SDE Instances won't start after server reboot. SDE 9.3.1 - SLQ 2008 64-bit

[RandyKreuziger]

We have just set up 2 new SQL Server servers and both are experiencing the same problem. On each server the ArcSDE instances fail to start after a reboot. If I login I can start them manually with no problems. The SDE services are dependent on the SQL (named instance) and try to start immediately after the SQL Server Agent which has the same dependency. But SDE is trying to restart before all the databases have started. Only Master and Model have started with SDE tries to start.

It looks like I found a workaround for now by setting the SDE instances to a startup type of "Automatic (Delayed Start)." Has anyone else come across this problem?


sde_esri_sde_GeoScrtach.log:
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ArcSDE 9.3.1 for SQL Server Build 2785 Mon Dec 21 12:03:03 2009
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IDBInitialize::Initialize Failed
init_DB DB_instance_open_as_dba: -93
DBMS error code: 18456
Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 10.0: Login failed for user 'sde'.

Event Viewer Application Log:
Login failed for user 'sde'. Reason: Failed to open the explicitly specified database. [CLIENT: <local machine>]




ArcSDE 9.3.1 (SP1)
SQL 2008 64-bit (SP1)
Windows Server 2008 R2

[TimWood]

We are also having this problem with 64-bit ArcSDE 9.3.1 SP2 on 64-bit SQL Server 2008 R2 and 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.  I will set the ArcSDE Services to "delayed start" but it would be nice to find out what the cause of this problem is.
<p>
Our ArcSDE server is running single database model geodatabases (i.e. no sde database) which were setup on 64-bit Windows Server 2003 with 64-bit SQL Server 2005 and 64-bit ArcSDE 9.3.  However, we also set up a new geodatabase on 9.3.1 and that also suffers the same problem.

[DimitarKolev]

We are having the same issue on Win Server 2003 Standard SP2 (32 bit), SQL 2008 Enterprise (Version 10.0.4000.0)
The SDE services won't start after restarting the server.
I suspect the SDE services also stop when not used for prolonged time (over the weekend for example), but I am not 100% sure on that.

My question is, Is it possible to automate the checking and starting of failed SDE services?

Example:
Create a Python Script (or batch file) which will run let's say every 5 minutes and
- check if the SDE dependant services (SQL Server) are running and start them if they are stopped.
- check if the SDE services are started and start them if they are not.

Please provide sample or guidance how to implement such automation, if possible.

Thanks

[VinceAngelo]

The ArcSDE application server does not stop when unused.  I've found that it can be sluggish
to respond initially when unused for months, but that's more a factor of the database itself
having been swapped out.

- V

[TraceyLeet]

Our SDE server is running Windows 2003 (32 bit, as well as SQL Server 2005) and 'Automatic delayed start' is not an option for us on our services.  ESRI suggested created a batch file to restart your service(s) and then created a scheduled task on your SDE server that runs this batch file 'at system startup'.  By the time this schedule task runs at startup your database will already be up and running.  Seems to solve the issue for us.

[Anonymous User]

On page 67 of the ArcGIS 9 Managing ArcSDE: Application Servers book, it says, "If the system administrator account is not being used to start the service, make sure the user is a member of the administrator power group."

The way I fixed this problem on our legacy server was to have the service run as the Administrator on the local box, rather than the Local Service Account option.  When I did that, I got a dialog message that Administrator was then being granted login privileges.  Despite that, when I restarted the server, ArcSDE ran automatically like I had hoped.  I believe that the reason that people are able to start the service when they're logged in is because they're logging in with an account with administrative privileges before starting the service

Now, our service has a few nuances.  For instance, arcsde isn't really the name of our service--we customized it.  And, we don't use a database called sde, we renamed it something else, and then set the SDE_ADMIN_DATABASE configuration parameter to that name.  But we modified etc\services like we were supposed to, and services.sde, and added %SDEHOME% to %PATH%, yet none of those things made ArcSDE start automatically, successfully, after server reboot.