13/11/2008: Upgrading to 0.02.3 or Beyond

Please be aware than 0.02.3 brings in a few changes to the way test runs work. Primarily you need to know that:

(a) the database schema update may take a long time (several minutes or more) as it adds another index to fntestrun
(b) test runs will now automatically expire after an hour (unless set otherwise)

That's it but if you're interested in the detail read on...

The new index is on the closedx field and was missing as an oversight. This should significantly speed up test startup times as well as the various testrun bits in the UI.

When a test session starts it creates a database record in fntestrun, sets the start time. When it finishes it updates the record with the output and sets the finish time.

Before a test session runs it checks to see if there are any existing test sessions running for the same node(s) - to do this it looks for ones without a finish time set.

Normally this was fine (and yes I know there are much better ways of doing it but this is you-get-what-you-pay-for-ware I'm afraid) but in the event the session crashed (or the host machine went down) then the session would be marked as open and no more testing of the node would take place.

Now over various versions this has been worked around with a manual script, the cleanup script (which by default would kindly close sessions after 24 hours or so) and an option in the UI.

The latest version checks for a running session. If it finds one then it sees if it started over a certain time ago (defaults to 1 hour but configurable) and closes it if it is.

This should mean if you have an unattended problem any stuck nodes should start testing again automatically after an hour.

As always please report any bugs or feedback through the forum or form.

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