Forum Discussion
On-premises Data Gateway not starting workers
I have an on-prem data gateway to connect a local SQL db (Sybase) to a Fabric SQL Server in the cloud. Since a couple of days, workers are not starting, except sometimes, randomly. I believe there is an issue with the VM performance counters.
I tried:
lodctr /R
winmgmt /resyncperf
and restarting the gateway. Did it multiple times, and only a few times it worked, mostly it doesn't.
I tried also to change settings in the gateway main .config file to disable the dependency from win perf counters, but that didn't work.
I have noticed that when workers do start, if I do a restart of the gateway then in the win logs I get a notification of crash of the workers instead of graceful shutdown.
8 Replies
Hi EMenotti,
Can you give us more details on how the Sybase database is set up? And what specific Sybase product you are using? Sybase was purchased by SAP 16 years ago, and the Sybase branding is long gone. Are you using a modern SAP version, or are you on a legacy Sybase IQ or Sybase ASE server?
How are you initiating the connection from Fabric to Sybase? Is it an ODBC connection?
If you test the connection in the Fabric "Manage Gateways and Connections" page, does it validate successfully?
When you are running a workload, what do resources on your gateway server look like? Are you running into CPU or memory limits?The support engineer looked in the logged service requests and could not find any other case of workers crashing when they should instead just shut down. As such, this cannot be considered a bug. I have asked him to review anyway the logs from our VM, let's see if anything comes out of it.
Hi tayloramy,
We have an old SAP ECC based on a Sybase ASE environment. I have set up an ODBC connection from a local VM to Sybase, and am using that with the gateway. From Fabric, the test does validate (both to Sybase and to the Fabric SQL Server that I have set up in the cloud to store data). Indeed, the pipeline was successful for some time; a couple of days ago it started to give problems, as mentioned in my first post.
Task manager does not show any bottleneck in CPU or memory, also in the situations where workers do start.
Today I opened a ticket with Support. After some investigation, we decided to uninstall and reinstall the gateway. That worked. So for the moment the problem is solved, although we could not figure out what was happening exactly. If anybody has any idea... I'm still pretty convinced that it has something to do with the perf counters, possibly some corrupted cache that has been wiped off by the fresh installation.
The fact remains that when I issue a restart of the gateway service, the existing workers crash instead of shutting down gracefully.
Hi EMenotti ,
One of the most silent issues you can have with the Gateway is precisely this: Fabric does not always clearly alert you that the problem is there.
The connection may appear to be correct, the Gateway may be online, and everything may seem to be working properly in the portal. But when it comes to actually moving the data, it simply does not work.
That is why, in this case, the classic IT solution of “restart it and it works again” makes more sense than it might seem. Restarting the service can restore connectivity, but it can also hide the real problem: an outdated Gateway.
If the Gateway has not been updated for more than six months, you may already be running a version that is outside the support lifecycle. Microsoft officially supports only the latest six monthly versions of the on-premises data gateway and, in the case of Fabric, recommends using the latest version to benefit from improvements in compatibility, reliability, and security.
So, the recommendation should not be to wait until it fails before updating it. At a minimum, you should have a process in place to update it before it goes out of support—approximately every six months—although for me, the ideal approach would be to establish a quarterly update schedule.
More information about Gateway updates: https://learn.microsoft.com/es-es/data-integration/gateway/service-gateway-monthly-updates
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Thanks
Hi EMenotti
We would like to inquire whether have you got the chance to check the solutions provided by tayloramy in community to resolve the issue. We hope the information provided helps to clear the query. Should you have any further queries, kindly feel free to contact the Microsoft Fabric community.
tayloramy did not provide any solution, we only discussed.
