topic Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help? in Qlik NPrinting

NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Maarten_Bitmetric — Mon, 01 May 2023 08:09:42 GMT

We have recently migrated from NPrinting 16 to Qlik NPrinting May 2022 SR4. Unfortunately after a great start we are experiencing erratic behavior:

At certain points the reports all run perfectly. At some moments it will take a long time to run and at certain points we kill them, since they seem to be running forever:

What could cause this? We are seeing the following in the event log:

Faulting application name: Qv.exe, version: 12.20.21200.0, time stamp: 0x5f31048c
Faulting module name: Qv.exe, version: 12.20.21200.0, time stamp: 0x5f31048c
Exception code: 0xc0000409
Fault offset: 0x0000000001acd06c
Faulting process id: 0x39e8
Faulting application start time: 0x01d979f394ac0141
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\QlikView\Qv.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\QlikView\Qv.exe
Report Id: bbcd51ba-b892-490d-b7e9-21e1dfd07592
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Or:

Faulting application name: Qv.exe, version: 12.20.21200.0, time stamp: 0x5f31048c
Faulting module name: Qv.exe, version: 12.20.21200.0, time stamp: 0x5f31048c
Exception code: 0xc0000409
Fault offset: 0x0000000001acd06c
Faulting process id: 0xa2ec
Faulting application start time: 0x01d97b0b7e014c72
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\QlikView\Qv.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\QlikView\Qv.exe
Report Id: 389abf69-5fee-406b-94e1-14ab881fc1ea
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

So it seems there are problems with opening QV.

If we try to restart the services when it is hanging the NPrinting Engine is unresponsive, so we have to restart the server. After the restart everything works perfectly again. Sending all reports in a few minutes.

What could cause this or where to start looking? How come that one moment all reports (+- 30 publish tasks) are send in a matter of minutes, and the next moment they keep running for hours.

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Lucas_Gatling — Mon, 01 May 2023 10:32:24 GMT

What version of QlikView are you currently running? Please see this KB article on Nprinting task in a stuck state: https://community.qlik.com/t5/Official-Support-Articles/NPrinting-Server-Web-Console-Publish-Task-Completely-Hangs/ta-p/1714410

It could be a number of things that are causing your tasks to hang.

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Maarten_Bitmetric — Mon, 01 May 2023 10:44:36 GMT

Qlikview is 12.2, november 2017 SR4. I will look into that document!

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Lucas_Gatling — Mon, 01 May 2023 10:50:03 GMT

Maarten,

You will need to upgrade your QlikView version as well. Nprinting May 2022 SR 4 is not compatiable with QlikView November 2017 SR4. See the following link for Nprinting and QlikView Compatibility: https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2022/Content/NPrinting/DeployingQVNprinting/System-requirements_engine.htm#:~:text=QlikView%20compatibility&text=Qlik%20NPrinting%20May%202022%20IR,QlikView%20May%202022%20(12.70)

I would suggest upgrading to the latest version of QlikView as well, so you are fully supported QlikView and Nprinting versions. QlikView November 2017 SR 4 is out of support.

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

PadmaPriya — Mon, 01 May 2023 11:05:09 GMT

Hi @Maarten_Bitmetric

What is the Qlikview version? Are you using the latest QlikView Supported version?

Possible Causes:

System Requirements not met: For example, sharing the NPrining server/engine service account.
Unsupported items, unsupported platform or Incomplete configuration
QV and or QS server resources are at full capacity: near 100% utilization
QV and or QS services are not started
Section access
IE Enhanced Security is enabled
Folder permissions are not enabled for the NP service account
Older versions of NPrinting with Known "connect failed" issues (November 2019 and earlier versions)

Please refer to below article:

https://community.qlik.com/t5/Official-Support-Articles/NPrinting-Server-Web-Console-Publish-Task-Completely-Hangs/ta-p/1714410

https://community.qlik.com/t5/Qlik-NPrinting/Connection-doesn-t-close-NPrinting-June-2018/m-p/100269

Thanks,

Padma Priya

Qlik Support

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Maarten_Bitmetric — Mon, 01 May 2023 11:10:41 GMT

Hi all. We will plan a upgrade for Qlikview. Problem is that we also still have NPrinting 16 running, which is working flawlessly. So if we upgrade Qlikview we loose NPrinting 16 and just have to hope that the new NPrinting will start behaving as expected. A bit of a conundrum.

Further I can say that the system specs of all servers are well within requirements, there are seperate service accounts for NPrinting and Qlikview, all resources are quite low on usage, there is no section access and all folders are reachable for the accounts.

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

PadmaPriya — Mon, 01 May 2023 17:13:48 GMT

Thanks for your response @Maarten_Bitmetric Sounds like a plan! Please take a good backup of the Server and make changes accordingly. Kindly start this process on your development environment.

Thanks, Padma

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Lech_Miszkiewicz — Mon, 01 May 2023 22:42:07 GMT

Hi @Maarten_Bitmetric

Always check supported configuration for the version on https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/May2022/Content/NPrinting/DeployingQVNprinting/System-requirements_engine.htm

QlikView compatibility

QlikView Desktop is required for QlikView connection with Qlik NPrinting and must be installed on each Qlik NPrinting Engine computer.

If using server or cluster connections, QlikView Server and QlikView Desktop must be on the same version.

Qlik NPrinting May 2022 IR, SR1, SR2, SR3, SR4 are compatible with the following QlikView versions:

QlikView May 2021 (12.60)
QlikView May 2022 (12.70)

Qlik NPrinting May 2022 SR5 is compatible with the following QlikView versions:

QlikView May 2021 (12.60)
QlikView May 2022 (12.70)
QlikView May 2023 (12.80)

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Frank_S — Tue, 02 May 2023 17:32:48 GMT

@Maarten_Bitmetric

Since you are still running NP 16, I am curious if you are sharing the NPrinting Server service account with NPrinting, QlikView server and NPrinting May 202x

Also wondering if you are running NP 16 and May 202x on the same computer.

Further it is very possible that you may also have unsupported QV items in your QVWs.

This is covered in the article Lucas shared with you.

Any of the above is not supported in any way unfortunately.

For more guidance visit NPrinting 16 to NPrinting 19+ Migration Playbook - Qlik Community - 1780278

This playbook covers critical points necessary for a successful migration from NP 16 to Modern NPrinting.

Please review this carefully and the information shared in previous comments to help you resolve the issues.

Kind regards...

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Maarten_Bitmetric — Wed, 03 May 2023 07:20:13 GMT

Hi Frank_S,

Both NPrintings are on different machines, although they share the same services account. However I don't think that will interfere with anything.

What we noticed is that the QlikView server is running out of memory at times, although why is not clear yet. It sometime throttles the usage to ~80% ram, which is as high as it will go (384GB total ram). After setting the server service on the qlikview server, the memory went down and everything started to run again, including the new NPrinting.

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Lech_Miszkiewicz — Wed, 03 May 2023 07:37:36 GMT

Hi @Maarten_Bitmetric

You say: What we noticed is that the QlikView server is running out of memory at times, although why is not clear yet. Are you experiencing this when NPrinting is running its task? How many CPU cores do you have on your new NPrinting server. Asking that as it will determine number of parallel sessions to QlikView NPrinting will be able to establish hence put parallel intensive pressure on QlikView server resources.

Given how NPrinting works it is quite possible that you have qvw files unoptimized for its use. Note that NPrinting will clear all selections and may try to preview objects in cleared state which are also present on hidden sheets. This can cause huge resource consumption if those object are not optimal from typical QV development point of view.

In other words:

make sure your qvw does not have any unsupported objects as document on help website
make sure you can browse through all QlikView sheets (also hidden ones) without worry that you will have any resource or calc time issues
make sure you dont have any hidden objects which have the same problem
all NPrinting objects which are not required for users should be minimized which will allow for much faster NPrinting performance and possibly much smaller resource consumption

Your last sentence is again unclear: "After setting the server service on the qlikview server, the memory went down and everything started to run again, including the new NPrinting." Having a NPrinting on the QlikView server is not supported and you will have issues in the future if that is the case you are describing. Apologies if I misunderstood you though.

cheers

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Lech_Miszkiewicz — Wed, 03 May 2023 07:42:00 GMT

In addition - I would say you should have dedicated user account as well. If for some reason you are using the same QV app (using QVP connection) from old and new NPrinting your sessions will be interrupted - same as you would try to open QlikView app from access point using the same account from 2 different machines.

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Maarten_Bitmetric — Wed, 03 May 2023 07:43:57 GMT

Hi Lech,

I meant after resetting/restarting the qlikview server service on the qlikview machine. All nprintings and qlikview are hosted on separate machines. The new NPrinting server has 16 cores, the Qlikview server has 32.

I understand what everyone is saying about optimizing the QVW, but I cannot see if they are unoptimized how one moment all reports are send in a matter of minutes, while the other moment it causes the Qlikview machine to run out of memory. To me it seems the problem lies in the Qlikview machine running out of memory and the erraticness of this behavior.

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Maarten_Bitmetric — Wed, 03 May 2023 07:46:28 GMT

This sound logical, however the new NPrinting uses open in server, while the old one opens directly. Does this also conflict?

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Lech_Miszkiewicz — Wed, 03 May 2023 07:57:42 GMT

In theory it shouldn't conflict, but!!! Since your old one opens document locally it can cause resources issues which can explain why you are running out of resources.

The situation you are currently in is hard to troubleshoot as you have many potential factors causing issues. There is no way you can have supported configuration to run both NPrinting version supported due to QlikView version compatibility. Either one or another is not meeting supported setup criteria so to me it is a starting point of troubleshooting. I never allow for unsupported configuration and if I am forced to be in one I take no responsibility as simply it is wrong.

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Frank_S — Thu, 04 May 2023 18:18:57 GMT

Hi @Maarten_Bitmetric

Your comment "Both NPrintings are on different machines, although they share the same services account. However I don't think that will interfere with anything."

However this WILL interfere with everything and cause the very issue you are experiencing.

This is mentioned in the Migration playbook and also here as well.

Dedicated NPrinting Server & Engine Service Accoun... - Qlik Community - 1716056

I strongly urge you to configure a dedicated NP service account for one each of your NP environments. (and ensure that service account is also NOT used by any other QlikView or NPrinting environment).

Kind regards...

Re: NPrinting erratic behavior. Publishing works flawlessly, then keeps hanging. Help?

Maarten_Bitmetric — Wed, 10 May 2023 08:56:47 GMT

Thanks for all the suggestions. We have not yet upgraded, since some essential reporting is still needed by the customer for this week. However we have found that the QlikView server running out of memory might have been (part of) the problem. Last week we scheduled a task which restarts all Qlikview services every night to stop it from running out of memory and haven't had any issues since...