A red hand symbol appears next to an invoice in the "Open-transaction editing" dialog box

Quite often we see a red hand symbol appears next to an invoice in the "Open-transaction editing" dialog box when we try to apply a payment to the invoice in Microsoft Dynamics AX.

This problem occurs when a record in the SpecTrans table incorrectly indicates that a payment is applied to the invoice. This problem may occur when any one or more of the following conditions are true:

• Connectivity problems exist between the Microsoft Axapta client and the Axapta Object Server (AOS) instance.
• Power interruptions occur at the database server, at the Axapta Object Server (AOS), or at the client computer.
• Code has been modified in Microsoft Axapta.

 Here is how to resolve this issue mentioned on http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894412 

1. Locate the record ID for the affected transaction. To do this, follow these steps:
2. Open the Open-transaction editing dialog box.

• For an Accounts Payable transaction, click Accounts Payable in Microsoft Axapta. Click Vendors, select the vendor, click Functions, and then click Open-transaction editing.

1. In the Open-transaction editing dialog box, select the record that incorrectly indicates that a payment is applied.
2. Right-click the record, and then select Record Info.
3. Click Show all Fields, and then locate the record ID.
   
   Note The record ID is linked to the RefID field in the SpecTrans table.
   1. Back up the database before you remove the record.
   2. Delete the record by using the Table Browser or by using SQL Query Analyzer. 
      If you use SQL Query Analyzer, use the following statement. Replace the placeholders in the statement with the information that is correct for your situation.
   DELETE SPECTRANS WHERE REFRECID = AND DATAAREAID =

Referenced KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894412

Cheers

Syed

TempDB insert issue in Dynamics AX 2012 R3

I recently had an experience of an unknown issue while creating estimate for a Project in Project management and accounting module. The error displayed was

Initially, I was expecting it to be an issue with TempDB. I was in an impression that tempDB table is not refreshed or it can be linked with known issues as mentioned here

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/axinthefield/archive/2014/02/27/errors-in-aos-event-log-after-sql-server-cluster-failover-or-alwayson-availability-groups-failover.aspx

However, When I started to debug the code There is a statement which doing bulk inserts from ProjItemTrans to tmpProjControlActual table. While copying text field from ProjItemTrans to tmpProjControlActual, it throws error if you have specified more than 60 characters.

Table	Field	Length
ProjItemTrans	Txt	1000 (EDT: ItemFreeTxt)
tmpProjControlActual	Txt	60 (EDT: TransTxt)

That is why if you try to copy more than 60 characters into a 60 character field, AX will throw error.

I found it is a bug in AX 2012 R3 because txt field should have same length.

In order to fix the issue, I had to manually update tmpProjControlActual.txt field to 1000 characters.

Remember to restart SQL service and then AOS service as TempDB won’t refresh until you restart SQL service.

Happy DAXing

Map SQL SPID with AX session ID in Dynamics AX 2012

In Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 the SPID column is no longer available on the “Online Users” form. However, Information about the user sessions can be directly included in the SQL connection context with a small performance overhead (That is why it is not turned on by default).

To include user session information in the connection context perform the following steps:

1.     Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Dynamics Server\6.0\01\Original (installed configuration). Key named "Original" (installed configuration), is the key name for the current server configuration (if original installed configuration is active configuration).

2.     Create a string registry value called ‘connectioncontext’ and set the value to 1.

3.     Restart the AOS.

Now open SQL Server Management Studio and execute following query

select cast(context_info as varchar(128)) as CI,* from sys.dm_exec_sessions where program_name like '%Dynamics%'

For sample example, it will look like

Second item in the CI column is session ID and second column is your SPID. Open Online user form to map these two values and you'll be able to map. Hope this is helpful. Remember to monitor performance impact because of this registry edit. Enable it only if you are having blocking threads and not able to identify the real cause.

Want to know more about "CLRObject object not initialised"?

I recently had an experience and would like to share. When I was trying to upload product image to a product in Dynamics AX 2012. It returned with following error

Message "CLRObject object not initialised." was really misleading. I was debugging and as soon as it went to read WINAPI -> System.IO.CopyFile(*,*,*) it was always returning error as mentioned above.

In order to see what the actual thrown message is, I had to write custom code in copyFile method of WinAPI class (highlighted code is the code to display actual message)

So from above modification, I was able to see the more descriptive error which was

Now the actual message was related to un authorized access to the folder where it saves temp image files (selected on parameters form of document management). I went to that folder and assigned write permissions to domain users. There can be many reasons for this CLRObject error. However, making this change in code for debugging will let you quickly understand the actual pain.

Hope, this is helpful for you guys.