What Are Orphaned Lines?

Over time, some CounterPoint version 7.5 users experience issues where some items show bogus "Quantity Committed" and/or "Quantity on Order" values.  However, after running an Inventory Recalculation, the numbers may not reset properly, and they may not be able to find any open documents for the items involved.

Although this situation has been primarily to an issue with the Order Entry and Point of Sale, it can also affect the Purchase Orders and Return To Vendor transactions.   The cause may be due to issues with documents being improperly exited, or updated, where the line item detail isn't completely processed.  This situation can leave orphaned line items with no corresponding document header record in the files involved.  This means that you can't access the line data because the Document Header Record is gone, however, other parts of the software still see the line details.

Examples of situations that can cause this problem are:

• Improper Power Protection -  Servers, PC's, network switches, etc. - devices lose power.

• Damaged or substandard network cables - This would be involve frayed cables, damaged or fatigued connector clips (won't stay plugged-in, dislodges if cable touched, etc.).

• Physical Hardware problems causing network disconnects - intermittently faulty NIC (Network Interface Cards) in either a workstation and/or the application server.

• Operating system configuration - Power Management settings are putting the computer and/or into power-save mode or hibernation. Server terminating network connections due to inactivity.

• Virus and/or Malware infection on the server or workstations involved.

• End-user usage and training issues (forcefully rebooting PC's, kicking out power cords, forcefully terminating programs, stopping and then re-starting O/E and/or POS End of Day Posting routines, etc.).

In newer versions of CounterPoint 7.5 there is utility designed to remove orphaned lines for Point or Sale and one for Order Entry. There is currently no utility for removing orphaned PO lines.  This has been submitted to Radiant as a Design Enhancement Request, so hopefully it will be available soon.

Correcting this may involve some very invasive file editing, especially if there is severe file  damage.  It's highly recommended that you contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department if you are having any of the above problems.

For more information related to this topic, please see my earlier blogs entitled:"What is the Inventory Recalculation Utility", and "Why won't the I/C Recalculation Utility Won't Run"