Monthly Archives: December 2017

A trip to Pala Pitta cycling park

Published December 23, 2017 11:58 am

We were passing by the newly opened cycling park today morning after the breakfast. We were looking for a stroll in Botanical garden. Instead decided to do it in the newly opened cycling park right next/opposite to Botanical garden. Once we entered the park, we came to know that the park is pure cycling park & running/walking inside the park is not prohibited.

We rented two bicycles for INR 100. Cycul supports the bicycle station for the park. You can pay using Paytm. We started our ride. The track is not very long and comfortable for a new rider. You just need to know to ride a bicycle. It takes order of 10-15 minutes to take a round the park. There are few slopes but they are not very steep. The track is neat & not littered. There are signs beside the track. It is quite & part of the track is next to a water body where I could hear the bird chirping. The park is considered a reserved forest area. It has tall trees & dry leaves cover the bed giving a fill of the forest. It is too small a park though to consider it a forest area. Nevertheless, it is a savior for the urban dweller. Given the access to citizens, the park will now be protected from public encroachment. This along with botanical garden is one of the biggest green area in this part of the city.

Another school had organized a field trip for children. Children were taking the ride on the rented bicycles. Few of them could not manage the balance & were hurt when they fell down. Due caution is desired. We had gone on a Saturday late morning around 10 pm. The staff mentioned that there is more crowd on a Sunday. We did not mind the children crowd.

We did see a man parking the cycle & taking a run in the park though it is prohibited in the park. Actually prohibition to walk/run is a savior for the park. Otherwise, we would find the same nuisance that you would see in botanical gardens. Couples dwelling in corners which add to the unpleasant taste in the public gardens. The cycling park should make walk/running strictly prohibited in the park to maintain its attraction. It also saves it from littering. You cannot litter much while taking a ride!

Overall, a pleasant hour in the park. Look forward to be there again.

Skype for business server 2015 persistent chat installation issues

Published December 21, 2017 11:50 pm

Of late, I have been working on installation of SFB (Skype for business server). I was setting up persistent chat recently following the documentation and went through multiple issues.

Using topology builder – created a persistent chat pool & selected option to create with single server. Named the pool as pool02.mydomain.com and server name was server-skype2.mydomain.com. Published the topology,

Issue 1 : the deployment on the server failed with error that the server was not part of the topology.

Essentially, pool & server name are different required a topology with persistent chat pool with multiple servers. I went ahead & deleted the persistent pool & recreated with option to create with multiple server. With the change, deployment on the server went through Install Local configuration store.

Issue 2 –  The tick mark against the Install Local configuration store step in the deployment wizard was missing even after the step completed without any failure.

I had missed creating pool02 DNS AAA record. I also learnt that apply latest CU for the release is recommended before diagnosing any installation issue. Error at this stage essentially meant central configuration store is not replicated to the server or published topology did not have appropriate entry for the server.

Downloaded the latest CU as per the hit.  Used this handy powershell command to stop all the services as required by the update installer.

// Stop all the services
> get-cswindowsservice | stop-cswindowsservice

// After applying the update - start all the services
> get-cswindowsservice | start-cswindowsservice

// to query the central management store replication status on all server nodes
> Get-CsManagementStoreReplicationStatus
UpToDate           : True
ReplicaFqdn        : myserver.mydomain.com
LastStatusReport   : 12/21/2017 5:31:12 PM
LastUpdateCreation : 12/21/2017 5:31:09 PM
ProductVersion     : 6.0.9319.0

UpToDate           : True
ReplicaFqdn        : myserver02.mydomain.com
LastStatusReport   : 12/21/2017 5:31:12 PM
LastUpdateCreation : 12/21/2017 5:31:09 PM
ProductVersion     : 6.0.9319.0

// UpToDate : False means configuration is not getting replicated. 
// Application of CU & restarting of the services on the server hosting the master (replication) & this server fixed the replication issue
// UpToDate : True means configuration replication is ok.

Issue 3 : mgc database is not created in the sql server instance in the backend.

The topology had next version of the SFB server essentially N, N-1 versions. In such topology, deployment of persistent chat pool under N-1 node does not create mgc database when topology is published by the topology builder. It has to be created using the PS command install-csdatabase on the N-1 version server using (N-1) version skype server powershell

> Install-CsDatabase -ConfiguredDatabases -SqlServerFqdn sql.mydomain.com -ForInstance mysqlinstance 
// this created the mgc database in the backend sql instance

Prior to doing this – I have also followed the step (1) on this page to ensure that networking ports are open (firewall) & computer network discovery is enabled. I had just disabled firewall to deal with firewall settings later. One essential step is to ensure the logged on user on the skype server is sqlserver instance sysadmin.

Issue 4 : persistent chat service failed to start on the server.

// Error in the lync server application event log
Skype for Business Server 2015, Persistent Chat could not start due to the following exception:
 at 
Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.Exceptions.StopServerException: CmdID: 871d1cfd-bb20-4c25-a1cb-c4e5ee7fb956 The server could not restore db connection within the allowed time (00:10:00) using connection string: Data Source=sql2.mydomain.com\mysqlinstance;Initial Catalog=mgc;Integrated Security=SSPI. ---> System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: Login failed for user 'mydomain\myskypeserver$'.    

// myskypeserver$ is the computer account & it did not have permission to the mgc database

I found using SS management studio that mgc database had connect grant for the group `mydomain\RTCComponentUniversalServices`. Skype setup adds the computer account to this AD group during setup. For the server – it was missed. I added the mydomain\myskypeserver (computer account) to this AD group manually. With this, the persistent chat service could start and did not fail with the above error after 10 minutes.

Issue 5 :  skype client continues to show warning Your chat room access may be limited due to an outage

<I am working on this>