Unexpected shutdown

[Ron]

Hi,

I'm using Sage Line 50 Financial Controller, Version 13.02.17.0126

It has a tendency to shutdown unexpectedly, sometimes with an error message and sometimes (like today) it just disappears!

When I restart and check my datafiles there are no errors reported.

Today's event happened when I selected a Customer pricelist and clicked on "edit". Nothing happened for a few moments, then Sage was gone.

What do you think?

Ron

[brucedenney]

Sounds strange

You are not fully up to date so I would log on at the sage web site and download and install the updates anyway.

If the problem continues come back to me.

[Ron]

Thanks Bruce,

I have been in touch with Sage and there are updates for me to install.

I will let you know how it goes.

Ron

[Ron]

Bruce,

All updates installed so I am now up to date.

I had another couple of goes at editing a customer price list and all went well, so I decided to try another action that regularly provokes the same shutdown if I am not careful.

My normal routine for generating a purchase order is to select a number of sales orders then click on "Shortfall". Many of our products are sourced from one major wholesaler so their name appears in the supplier column. however for various reasons I may want to source a number of items from a different supplier.

I select those items and create a purchase order which automatically shows the wholesaler's account details - I then change the A/C reference to the new supplier. The name and address fields change and everything looks normal, but if I don't leave it for a few seconds before clicking on "print" then I get a "Critical Error" message and Sage shuts down.

It's usually when I am in a rush trying to beat an order deadline that it happens and this plays havoc with my usual air of serenity.

Ron

[brucedenney]

Always is "when you are in a rush" that anything goes wrong!

Please can you confirm you have checked your data for errors and that you have no history of errors in your data.

[Ron]

No errors to report.

After each event, I am prompted to check for errors when I restart Sage which I do, but nothing ever shows up.

The purchase order will be there showing the new account details, as if nothing had happened.

Ron

[brucedenney]

This may be a data issue rather than an application issue.

To establish which could you repeat the procedures to cause the system to fail but using the demodata rather than your live data and let me know if you can break it with the demo data

Is this a network or a single user installation?

[Ron]

I tried to recreate the error using the demo data but was unable to do so.

The difference seems to be the way Sage reacts much more quickly to instructions using the demo data which I suspect has to do with the physical size of the dataset. Sage demo has 15 suppliers and 105 products, whereas I have 63 suppliers and 29,183 products.

Changing supplier on a purchase order in demo is almost instantaneous, in my company Sage "hangs" for a few moments on "project ref" (which I don't use) before returning to normal. Clicking on print during this period provokes the shutdown.

I am using a network version of Sage, but I am operating on the PC which acts as the server.

Ron

[brucedenney]

You are seriously pushing the limits of Sage 50 with nearly 30,000 products.

You should expect much slower performance.

Based on the fact that you can not reproduce the problem in the demo data I am pretty sure that there is nothing wrong with the installation.

Are other users on the network getting or not getting the problem?

Please create a new user and see if you can recreate the problem with a new user.


P.S..

It would be wise to remove any unneeded stock codes - stock history and compress files.

As you are not using projects switch off the option Settings>Company Options>Parameters>Others>Enable Project Costing

Good news coming, the database that sage is using and that is the root of these performance issues is being replaced, it is on test and we expect it to be released at the end of the summer, this should make things a lot better.

[Ron]

Bruce,

I've switched off "projects" thanks.

I think you are right about the size of my stock file being the likely culprit.

I could have a go at reducing the number of lines but i can't see it dropping below 25,000. Would that make a worthwhile difference do you think?

Incidentally, is there an easy way to select multiple items from a list - I could easily dump the last 300 or so codes but I would have to click on them all individually to select them - It's not possible to click on one then scroll down a few pages and hold shift and click on another code to select them all as you would in excel. Am I missing out on a clever trick?

Ron

[brucedenney]

Hi you can click on the products you want to delete and select them.

Searches are also really useful for narrowing down the "field of view"