Transmission Problems

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
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richardhamilton-p40
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Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:27 am

Transmission Problems

#1

Post by richardhamilton-p40 »

Units in our stake seem to have problems transmitting (send / receive) on MLS via dial up. I can understand that Sundays are problems since everyone needs to transmit tithing, checks and other information on that day. But this seems to also occur on Tuesday or Wednesday nights as well although less frequently. The help desk usually tries other phone numbers when we call them. We have tried to eliminate noisy devises on the lines (such as other phones) etc. Our clerks are getting frustrated with having to call checks in and coming back on another day to try to get a sucessful transmission. Otherwise the checks will not be honored. I have several questions:
1. Does anyone have an suggestions on what the possible causes are?
2. What can we do to minimize / eliminate problems or causes other than transmit (send/receive) on a day other than Sunday.
3. Would a high speed connection help?

Thanks,

I look forward to your suggestions and help.
russellhltn
Community Administrator
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Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

#2

Post by russellhltn »

I think the first step is to identify what is causing the problem. Is it someone picking up an extension? Noise on the line? Perhaps need to try a more reliable number?
richardhamilton-p40
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Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:27 am

#3

Post by richardhamilton-p40 »

No one is picking up the other phones while transmitting. We are even disconnecting all other phones / devices on the line before we transmit to eliminate that as a problem and to eliminate line noise. We have been given different tele # for the dialing script by Salt Lake. That seems to work for a while.
One of the challenges is this situaton does not happen to any particular unit all of the time. It is random with some units having more problems than others. Since they ultimately are able to transmit after numerous tries or on different days we thought that one of the problems might be that the servers in Salt Lake are at, or over their capacity on Sundays. We are looking for suggestions and appreciate the responce.
I have decided to start keeping a log to see if we can detect even the smallest pattern.
One solution we are considering is setting up all of our admin computers with high speed access. Does anyone have any experience with high speed access eliminating transmission problems.?
russellhltn
Community Administrator
Posts: 34417
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

#4

Post by russellhltn »

richardhamilton wrote:One solution we are considering is setting up all of our admin computers with high speed access. Does anyone have any experience with high speed access eliminating transmission problems.?
If there's a FHC or an existing church network in the building, that's an option. But you'd need permission from SLC to connect the machines to the Internet otherwise (good luck!). But keep a log and share with SLC so they know the magnitude of the problem.

Just as a wild one, have you run a full virus scan? Any other programs added to the computer? I wonder of something on the machine is seeing the MLS connection as an "Internet" and in trying to communicate disrupts MLS.
skiptaylor
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Posts: 190
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:13 pm
Location: Lancaster CA

#5

Post by skiptaylor »

richardhamilton wrote: 1. Does anyone have an suggestions on what the possible causes are?
2. What can we do to minimize / eliminate problems or causes other than transmit (send/receive) on a day other than Sunday.
3. Would a high speed connection help?

I think the first thing I would do is to see if the telephone wiring in the building is proper. I'm not sure if this is valid anymore but it used to be, on some modems, if the telephone jack was incorrectly wired it could really cause havoc. It always seemed to be more on inboard rather than outboard modems.

Since this is in more than one building I think I would start getting your telephone company involved. It's possible, depending on building location, that the phone lines aren't able to handle a modem signal. Is it a long run to their central office from the buildings?

I think I would have the clerks start noting the day, time of day and length of transmissions and what, if any errors are received. Maybe that will show a pattern for days and times that are bad.

That's all I can think of right now.

Hope that all made sense,
Skip
Skip Taylor :eek:
Lancaster CA.
runstodboy-p40
New Member
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:47 am

#6

Post by runstodboy-p40 »

RussellHltn wrote: Just as a wild one, have you run a full virus scan? Any other programs added to the computer? I wonder of something on the machine is seeing the MLS connection as an "Internet" and in trying to communicate disrupts MLS.

Along those same lines, how old are your virus definition files? Symantec does see the MLS connection as an internet connection and will start trying to download new definitions. The more time that has passed since the last update, the bigger the download, so it can get to be a pretty big file.

Unfortunately, Symantec doesn't have a smart download feature, so everytime MLS connects, it starts downloading the files from the beginning. We're working with the desktop engineers to see how we can solve these problems.
russellhltn
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Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:53 pm
Location: U.S.

#7

Post by russellhltn »

runstodboy wrote:how old are your virus definition files?
I believe the Desktop 5.5 instructions indicated that the virus definitions were to be updated at least quarterly if they didn't update automatically. The original Desktop 5.5 files I think are now about a year old if they weren't updated (as instructed) during install.
richardhamilton-p40
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Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:27 am

transmission problems

#8

Post by richardhamilton-p40 »

One of the units having problems did in fact disable the antivirus software and the transmission went through. They are going to try some other things tonight but that may have been the fix. I will keep you posted.
Thanks for your help.
runstodboy-p40
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Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:47 am

#9

Post by runstodboy-p40 »

richardhamilton wrote:think back to a couple of years ago when the ACL accidentally got turned off, that's what got symantec installed on all of the computer in the first place
I remember that. Some users were reporting pop-ups (messenger spam) when doing send/receive. I realized then that the MLS dial-up change was more then phone numbers - it had switched from a private network to filtered Internet. I quickly ran around and installed SP2 for WinXP so there would be a firewall. (This was back when SP2 was being discouraged by some until fully tested.) When the ACL failed, the firewall saved us. I ended up helping a neighboring stake that wasn't so lucky.

My biggest problem with CAV was with the FHC computers - you had to be logged in as administrator for the software to be able to update the virus definitions. <ugh>

Anyway, back to the subject: I'd be interested in knowing if bringing the virus definitions up to no more then 3 months old does the job.
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