Auto-Refresh of Data Source on SQL Server Not Working

Hello Davidwillis,

Thank you for contacting us on that matter!

Could you please provide us with the information below?

• Are all the clients running RDM on the same version? Different versions might handle refresh intervals differently.

• Could you verify if there could be a network latency or restrictions? Sometimes, network issues or restrictive firewall settings can delay the sync between the SQL Server and the clients.

• Could you verify if there's any information in the logs on your SQL Server and RDM Application logs?

I will also test this on my end and let you know with any information as soon as possible. If you have any other questions, feel free to let us know.

Best regards,

Hello,

Thank you for the response! The clients may be slightly different versions but we only allow either v2023.2 or v2023.3 currently (per our data source versioning settings) so they would all reside within that range.

As for the latency, its hard to say since different colleagues are in different cities, sometimes at the office or sometimes working from home, etc. The SQL is in a centralized location in Azure. However I would say that shouldn't be an issue, because it isn't just as if we aren't seeing the auto-update immediately - sometimes even after clients have been left open for hours or days after a change, the changes will still not be picked up until that client is manually refreshed.

As for the logs, activity logs don't show any sort of errors or anything (just normal user activity). For some reason, administration logs appear to be blank? Even when I set the timeframe back 60 days I don't get any results in there - not sure why - is that something we have to enable somewhere to get those logs?

On the SQL side, I don't see any errors that appear to be related to application-related issues of any sort.

Thanks!

Hello David,

Thank you for your response!

Unfortunately, I was unable to reproduce the issue. I've opened a ticket and sent you an email to do a session if it is possible to look at your issue.

If you have any other questions, feel free to let us know.

Best regards,

Hello,

We have the same issue with SQL2017 Express and version 2024.1.28.0. We have made some tests and it looks like the configured Auto-Refresh in "Data Source / Advanced " only works one time after the application starts. Afterwards no more Auto-Refresh, but F5 does refresh immediately. A refresh also takes place immediately when we edit another session. The Caching Mode within the Data Source is set to File, but we also tested all other options.

Please note that we have upgraded from an older version 2019.1.41.0, but we are not sure if the problem already exists with the older version. We have tried to check with SQL Profiler and notice, that following query will only be executed once after restart if nothing has been edited:

exec sp_executesql N'UPDATE dbo.UserRoamingSettings....

We are using the application with SQL only from our local network.

Is there any setting we may have overlooked or any logs we can check?

Thanks.

Best regards
Michael

Hello Reiso,

Thank you for contacting us on that matter!

Could you verify under the Administration logs if there's any information? If not, could you try to reproduce the issue with the Profiler opened in the background?

To activate the Profiler, you can go to the Help tab > Profiler > remove the "Auto Clear" > Minimize the window > Reproduce the issue and then reopen the Profiler from the window in the taskbar, not from the help tab.

Here's a helpful topic regarding the Profiler.
https://docs.devolutions.net/rdm/commands/help/support/profiler/

Thank you for letting us know. If you have any other questions, feel free to let us know.

Best regards,

Hello Maxim,

Thank you. There is nothing in Administration Logs, but I have attached the profiler log. The "Auto Refresh" is set to 120 seconds. We keep RDM with profiler open for one day and as you can see within the log only one time 2 minutes after application start it logs:

LoadConnections UI - [Microsoft SQL Server : <Database>] - Cache - 64-bit...

I have replaced the real database name with <Database>...

Please let me know if you want us to test anything else.

Best regards
Michael

Michael,

Stéfane here from the development team. Looking at your profiler logs, it looks like the first auto refresh worked then stopped.

We will need to investigate the issue.

Your profiler logs should be enough to reproduce and resolve the issue. If we need more information, we will be in contact.

Sorry for the inconvenience and change you for reporting the issue.

Best regards,

Hello,

Could you please edit your configuration file (%LocalAppData%\Devolutions\RemoteDesktopManager\RemoteDesktopManager.cfg), add the following setting, and tell us if it solves your issue :

<DisableBackgroundRefresh>true</DisableBackgroundRefresh>

We may have a way to solve this, but it's a bit more involved than we first thought so we can't say for sure when we'll be able to release a complete fix.

Regards

Hello again,

Want to say thank you for investigating this issue, I have been very busy with work stuff lately so had not gotten a chance to setup a support session for this issue yet. But thank you reiso for providing the additional info on this including the Profiler trace to help the Devolutions folks with investigating this issue.

Circling back around on this from my side, I saw the update today from Jonathan with the suggested workaround and added this to my config, and sure enough it does appear to resolve the issue! Auto updates now work properly for me whether RDM is in focus or minimized, and works for multiple updates in a row (not just one time after opening).

Of course it would be great to eventually see a permanent fix without the need for a manual config file change but I understand that may take some time so for now, this is great, it at least gives us a workaround to get this functionality working and is not difficult to implement (especially since we only have a handful of RDM users).

Everyone's help is much appreciated!

Best regards.

Hello Jonathan,

Thank you. Have tested it and can also confirm it works ok now. Refresh is done every 2 minutes and within the profiler we can also see every 120 seconds
<LoadConnections UI - [Microsoft SQL Server ....>

We are going to modify the cfg file for all users or are there any disadvantages?

Thank you very much for your support.

Regards
Michael

Hello,

The only drawback could be a lowered performance when the refresh happens, but that might not even be noticeable in your environment.

If you see no change in performance on your side, other users shouldn't feel the change either.

Regards

Hello,

A fix for the auto refresh will be included in version 2024.3.7.0.

This will make the refresh work in the background like before, so the previously mentioned workaround won't be necessary anymore.

Regards

Hello,

Just to follow up on this - after upgrading to v2024.3.21.0 and removing <DisableBackgroundRefresh>true</DisableBackgroundRefresh> from the config, it does appear auto-refresh works as expected now!

Thanks so much for all the help on this!

Best regards and Happy Holidays!