There has been a change in the behavior of the operating system that may impact StoreGazer users.

 

REFERENCE | TCx Sky 1.2 Release Notes

AR# SR# Description Recreate Guidance
8915 346482 Child processes keep running when their parent process dies. With two programs executing, one child of the other, kill the parent program.

 

DESCRIPTION | When running a program in StoreGazer using the “Run in Foreground” option, the EDJSERVR process is started to handle the request.  EDJSERVR then starts the requested program and that program becomes a child process of EDJSERVR.  EDJSERVR then waits for additional requests, and if none are sent within 15 seconds, EDJSERVR ends.

In TCx Sky 1.2 and later, the program started by EDJSERVR will be killed when EDJSERVR ends, if that program has not already finished running.

Prior to TCx Sky 1.2 (including all versions of 4690 OS), the program started by EDJSERVR will be adopted by EDJSERVR’s parent process and continue to run to completion, even after EDJSERVR ends.

WORKAROUND | When starting a program in StoreGazer, use the “Run in Background” option instead.  When a program is started in the background, it is started via an API and becomes the child of a system process.  When EDJSERVR ends, the requested program will then continue to run in the background.

 

This new behavior ONLY impacts customers using the “Run in Foreground” option in TCx Sky 1.2 and later.  If “Run in Background” is being used, or a prior version of TCx Sky or 4690 OS is used, no action is necessary.  Customers looking to migrate to TCx Sky 1.2 should plan ahead to avoid issues arising from this change in the OS behavior.

 

We are publishing this alert due to an underlying change in the operating system.  No upgrade or change to the StoreGazer application code is required in response to this change; however, users should verify that any StoreGazer job definitions that include a “Run Program” action are not using the “Run in Foreground” option. Additionally, any automated “Run Program” actions in the ACTNFILE.DAT on the 4690 should include “Background = True”, as they are also started by the EDJSERVR process and will therefore exhibit the same behavior.