September 20, 2007
Important!
- Any database you plan to attach Log Explorer to should be
set to Full Recovery mode. Log Explorer may not be able to reliably
recover/restore data from databases set to Simple recovery mode.
- If you change your database from Simple to Full recovery, you must
back it up immediately to prevent possible data loss.
- The Remote Registry Services must be running to install or
configure Log Explorer remotely. Remote Registry Services must be running
on both the machine on which you are running the installation and the
machine on which you are installing the software.
Note: Lumigent recommends treating an upgrade to Lumigent 4.2.0 as a
scheduled maintenance event that occurs during a period of low activity for the
target SQL Server instance.
To upgrade to version 4.2.0,
run the installer program from the provided media.
Log Explorer 4.2.0 introduces support for 64-bit OS platform (x64 or Itaninum)
- Log Explorer does not support the following:
- MS SQL 7.0 is not supported in
this version of Log Explorer. (Use Log Explorer 4.0.2 if you need SQL 7.0
compatibility.)
- The “Salvage Dropped/Truncated
Table”, “Restore Table from Backup”, and “Advanced | Dropped Table Filter”
features are available for SQL 2000 instances only. When attached to a SQL
2005 instance, GUI items associated with these feature are removed or
disabled.
- The new XML datatype introduced in
MS SQL 2005 is not fully supported. XML column values are handled in the
following way for specific Log Explorer Features:
- Browse, Export : XML column data
values are displayed in binary format rather than markup.
- Recovery : XML column data is not
recoverable by Log Explorer in this release. Recovery scripts produced by
Log Explorer replace XML data with an empty string.
- The new VARCHAR(MAX),
NVARCHAR(MAX), and VARBINARY(MAX) datatypes are supported. Data values for
columns of these types can reside in the data row as traditional VARCHAR, NVARCHAR,
or VARBINARY datatypes, or can grow into off row BLOB (TEXT, NTEXT, IMAGE)
storage. Column values that are stored in row are fully supported. If columns of VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX), or
VARBINARY(MAX) type grow in length to exceed a data record’s storage
capacity, data associated with the columns are stored in off record, BLOB
storage structures. In this case, the same limitations that Log Explorer
has for BLOB columns apply to VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX), or
VARBINARY(MAX).
- The “Browse | View Log” feature
cannot always display UID values for log records in an MS SQL 2005
transaction log. The UID identifier is not always in the transaction log
and therefore cannot be displayed. See the “Session Login Information”
pane on the “View Log” screen to identify the user (login) who executed
the operation.
- Log Explorer will not behave as
documented in the “Audit Your Database” | “Audit User Activity” step in
the Log Explorer Guided Tour due to the unavailability of UID values in
the transaction log (details in the previous bullet). Filtering log
records by UID will result in the following error message being displayed:
“No log records found that match the filter. Would you like to view unfiltered data?”
- The “Browse | View DDL” feature
cannot retrieve INDEX column values from the transaction log for MS SQL
2005.
- The “Browse | View DDL” feature
cannot retrieve DEFAULT column values associated with a CREATE or DROP
TABLE command from the transaction log for MS SQL 2005.
- In some cases, the “Browse | View
DDL” feature cannot retrieve IDENTITY column attributes for columns
associated with a CREATE TABLE operations.
- The “Browse | View DDL” feature
cannot retrieve CREATE or DROP SCHEMA commands from the transaction log
for MS SQL 2005.
- The “Browse | View DDL” feature
cannot retrieve REVOKE commands from the transaction log for MS SQL 2005.
- An ALTER TABLE command that adds or
drops a column may not be shown by the View DDL Commands function if the
table was dropped after the ALTER command was run.
- If the alerting feature is disabled
during Log Explorer installation, the following error message may appear
in the event log on the machine where Log Explorer was installed:
“An error occurred while reading alert notification preferences from the
configuration database: No e-mail alerts can be sent; one or more ConfigVars is
missing or incorrect.”
This error can be ignored.
- Real-time alerts are not sent for
Backup Log operations on MS SQL 2005.
- The Alerting feature will not send
alerts via email if the value you enter in the "From" field
contains spaces, or if you leave the "From" field blank.
- The “Run SQL Script” feature counts
blank lines in SQL Scripts as a SQL statement. This can distort the
numbers reported for the “Succeeded”, “Failed”, and “Submitted” SQL
statement displays on the page.
- The “Run SQL Script” fails if you
attempt to run an empty SQL script.
- If Log Explorer is attached to a
transaction log, you will not be able to back up that transaction log by
appending to it.
- The Export to SQL Table function
sometimes reports "Exported 0 log records." To resolve this,
click to clear the "Stop on error" check box and try the export
again.
- Columns with BLOB datatypes may not
be recoverable if data was inserted to them using WRITETEXT/UPDATETEXT.
These commands are not written to the SQL transaction log; therefore they
usually cannot be recovered by Log Explorer. In particular, this applies
to the Undo/Redo features, as well as the new Restore Table from Backup
feature.
- When installing Log Explorer to
multiple servers, you must accept the
Lumigent database default
to store session information (Capture Login Information step). If you want
login information stored in another database, install Log Explorer to each
server individually.
- After using ALTER TABLE to change a
column's datatype (for example, from "float" to
"double"), you may be unable to Undo or Redo operations on that
table, and the Browse Log view may show incorrect data for operations
performed before the change.
- In some cases, if you use SQL
Enterprise Manager or Query Analyzer to restore a dropped database, you
may not receive alerts for the Restore Database command.
- After applying a Time
Range filter, you may
not see all transactions from the given time range. Refreshing the display
may cause the missing transactions to appear.
- After uninstalling both the client
and the server component of Log Explorer from the same machine, you may
notice that one of the components still appears on the Windows
"Add/Remove Programs" control panel. You may have to refresh the
Add/Remove Programs display before it correctly reflects that Log Explorer
has been removed.
- If you are going to
install Server Component of Log Explorer into a remote machine, you should
have to copy Hname.sys to "%windir\system32" folder of the
remote machine predictably.
This file can be found in “LE_420_SqlServer\Intel\Filesx64”
- Log Explorer could fail to install because of
the information left by the previous installation. Here are the steps to
clean them up.
1. Go to
the "Start Menu", and then "Run ...",
2. Open the system registry table by executing "regedit" command,
3. Search the registry table with key word "Log Explorer" and delete
all you find,
4. Delete Log Explorer's install folder, i.e. C:\Program Files\Common
Files\Lumigent\Log Explorer
Log Explorer version 4.2.0 fixed the
following problems found in previous releases. Numbers in parentheses represent
the Lumigent tracking numbers associated with the issue, if any.
- Fail to create database in Guided Tour for instance upgraded from
SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005. (11069)
- Subject of alert email introduces invalid characters. (11511)
- Content of alert email is truncated. (12265)
- Configuration cannot be saved and restored correctly. (12277,12550)
- Creating script from Revision History doesn’t work. (12164)
- Invalid file is created from Revision History when exporting to
XML. (12165)
- Row Revision doesn’t work. (12278)
- The table name in the subject of email alert is incorrect if the
table name contains underscore. (11156)
- Guided Tour fails to create the test schema on 64 bits machine.
(12337)
- Fail to create demo database when applying “Reset” to create again
in Guided Tour. (12342)
- Fail to run Real-Time Monitor example in Guided Tour. (12352)
- Access violation happens when browsing transaction without row
selected in Row Revision History. (12363)
- Changes to columns that have not taken place are reported. (12407)
- Access violation happens in View Log pane. (12463)
- Log Explorer crashes due to focusing on an invisible or disabled
window. (12464)
- Fail to install Log Explorer on 64 bits machine. (12579,12580,12616)
- LE reduced tracing. (12276)
Using Log Explorer with SQL Server Clusters
Log Explorer is not a cluster-aware
application. Therefore, the server component of Log Explorer must be installed
on each node in a cluster. You will need one client license for each person
using Log Explorer, and one server license for each SQL Server instance hosted
by the cluster. Install Log Explorer's server component on each active node
using the license keys that were issued to you at time of purchase. Then
install Log Explorer on each passive node using the same license keys.
Contacting Lumigent Technologies, Inc.
Copyright 1999-2007, Lumigent Technologies,
Inc.