ZOMBIE SCREEN - cannot access, edit or delete corrupted screen

Paul Wyatt

Has anyone carried out changes to the database and inadvertently found that they have corrupted a screen which cannot now be accessed or deleted, creating a 'zombie' screen?

 

I have a number of screens which will not open.  On selecting, a prompt is offered to attempt a 'repair' (See attached), however, this only results in BOARD desktop crashing.  I consider it an occupational hazard as a developer to make structural changes which then prevent screens from resolving fully but I do not think that such issues should end up creating 'zombie' screens; unable to open and not capable of being deleted, renamed or hidden.

 

I'd be very interested in knowing If anyone has a process which might allow such screens to be deleted.  It is impractical for me to rebuild the capsule.  Whilst I have backups, the change leading to the issue happened a number of days ago and so is it is also impractical to use the last stable capsule and re-instate all subsequent changes.

Daniele Di Lorenzo

Hi Paul Wyatt - Avison Young UK

I had some cases like this. Now it happens very rarely. I've not yet found any reason of such behaviour. I also opened a ticket but no specific causes/solutions have been found. It happens sometimes after some change in the capsule.

The only solution, as far as I know, is to recover a backup.

 

Br

Daniele

Paul Wyatt

Thanks Daniele Di Lorenzo,  It helpful to know how others have dealt with this issue.  I've also raised a ticket on this and if I get anything from it, I'll update you.

Unknown

Hi,

I encountered similar issues in the past as well. 
I also encountered empty "zombie" procedures which could not be deleted (often as a copy of an existing procedure).

Would love to know some potential reasons if even possible.

Paul Wyatt

Thanks Jonathan Baetens,

Maybe through the Community portal we can highlight these issues to BOARD Intl who may then seek resolutions to them.  I'm sure they're aware and so it would be a case of prioritisation.

See you at BOARDville - look forward to catching up.

Paul Wyatt

The only resolution to this issue is to open the corrupt  screen using either the 'Open Screens' menu or a procedure.  In so doing, a message is presented stating that the screen is not capable of opening and should the user wish to delete the screen? 

 

This action does not address the fact that buttons, drill-tos and procedures that reference the corrupt screen will now fail to run.  Unless the developer is very diligent and remembers to remove and/or update all such references, the data model will fail each time it attempts to open the now deleted screen.

 

I'm hoping that Board 11 will be able to identify such errors along with its ability to show associations to entities and cubes?

Previous Member

Hi Paul Wyatt - Avison Young UK

 

One thing that might be worth checking is masks. I had a persistent problem exactly as you described some months ago. A power user had deleted a mask from the capsule that was being used by several screens. The problem is that once it's gone there's no way to work out that is the reason unless you happen to know that it existed, and that it now doesn't, and that it was being used.

 

It wasn't a capsule I had built so wasn't familiar with it, but eventually found the problem by restoring an old copy that worked. By pure luck I noticed that all the, now working again, screens used the same mask. When I checked, that mask was missing from the ''broken' capsule. I *think* I was able to fix this by just creating a new empty mask with the correct name, but can't swear to that (easy enough to test though).

 

HTH

Robert