<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Isolate the cause</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="FreeTDS User Guide" HREF="index.htm"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Getting Help" HREF="help.htm"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Getting Help" HREF="help.htm"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="The Mailing List" HREF="mailinglist.htm"><LINK REL="STYLESHEET" TYPE="text/css" HREF="userguide.css"><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=utf-8"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" ><SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >FreeTDS</SPAN > User Guide: A Guide to Installing, Configuring, and Running <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >FreeTDS</SPAN ></TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="help.htm" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 9. Getting Help</TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="mailinglist.htm" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="ISOLATECAUSE" >Isolate the cause</A ></H1 ><P >Successful problem isolation will yield earliest resolution. You (believe it or not) have more information about your environment than anyone else does, and have the greatest motivation to solve your problem. The resources at your disposal will be much more useful if the problem is specific. (Sorry if this is obvious. If it is, you might be surprised how often it's not.)</P ><P >If you can demonstrate the problem with <B CLASS="COMMAND" >tsql</B > or <B CLASS="COMMAND" >sqsh</B >, you can expect a quick answer to your question, possibly even a fairly quick fix. (It has happened several times in the last few years that bug reports to small problems were fixed the same day. On a few occasions, new functions were added in a few days. Making <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >FreeTDS</SPAN > useful and bugless is the goal of the project, after all.)</P ><P ><SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >FreeTDS</SPAN > being what it is, problems frequently arise amidst complex environments. It can be hard for both you and the list participants — who are your allies and best resource — to determine what's going wrong. If you can submit a script that they can use to try to reproduce your results, you have a much better chance of happy resolution.</P ><P >On the plus side, the list includes people with a variety of backgrounds, who frequently answer questions that aren't really about <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >FreeTDS</SPAN > <I CLASS="FOREIGNPHRASE" >per se</I >. Clear questions have sometimes even led to submitting patches to other projects.</P ><DIV CLASS="SECT2" ><H2 CLASS="SECT2" ><A NAME="HELP.OTHERCLIENT" >Try a different client</A ></H2 ><P ><SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >FreeTDS</SPAN > comes with its own utilities that use the various libraries. It's a good idea to run your query through one of them — the one that uses the same API you're using — to see if it produces the same behavior you're seeing. That helps eliminate your application (and the rest of the calling hierarchy) as a source of the problem.</P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT2" ><H2 CLASS="SECT2" ><A NAME="HELP.PERMISSIONS" >Check permissions</A ></H2 ><P >If your query works in <B CLASS="COMMAND" >tsql</B > but not with Apache, make sure the account running Apache can find and read <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >freetds.conf</TT >. </P ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="help.htm" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.htm" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="mailinglist.htm" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Getting Help</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="help.htm" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >The Mailing List</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >
