2.90 and the latest one, 3.50. Makes no difference.

Thanks

Dirk

[Carsten Sørensen]

Hi Dirk,

I was able to reproduce the issue - and it is a fairly "simple" - although very global bug related to Informix.

The issue is that Informix apparently doesn't expose a columns ordinal_position as part of schema information - at least we don't seem to be able to read it. Returning a null value that we try to convert to a numeric value... resulting in the Invalid use of Null.

We'll have to create an updated build in order to deliver the fix to you.

Thanks for reporting the bug!!

Will let you know when the new build is available!

Best regards,
Carsten

[dborn]

Hey Carsten,

good that you found it that quick!
But informix has the ordinal position for a column, it-s in column "colno" of table "syscolumns".
Or, if the X/Open CAE standard schema views have been created, it-s also in view "columns", column "ordinal_position". Those views only exist if the DBA created them explicitly, they don-t get created automatically during a standard install.

Don-t wanna annoy you, but any rough estimate how long it will take for the new build?
For me it-s just the question: wait for the new build or start the work to transfer my database to
a different DBMS in the meantime ...
Thanks

Dirk

[Carsten Sørensen]

Hi Dirk,

I can create a build for you today - maybe that's a good way of testing whether that is the only issue with Informix.

I will create a new build for personal with the modification and let you know later here.

Best regards,
Carsten

[Carsten Sørensen]

Hi Dirk,

An updated build (will show version number 6 4 15) is available on:

http://support.dynamicai.com/files/Rele ... rsonal.exe

Please let us know whether that works for you!

Best regards,
Carsten

[dborn]

Hey Carsten,

whow, that was quick. Respect!

Seems to work, i see data now if i click "Browse" on a table.

But the second problem, the crashing/freezing QuickWeb remains. Will try a complete reinstall tomorrow, keep you posted.

Thanks
Dirk

[Carsten Sørensen]

Hi Dirk,

Although we believe Quickweb is stabile - we do recommend MS Internet Information Server (IIS) in general.
Our Server and Enterprise editions are running very stabile with IIS for many years.

I wonder however what causes the instability in your case - we are not aware of any current issues (apart from some strange issues sometimes with some antivirus software)... so feel free to let us know if you think it is a general issue that we can address.

Best regards,
Carsten