MPS 2003 Enterprise Global Template

[Sarah]

I have Project Server 2003 (SP2a) running on Windows 2003 SP1, Sharepoint 2.0
SP2 is installed on the same server. SQL Server 2000 SP4 is the database on
a separate server. And the client is Project Professional 2003 SP3 running
on XP SP2.

I have also setup a new Project Server server (on Windows 2003 SP2) that I
installed Project Server 2003 SP3 on, it also has Sharepoint 2.0 SP2 on the
MPS server and uses a separate SQL Server 2000 SP4 (ie on a different server
.... it is the same SQL Server as the SP2a server above uses). Both get the
same error ... which is ..

If I edit the Enterprise Global Template (or even just open it, save it and
close it), when I go back into MS Project Professional 2003 and connect to
the server, it tries to connect but I get an error

"Incompatible Codepages.
Project has detected incompatible codepages.
- The Project Server is using Codepage .
- Your computer is using Codepage -1"

If I clear the cache in Documents and Settings\<<my profile>>\Application
Data\Microsoft\MS Project, the error message changes slightly to have "Your
computer is using Codepage 64" instead of -1.

The SP2a server is set to English (US), the SP3 server is set to English
(Australian) and I have tried 2 different client PCs set to both English (US)
and English (Australian) but neither work.

Any ideas? The SP3 server doesn't have any projects setup - it is a new
install - all I've done is some configuration (eg Active Directory
integration, setup Groups, Security Templates, Views, Categories). I've
tried deleting the views, categories, security templates and groups and
trying the EGT save again but no change.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Ben Howard]

Hi Sarah,
When SQL server is installed, you are able to choose the codepage. I
suspect that there is a mismatch in codepages between the two installations -
I would start the investigation along these lines.

 

[Sarah]

Thanks Ben.

The Collation on the SQL Server is SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. My
understanding is that this is ok for English (US or Australian).

I have previously set up a test server with MPS 2003 SP2a, Sharepoint 2.0
SP2 and SQL Server 2000 SP4 (collation = SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS) and
didn't get this problem ... I don't know if it is because the SQL server was
on the same box or there was some other configuration difference ...

I wonder if it is really a codepage error at all given that it says -1 or 64
as the codepage of my PC or laptop and blank for the server ...

Apart from looking at the collation - which I'm guessing is ok ... I don't
know what else to investigate.

Thanks for your help though.

 

[Sarah]

An update:

I've now chased down the issue to the RESERVED_BINARY_DATA field in the
table MSP_PROJECTS being NULL. For some reason, when I save the EGT this
field is left NULL. I did a SQL Profiler trace and found that the UPDATE
statement is out of order. I have a client & server combination in a test
environmet that works ... and a client and server combination in production
that doesn't work. I did a SQL trace on both and the UPDATE MSP_PROJECTS set
RESERVED_BINARY_DATA = ... statement happens AFTER the "project check in"
statements on the Production server but BEFORE it on the test server (ie the
one that works).

Has anyone seen anything like this before? I thought it might be down to
network latency as my production client is in Brisbane and my production
server is in Perth, but if I go back the other way ... client in Perth and
server in Brisbane it works (network latency is similar both ways - up around
90-95ms average).

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Sarah]

Problem Solved!

For those who may encounter the same issue in the future. The cause of our
corruption was SQL Acceleration by a network appliance, once the client PC
was excluded from the SQL Acceleration, updates to the EGT were successful.
(as was updating the EGT from a client PC in the same geographical location
as the MPS server machine).

I hope this information saves someone's time ...

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

Sarah:

Any chance you could provide the name of the particular appliance that
caused the problem? This would be very useful information for other folks to
have as yours is the first case we've seen reported in the news groups.

--
----------
Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
Project Server Training: http://www.projectservertraining.com
Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
Project Server Help Blog: http://www.projectserverhelp.com