Lumigent Log Explorer Version 4.2.0 Release Notes

Lumigent Log Explorer Version 4.2.0 Release Notes ?? Lumigent Log Explorer Version 4.2.0 Release Notes September 20, 2007 Table of Contents Log Explorer Best Practices .................................................................................... 1 Upgrading to Version 4.2.0 ...................................................................................... 1 New Features in Version 4.2.0 ................................................................................ 2 Known Issues ............................................................................................................ 2 Problems fixed in version 4.2.0 ............................................................................... 5 Using Log Explorer with SQL Server Clusters ............................................................ 5 Installing Log Explorer on a Cluster ........................................................................ 5 Contacting Lumigent Technologies, Inc. ................................................................ 5 Log Explorer Best Practices Important! , Any database you plan to attach Log Explorer to should be set to Full Recovery mode. Log Explorer may not be able to reliably recover/restore data from databases set to Simple recovery mode. , If you change your database from Simple to Full recovery, you must back it up immediately to prevent possible data loss. , The Remote Registry Services must be running to install or configure Log Explorer remotely. Remote Registry Services must be running on both the machine on which you are running the installation and the machine on which you are installing the software. Upgrading to Version 4.2.0 Note: Lumigent recommends treating an upgrade to Lumigent 4.2.0 as a scheduled maintenance event that occurs during a period of low activity for the target SQL Server instance. To upgrade to version 4.2.0, run the installer program from the provided media. New Features in Version 4.2.0 Log Explorer 4.2.0 introduces support for 64-bit OS platform (x64 or Itaninum) Known Issues , Log Explorer does not support the following: o MS SQL 7.0 is not supported in this version of Log Explorer. (Use Log Explorer 4.0.2 if you need SQL 7.0 compatibility.) , The “Salvage Dropped/Truncated Table”, “Restore Table from Backup”, and “Advanced | Dropped Table Filter” features are available for SQL 2000 instances only. When attached to a SQL 2005 instance, GUI items associated with these feature are removed or disabled. , The new XML datatype introduced in MS SQL 2005 is not fully supported. XML column values are handled in the following way for specific Log Explorer Features: o Browse, Export : XML column data values are displayed in binary format rather than markup. o Recovery : XML column data is not recoverable by Log Explorer in this release. Recovery scripts produced by Log Explorer replace XML data with an empty string. , The new VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX), and VARBINARY(MAX) datatypes are supported. Data values for columns of these types can reside in the data row as traditional VARCHAR, NVARCHAR, or VARBINARY datatypes, or can grow into off row BLOB (TEXT, NTEXT, IMAGE) storage. Column values that are stored in row are fully supported. If columns of VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX), or VARBINARY(MAX) type grow in length to exceed a data record’s storage capacity, data associated with the columns are stored in off record, BLOB storage structures. In this case, the same limitations that Log Explorer has for BLOB columns apply to VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX), or VARBINARY(MAX). , The “Browse | View Log” feature cannot always display UID values for log records in an MS SQL 2005 transaction log. The UID identifier is not always in the transaction log and therefore cannot be displayed. See the “Session Login Information” pane on the “View Log” screen to identify the user (login) who executed the operation. , Log Explorer will not behave as documented in the “Audit Your Database” | “Audit User Activity” step in the Log Explorer Guided Tour due to the unavailability of UID values in the transaction log (details in the previous bullet). Filtering log records by UID will result in the following error message being displayed: “No log records found that match the filter. Would you like to view unfiltered data?” , The “Browse | View DDL” feature cannot retrieve INDEX column values from the transaction log for MS SQL 2005. , The “Browse | View DDL” feature cannot retrieve DEFAULT column values associated with a CREATE or DROP TABLE command from the transaction log for MS SQL 2005. , In some cases, the “Browse | View DDL” feature cannot retrieve IDENTITY column attributes for columns associated with a CREATE TABLE operations. , The “Browse | View DDL” feature cannot retrieve CREATE or DROP SCHEMA commands from the transaction log for MS SQL 2005. , The “Browse | View DDL” feature cannot retrieve REVOKE commands from the transaction log for MS SQL 2005. , An ALTER TABLE command that adds or drops a column may not be shown by the View DDL Commands function if the table was dropped after the ALTER command was run. , If the alerting feature is disabled during Log Explorer installation, the following error message may appear in the event log on the machine where Log Explorer was installed: “An error occurred while reading alert notification preferences from the configuration database: No e-mail alerts can be sent; one or more ConfigVars is missing or incorrect.” This error can be ignored. , Real-time alerts are not sent for Backup Log operations on MS SQL 2005. , The Alerting feature will not send alerts via email if the value you enter in the "From" field contains spaces, or if you leave the "From" field blank. , The “Run SQL Script” feature counts blank lines in SQL Scripts as a SQL statement. This can distort the numbers reported for the “Succeeded”, “Failed”, and “Submitted” SQL statement displays on the page. , The “Run SQL Script” fails if you attempt to run an empty SQL script. , If Log Explorer is attached to a transaction log, you will not be able to back up that transaction log by appending to it. , The Export to SQL Table function sometimes reports "Exported 0 log records." To resolve this, click to clear the "Stop on error" check box and try the export again. , Columns with BLOB datatypes may not be recoverable if data was inserted to them using WRITETEXT/UPDATETEXT. These commands are not written to the SQL transaction log; therefore they usually cannot be recovered by Log Explorer. In particular, this applies to the Undo/Redo features, as well as the new Restore Table from Backup feature. , When installing Log Explorer to multiple servers, you must accept the Lumigent database default to store session information (Capture Login Information step). If you want login information stored in another database, install Log Explorer to each server individually. , After using ALTER TABLE to change a column's datatype (for example, from "float" to "double"), you may be unable to Undo or Redo operations on that table, and the Browse Log view may show incorrect data for operations performed before the change. , In some cases, if you use SQL Enterprise Manager or Query Analyzer to restore a dropped database, you may not receive alerts for the Restore Database command. , After applying a Time Range filter, you may not see all transactions from the given time range. Refreshing the display may cause the missing transactions to appear. , After uninstalling both the client and the server component of Log Explorer from the same machine, you may notice that one of the components still appears on the Windows "Add/Remove Programs" control panel. You may have to refresh the Add/Remove Programs display before it correctly reflects that Log Explorer has been removed. , If you are going to install Server Component of Log Explorer into a remote machine, you should have to copy Hname.sys to "%windir\system32" folder of the remote machine predictably. This file can be found in “LE_420_SqlServer\Intel\Filesx64” , Log Explorer could fail to install because of the information left by the previous installation. Here are the steps to clean them up. 1. Go to the "Start Menu", and then "Run ...", 2. Open the system registry table by executing "regedit" command, 3. Search the registry table with key word "Log Explorer" and delete all you find, 4. Delete Log Explorer's install folder, i.e. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Lumigent\Log Explorer Problems fixed in version 4.2.0 Log Explorer version 4.2.0 fixed the following problems found in previous releases. Numbers in parentheses represent the Lumigent tracking numbers associated with the issue, if any. , Fail to create database in Guided Tour for instance upgraded from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005. (11069) , Subject of alert email introduces invalid characters. (11511) , Content of alert email is truncated. (12265) , Configuration cannot be saved and restored correctly. (12277,12550) , Creating script from Revision History doesn’t work. (12164) , Invalid file is created from Revision History when exporting to XML. (12165) , Row Revision doesn’t work. (12278) , The table name in the subject of email alert is incorrect if the table name contains underscore. (11156) , Guided Tour fails to create the test schema on 64 bits machine. (12337) , Fail to create demo database when applying “Reset” to create again in Guided Tour. (12342) , Fail to run Real-Time Monitor example in Guided Tour. (12352) , Access violation happens when browsing transaction without row selected in Row Revision History. (12363) , Changes to columns that have not taken place are reported. (12407) , Access violation happens in View Log pane. (12463) , Log Explorer crashes due to focusing on an invisible or disabled window. (12464) , Fail to install Log Explorer on 64 bits machine. (12579,12580,12616) , LE reduced tracing. (12276) Using Log Explorer with SQL Server Clusters Installing Log Explorer on a Cluster Log Explorer is not a cluster-aware application. Therefore, the server component of Log Explorer must be installed on each node in a cluster. You will need one client license for each person using Log Explorer, and one server license for each SQL Server instance hosted by the cluster. Install Log Explorer's server component on each active node using the license keys that were issued to you at time of purchase. Then install Log Explorer on each passive node using the same license keys. Contacting Lumigent Technologies, Inc. Main Phone: 1 866-LUMIGENT Technical Support: 1 978-206-3677 support@lumigent.com www.lumigent.com/support Sales: sales@lumigent.com On the Web: www.lumigent.com Copyright 1999-2007, Lumigent Technologies, Inc.