Typical Question

I'm trying to figure out how to install ConnectDaily on my webserver so it can be used on my website.

I clicked the download link, but it just wants to install it on my own computer. How do I install on my website's server?

Answer

Connect Daily is a web server application. It's software that has to be installed on the server. It's usually not possible to upload the application to your server.

First, Connect Daily requires a Java Servlet engine. In the web hosting world, this will go by different names like: JSP, Servlets, Tomcat.

If you are using shared web hosting and your provider doesn't offer this service then Connect Daily won't work. You have to either change to a web hosting provider that supports Servlets or switch to the hosted version of Connect Daily. The hosted version of Connect Daily offers all of the features of the software version without having to install any software on your server. You can sign up for a trial hosted calendar. If you have purchased the software version and want to shift to the hosted version, call our offices and we'll help you change it.

If you have a private server or virtual private server, then you can install Connect Daily on that server. For Windows, our web site has an installer. For other operating systems, you will need a system administrator to install the servlet engine and database before installing Connect Daily. We can do this for you as a service if your administrator is unavailable.

Special Note About GoDaddy.com

GoDaddy.com says that they support Java Servlets, but their system is configured in such a way that it is non-compliant with the Java Servlet specification. Because their system is non-compliant with the servlet specification, Connect Daily will not work on their shared hosting servers.

If you are using MS Windows, you can use the Access database. Windows 2000 and higher comes with the Microsoft Access database drivers pre-installed. This is all Connect Daily needs to run. You do not need to have the full version of Microsoft Access installed on the server.

UNIX customers, including Linux, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X can use the open source databases PostgreSQL or MySQL.

You can also use SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, or Sybase SQL Anywhere.

Most discount hosting companies do not offer the requirements for running Connect Daily. If your hosting company supports the following items, then the answer is yes.

• Java Servlet Engine
• Supported Database
  • IBM DB2
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000
  • MySQL 5.0 or higher
  • Oracle 9 or higher
  • PostgreSQL 7.1 or higher
  • Sybase SQL Anywhere 6.0 or higher

If your hosting company does not support these requirements, we recommend that you let us host your calendar. For information about MH Software's hosting version refer Hosted Version Operation.

Most of the "html" pages in Connect Daily are actually created using a process called servlet mappings. If you are getting this error, it means that the application did not deploy correctly. Check the following items:

1. Check the log files from your servlet engine. These will usually provide you with a place to start. The default installation under Windows will have this in \Program Files\MH Software\Connect Daily\tcbase\logs.
2. Check your database connection:
   1. Ensure the database connection settings in configuration.properties are correct. This includes DBObjectClass, JDBCUserID, JDBCPassword, JDBCConnectionString, and JDBCDriver.
   2. Verify the JDBC drivers for your database are in the classpath of the server or application. If you only have one application, the simplest thing to do is to put the JDBC JAR files in the cdaily-3.4.11/WEB-INF/lib sub-directory.
   3. Using another tool (query analyzer, etc), verify you can connect to the database using the User name and password Connect Daily is using.
3. Check the supported servlet API for your servlet engine. Make sure you use the appropriate web.xml deployment descriptor for your servlet engine. The default deployment descriptor Connect Daily ships with is API version 2.3.

Please refer to Integrating Microsoft IIS with Connect Daily using Apache Tomcat. It contains detailed instructions on how to do this.

Check the following items:

1. If you are using Microsoft Access as the database using REGEDT32, check the permissions on the registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBC.INI\<DSN NAME>

Ensure that the User the service runs as, has READ permissions to this key. For additional information, refer to MS KB Article Q306345. Check that the User the service runs as has READ permissions to the Connect Daily directory.

2. Check that the User the service runs as has read/write permissions to the appropriate log, temp, and work directories the servlet engine uses. Also check for read/write permissions on the directory where the Access database is stored.

Overview

When using the MS Access option with Connect Daily web calendar, you may encounter a SQL Exception "General Error" message. In particular, this may be noted when adding resources.

The Microsoft Access ODBC driver appears to be inconsistent in interpreting how the two driver settings "ImplicitCommitSync" and "UserCommitSync" are interpreted. With some versions of the driver, these settings should be set to "Yes" while with others it should be set to "No". We are investigating this issue and working towards a resolution. In the meantime, customers are encouraged to apply the workaround below.

Workaround

Perform the following steps to change the ODBC Driver settings:

1. From the Start Menu choose START | CONTROL PANEL
2. From the Control Panel, choose Administrative Tools. In Administrative Tools choose "Data Sources (ODBC)"
3. Change to the "System DSN" tab. Double-Click on the entry for CDAILY
4. Click on the "Options" button to expand the dialog.
5. Ensure the "Exclusive" checkbox is unchecked.
6. In the driver configuration dialog box, click on the "Advanced" button.
7. In the "Options" listbox, locate the entry for "ImplicitCommitSync"
8. Change it to the opposite value. If it is currently "Yes", change it to "No". If it is currently "No", change it to "Yes".
9. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for the "UserCommitSync" parameter.
10. Dismiss the ODBC dialogs by successively clicking OK.
11. Restart the Connect Daily Service.

This is caused by not properly setting the Selected database class to the correct value for your installation. Using the menu, choose SYSTEM | CONFIGURATION and click on the link for DATABASE CONFIGURATION. Change the database type dropdown to match the one you are using.

Once you have fixed this issue and tested adding a new Item, run the Make Super User Screen to repair permissions for any Items that you added.