Failed to read reply" "Server does not support client version 'nn.nn'"

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 20, 21, 22, 23

Description:
GUI users are getting the message "Failed to read reply" trying to connect to the pc_server and the pc_server log has this message repeated many times:

   Server does not support client version '22.01'

Resolution:
The "Server does not support client version ..." message has to do with the tab_version table.

Though $alephe_tab/tab_version had the correct lines in it:

  SER1.0 ALEPH Y 0
  22.01  ALEPH Y 0

the utf_files $aleph_utf/utf_files.../alephe/tab had a 0-length tab_version file:

  -rw-r--r-- 1 aleph aleph 0 Nov 07 08:33 tab_version

I deleted this file and the next pc_server transaction loaded the correct version of the table from $alephe_tab.

When the problem occurs, the site runs the command to delete the $aleph_utf/utf_files/.../tab_version, but we and they have not been able to figure out what is causing this.

Note: In another case, in version 23, though the utf_files tab_version had lines in it, they were just the header: no actual version lines.   The site used the workaround of creating a proc which copied the $alephe_tab/tab_version to $aleph_utf/utf_files/.../tab_version each morning.  

In yet another v23 case, both the $alephe_tab/tab_version and the utf_files tab_version files had the necessary ("23.01  ALEPH Y 0") line in them, but the customer was still sporadically seeing the error message in the log in the days following upgrade.  But the error disappeared from the logs after about a week.   

Please contact your Aleph Support Team if you see this problem.