FAQs

Archive Manager

I have item records that I want to delete, but the Delete option is disabled. Why is this?

Permission to delete item records is determined by the policy settings defined for Availability Status. If the record deletion is disabled when an item record is selected, at least one of the associated item copies has an Availability Status that prohibits deletion.

To delete the item record you should set the availability status of all item copies to a value that permits item deletion.

Alternatively, if your access privileges allow you to edit system tables, you may change the system policy on deletion permission for the relevant availability status values. This is done by marking the "Delete?" check box associated with the Availability Status definition (on the System Availability Status Table edit form).

Archive Manager version 2 offered a variety of record matching options on its search forms. Why haven't these options been included in version 3?

Version 3 actually provides many more record search and retrieval options than version 2. In the majority of cases, you will want to locate database records by matching against identifiers, names, descriptions or standard classification schemes like keywords and categories. These common matching options are included on the standard search panels.

If you need to apply other search criteria (for example finding all items in a specific location), you can use the relevant report panel to build filters that meet your data retrieval requirements and then use the "Find" button to transfer the matching record list to the associated record selection panel. Refer to Archive Manager's on line help for details on building search filters.

When I update a record in Archive Manager, the audit information shown at the bottom of the data entry form changes the record's "Creation Date" as well as its "Last Updated Date". How can I stop this happening?

This problem affects only MySQL databases and is caused by a non-standard feature of the MySQL database engine which automatically updates the first "timestamp" column it finds in any table whenever a record is changed. Version 3.71 of Archive Manager's Setup utility has been updated to avoid this problem in newly created databases, but the problem will persist in any MySQL database initialised using an earlier version of Setup.

This behaviour can be avoided by changing the data type of the affected "timestamp" columns to "datetime". An authorised database administrator can do this by manually changing the definition of the "CreatedOn" and "UpdatedOn" columns using MySQL Administrator.

I am unable to connect to a Microsoft SQL Server database using Archive Manager's Setup utility. What are the common causes of this problem?

If the connection attempt is timing out or returning a "server not found error" check the following:

  • Make sure that the SQL server has the IP protocol enabled. While this is normally enabled by default, administrators may disable IP connections as a security measure.
  • Make sure that any firewall settings are not blocking IP access to the SQL Server port.
  • If you are connecting to an instance other than the default instance you will need to identify that instance by its IP port rather than its symbolic name (e.g. "myserver:1486" rather than "myserver\archive"). For additional information see Microsoft's article "How To Connect to a SQL Server 2000 Named Instance with JDBC" at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313225/EN-US/.

If you are receiving a user authentication error message check that you have entered the account name and password correctly, and that the account name is associated with the "dbo" database schema.

If you are using integrated authentication make sure that you are using the latest JDBC driver from Microsoft and that the authentication DLL is accessible to the Java VM.

Archive Browser

I have a DSN named "ArchiveBrowser" that connects to my Archive Manager database. However, when I run Archive Browser (ASP Edition) it displays a "Connection Error" message. What is the problem?

The most likely cause is that the anonymous web account does not have sufficient privileges to establish the database connection. Specific causes include:

  1. The anonymous web account does not have permission to read the DSN definition. To correct this problem, grant the anonymous web account read permission to the registry node containing the DSN definition (typically located under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\OBDC\ODBC.INI).
  2. The DSN does not include database security log on information. For example, a DSN that uses SQL Server will not retain authentication details. This problem can be solved by creating a database log on for the anonymous web account, and granting it data reader permissions on your archival database.
  3. If you prefer not to grant the anonymous web account access to your database server, run Archive Browser in an IIS application pool that uses its own authentication credentials. See http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/system.webServer/security for additional information on how to do this.

I have saved the URL of a source document in my Archive Manager database. Why isn't this document link displayed in Archive Browser?

Public access to archival source documents is determined by the "Access Status" and "Legal Status" values specified for each item copy. The document links will be active in Archive Manager (or Archive Server), but will not be accessible in Archive Browser unless both the access status and legal status settings permit public access. Refer to Archive Manager's (or Archive Server's) on-line help on source document URLs for details on managing these status values.

My source document URLs work correctly in Archive Manager, so why do they generate an error when I attempt to view the source document in Archive Browser?

If you use Archive Manager's file browser to locate the source document, the generated URL will use the "file:" protocol and a local disk drive or share name as the authority. This type of URL is unlikely to be accessible from a web server, even if the web server is on the same computer. To ensure reliable access in Archive Browser, the source document URL should use the "http:" protocol and a publicly accessible web server as the authority. One way of doing this is open the source document in a web browser and copy the URL from the browser's address bar into the URL text box in Archive Manager.

A direct mechanism to browse for http: URLs as an alternative to browsing the local file system has been implemented in Archive Manager 3.7

Archive Virtual (Fully Hosted)

How can I sign-up to get my free lite version of Archive Virtual?

Click here to get your free lite version of Archive Virtual. Once you have signed in or registered you will be prompted to enter the basic top-level archive details.

How secure is my archive?

Archive Virtual is a fully hosted password protected archive management solution. The archive is stored on a secure dedicated server where passwords and personal information is encrypted. Any files uploaded to the system are only accessible to users setup on Archive Virtual.

How do I give archive access to someone else?

Access can be given to as many people as you want. In the top menu click System > Users, enter the user's details and click Save.

New users need to be given a role denoting the level of access they have to the archive. The possible roles are:

  • User - Read access to non-confidential data
  • Operator - Read and write access to data related to materials, including items, series and accessions
  • Archivist - Read and write access to all archive data, excluding any system-related data, such as users and divisions
  • Administrator - Read and write access to every aspect of Archive Virtual, including all archive data and system-related data
  • Owner - Similar to 'Administrator', has complete access to every aspect of Archive Virtual. There can only be one 'Owner' user

Archive Server V2 (Self Hosted)

I can establish a connection to my database using Archive Server's administration utility and when I switch to Archive Server, everything works correctly. However, if I close my browser and start a new Archive Server session, I get a database connection error. Why does this happen?

This problem only affects versions of Archive Server prior to 2.4. In these versions, the database connection parameters specified in the administration utility were retained in server session variables which continue to be available (to both the administration utility and the main application) until the session terminates. On subsequent sessions, the connection parameters are read from persistent storage to recreate the session variables. This requires the connection information to be saved to file on the web server.

Normally the administration utility's Save button could be used to do this, but web server security settings may prohibit writing to the file. In this case you must use an appropriately privileged utility to write the file manually.

For additional information, refer to the administration utility's help display, or to the Archive Server Quick Start Guide.

Why do I occasionally get an error message when I attempt to save an image to my Archive Server database.

Web servers generally impose a restriction on the maximum amount of data that can be submitted in a server request. For Microsoft IIS, this is typically around 200Kb by default, so attempting to upload images that are larger than this will produce an error.

Since images stored in the database are intended for viewing in a browser, high resolution images (i.e. more than 100 dpi) have no real value and will simply take longer to download. Because of this, the default data limit is generally more than sufficient.

If you really need to upload larger files, you will need to get your web administrator to set the IIS metabase property AspMaxRequestEntityAllowed (or MaxRequestEntityAllowed) to a higher value.

Please note that Archive Server is not intended for use as an electronic archival storage utility. If you want to offer users access to electronic source documents, you should use the Document URL facility to create a link to these documents in preference to using images to store digital copies of the files in your database.

I have set my account preferences to use a session duration of 2 hours, so why does it time out after about 10 minutes?

In versions of Archive Server prior to 2.4, sessions were managed using server side variables and controlled by the web server administrator. The session duration specified in user account preferences was used by Archive Server to request a change to the timeout period, but the web server could ignore this request.

The only guaranteed method of increasing session duration is to have your web server administrator to change the default timeout. Administrators are generally not keen on doing this as it will apply to all users, and may therefore consume extra resources on the server unnecessarily.

In version 2.4, this issue was resolved by moving session management control from the server to the client workstation.