It's always something

I'm doing an upgrade from 8.10 to 9.0 right now and once again I run up against some crazy issue. It doesn't matter if the configuration is exactly the same as the last client, or if it's a slam-dunk fresh 9.0 install - something always goes wrong.

This time it was a combination of simple issues. I couldn't get the spec merge to run correctly - I kept getting the classic "Invalid Data Source Name" on the source data sources. I've fixed that more times than I can count, and it usually boils down to a typo in the data source name. Sure enough, I found the typo and re-ran the spec merge.

Unfortunately it failed again, this time on the Object Librarian - 810 data source. I went back and re-checked the data sources and the spelling was correct. I saw that there were appropriate entries in the OCMs. I went in to the ODBCs on all machines and made sure everything looked good there too. This is a 64-bit install, so I had to check the 32-bit and the 64-bit ODBC settings. It was all correct.

It was the end of the day by this time and I headed back to the hotel. I took a quick nap and got back on the case. I decided to methodically go through every setting related to Object Librarian - 810 until I found the issue. I looked again at the OCMs and realized that the OCM status column was off the right side of the screen. I scrolled over in the off-chance they were set to NA and sure enough, that was the problem. Once I set all the OL OCMs to AV, the spec merge ran through without errors.

The lesson learned from this incident is when there's an issue that clearly is a result of some simple problem, a methodical analysis of all the settings is the best bet. Leave nothing unchecked, no matter how minor. All CNCs know that even one wrong setting can bring everything to a screeching halt.