Plex 2E

Hello everyone,

Our development server had a problem and lost several disks, including the one where the Group Model was, and the backup that the IT team recovered is from several months back.

I have a Local Model from this Group Model, which was not lost and therefore is newer than the Group Model.

When I try to login to the Group Model, I get the following error messages:

There is no Locks on the Group Model, so I can only assume this is due to the gap in time from Local to Group.

Does anyone know if there is some way to make this work? Is there any time stamp or any file that can be edited to allow this connection between models?

Can anyone please help or have any suggestions?

I think the Export and Import Model will be a nightmare to use...

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,

Nuno Dias

Hi Nuno...sorry, I´m on holidays this week and can´t be more precise, neither try a case. But it seems to me that we made sometime a recover by means of a last resource action: we create a new empty model from scratch, attached all libraries like the previous one, and update this new group model from our current only model.

The another way -I agree with you- is an export process, error prone at that dimensions.

Maybe some expert in internals of model could suggest a solution based on syncronzation of update dates. We made it several times for mismatches between host model and libraries, and for Plex.ini mismatches. But not sure what way to follow in this case.

Jorge Ubeda

nasty.

The export is not 100%.

I would work on forcing the update and saving the group model

I do that by switching off the handshake validation... I did this previously with stellatools by playing around with the .TAB .DAT files in the group model directory...

Trail and error saved my group model

not the same and maybe my issue was not the same as yours but I used this to start trying to save my group model https://communities.ca.com/message/9219445

Jorge, thank you for your input, will look into that possibility.

George, thank you for the document, believe that would solve if any of the libs was not from the same date, but they are, the host and the libs do not mismatch. The problem is with the host and the up to date local model.

I suppose disabling the handshake is not an option we can select or a flag in any file (looked for it but did not find).

I am trying to find something on the Local Model .mdl file that relates with the stamp of the updates, to somehow try to emulate the solution for the libs in the Local Model.

Thank you both for your time and responses.

If there is any more input that can help, we would greatly appreciate it.

Nuno, trying this solution could be made without collateral risks: create a copy of your local, and try it with the copy. If it works, you can redo it with the original local model, or stay with your successful copy. It's important that you attach to the new group model all libraries first, as the old group model have. Remember any changes to rules (states, levels, etc). Not simple, but simpler than exporting.

Or just guessing and hoping...use the ability to copy the group model...use the create new group model but use your transporter group model as the source...then cross fingers and see if your local will update it...

Hello everyone,

Sorry the late feedback, but I did not get to anywhere worth mention before.

Here is the summary of what I tried and the problems or advances I made.

1 - New Group Model based on the existing one:

The last suggestion of creating a new group model with the current group model as source did not work, I had the same error when connecting the local model to that new group model.

2 - Play around with the Group Model files:

I did progress messing with the group model files, I used process monitor to see which file(s) were the latest accessed by PLEX before getting the error and found that it was the UPDATID.DAT.

To disable the handshake validation I deleted the content of this file and was able to login to the group model.

I then had some problems with 2 libraries that I had already recovered the corresponding group model, so I had some work to recover those libraries in the host (not sure what caused the issue, was expecting for them to be extracted properly), there were objects that were on the lib but the extract in the host would say it could not find the triples for those objects. To solve I had to delete from the library objects where those were scoped (deleting them did not solve and don't know why) so that the host would basically "forget" about them, and then redo the deleted objects.

I finally got to a point where I was ready to update the group model with the local model, I got the following 2 error messages in order:

I was able to update the group model but not all changes that happened between the date of the backup and the current day were updated from the local model to the group model. Some were, but some were not and I have no idea why, if it is related with the errors or not, or if I need to change files other than the UPDATID.DAT or if I should not delete all the content from this file but just some entries.

It seems that this is the best state that I have achieved, but still many problems, because there are for sure many objects that are not updated and don't even know which.

3 - New empty Group Model and Local Model to Import the model XML:

I tried this solution the "easiest" way, just Export every object (object browser, All, select them and export) and Import the result XML into the new model. Most of the times the Import does not even work and register in the message log an error in a temp file. I did manage it to work once, but the number of objects imported were not even close to the real number.

I am in a process of exporting several files, by type of object and import separately.

I will probably have a ton of problems and dependencies missing and so on, don't know where I will get to.

At the moment I think the second option could be a real saver in the least amount of time spent, but as the update skipped some changed objects, what options do I have? Don't know if there is a way to try to force it, beside manually editing the object to force some change for the update to be done. There can be hundreds of objects that need this and don't even know which until I step on errors either on runtime or development.

Thank you again for your previous suggestions, if you have any input given the above I would again very much appreciate it.

Best regards,

Nuno Dias

@nuno.dias you are now the foremost expert in the world recovering a CA Plex group model.  I'm sorry there is no silver bullet.

Thank you all for the feedback. I have not found any way to update was not updated, seems it will have to be recovered manually.

Been messing around with the import:

As the export was made without all the referenced objects, the import by object type gives errors of missing dependencies between different types and it can get messy.

Per example importing type A, some are not imported because they depend on some object of type B, but then when importing type B, some are not imported because they depend on some object of type C, and when importing type C, some depend on type A and are not imported.

So I have tried to import several times the same object types, checking the dependencies errors and importing those types in between, trying to get a "clean" import of a type and get over that type, per example:

Import labels, some are not imported because of missing fields, then import fields, some are not imported because missing panels or whatever, then import that type that fields were missing and some are not going to be imported because missing other type which can even be a label (the type where I started). At a given point, I return to import a previous imported object type and see if the missing objects for the labels (per example) were imported because they were not dependent of anything else or I have imported those as well...

Not even sure I would get somewhere with this, I think I was making some progress but this is quite messy and don't even know if the end result would be decent.

I will not be going further into this, so I won't be able to contribute further.

Again thank you all for your time and feedback.

G'day Nuno,

I assume you still have the problem - in that you cannot update the Group Model with your Local Model - mainly because the Local Model is from a later version of the Group Model that no longer exists.

I've been playing around with Local and Group models recently for a new product I'm developing to support CA Plex users.

The Local Model has the details of the last entry in UPDATID.DAT file in the group model directory stored at a specific location in the Local Model file. I suspect the entry in the Local Model does not exist in the UPDATID.DAT file.

If you could send me a copy of your Local Model (zipped up of course) - I could provide you with the missing record details from the UPDATID.DAT - which after you add it back to that file - you should be able to update the Group Model from the Local Model.

I also have a tool which is just in PoC stage - that might be able to assist in identifying the missing information from Group and Local Model internal files to enable the Local to update the Group model.

Regards,

Darryl

Hmmm - have read the replies above in more detail.

I think you would need to change the details in the Local Model to be the same as the last record in the UPDATID.DAT file from the restored Group Model.

You would also have to flag all the objects changed since that last record in the UPDATID.DAT file - so that they get updated back into the Group Model.

That way it should then update the Group Model with all the changes from the point of the last update into the restored Group Model.

I would need to spend some time to develop a WinC utility that will enable you to do this - unfortunately I'm a bit busy next couple of weeks. It is not easy - and you need to understand the internal structures within the Local Model file.