Pay period status N/A - There are no pay periods past?

[pifiu]

I had been using TT for 2 weeks fine. Today I went to close out last weeks pay period and got a message saying ''There are no Pay Periods past their end date yet.''

I went to check the Pay Periods Schedule List and its set to weekly/52 year. When I hit view however I see the past 2 pay periods that I had done fine and the current one I want to close with a status saying N/A.

What do I need to do to make it active or to be able to close it out?

I ended up writing the checks based on a report. (The punches are logging however still as of now fine in the MyTimesheet).

FYI: Under TimeSheet ->Punches (There are no punches past May 1st)???

The fact that the punches are logging in the MyTimesheet but not in the Punches makes me wonder whats happening?

Any help?


Attached is a Screenshot

[shaunw]

Either there is a problem with your maintenance jobs, or your pay period schedule was modified to cause a conflict.

If you go to Help -> About, what does it say for the last time your maintenance jobs were run?

[pifiu]

I thought it had something to do with the scheduled maintenance jobs as well. It had been giving me the red error on top of all the screens in TT for a week but I just ignored it. Yesterday when this happened we forced the maintenance jobs to run and it still did not fix it.

Maintenance Jobs Last Ran: Sat, May 14 2011 5:07 PM


What should we do next?

[shaunw]

You definitely can't ignore big red error messages in TimeTrex, the maintenance jobs are critical to TimeTrex working correctly.

1. What version of TimeTrex you are running, specifically?

2. What operating system and version you are running?

3. How did you install TimeTrex, using the automated executable installer, or the manual .ZIP file?

[pifiu]

I was running it without the maintenance jobs for about 2 weeks with everything working fine if I recall correctly; this is why it caught me off guard.


1. What version of TimeTrex you are running, specifically?

Product Edition: Standard
Version: 3.3.2
Tax Engine Version: 1.0.17
Tax Data Version: 20110101


2. What operating system and version you are running?


openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64)
VERSION = 11.3

3. How did you install TimeTrex, using the automated executable installer, or the manual .ZIP file?[/quote]

I think automated? (not sure)

[shaunw]

When the maintenance jobs aren't working correctly, things may seem fine, but its like driving a car with a bomb strapped underneath, you don't know the bomb is there, but at any given time it is likely to explode.

Big red error messages on every screen are critical and need to be fixed immediately, otherwise they wouldn't be there.

3. How did you install TimeTrex, using the automated executable installer, or the manual .ZIP file?

I think automated? (not sure)

Its critical that you know this, because you need to use the exact same procedure when upgrading as well. What was the exact file name used to install TimeTrex from originally?

[pifiu]

When the maintenance jobs aren't working correctly, things may seem fine, but its like driving a car with a bomb strapped underneath, you don't know the bomb is there, but at any given time it is likely to explode.

Big red error messages on every screen are critical and need to be fixed immediately, otherwise they wouldn't be there.

3. How did you install TimeTrex, using the automated executable installer, or the manual .ZIP file?

I think automated? (not sure)

Its critical that you know this, because you need to use the exact same procedure when upgrading as well. What was the exact file name used to install TimeTrex from originally?

I had someone I know install it, so I will look into it. But are you saying that I should reinstall/upgrade to resolve the issue?

We had ran the maintenance jobs thinking that had something to do with it but it did not resolve the problem. What does status N/A mean btw?

[shaunw]

I'm not suggesting that you reinstall TimeTrex, but diagnosing issues depends on how it was installed. If you call a car mechanic the first thing they will ask you what the make/model of your car is... This is the same idea, we need to know what we are dealing with before we can make informed decisions.

N/A status means the pay period doesn't exist, its a projection into the future once the maintenance jobs actually run.

Running the maintenance jobs manually also doesn't help since you need to run them every minute of every day as only certain jobs run at certain times. It a job is scheduled to run at midnight, it doesn't do any good to manually run the maintenance job at 8:00AM. Plus running them manually can cause permission conflicts if its not done as the proper user.

[joako]

It's a manual installation and the crontabs are set to run:

Code: Select all

# crontab -l
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall.
# (/tmp/crontab.XXXXQlDCSa installed on Mon Apr 25 20:58:01 2011)
# (Cron version V5.0 -- $Id: crontab.c,v 1.12 2004/01/23 18:56:42 vixie Exp $)
* * * * * su wwwrun -c "php /srv/www/htdocs/TimeTrex/classes/modules/core/../../../maint/cron.php" > /dev/null 2>&1 

[joako]

The issue appears to be following the installer's instructions. All our files are owner root, so I don't see what is the permissions issue running the cron job as root. Our system (openSUSE 11.4) won't run su -c "wwwrun"

I've updated the cron job and I'll post back in a few days.

[shaunw]

I'm almost certain that your web server isn't running as root, as that would be a huge security hole and distributions haven't done that out of the box in probably a decade or more, as such you shouldn't run your cronjob as root either.

[joako]

Apache runs as wwwrun, but I can't run cron jobs as wwwrun for whatever reason.

I looked at another install that's been running for 2+ years and it also has the cron running as root. No issues there.

It works as root, your instructions are wrong. It's probably safer to run the cron as root than to change whatever security settings are needed to allow the cron to run as the www user.

[shaunw]

Just because the maintenance jobs run, it doesn't mean things are setup properly.

If caching is enabled and the maintenance jobs run as root and the web server runs as "wwwrun", the two sets of permissions will conflict (root will create a cache file that wwwrun can't overwrite with the latest data) and in newer versions of TimeTrex it will automatically disable caching to prevent data corruption and errors. No caching means slow page loads. Also this isn't necessarily something you will notice right away, it could take weeks or even months to be triggered, but once it does all hell will break loose.

The likely reason you can't run cron jobs as wwwrun is that wwwrun has logins disabled, or no shell specified in /etc/passwd.

Trust us, we have been doing this for almost 9 years, we wouldn't waste our time (or yours) to have you jump through hoops that aren't necessary. This exact issue is one of the primary causes of data corruption and problems with TimeTrex installations on Linux.

[pifiu]

Id like to give an update:

After the maintenance jobs ran the 2 weeks I had been waiting to close were shown and able to close. However the latest one again shows NA; yes the transaction date is passed already.

I am currently just running a report instead of a proper end of payroll process.

[shaunw]

Are you still seeing the red error message at the top of each page?

Can you include another screenshot of your pay period list, please do not crop the screenshot at all.

[pifiu]

Shaun,

Actually no, I am not seeing the red error message above and that's why at first I thought the issue was resolved. (both yesterday and today).

I am not sure if my friend changed a setting from yesterday to today, but right now that pay period I wanted to close yesterday is now available to be closed. The current pay period which has not ended now shows N/A (Which I assume is normal).

Attached is a screenshot of the current Pay Period List.

[pifiu]

shaun,

When you finish viewing the picture can you please delete it to avoid problems with the company name. It does not let me edit my own post.

[shaunw]

Is joako (the other person posting in this topic) the one helping you out?

Its possible that if you just got the maintenance jobs fixed, TimeTrex will only create one pay period per day until the backlog is caught up.

[pifiu]

Yes.

So it seems it is caught up. I will keep you posted on further issues if they arise.