Pastel accounting problems

O

ODTech

Senior Member
Joined
May 9, 2010
Messages
915
Reaction score
13
Location
Western Cape
So I have a client that have had a on and off problem with pastel for about 2 years now. Their Pastel support kept blaiming the PC so eventualy they bought a new 8th gen i5 with a SSD and the problem came to an end but came back after 2 or 3 months. Their pastel support said to have been on the line with the top tier support personnel at Pastel but they were clueless too.

So what happens is when specifically supplier invoices are processes pastel would hang and then after 15 or so minutes it would either finish or it would give an Microsoft Access related error. I don't have the exact error right now but i can ask the lady there to send if anyone has any ideas or had the same issue.
 
Last edited:
Sounds more like a network error there on the server. DNS stuff
 
Pineapple Smurf said:
Sounds more like a network error there on the server. DNS stuff
Click to expand...
It's a small local workgroup network, not corporate level with domains and such. Besides the PC this is happening on is also the Pastel server so to speak.

They are testing now with one of the pos stations as the "pastel server" so we'll see if it solves but a new pc didn't solve it last time so i don't have high hopes.
 
Yeah, I dont think it is isoltaed to a particular PC either. Sounds like Pastel is looking for something on the network, and then eventually gives up and dies
 
I found sometimes depending on how big the pastel company is, it can take extra long and sometimes freeze up when doing reports etc.
 
LinuxMan said:
I found sometimes depending on how big the pastel company is, it can take extra long and sometimes freeze up when doing reports etc.
Click to expand...
The company folder in question was several gigabytes last time i checked and i mentioned it to the Pastel support but he didn't have any reaction so i assumed it's normal. They do a have a very busy retail shop so i also assumed it's due to the many transactions that the company got so big.
 
Last edited:
Which antivirus/antimalware are they using?

If it's Bitdefender disable it and test again.
 
|tera| said:
Which antivirus/antimalware are they using?

If it's Bitdefender disable it and test again.
Click to expand...
It's either Eset or Kaspersky. It's been a while since i've been involved so i'm not 100% sure right now but iirc i did at one point add exceptions to the AV for Pastel.

But yes i will take a look at it.
Thanks
 
ODTech said:
It's either Eset or Kaspersky. It's been a while since i've been involved so i'm not 100% sure right now but iirc i did at one point add exceptions to the AV for Pastel.

But yes i will take a look at it.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Either way. Disable the antivirus completely. You can use msconfig and reboot to test.

If there's no difference, it might be related to the database. Which you need to resolve with Pastel Support.
 
ODTech said:
The company folder in question was several gigabytes last time i checked and i mentioned it to the "Pastel Expert" but he didn't have any reaction so i assumed it's normal. They do a have a very busy retail shop so i also assumed it's due to the many transactions that the company got so big.
Click to expand...
Test with another pastel company, see if the problem goes away, or make a new test company.
Could also be AV causing some kak.
 
LinuxMan said:
Test with another pastel company, see if the problem goes away, or make a new test company.
Could also be AV causing some kak.
Click to expand...
The problem is it doesn't always happen so you might not know for weeks or months if it is solved. It was OK for months until they did year end in the last few days then it started up again.
 
ODTech said:
The problem is it doesn't always happen so you might not know for weeks or months if it is solved. It was OK for months until they did year end in the last few days then it started up again.
Click to expand...
Narrow the variables down.
Since there are so many reasons that could cause it.

Did anything change? Pastel updates? Windows updates? Malware? Antimalware causing it? A random ass program installed which is hogging the system?

Check the Event Viewer logs.
Make sure the database is not corrupt (Pastel Support). Make sure there's nothing on the network that may hammer or influence the server.

New printer attached? Driver issue?

Narrow it down.
 
Pastel itself use Pervasive (aka Actian Zen PSQL)
Yes, the PoS can use an Access database, but you also have to option to use SQL.

What version of Pastel?
And how many concurrent users?
If it's 19/50c, they can upgrade the Pervasive to version 13.
If they have more than 10 concurrent users, they should be using Pervasive Server (not the free Pervasive for WorkGroups)
Sage/Pastel actually have a disclaimer that says you will have instability on Pervasive for WrokGroups with 10 or more concurrent users.
Pervasive is very, very sensitive over a LAN.
Also, strongly consider replacing the PoS Access database engine with SQL Express.
Much faster, much more stable and many other reasons too.

Pastel in a Terminal Server/RDP environment is pretty rock solid, despite it's 90's database engines.

Good luck.
 
Last edited:
You mention a MS Access error. When last was the Access database trimmed of older data. In my experience, as the database grows for a user, the point of sale can get really slow to process transactions.

Use the Pastel PurgeDatavX.exe (X is the pastel version - 17 or 18 or 19 etc) to flush the database (will take a while)

The other solution is to move them onto the MS SQL version of the POS, which is a lot more stable
 
Access is shiat.

Troubleshooting Access problems is like flicking popcorn at the moon.

Access doesn't do multi-session. It randomly fails to clear up its single-session gunk. It can't get too big before it actually starts choking itself. The list of how crap it is is far longer than that which can be marginally pegged as functionality.

Using Access in a production environment is criminal negligence.

Pastel can run on other SQL solutions. Not that Pervasive is anything to write home about, (it was scraped from Satan's gonads), it can still function far better than Access.

Pretty sure Pastel can now utilise proper SQL solutions as well.

Access is shiat.
 
Thanks for all the input. I've suggested as a start and hopefully a fix that they upgrade to ms sql for the database on pastel pos.
 
swakop_toe said:
Pastel itself use Pervasive (aka Actian Zen PSQL)
Yes, the PoS can use an Access database, but you also have to option to use SQL.

What version of Pastel?
And how many concurrent users?
If it's 19/50c, they can upgrade the Pervasive to version 13.
If they have more than 10 concurrent users, they should be using Pervasive Server (not the free Pervasive for WorkGroups)
Sage/Pastel actually have a disclaimer that says you will have instability on Pervasive for WrokGroups with 10 or more concurrent users.
Pervasive is very, very sensitive over a LAN.
Also, strongly consider replacing the PoS Access database engine with SQL Express.
Much faster, much more stable and many other reasons too.

Pastel in a Terminal Server/RDP environment is pretty rock solid, despite it's 90's database engines.

Good luck.
Click to expand...
Oh and to answer your questions it is pastel 19/50c and they have 1 pastel express user and 4 pos users.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X