Default SQL command timeout

From 2.5.15 the database connection settings have one more item: the default command timeout, in seconds. It is how long Print Director waits for SQL Server to answer a database command before the command fails.

It is 30 seconds unless you change it. A site that never changes it behaves exactly as before.

When to change it

Raise it only at a site where SQL Server is slow to answer and ordinary commands are failing at the limit. The PDServer and PDAgent logs show this as lines like:

Central SQL command failed after 30.0 s with SqlException -2 (command timeout: 30 s). Statement: SELECT ...

A larger value has a cost. When SQL Server really has stopped answering, Print Director waits the longer time before it gives up on the command and carries on with offline data. Set it no higher than the site needs.

Where to set it

Every computer keeps its own database connection settings, so the value is set per computer: on each PDServer, and on each computer that runs a PDAgent or Resource Manager and needs it.

On a PDServer. Open Start menu > Print Director 2 > Database Settings. Enter the value in Default command timeout (seconds) and choose Save & apply. The PDServer service restarts and uses the new value.

In Resource Manager. Choose Change database connection settings, enter the value in Command timeout, and choose OK. Resource Manager uses the new value at once, and so does a PDAgent running on the same computer. Resource Manager treats any change to the connection settings as a new connection, so it reloads the site and checks the licence and your login again. PD Reports has the same dialog.

From Resource Manager to servers and agents. Reset DB settings (on a PDServer or a PDAgent) sends that computer the connection settings of the computer Resource Manager is running on, including the default command timeout. The PDServer or PDAgent uses them without a restart.

In a prepared installer. Resource Manager’s Add database settings to msi file puts the connection settings of the computer it is running on into a Print Director installer, the default command timeout included. A computer installed from that file starts with the value.

A PDServer that is running when the value is changed some other way picks it up at its next restart.

Rules

• Whole seconds, 1 or more.
• 0 or a negative number is treated as 30. No value means “no limit”.
• An emptied field is saved as 30 on the PDServer page. In Resource Manager the number the field had comes back.
• Installing or updating Print Director does not change the value. The exception is an installer that Resource Manager prepared with database settings: it sets all of them, this one included.
• A newly installed computer starts at 30, unless it is installed from an installer that Resource Manager prepared with Add database settings to msi file: that installer carries the value of the computer Resource Manager was running on, together with the other connection settings.

What it does not change

The setting applies to database commands that have no time limit of their own. These keep their own limits whatever the setting says:

• The regular checks that SQL Server can be reached, and the reads of the site and server settings and of the agents’ connection credentials that Print Director relies on to keep running (30 seconds).
• Report queries run by Resource Manager and PD Reports.
• Database updates, the history purge and backups.
• Software update uploads and downloads.
• The reading of driver packages and of Konica Minolta screensaver images and files.

It also does not apply to the offline cache that each PDServer and PDAgent keeps on its own disk.

Related

• The Connection timeout beside it is a different setting: how long Print Director waits to open a connection to SQL Server, 15 seconds by default.

Default SQL command timeout