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Posts Tagged ‘Mac’

VirtualCenter Server will not start

01 Jun

Was working one minute…now its not! Welcome to the wonderful world of Windows Updates. I’m assuming this was broken by the unattended installation of Server 2008 R2 SP1 through our environment or some KB update prior.

It all started with this error when I tried to log into VCenter Server:

“vSphere Client could not connect to ‘{machine name}’ A connection failure occurred (Unable to connect to the remote server)”

After investigating this, I determined the VMware VirtualCenter Server Service was not running. However, trying to start it produced an Event 7000, Service Control Manager “The VMware VirtualCenter Server service failed to start due to the following error: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.”

After contacting VMware support, their suggestion was to uninstall and reinstall. Which frankly, is their answer to 90% of any issues – very frustrating for what has to be one of the most expensive OS support contracts out there. While this didn’t directly fix the problem, uninstalling and reinstalling produced this error:

The following port numbers are either invalid or already in use.
VMware VirtualCenter HTTPS Port: 443

As it turned out, Routing and Remote Services now employs SSTP protocol. That feature produces a listener on 80 and/or 443. I’m not sure if this was introduced when we did the Service Pack or when. But nevertheless, selecting RRAS>PORTS>WAN Miniport (SSTP) Configure, and disabling “Remote access connections (inbound only)”

For reference, here is the knowledge bulletin I eventually used to troubleshoot:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003926

 
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Renaming a VMWare Virtual Machine

04 Mar

This procedure was documented using VM Infrastructure 3.5 for altering ESXi 3.5 virtual machines. You may need to use Veeam to make the renaming adjustments. Could also be done via SSH.

CAUTION: If snapshots do exist and are needed, then you may need to alter the *.vmdk files to keep the chaining in place. If you do not need the snapshots, select “delete all” under the snapshot manager and perform this procedure after the host has consolidated them.

PRODCEDURE FOR NON-SNAPSHOT

  1. Copy to new directory for backup
  2. Remove from inventory (do not select DELETE)
  3. Alter folder name if desired
  4. Rename the following inside the folder
  5. Rename *.vmx, vmdk, vmsd, vmxf, nvram
  6. Edit *.vmx (using a text editor)
    extendedConfigFile = “(old to new).vmxf”
    scsi0:0.fileName = “(old to new).vmdk”u
  7. Edit *.vmdk
    “Extent description” RW 16777216 VMFS “(old to new)-flat.vmdk”
  8. Edit *.vmxf
    Sandbox XP.vmx
  9. Add *.vmx file to inventory
 
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Importing Excel XLS to SQL SSIS error

02 Mar

While trying to execute an SSIS import package on a customer’s Excel file, SQL Server 2008 SP1 was returning a “truncated” error. Although, the SSIS package was set to ignore these, the execution halted and data was not written to the SQL table. 

There were a number of posts including David Klein’s and Waxtadpoles regarding SQL 2005 and the “TypeGuessRows” setting in the registry.  Their suggestion was to set the value to 0 (zero), in order to force SQL to parse all rows in the excel sheet, not the first 8 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/189897)

This was ultimately the solution, but not as stated. For us, possibly because we were running 64bit or differences in SQL 2008/Server 2008, the registry entry was not where either the Microsoft Bulletin or the two posts above stated. By searching the registry for this Dword Value we found several other instances of it at:

  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Excel
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Lotus

    •  

After making the change to “0″, our error was resolved. Thanks to both the posters above, and Philip Michael’s persistence.

UPDATED

It turns out this is indeed related to the 64bit OS. Apparently the Jet Engine runs in “Windows On Windows 64″ 32 bit run-time. Here is a little information on WoW64. And David Jennaway has some more information on SQL 64bit, Excel providers and DLLs in this article: The Registry settings for the 32 bit OLEDB provider for Excel have moved.

 
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Workflow and Archiving AVCHD footage

07 Oct

UPDATED: Jan, 2011

I have been using my Sony HDR-SR12 camcorder for several years now (here is a link to that post). As much as I love this camcorder and storing straight to a hard drive, AVCHD footage presented some workflow challenges with my editing system – Final Cut Pro.  And since Sony’s archiving software is Windows only and I work on a MAC, archiving was no picnic either. But the solution I’m currently using is achieving good results for both, so I thought I would share my process for anyone else facing these issues. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted in Pro-Video

 

Sony HDR-SR12 – Review

31 Jan

I’d been waiting for the right combination of features to make the plunge to a high definition camcorder for personal use.  I’ve been using the 3 CCD Sony HDR-FX1 hdr-sr12for professional use, but it is too large to carry around for personal use.

Enter the HDR-SR series.  I won’t cover the specs – cause it’s been done…but this verson is a 120 Gig internal hard drive.  This new camera had everything I was intrested in except, a 20x optical zoom and HDV versus AVCHD.  The 20x just isn’t happening.  I believe due to the sensor size and format, it’s just too expensive to produce this – for now.   Nevertheless, the 12x smaller Carl Zeiss lense is very good.

Waiting for HDV was ignorance on my part.  I’m stunned how good AVCHD format Read the rest of this entry »

 
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