Tidal Enterprise Orchestrator: Scripts executing other Executables and timeouts

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Updated:September 19, 2011

Document ID:113237

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Introduction

Prerequisites

Requirements

Components Used

Conventions

Issue and Cause

Solution

Related Information

Introduction

This document provides information about the issues that occur when using script activities (powershell, etc.) to execute other executables.

Prerequisites

Requirements

There are no specific requirements for this document.

Components Used

The information in this document is based on Tidal Enterprise Orchestrator (TEO) 2.1 or later.

The information in this document was created from the devices in a specific lab environment. All of the devices used in this document started with a cleared (default) configuration. If your network is live, make sure that you understand the potential impact of any command.

Conventions

Refer to Cisco Technical Tips Conventions for more information on document conventions.

Issue and Cause

The end user had a PowerShell script activity which launches their proprietary executable. The activity appears to hang until timeout and reports a file in use error. Their proprietary executable launches a child program. The child program hangs around for a long time and continues to lock the output file until it is finished. As long as the child program is still around, the script continues to stay running. The activity will continue to wait for it to finish. In the end user's case, the child program runs longer than the allowed timeout period. Therefore, the activity fails with a timeout. Once it is in timeout, the activity will perform the cleanup. It tries to delete the working directory. However, it fails to do so because the output file in the directory is still being locked (by the child process).

Solution

The file lock issue has been resolved in TEO 2.1.2 HotFix3 and later. If the end user does not care about the output of the script, then nothing additional is needed. This depends if the end user installs HotFix3 for TEO 2.1.2, or has TEO 2.2 or later. If the script output is needed, then the end user will need to write a wrapper VBScript to grab the output and send it back. This is referenced by CDETS CSCzo30416.