Frequent non-responsiveness

I have been enjoying DBViz except that it hangs frequently and I have to Force Quit.

My specifics:

Accessing Oracle 8i DBMS over a VPN on my Mac...

Product:

DbVisualizer Personal 6.0.6
Build:  #1291 (2007/10/16 00:25)
Java VM:  Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM
Java Version:  1.5.0_13-121
Java Vendor:  "Apple Computer, Inc."
OS Name:  Mac OS X
OS Arch:  i386
OS Version:  10.4.11

and for the Database:

Oracle8i Enterprise Edition Release 8.1.7.4.1 - Production
With the Partitioning option
JServer Release 8.1.7.4.1 - Production
Oracle JDBC driver
10.2.0.3.0

Typical symptoms:
- Connection will be dropped, yet look like it is still going (not a VPN issue).
- Try and execute a query and it hangs... takes FOREVER to get the "broken pipe" message. I am usually too impatient, and end up killing it and restarting
- I might be working a lot in one tab, doing queries. Then, I switch to another tab -- it hangs forever (i know each tab have their own connection/pipe). I have to kill that tab. I can generally click on other tabs and resume work. But if I try Ctrl-T to add a new tab the whole app freezes.

Very frustrating and inefficient

Thanks in advance for any help you all can provide.

Hi Jon, There seem to be two things going on here. First, DbVisualizer should not hang when you switch to a new SQL Editor tab, even if the connection is dropped. We will look into that problem. When a query takes a very long time to execute, e.g., due to a broken connection, you should be able to click the Stop icon in the toolbar to stop it. Have you tried that? Second, it seems like there may be some network configuration problem. The database server or the VPN may be configured to time out connections after some time of inactivity. I suggest you describe the problem to your DBA and/or system administrator and see if there are things that can be done to avoid the frequent disconnections. You may search this forum for things like "timeout" and "dropped connection" for more information about potential solutions. Best Regards, Hans

Thanks Hans,

in the "hang" situations, "STOP" does not work.

if i am constantly using DBViz, i do not have problems, so maybe it is a VPN problem. i will look into the VPN timeout issue and ask the client... i can report that some days the VPN is up forever, and other days it goes up and down and i have to reconnect/login. it may be that the VPN silently goes down (times out) after a period of inactivity but does not require a login? that is, it times out as far as dbviz is concerned, but it does not truly need me to reconnect? I will look into that aspect of my situation. (this may explain similar weirdness with eclipse and svn via VPN.)

when the VPN does disconnect, DBViz doesn't seem to be aware of this in the connection icon state. what i often do in these cases to avoid a freeze, is proactively click on the connection icon and choose "reconnect." the icon shows up as "pending", but i wait the normal connect time and i can then often resume working, though with some more weirdness:

1) some tabs will remain broken, so i create new ones.
2) maybe X minutes later, there will be a DBVis refresh, sending me back to the Object View tab, and the connection will be with the green checkmark icon.

this "freezing" behavior has resulted in me being very defensive and saving text in the various sql tabs, and in liberal use of profanity when i come back to a task only to find this otherwise great tool frozen. then i have to restart my train of thought, reload the tabs -- and i invariable lose something, and <sigh> deeply. other times, when i come back to the tool after being away for a while, i know that i should just quit the app and restart it to save myself aggravation.

so i appreciate your interest in getting to the bottom of this undesirable behavior.

i will try to do a better job of documenting. and i will ask about the VPN immediately!

Thanks again.

Jon, I understand the pain... It's possible that the database times out connections coming in over the VPN, even when the VPN connection itself is still active. That's one thing you should ask about. Anyway, please keep us posted on what you find. We're looking at ways to minimize the problems in DbVisualizer in a case like this, but the core problem seems to be the network configuration. Regards, Hans