Releasing the Printers Plan Lock File. Follow

In this article, we will discuss the database lock file for Printer's Plan and how it can affect the behavior of the system. This typically only needs to be done before compacting the database. 

Database connections. 

Printer's Plan keeps track of the connections to the database, it does this through the usage of a lock file. 

The criteria for how Printers Plan creates, maintains, and removes this lock file is described below

1. When a user opens the database (by starting Printer's Plan or another program such as Microsoft Access), an entry is made in the lock file (PlanData.ldb). This entry is NOT removed from the lock file until every user closes the database.
2. When the last user closes the database, the lock file is deleted. Exception: The lock file is not deleted if the last user does not have delete rights or when the database is marked as corrupted.

Many users have issues when trying to compact, as there is more than one connection to the database. 

The first step in solving this issue is to figure out who is connected to the database. 
You can do this by going to the Home tab and selecting My Database under the About folder. 

Here it will show you the workstations connected to the database, and how many connections are open. Notice one workstation can connect to the database several times. 

This information can help you find which workstation may have an unclosed connection.

Once this has been done, and you are sure all database connections have been released, reopen one instance of the program to check the lock file. It should report 1 workstation and 1 database connection. 

In some instances, it may be easier to reboot the server as this will release the lock file. This will close all of the database connections and any issues relating to persisting connections. 

If the connection is not reset and you still see a PlanData.ldb file in the server try to manually delete this file.

If this does not work, you may have additional services on the server locking the file. 

1. The first component that can cause the lock file to hold a lock is UPS WorldShip. 
You will want to completely close any instance of UPS WorldShip that is connected to the Printers Plan database. 

2. The second component that can cause this is IIS. This is used to run Web2Plan (the Printers Plan API). 

To stop IIS (used with Web2Plan), use these steps:

1. Open Start.
2. Search for IIS and click the top result to open the console.
3. Select the server from the connections panel
4. Use the start/stop controls under the action panel to manage this service. 

3. Finally, some users are integrating Printers Plan and Plan Prophet together. 
If this is the case, you will need to stop the services associated with Plan Prophet. 

To stop a running service using Services, use these steps:

1. Open Start.
2. Search for Services and click the top result to open the console.
3. Double-click the service that you intend to stop.
4. Click the Stop button.

The names of the Plan Prophet services are PlanProphet Link and PlanProphetLinkupdater
You can restart these services (click start) once Printers Plan has finished compacting.