Sort Issue with 8.4 - 8.5

[jeffs42885]

Hello all,

I am experiencing an issue with sorting of documents in both the thick and the thin clients.

In our QA environment, the folder/reports are acting as expected, with the report date ascending from May - August, with the most recent hits at the bottom. Our QA environment is running 8.5

In production, this is not working the same way, the hits seem to be intermingled, and I checked the load ID's and the most recent load ID isn't showing at the bottom. I did a compare on the folders and saw that the ONLY difference was the version of OnDemand server we were running.

QA- SERVER VERSION:             8.4.0.3
PROD- SERVER VERSION:             8.5.0.5

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks all

[Justin Derrick]

In your second sentence, you say QA is running 8.5, but lower down, you say it's running 8.4.0.3...  Which is which?

There have been sorting improvements in 8.5, so if your 8.5.0.5 server is working properly, but your 8.4.0.3 server is returning strange results, it's probably time to get that upgrade done! 

-JD.

[jeffs42885]

Thanks for the feedback JD. I spoke to someone from IBM, and they said the sorting difference shouldn't make a difference, however, I will keep this in consideration

[jeffs42885]

Woops-Just noticed my error!

PROD is 8.4.0.3, we are in the process of upgrading

QA is 8.5.0.5

[jeffs42885]

In your second sentence, you say QA is running 8.5, but lower down, you say it's running 8.4.0.3...  Which is which?

There have been sorting improvements in 8.5, so if your 8.5.0.5 server is working properly, but your 8.4.0.3 server is returning strange results, it's probably time to get that upgrade done! 

-JD.

JD- Do you have any documentation siting the sorting improvements in version 8.5?

[Justin Derrick]

I didn't see any.  I think Greg mentioned it during his presentation at ODUG last year.

[jeffs42885]

I made a change at the folder level last night to sort on the field that the business is questioning, from 0 to 1.

It made the sort order appear properly via FAT/THICK client, but not via Thin Client.

[jeffs42885]

Bumping this up for some more feedback.

In DEVELOPMENT odwek 8.5 on the thin client, I do not see a sort issue. 
In QA odwek 8.4.1.6 on the thin client, I do not see a sort issue. 

Both servers are running OnDemand 8.5.0.5

IBM suggested looking into OD_SORT_LOCATION_SERVER on our front end, but that is also not being used. Does anyone have feedback?

[Justin Derrick]

We've run into this problem lately.

The root cause of the problem we experienced was that the search was traversing more than 16 tables.  In CMOD 8.4, tables were searched in groups of 16 segment tables at a time.  If your search hits less than 16 tables, then maxhits + sort order works.  If you search MORE than 16 tables, all bets are off, and if you get any results at all, they won't be what you were looking for.  You can modify this behaviour by specifying a larger value with the ARS_DB_MAX_SQL_TABLES variable in ars.cfg. 

WARNING:  Changing ARS_DB_MAX_SQL_TABLES could cause problems in your database!  You'll need to work with your database administrator to ensure you have enough memory allocated to things like your sort heap and statement heap (DB2 parameters).  Nobody wants to diagnose database issues on production servers on the fly! 

All in all, upgrading to CMOD 8.5 is the best solution.

[Steve Bechtolt]

With the memory leak identified in CMOD 8.5.0.5 you would be advised to upgrade to 8.5.0.6