check server is available?

[Mike MacSween]

one of my apps is having problems.

I've got my own error handling routine, which logs errors, to a table in the
back end, which is on the server.

But.... a very common error at the moment, is, yes you've guessed it, 'disk
or network error...'

So I only know about those errors if the users tell me. I suspect the whole
network is a bit flaky, though these errors occur most often on 2 machines.

So I'm going to change my error logging routine to store errors on the local
machines. Partly to show to the network engineer!

But it does mean that I'll want to copy the records up to a central table on
the server every so often - I don't want to have to visit every machine to
look at the error logs.

Not sure when to do the copy, on some sort of timer, on close, on open or
whatever? Any ideas on a sensible trigger for that? This isn't a 24/7
operation.

Also, as the network is dodgy, what's the easiest way to check the server is
available before I actually attempt the copy? Shell out to a command line
and ping?

Yours, Mike MacSween

[Pieter Linden]

> Also, as the network is dodgy, what's the easiest way to check the server is

available before I actually attempt the copy? Shell out to a command line
and ping?

There's a function at vbnet.net that encapsulates the pinging in a
function. I used it once to pass an IP address and then it would
return the result of the ping as a text result. So just compare the
returned result to whatever the "success" message is. If that and
your answer are the same, you're in business, otherwise, something's
wrong.