Environment
Novell NetWare 6.5 Support Pack 6
Situation
NSS pools won't activate after applying SP6 for NetWare 6.5 The server abends in the validXactionBlock routine. The system console screen indicates that it is attempting to replay transactions. A pool rebuild will not fix the problem. Doing a Down Server Upgrade with the previous build of NetWare allows the server to get back up and running.
From the client side, one symptom that will be seen is the"Tree Not Initialized" error
Resolution
This has been resolved in Open Enterprise Server for Linux
Additional Information
The reason the server abends is because of a change made to the transaction record structure. A transaction log from a version of NSS previous to the NSS5a patch has a different strucuture with fewer fields which causes the abend to occur.
The fix for this is:
Before upgrade, determine the names of all volumes that have user transactions enabled. This can be done by examining the attributes field with the NSS /VOLUMES console command
For each affected volume, issue the console command NSS /NOTRANSACTION=. A message will be displayed noting that this request will take effect on the next volume deactivation. This will prevent the UXACTION.LOG file from being opened on subsequent volume activates, and hence, make it subject to deletion
Deactivate each of the affected volumes using NSS /VOLUMEDEACTIVATE=
Activate each of the affected volumes using NSS /VOLUMEACTIVATE=
Using any convenient means, for each affected volume, delete the old style user transaction logfile found in the root of each volume, ie.:\UXACTION.LOG
Proceed with the normal upgrade procedures to SP5a, ...SP6
After the upgrade is complete, enable user transactions again on each of the desired volumes with NSS /TRANSACTION=
Verify that the desired volumes are again enabled for user transaction tracking with the NSS /VOLUMES command and noting the"User Transactions" in the Attributes field
For each affected volume, issue the console command NSS /NOTRANSACTION=
Deactivate each of the affected volumes using NSS /VOLUMEDEACTIVATE=
Activate each of the affected volumes using NSS /VOLUMEACTIVATE=
Using any convenient means, for each affected volume, delete the old style user transaction logfile found in the root of each volume, ie.
Proceed with the normal upgrade procedures to SP5a, ...SP6
After the upgrade is complete, enable user transactions again on each of the desired volumes with NSS /TRANSACTION=
Verify that the desired volumes are again enabled for user transaction tracking with the NSS /VOLUMES command and noting the"User Transactions" in the Attributes field