Wednesday, August 3, 2011

PrintNet/GMC: Critical error: Unmatched options (810 or 811)

I ran into this issue when working with GMC... it took me forever to figure out what was up with it.  To keep a long story short, turns out it was the `enableerrorconsole` flag... my initial command read 
/usr/local/PNetT/PNetTCNetClient
-o /usr/local/PNetT/tmpData/SOB/workflows/master_ppo_sob_3col.wfd
-e PDF
-f "/usr/local/PNetT/tmpData/SOB/Master PPO-Gem Mortgage BC Classic PPO_temp.pdf" -useincluded "*"
-difDataInput1 "/usr/local/PNetT/tmpData/SOB/Master PPO-Gem Mortgage BC Classic PPO.txt" 
-difDataInput2 "/usr/local/PNetT/tmpData/SOB/Master PPO-Gem Mortgage BC Classic PPO-table.txt"
-enableerrorconsole true
If you do this, you'll see one of the following errors:
Critical error 0810: Unmatched options
Critical error 0811: Unmatched options
The issue is that the `enableerrorconsole` flag does not need a true parameter, it needs options for the log files to split up.  This option isn't something that is enabled/disabled by it's parameters, it's parameters specify the log files that the error console requires.  According to the user manual it splits up the error for the command so that the log data goes one places, and the error is recorded somewhere else.  I fixed this error by changing my command by specifying the log files as seen below:
/usr/local/PNetT/PNetTCNetClient
-o /usr/local/PNetT/tmpData/SOB/workflows/master_ppo_sob_3col.wfd
-e PDF
-f "/usr/local/PNetT/tmpData/SOB/Master PPO-Gem Mortgage BC Classic PPO_temp.pdf"
-useincluded "*"
-difDataInput1 "/usr/local/PNetT/tmpData/SOB/Master PPO-Gem Mortgage BC Classic PPO.txt"
-difDataInput2 "/usr/local/PNetT/tmpData/SOB/Master PPO-Gem Mortgage BC Classic PPO-table.txt"
-enableerrorconsole >sob.log 2>gmc-error.log

PrintNetT & GMC Support, Forums & Documentation

If you've ever used PrintNetT or GMC and tried to look something up on Google you'll notice that you can basically find nothing.  I began working with these products while at a printing company and quickly realized that with my lack of training with the server client I was going to run into many problems.  After some time of trying to look through the manual to get my answers I finally reached out to price options for training that I could present to my bosses to resolve all of our issues.  I was referred to their community forums and online documentation.  I was dumbfounded that this information was so easily accessible on their web site - but why was it so hard to find?

The truth is that GMC doesn't want you to find it.  Their goal is for you to pay thousands of dollars for support and training.  They've blocked search engines from indexing their message boards.  So the only content you're going to find is that which is not posted on their web site.  I'm not trying to sell them as an evil corporation, it makes perfect sense for them to try to make more money, my only gripe is that it hurts the customer in this specific case.

Be aware of these resources, they can be very helpful.