1) Diagnosing application problems can be a tricky issue. The #1 support call received here at HermeTech about ANY of our products is because of a lack of knowledge of DEP (Data Execution Prevention) and how it is used in MS Windows operating systems beginning with MS Windows XP service pack 2 and MS Windows Server 2003. For more info on DEP click HERE. Certain code elements might trigger DEP and cause Windows to close the application. If you receive fatal errors which close the application or cause the service to stop unexpectedly verify that DEP is not the culprit first!
2) Windows Server 2008. If you have problems either a. Installing the windows service (see Running as a Service) or b. Starting the Windows Service then you might need to have the UltraPort Programs run as an administrator. To do this use MS Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder where the UltraPort Listener is installed. Right click on each of the UltraPort programs (the configuration program UltraHL7_ListenerConfig.exe and the windows service program UltraPortHL7Listener.exe) and select 'Properties'. In the 'Compatibility' tab of the properties dialog check the 'Run this program as an administrator' checkbox and then click 'Apply'. Remember to do this for BOTH of the program files.
3) Firewalls and 3rd party network monitoring software, including the Windows Firewall as well as Norton's and Symantec's virus scanning and network protection suites can cause problems depending on how they are configured.
4) Windows Vista / Windows 7. The program is incompatible with some UAC features which is enabled by default in Windows Vista. If you have issues, try disabling UAC.
5) Using Network Drives, Mapped Drives or Virtual Drives. Let us guess, it works fine when running locally BUT when running as a service it will start BUT doesn't appear to be receiving messages. The #2 support call we get here is from customers who want to use network shares / mapped drives / virtual drives to host the data folder in their listener profile. This will cause issues for you because MS Windows Services are unable to access network resources. The thing to remember is that when you are creating your listener profiles or running your profiles locally you are logged into your network. Thus you can see all of the 'My Network Places' which you have access to and any mapped drives which are part of YOUR login script. The UltraPort Listener MS Windows Service on the other hand is (by default) running under the "Local System" account which exists ONLY on your computer, doesn't have any access to network shares or to ANYTHING which resides in a login script (like mapped drives). This is done on purpose because your service needs to be able to start when the computer BOOTS UP and before anyone logs in (thus you're protected from power outages in the middle of the night). If you absolutely must use network shares then you will have to go into the MS Windows Services, right click on the UltraPort Listener service and select "Properties". In the properties tab you can configure any windows service to run as a particular domain user. This is NOT our requirement here at HermeTech, it's a requirement of MicroSoft. Getting this to work is notoriously tricky because so much depends on your own network security policies regarding user access/logins. It's because of this that this is one of the things that we can't help you with. If you need to contact HermeTech for support and your listener profiles are using network drives for the data folder the first thing we will instruct you to do is to use a local drive and try again.
See also: Frequently Asked Questions, Listener Volume
