Hi Kevin,

Is it a new Sage 500 user that is encountering this problem? What version of Sage 500? On what operating system is that user running?

-Tony

Hey Kevin,

I have had some clients with a similar issue.  If you haven't looked into it already here are some things that I have seen cause this in the past.  All were a result of a temporary loss of connectivity to the network.

1)   Sleep and Screen Saver Settings - User leaving Sage 500 open and then having to come back in after either a screen saver lock or a sleep lock have lost connectivity the server.

2)   Failing NIC Card - Either a corrupt driver or a failing NIC

3)   Bad network components - Failing routers, switches, cabling, etc.  

Instead of logging in and out there is a shutdown sage business desktop which you should have the user try to use.  You may find that gets them back into the system quicker.  

Good luck with that issue it can be a bit difficult to pin down exactly what is so special about what that user is doing to lose their connection to the server.  My money would be on point 1.

-Adrian-

Tony,

This is not a new Sage 500 user but it is somebody who recently received a new PC. They are running Windows 7 Professional x64 with SP1. I'll have to check what the exact version of Sage 500 is but the user inconveniently shut off her PC over the weekend so I can't access it remotely until she gets in. I'll get that information for you as soon as I am able.

Adrian,

I'm putting my money on point 1 as well, if only because this is a new PC and I don't want to go through the fun of contacting Dell support. While the client has next day on site service under their Dell warranty, there is still the rigmarole of going through the diagnostic process with Dell, either over the phone or via chat. I'll also check to see if other network dependent applications like Outlook are exhibiting similar behavior.

Our remote management agent is supposed to turn off sleep and hibernation for our clients, as well as the lock option for the screen saver. I'll check to make sure that occurred on this PC and adjust the settings accordingly. I'll let you know what I find.

8/13/14 update:

Yesterday, I turned off hibernation and configured the PC's power options for "always on", shutting off sleep functionality as well. I've just spoken with the client and she says she did NOT have the network connection error this morning when first opening MAS500, though she did yesterday morning before I was able to make those changes. I'm taking this as a good sign. I will follow up with her tomorrow morning and, if the issue still does not occur, will close out this post.

8/14/14 update:

The client informed me she got the network connection error this morning. This indicates that the issue is not related to the PC going to sleep or hibernating. Either there is an issue with the PC's network card, which would be super annoying since this is a recently installed PC, or a problem with the network, which would surprise me as the client was fine with their old PC on the same network drop. There may be some other problem that I haven't figured out yet.

The weird thing is that this error only comes up once a day at most when the client first attempts to open MAS500. That also makes it tough to troubleshoot if I can't be there or on a remote support session when she makes that first attempt. Fortunately, since this does only happen at the start of the day, she's not prevented from getting work done.

I'll look into the shutdown sage business desktop option Adrian suggested next.

8/15/14 updated:

She got the network connection error this morning. I think my next step may be to reinstall her network drivers, see if that may be the cause of my client's issues.

Does anybody have any other suggestions while I go down this route?

8/20/14 update:

I've reinstalled the network drivers. Once again, MAS500 launched without issue the first morning after but the error message returned the following morning.

No other network or Internet related services or applications are having issues. This is only occurring with MAS500.

With each fix I've implemented, the error goes away the first morning after but returns the following morning.

At this point, I am going to do an uninstall/reinstall of the MAS500 client on the PC. If the issue continues, I am totally out of ideas and could use ANY suggestions you may have.

I'm also wondering if the issue is with the user's profile. I am going to see if they can have me log in as another user on the PC and try logging into MAS500 under that user profile. If the issue doesn't occur, then the next step would be to create a fresh user profile on that PC. If it does, then I go to the uninstall/reinstall of MAS500.