What's New In Foxhound 3

A new version of the Foxhound database monitor for SQL Anywhere is now available; here's what's new...

1. Release-Defining Features
2. New Features
3. Usability Improvements
4. Behavior Changes
5. Bug Fixes

1. Release-Defining Features    

1. Support for SQL Anywhere 16 and OnDemand 1.0 target databases has been added.
   

   Foxhound now supports target databases that use SQL Anywhere 16, as well as target databases running in an OnDemand 1.0 cloud environment.
   

2. The new Connection History page shows the performance of a single connection over time.
   

   The Connection History page is available for target databases running on SQL Anywhere 9 and later.
   

   It shows the same data as the connection section of the Sample History page, except it shows only one connection instead of many, and multiple samples instead of only one sample per connection.
   

3. The Blocked Connections section of the Foxhound Monitor page has been merged into the Connections section.
   

   The Monitor and Sample History pages are now simpler and easier to read because all the information about a blocked connection is now found in one place.
   

   All except for one column, that is: the Blocked by Transaction Running Time (the Transaction Running Time of the other connection) was removed because was easily confused with the Transaction Running Time of the blocked connection.
   

   The Blocked by Transaction Running Time can be determined by looking at the details for that other connection, which can be displayed by clicking on the Blocked By: link.
   

2. New Features    

1. The new Change Target Settings page lets you set RememberLastPlan, RememberLastStatement and RequestTiming.
   

   The new Change Target Settings popup window lets you change target server options on the fly, to control the level of detail available for Foxhound to display: RememberLastPlan, RememberLastStatement and RequestTiming.
   

   You can open this popup via links on the Monitor, Sample History and Monitor Options pages.
   

2. The Machine, Server, Database names have been added to page titles and Alert messages.
   

   The Monitor and Sample History pages have been enhanced to display the machine or host name used for the target database, as well as the SQL Anywhere server and database names.
   

   These fields have been added as part of the support for OnDemand 1.0 environments where it's important to know which target database is which when there are many hundreds spread across different servers and hosts.
   

   The Alert email subject has been simplified and expanded:
   

   Alert #n title - "name / machine / server / database"

   The first line in the email body now looks like this:
   

   Foxhound Alert #n went into effect for database "name(id) / machine / server / database" at yyyy-mm-dd hh:nn:ss:

3. The new OS User column has been added to help identify connections: Conn #, ID, OS User, IP, Name.
   

   Many applications use the same database user id (ID) for all connections so it's hard to tell who's doing what. The new OS User column has been added to help with that.
   

4. The new Busy, Wait, Idle columns have been added for each connection.
   

   The cumulative Busy, Wait, Idle percentage columns have been added to the Monitor and Sample History pages to show how each connection has spent the time since it was established:
   

   • 
     Busy is the percentage of time the connection was busy processing requests,
     
   • 
     Wait is the percentage of time the connection was waiting for
     
     • atomic access to a resource,
       
     • I/O to complete
       
     • a lock to be acquired, and/or
       
     • the server to process requests.
       
   • 
     Idle is the percentage of time the connection was neither busy nor waiting.
     

5. The Conns connection count column has been expanded to show Parent and Child Conns.
   

   The Parent, Child Conns column set show the numbers of parent and child (internal) connections to target databases running on SQL Anywhere 12 or later.
   

   Child Conns is a new column, and a separate entry has been added to the peaks row.
   

6. The new total Waiting Time column has been added to the Foxhound Monitor.
   

   A new Waiting Time column has been added to the Locks Held, Conns Blocked, Waiting Time column set in the sample section of the Monitor and Sample History pages. It contains the total time all current connections were blocked or forced to wait during the previous interval.
   

   The new Waiting Time column is calculated from the existing Waiting Time column in the connection section, but rather than show the cumulative waiting time since the connections started, the new Waiting Time column shows the total time spent waiting during the previous sample interval.
   

   Waiting Time is a new column, and a separate entry has been added to the peaks row.
   

7. The new Last Plan Text column has been added to the connection section.
   

   The Last Plan Text line has been added to the connection section of the Monitor and Sample History display pages, and to the new Connection History page.
   

8. The new Favorable? YYY column has been added as a link to open the Change Target Settings window.
   

   The "Favorable? xxx" field on the Monitor and Sample History pages shows whether or not the target server is gathering extra diagnostic data that Foxhound can display.
   

   The "xxx" string is made up of Y, N and/or - characters, where - means "unknown". The three characters correspond to these target server settings: RememberLastPlan, RememberLastStatement and RequestTiming.
   

   The "Favorable?" field is also a link that lets you open the new Change Target Settings popup window.
   

9. You can now specify Purge after [xx] day(s) instead of being limited to 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or 1 year.
   

   The Purge section of the Foxhound Options page now gives you complete freedom in setting the thresholds for deleting data.
   

   Purge all sample data enabled: [x] after [xx] day(s) 
   Purge uninteresting connection data enabled: [x] after [xx] day(s)

10. The new Purge - Off / After xx days column has been added as a link to the Purge section of the Foxhound Options page.
    

    The Monitor and Sample History page now display the Purge field to let you know how soon your data's going to be deleted.
    

11. CPU Time calculations have been improved for connections using intra-query parallelism.
    

    The CPU Time is no longer displayed as zero for a connection making heavy use of intra-query parallelism.
    

    When a connection makes use of the intra-query parallelism feature, it spawns a number of internal child connections which do most of the work; e.g., one INT: EXCHANGE child connection for each available processor.
    

    SQL Anywhere tends to report the total CPU time used by all the child connections as the ApproximateCPUTime value for each child connection in use, and almost none for the parent connection. This inflates the amount of CPU time used by each child connection without reporting any CPU usage by the parent connection.
    

    In an attempt to make sense of this behavior, Foxhound now calculates the average non-zero ApproximateCPUTime for the child connections and reports it as as the CPU time for the parent connection. The inflated values reported by SQL Anywhere for each child connection are still shown by Foxhound; only the parent connection CPU time is adjusted.
    

    One consequence of this improvement is that AutoDrop #5 CPU Usage now works on parent connections using intra-query parallelism whereas before it did not. Note that the AutoDrop process is never performed on a child connection or any other internal connection that isn't directly associated with a client application.
    

12. The new total Rollback Log and Uncommitted columns have been added to the Foxhound Monitor page.
    

13. The separate Req, Commits and Bytes In/Out columns have been gathered into the new connection-level Volume... Req, Commits, Bytes columns.
    

14. The new Connection Id String can be used to uniquely identify connections in adhoc queries; e.g., '1-1-20140504073924-692'.
    

15. A new emergency patch process is built in to Foxhound for fixing bugs without running a full upgrade.
    

    An "Emergency Patch" process has been built into Foxhound whereby SQL patch scripts may be
    provided in the future and automatically applied to the Foxhound database at startup time.
    

16. Five new Alerts have been added:
    Database read-only,
    Database updatable,
    Rollback log usage,
    Uncommitted operations and
    Long uncommitted.
    

    Here's the list of new Alerts:
    

    • Alert #30. Database read-only. The target database has changed from accepting updates to read-only processing.
      

    • Alert #31. Database updatable. The target database has changed from read-only processing to accepting updates.
      

    • Alert #32. Rollback log usage. The total rollback log space used by all connections has been 1G or larger for 10 or more recent samples.
      

    • Alert #33. Uncommitted operations. The total number of uncommitted operations for all connections has reached 1,000,000 or more during 10 or more recent samples.
      

    • Alert #34. Long uncommitted. The number of uncommitted operations has reached 10 or more while the transaction running time has reached 1m or more for at least one connection.
      

    Alert #12 HA mode change has been removed and replaced by Alert #30 and #31 for the following reasons:
    

    • An Alert #12 was issued for non-HA databases when they are restarted with dbsrv16 -r for read-only operations,
      

    • an Alert #12 all-clear never appeared for a non-HA database, and
      

    • an Alert #12 appeared exactly once for a non-HA database when it changed from updatable to read-only.
      

    For a new installation of Foxhound 3, the five new Alerts are all enabled by default.
    

    For an upgrade from an existing installation of Foxhound 2 or earlier, the new Alerts are disabled on the Monitor Options page for all existing target databases (to avoid surprises) as well as the "Default Settings", but they are enabled in the "Factory Settings" and "Extreme Settings".
    

    After an upgrade
    

    • if you want to enable the new Alerts for an existing target database, you will have to use the Monitor Options page to set that up, and
      

    • if you want to enable the new Alerts by default for new target databases, you will have to use the Monitor Options page to modify the "Default Settings".
      

17. The new DB File and Used columns have been added to the Foxhound Monitor.
    

    Foxhound now keeps track of the amount of disk space allocated to the SYSTEM DBSPACE (the DB File column) and the percentage of that space used to store data (the Used column).
    

3. Usability Improvements    

1. Major layout changes have been made to the Foxhound Monitor and Sample History pages, including the connection sections.
   

2. The new Hide Details and Show Details buttons let you reduce scrolling on the Sample History and Connection History pages.
   

   Buttons have been added to the connection section of the Sample History page as well as the Connection History page to hide and show the following lines for each connection:
   

   • AutoDrop Result:
   • Blocked By:
   • Block Reason:
   • Locked Row Query:
   • Last Statement:
   • Last Plan Text:

3. The new Show More and Show Less buttons let you expand and contract the Last Statement and Last Plan Text connection data.
   

   Buttons have been added to the Last Statement and Last Plan Text connection-level fields to Show More and Show Less of the data:
   

   The display starts off in "space saving" mode:
   

   Last Statement: Show More select "COUNT_BIG"() from "SYSCOLUMN" as "A" cross join "SYSCOLUMN" as "B" cross join "...
   Last Plan Text: Show More ( Plan ( SingleRowGroupBy ( Exchange [ 8 ] ( SingleRowGroupBy ( Nested...
   

   When you Show More all the data is displayed:
   

   Last Statement: Show Less 
   select "COUNT_BIG"()
     from "SYSCOLUMN" as "A"
       cross join "SYSCOLUMN" as "B"
       cross join "SYSCOLUMN" as "C"
   Last Plan Text: Show Less 
   ( Plan 
     ( SingleRowGroupBy 
       ( Exchange [ 8 ]
         ( SingleRowGroupBy 
           ( NestedLoopsJoin
             ( NestedLoopsJoin
               ( ParallelTableScan ( ISYSTABCOL col ) )
               ( TableScan ( ISYSTABCOL col ) )
             )
             ( TableScan ( ISYSTABCOL col ) )
           )
         )
       )
     )
   )
   

4. A new warning about duplicate Foxhound sampling sessions has been added to the Foxhound Monitor page.
   

   This warning can appear on the Monitor page:
   

   Duplicate Foxhound sampling sessions. There is more than one Foxhound connection to this target database.
   

   This can happen when two different Foxhound connection strings are created pointing to the same target database, or a ODBC DSN is used as well as a Foxhound connection string. This is almost always a mistake, and it can lead to multiple Alert email messages when the duplicate sampling sessions all detect the same condition; e.g., Alert #1 Database unresponsive.
   

5. The Foxhound option to show the Help frameis turned back on when Foxhound is upgraded, as a reminder that new Help content is available.
   

6. Descriptive text has been added to all menu items on the Monitor Options page.
   

7. The Peaks since timestamp has radically abbreviated to reduce horizontal scrolling.
   

8. Alert email error messages have been improved.
   

   In previous versions of Foxhound, when an Alert or other email failed a message like this would be displayed:
   

   SMTP start test email failed with return code 100 when sending "Foxhound Test Email (2014-08-30 16:47:48)"
   

   Now the error messages contain more diagnostic information:
   

   SMTP start test email failed with return code 5 when sending "Foxhound Test Email (2014-08-30 16:46:22)". Connect error 10047 [Google: smtp error 10047]
   

9. Concise Alert titles are included in all Alert-related messages; e.g., Alert #10: Partner unreachable.
   

10. The Foxhound post-setup process has been streamlined.
    

11. A new Start Foxhound via default browser shortcut has been added.
    

12. There's no more "Can't open Message window log file" message when starting Foxhound.
    

    All the desktop shortcuts that start the Foxhound database have been modified to run the dbping.exe utility before running dbsrv16.exe. If the dbping utility determines that that the Foxhound database is already running, it doesn't bother running dbsrv16 and skips straight to launching Foxhound in the browser... not only is the whole process much faster, it eliminates the annoying error message "Can't open Message window log file".
    

13. The Adhoc Schema connection string has been renamed to Foxhound 3 Adhoc Schema - autostart and connect.
    

    The default connection string for starting the Adhoc Schema database has been renamed to "Foxhound 3 Adhoc Schema - autostart and connect".
    

    You can select this connection string and click on the Display Schema button to see all the views and tables that are available for adhoc reporting.
    

    The name has been changed to include "Foxhound 3" to differentiate this database from earlier versions of Foxhound.
    

    If the current copy of Foxhound was upgraded from Foxhound version 2, the previous Adhoc Schema connection string was renamed to "old Foxhound 2 Adhoc Schema - autostart and connect" during the upgrade process.
    

14. The handling of the diagnostic text files produced during the Foxhound Post Setup process has been improved.
    

15. Scrolling on the Sample History page is faster.
    

16. Color highlighting of Foxhound Monitor data has been improved.
    

17. The sampling id and DSN or Connection String name are now appended to all target-related email exception diagnostics.
    

18. The Running Time,
    Waiting Time,
    Transaction Time
    and other durations have been abbreviated to make them easier to read.
    

19. There are no longer any limitations on the number or names of multiple Extended Edition Foxhound servers.
    

    The Extended Edition of Foxhound no longer limits the number of separate copies of the Foxhound database that may be created and started using separate instances of SQL Anywhere on the same local network. This eliminates the previous limit of 1,000 target databases that may be monitored (10 copies of Foxhound x 100 target databases per copy).
    

    Note: Here's what the End User License Agreement has to say...
    

    In the case of the Extended Edition, an unlimited number of copies of the Foxhound database may be created and started using separate instances of SQL Anywhere on the same local network, with the requirement that a separate Extended Edition registration key be purchased for each multiple of 10 copies of Foxhound started.
    

20. Some Help topics previously found only in the Foxhound FAQ have been moved to the Help.
    

    In particular, all links from the Help pages to the FAQ pages have been eliminated by "bringing home" those topics to the Help.
    

    The Foxhound FAQ exists in one location only (the web at Foxhound 3.0 FAQ), while the Help exists in three locations:
    

    • in the Foxhound database for display in the Foxhound Help frame,
    • as a separate set of local HTML files for display via All Programs - Foxhound 3 - Help, and
    • on the web at Foxhound 3.0 Help.

    Links from FAQ pages to the Help will continue to exist, but not in the other direction; if a topic is important to the Help it will be stored there.
    

21. The number of processors has been moved from the heading section to the CPU Time xx% of x column, with a link from the Peaks since line.
    

22. The HTML generated by Foxhound now works better with the zoom features in Chrome, Firefox and IE.
    

    The easiest way to zoom the Foxhound display is to spin the mouse wheel while pressing Ctrl.
    

4. Behavior Changes    

1. SQL Anywhere 16.0.0.1915 or later is required to run Foxhound 3.
   

2. The Cumulative CPU Time and Total Waits columns have been removed from connection-level displays.
   

   These numbers proved to be of little use so they were removed to make room for other numbers.
   

   However, the property values on which they were based are still available for adhoc reporting.
   

3. The Client Requests, Time columns have been removed from connection-level displays.
   

   The Client Requests column (based on the RequestsReceived property) has been removed from the connection section of the Monitor and Sample History pages in order to reduce confusion with the server Req column, and the Time column (based on the ReqTimeActive property) has been removed because it is not directly related to client requests.
   

   Both property values are still available for adhoc reporting using the sample_connection view, and the ReqTimeActive property is now used in the calculation of the Busy portion of the new Busy, Wait, Idle columns.
   

4. The Total, Current Prepares and Rollbacks columns have been removed from connection-level displays.
   

   These numbers proved to be of little use so they were removed to make room for other numbers.
   

   However, the property values on which they were based are still available for adhoc reporting.
   

5. The Bytes In / Out columns have been removed from connection-level displays and summarized in Volume... Req, Commits, Bytes.
   

6. Alert #11 HA failover has been renamed to Alert #11 ServerName change.
   

   Alert #11 was formerly described as HA failover - The high availability target database server has switched over to [server2].
   

   It is now described as ServerName change - The real server name has changed to [server2], possibly because of an HA failover or OnDemand move.
   

   The reason for this change is that it is possible for a target database to be shut down on purpose and restarted with a different server name without High Availability being involved or a failover occurring. For example, when a database is running in a volatile OnDemand cloud environment it is quite likely that it may be moved from one server to another.
   

   The alert description has been changed to stick to the facts, that PROPERTY ( 'ServerName' ) has changed which may or may not be the result of an HA failover or an OnDemand database move to a different server.
   

7. The Waiting Req column has been renamed to Unsch Req to reduce confusion with SQL Anywhere documentation.
   

   The Monitor and Sample History pages now show the title "Unsch Req" instead of "Waiting Req" for the columns based on the UnschReq property.
   

   This has been done to reduce confusion between this and other properties which use the word "waiting" in their descriptions... and to reflect the fact that "unscheduled requests" is common parlance when talking about this property. The data remains unchanged, only the titles are affected.
   

8. Alert #14 Waiting Requests has been renamed to Alert #14 Unscheduled Requests.
   

9. The Last Statement sort order is only changed when you click on the title text, not the data value.
   

   Previously, the sort order of the connections section on the Monitor page could be changed by clicking anywhere on the Last Statement line.
   

   That behavior has now changed so that you must click the "Last Statement" title text to change the sort order. Clicking on the Last Statement data value has no effect.
   

10. The security rules are different for connecting to SQL Anywhere 16 target databases.
    

    The new role-based security model introduced by SQL Anywhere 16 affects how Foxhound connects to those databases.
    

    For example, the Foxhound connection to a SQL Anywhere 16 target database must use a user id with the MONITOR system privilege in order to gather information about all the connections to that database. Without the MONITOR privilege, Foxhound will only be able to display information about its own connection.
    

11. The dbsrv16 -ufd restart option has been added to the desktop shortcuts to keep Foxhound running.
    

12. Foxhound is no longer being extensively tested on Windows XP or IE8.
    

13. The Rollbacks column has been removed from database-level displays.
    

    This number proved to be of little use so it was removed
    to make room for other numbers.
    

    However, the property value on which it
    was based is still available for adhoc reporting.
    

14. The Checkpoints column has been merged into the Checkpoints, Checkpoint Urgency, Recovery Urgency column set because the values are related.
    

15. The Log Writes column has been merged into the Disk Reads, Disk Writes, Log Writes column set because the values are related.
    

16. The Free Disk Space Sys, Temp, Log, Other columns have been moved to the heading section because the values don't change very often.
    

17. The Throughput... Commits column has been rounded so rates like 0.099/s are displayed as 0.1/s, because the extra precision was not helpful.
    

5. Bug Fixes    

1. Support for Snapshot Isolation has been added, thus eliminating the fatal "Cannot convert 'Snapshot' to a decimal" error.
   

   Previously Foxhound expected the Isolation Level to be a numeric value.
   

   This error has now been fixed.
   

2. The "Column '@alert11_actual_current_ServerName' not found" error has been fixed.
   

   After an Alert #11 HA failover (now Servername changed) was issued, an attempt to use the Monitor Options page resulted in the error message "Column '@alert11_actual_current_ServerName' not found".
   

   This error has now been fixed.
   

3. A bogus Alert #9 Arbiter unreachable is no longer issued for an OnDemand database.
   

   When sampling was started for a database running in an OnDemand cloud environment an invalid Alert #9 was immediately issued: "Arbiter unreachable. The high availability target database has become disconnected from the arbiter server."
   

   This error has now been fixed.
   

4. The ALTER MATERIALIZED VIEW statement has been moved after CREATE INDEX on the Display Schema page.
   

   Previously an ALTER MATERIALIZED VIEW IMMEDIATE REFRESH statement would be generated ahead of a CREATE UNIQUE INDEX statement, which is the wrong order for execution.
   

   This error has now been fixed.
   

5. The click here to sort on list has been made version-specific.
   

6. A bogus Alert #1 Database unresponsive is no longer issued when Foxhound is started after being upgraded.
   

7. The email status is no longer displayed as "Email sent, status unknown." before the attempt to send an email is actually made.
   

8. The popup tips for several Alert and AutoDrop criteria fields on the Monitor Options page have been changed to "Percent, 1 to 100".
   

9. The minimum input value for the AutoDrop #3 Long transaction duration field on the Monitor Options pages has been changed to 1.0s.
   

10. Bad input values entered on the Monitor Options page for integer Alert and AutoDrop criteria fields are now silently changed to the minimum allowed values.
    

11. The Foxhound Options - Purge Run report no longer displays 2 as the number of Orphan/Old Sample Set Rows Deleted when no change is reported in the total number of rows.
    

12. The Start Foxhound via Chrome shortcut no longer has trouble finding Chrome.
    

13. The No Transaction Log curiosity message is no longer displayed for read-only databases.
    

14. An error message is displayed instead of suppressing the sample when Foxhound can't call sa_locks() to diagnose a blocked connection.
    

15. The handling of invalid SQL Anywhere property values coming from target databases has been improved.
    

16. Heartbeat durations are no longer rounded upwards; instead, values between .001s and 0.099s are changed to 0.1s to distinguish them from 0s.
    

17. Foxhound no longer tries to AutoDrop the same connection more than once.
    

    A dropped connection may keep running for a while as SQL Anywhere rolls back its work even though the client application has been disconnected. For that reason Foxhound will not try to AutoDrop a connection more than once.
    

18. The CPOOL=NO connection parameter has been added to the connection string Foxhound uses to connect to target databases.
    

    This does not affect target databases running on SQL Anywhere 11 or earlier, but it does help prevent problems when sampling is stopped and restarted on target databases running on SQL Anywhere 12 and later.
    

19. It is now possible to start Foxhound in Safe Mode when it is run as a service.
    

    Previously Foxhound was unable to read the startup.txt file when started as a service.
    

    This error has now been fixed.
    

20. Safe Mode startup now marks all timed out sampling sessions as no longer timed out, just stopped.
    

    Safe Mode startup is supposed to stop all sampling sessions in such a way the can only be restarted manually.
    

    Previously Foxhound did not clear the timed out status of a stopped sampling session when Foxhound was started in Safe Mode. That meant when Foxhound was restarted in non-Safe Mode it would automatically restart the timed out sampling session when the timeout retry period passed, thus defeating one of the reasons for using Safe Mode startup in the first place.
    

    This error has now been fixed.
    

21. The Foxhound Options Timeout Retry - never retry setting now works properly.
    

    Previously Foxhound implemented the never retry setting as retry immediately.
    

    This error has now been fixed.
    

22. Concurrent usage of the Global Overrides sections of the Foxhound Options and Monitor Options pages is now properly handled.
    

    The same three global checkboxes (Enable Emails, Enable Schedules and Enable Autodrop) can be updated by the user in two different places: the Global Overrides sections of the Foxhound Options and Monitor Options pages.
    

    Previously, switching back and forth (e.g., saving a change on one page and then clicking Save on the other page) could result in the wrong checkbox value being saved and/or displayed.
    

    This error has now been fixed.
    

[Top]

---