KB84150657: ArtiosCAD - Recover from Potential Disk Crash

Description

When one/ many of an ArtioCAD Standard Edition systems crash, causing data loss of single/ multiple components, which ArtiosCAD needs in order to function properly, how should you assess the situation and attempt to recover as much data as possible in order to restore your workstations/ servers as quickly as possible?

Procedure

Recovering from a data loss event, i.e. system crash, consists of isolating which components were affected and bringing the unaffected ones onto new systems. Ideally, the user should attempt to restore from the most current backup of the affected data. But as this is not always possible, it requires a preemptive step, that being the setup/ maintenance of a backup system, it is sometimes only possible to attempt to recover from a faulty system.

1. Disk Condition - Assess the condition of your disks. For this step please refer to the following Knowledge Base Article:
   • Page:
     KB83182798: ArtiosCAD - Check Hard Disk For Defects
   
   This will give you more information about how to determine if there are any problems with your disks.
2. FlexNet Licensing - With the exception of Licensing, all other components of ArtiosCAD can be trivially moved to other systems if they weren’t corrupted. As the FlexNet licensing system has a fingerprinting mechanism which allows specific entitlements to be licensed to a particular system (or License Server with Network Licenses), it is not recommended that users attempt to move anything related to licensing outside of the License Management applications.
   The License Management Applications are named and located at:
   
   1. Local License Manager > Manage Local Licenses and
      
   2. Windows Start menu > Esko folder > System Controller > Activate Network Licenses.

3. Symptoms - The main symptom indicating licensing is not functional for an ArtiosCAD client during launch is shown below:
   
   Resolution - Upon opening the License Manager supplying licenses for your workstation (either local or server), you need to find that your licenses are in an Active state. If they are not then you will need to troubleshoot your license situation. However, for most "Broken" licenses which have been corrupted on the machine, the only resolution is to install a new set of licenses on a new machine after you've had them deactivated. The deactivation process can only be performed by performing a deactivation in the License Manager or by calling support and having them initiate a deactivation manually (the state of your licenses must be synchronized with our servers). When you call, please have your system name handy for the support technician.

4. ArtiosCAD Database -
   Symptoms - If you notice a very long startup delay for ArtiosCAD or DataCenter or are greeted with warning popups similar to these:
   

   If you encounter these issues and the database is located on your machine (and your machine has had disk errors as verified in step 1 it is strongly advised to recover your database from backup. It could be due to part of the database becoming corrupt due to file corruption and the database becoming un-mountable.

   Resolution - Determining whether the ArtiosCAD database is located on the machine which may have crashed can be a little more complicated. If you are running in standalone, it is trivial and is most certainly on the same machine. If you have more than one ArtiosCAD workstation, you are most likely hosting the database from one single machine somewhere. To determine which machine definitively stores it (as there could be old installs which are no longer being used) simply go over to one of your working ArtiosCAD workstations.

   1. Navigate to Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Administrative Tools > Data Sources 32 bit (ODBC).

   2. On the System DSN > click ArtiosCAD > click Configure. In the bottom section of the window that pops up, you will see a field named Server. This field lists the UNC name of the system which provides the ArtiosCAD database, followed by a slash and the instance name it is running on that system (you may want to check a few workstations this way to ensure they are all pointing to the same database). At this point you will know if your damaged system contains the ArtiosCAD database. Please review the following Knowledge Base Article:

      • Page:
        KB84149732: ArtiosCAD - Move an MSSQL Database

      It explains how to MOVE an MSSQL database via the Detach/ Attach process. Do this only if you are sure that your database is still intact. If you don't plan to save your database, you can rebuild it solely from the information imbedded within your ArtiosCAD design files, with the exception of user fields, with a design auto-load process. Please Refer

      • Page:
        KB73958552: ArtiosCAD - Make an AutoLoad list fast!

5. ArtiosCAD Defaults - The Defaults is the core program configuration which can potentially be shared amongst multiple workstations for consistency.
   Symptoms -  Slow starting ArtiosCAD. When the user views the defaults, the shared column side will be greyed out.
   

   Resolution - Only do this if you are sure your defaults are not corrupted!
   The process for restoring Defaults is fairly straightforward. If you have access to the files on the original system simply copy the ServerLib and/ or ClientLib in its entirety from the old system to the new one. 

   ServerLib and ClientLib are located generally in C:\Esko\Artios\ArtiosCADVersionLanguage\ as each ArtiosCAD version has its own version specific set. What is critical to remember is that when migrating or restoring Defaults, always copy to and from the same exact version. If you are unsure of where the Defaults are loading from, open your registry editor (regedit.exe) and browse to the Node:
   Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Artios\ArtiosCAD\ArtiosCADVersionLanguage\INTSEARCH
   Among the semicolon separated entries in this item you will come across a path pointing to ...\ServerLib.
   The start of this entry will tell you where your Defaults server is located.

   Copy ServerLib if you are working on an ArtiosCAD server and ClientLib, if you are just restoring or moving a client workstation.

6. Designs (File Store) - The place where your organization stores its ArtiosCAD designs is usually a multi-purpose, shared and backed-up SAN/ NAS. What this means is that it is very unlikely that there isn't a backup of this data since it is trivial to set up and for organizations with networked systems it is usually provided at bare minimum. Nevertheless, you may need to assess if this resides on your crashed system or at the very least, how to ascertain where it resides.
   Symptoms - The user is unable to open any design files or is met with a NON-ArtiosCAD error message that the source disk or file cannot be read.
   Resolution - Open DataCenter and double click Server in the left column. It will immediately show which machines are listed as providers of the Resources where your ArtiosCAD designs are.
   Now that you have the location of the system where your designs are located you can assess whether or not you want to copy them to a new location. If you decide that you want to copy the File Store to a new machine, you must be careful to copy all folders (labelled Resources in the Resource view of DataCenter) to the new server, preserving the exact same folder/ network share structure. The name of the server can change but the structure of the resources must remain the same.
   Lastly, after the files have been copied to the new server/ share, you need to change the server entry labelled Path in DataCenter. If the old entry was using a UNC name that would have changed now after you moved your File Store to another location. Otherwise, if you are using mapped drives, then the drives need to be remapped on all clients to the new server.

   It is generally a good idea to structure the resources such that they are all under a common master folder. Thus, when they are copied, all of the structures are preserved and there is no risk in forgetting an individual resource.