MapGuide / AIMS performance

Most of the data we publish to our intranet web gis (based on AIMS 2013) comes from Oracle via FDO Topobase provider. For performance reasons we have created an SDF file for the most often used base data - containing 30+ tables and 700'000 features. To my surprise the SDF file is not as fast as I expected. By changing the default value "DataConnectionPoolExcludedProviders" performance increased noticable.

By default SDF files are excldued from ConnectionPooling:
 
DataConnectionPoolExcludedProviders = OSGeo.SDF,OSGeo.SHP

By uncommenting the line and restarting AIMS things got better:

#DataConnectionPoolExcludedProviders = OSGeo.SDF,OSGeo.SHP

This has been mentioned before - but somehow I didn't know it. Here is an older reference:

http://zacster.blogspot.ch/2008/10/mapguide-performance-tips.html


In the next few days I will look into SQLite files as an alternative to SDF. A first test seems to be promising - SQLite file was much faster than SDF.

Map 2013, SP2

ORA-28031 maximum of 148 roles exceeded.

For some features in Map-Administrator (such as deleting an industry model) you need to log in with an Oracle user who has elevated privileges (DBA) compared to MAPSYS. We do not use Oracles SYSTEM user but have one with nearly DBA privileges called GISDBA. Recently we got the following error message when trying to log in with the user GISDBA:

ORA-28031 maximum of 148 roles exceeded.

When you create "guest users" with Security Administrator multiple roles are being created and two roles per guest user are attached to GISDBA.  We have many industry models (30+) and usually we create at least two guest users per industry model (one is read only, the second one allows data manipulation - depending on the complexity of the industry model we have more then 2 guest users).

But there is a limit on how many roles can be attached to one Oracle user - and we have hit the limit. The way to get around this issue is to create a second GISDBA user and to transfer some of the roles. 

select count(granted_role) from USER_ROLE_PRIVS where granted_role like 'TB%';
COUNT(GRANTED_ROLE)
-------------------
76

The example above shows that one GISDBA user now has 76 roles attached which are related to guest users.


Map 2013, SP2

Delete geometry but keep record

When you delete a geometry (industry model) Map also deletes the database record as well. In some situations you just want to delete the geometry of a feature but keep the record. How do you do this?

in Administrator:
(1) add the Geometry/Coordinate Editor control to the form

Administrator - Form Designer - add control....

in Map:
(2) set form in Edit mode
(3) open Geometry editor (button will appear next to the Editor control)

... Map - Form - use control to delete geometry.

(4) In the Geometry Editor window you can delete - step by step - all vertices of a feature (you cannot delete the whole feature in one go). After deleting all vertices don't forget to "Update" the record to make the changes permanent.

dynamic maps in Crystal reports - transparent background

In the process of migrating from TB2 to Map we also have to migrate CR reports. A few of them include a map which is created dynamically. For creating these maps with Map/AIMS I use the GeoRest extension (the one which comes with AIMS installation). The Georest extension seems only to be able to create PNG files - including a transparent background. But there is a bug in CR 2011 - transparency is not handled properly and converted either to a black or white background (see Note:  1199393 ). In our case the background was always black - the report with the map embedded didn't look nice at all:

transparent background appears black....

My colleague found a nice work-around. We created a layer which covers the whole area relevant for reporting. The layer is put in the background and gets the colour white. A map generated via GeoRest does not have a transparent background anymore:

....background colour set to white

Map 2013, SP2

Form filter settings and reference records gone missing.....

We experienced the loss of form filter settings and reference records. The issue kept us busy for quite some time. First one colleague reported, that form-filters he had defined in multiple industry models had gone. After setting the filters up again they went missing again. Then something similar was reported from a different colleague regarding reference records. The issues occurred in our production and our testing environment.  Initially we could not really reproduce the issues. Suddenly entries were gone. Sometimes on the same day as they had been made, sometimes a few days after. No one had an explanation and Autodesk support was as puzzled as we were. Obvious suspects such as 1-ClickMaintenance or importing forms or similar actions as a cause could be excluded right from the start.

We created a trigger on table TB_REF where reference records are kept. This way we could at least determine who did a delete in the table and when. With this information available it became clear where to look for the cause.

But first some words about our Map environment:

We have set up three MAPSYS users - each MAPSYS user is run by a different organizational unit (for security reasons one organizational unit shall not have unlimited access to the data of another unit). Each MAPSYS contains a set of distinctive industry models, for instance Mapsys1 contains the industry model for electricity, Mapsys2 contains the industry model for waste water and so on. Map users can only connect to one Mapsys - the one which belongs to their organizational unit. But users need data maintained in other Mapsys environments (the guys running the water industry model would like to see data from the waste water network as well). So we created guest users for each industry model (usually based on the read-only template in Security Admin) and imported these guest users into the other Mapsys users. In my example Mapsys1 now contains:
- electricity industry model (data user)
- waster water industry model via an imported guest user

The filter settings and reference records now go missing when you set up a new workspace (in Mapsys1) and you add a guest user (in my example waste water guest user) where the underlying data user is kept in a different MAPSYS (Mapsys2). Because the user ids of the users who created the filter settings and reference records (in Mapsys2) are not known in the Mapsys environment the project is created in (Mapsys1) the settings get deleted by Map.
But there is one exception - (public) settings made by the default "Administrator" user are kept - just because the default Administrator user is always present in a Mapsys and always has the same user-id. The settings get also deleted when a user just opens the project later in Map.

There are a couple of issues here:

(1) For some reasons the default read-only guest user template allows DELETE operations on tables TB_REF* and TB_GN_DIALOG_FILTER. By revoking the DELETE permission the problem should go away.

(2) There is some in-built functionality in Map which tries to keep data consistent and to prevent orphaned entries in "TB_" tables. But in the situation described above there aren't any orphaned entries - is just that Map doesn't recognize that the data user is kept in a different Mapsys environment and therefore no deletion should take place.


The trigger we set up in the industry model (kept in Mapsys2) logged users only able to connect with Mapsys1. They actually did not delete any records - the just opened a project containing a the guest user from Mapsys2.

Map 2013, SP2

Access to the path '\\users.winlan.net\users$\' is denied

We get the error message in three situations:

(1) - save a Map report as PDF (report preview window)
(2) - open a linked document from within form
(3) - exporting form data as ascii/excel file 

error message when trying to open a linked document

All users have a private folder on the network. The folder is connected as a drive, the root folder is "\\users.winlan.net\users$\". Map now tries to save a file in the root folder - but a user does not have any permissions there.

The following "solutions" are available:

(1) - save a Map report as PDF (report preview window)
- the pdf file is - despite the error message - saved locally in "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD Map 3D 2013\Temp". A user can open the file from there.

(2) - open a linked document from within form
- save the drawing first on the network drive, two levels below the path given the error message (in my case that would be: \\users.winlan.net\users$\users\frro3 - basically my root folder on the drive).

(3) - exporting form data as ascii/excel file
- The problem does not occur on all machines. On some machines Map just crashes. The crash report contains the error message mentioned above. On some machines the crash can be avoided by accepting the default path in the "Save" dialog. On some machines export just works. By the way - the crash only happens when you save the data as shown in the form - no matter whether you try to create an excel or an ascii file.

crash on some machines when trying to export form data

Map 2013, SP2

Cannot convert GIS objects to CAD objects

When exporting to DWG we got the following error message:

"GIS-Objekte konnten nicht in AutoCAD-Objekte konvertiert werden."

(Gis object cannot be converted to CAD object).

and - no surprise - certain objects were missing in the CAD drawing.

After fiddling around for ages I found out that the problem is caused by an erroneous expression in one layer. Funny though, as there is no error message when generating the graphics in Map nor are any features missing. But if you check the expression in Map it will return a hint:

error message displayed - only if you ask for it....

The expression was:

ID_ABSTLINIENART  IN ( 2, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12 ) AND  >  1

but should have been

ID_ABSTLINIENART  IN ( 2, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12 ) AND ID_ABSTANDSLINIENTYP >  1

So, the error message is misleading - kind of.

Map 2013, SP2