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Robert Thomson

Sage 50 Accounts - Data Service Suddenly Stopped Working

Posted By

I've been running Sage 50 Accounts on a Windows 10 network successfully for many years (from V26 to V29).  A few days ago, I discovered I could not access the data on my "server" from my laptop.  I get the error message "It's not possible to contact the Sage 50 Accounts Service V29".  For ages, its been working fine and I have not made any changes to the system, anti-virus, firewall, permissions and so on.

I've been through the Sage Troubleshooting guide twice (all the steps!) and the advanced guide without success.  I've even removed and reinstalled the software on both machines without success.

Sage Accounts continues to work normally on the PC that holds the data.  It seems that some change, (perhaps due to a Windows networking update?) has broken the Data Service.

On both machines, Windows 10 (Version 22H2) has all the latest updates applied.

Is anybody else out there experiencing this issue and found a solution?

  • 0

    Hello,

    This happens to our installation on a regular basis. Mostly after power cuts or a network change.

    Some have mentioned setting the data Sage Accounts Data Service (on the accounts file computer) start to 'delayed start', though this didn't work for us.

    Also some suggest increasing the service timeout.

    What worked for us is to click on the Sage 50 Data Service Manager icon, select 'connect' (it always reports disconnected even when its not) then re-boot the computer every time it happens.
    I think its something to do with how the network re-starts after a power cut and how Windows deals with it.

    It's a bit of a pain, but a UPS will fix this for us.

  • 0 in reply to Iain Haywood

    Also worth setting the recovery tab on the service to 'restart' rather than 'do nothing'. This is all assuming restarting the service and rebooting fixes your issue,

  • 0

    Thanks for your suggestion Iain but it didn't work for me.  I still get the same result.

    I read elsewhere that the data service needs to be running on the laptop as well as the "server".  I've tried numerous restarts of the service and reboots on both  machines but it makes no difference.

    One thing that seems odd is that  if I run the Data Service Manager tool on the laptop, it seems unable to discover the "server" share - either with an UNC path or the IP address.  Don't know if that's a pointer.  Running it on the machine that holds the data shows initially disconnected as you say but as soon as I enter the UNC name or IP address of the server it says connected and the service shows as started.

  • 0

    SOLVED!!  Although I have not made any changes to our ESET System Security V16 Antivirus software this seems to have been at the root of the problem.  Completely disabling the AV software on both machines allowed the data service to connect correctly.

    I then put in place all the folder exceptions in the Sage documentation and ran the Firewall in interactive mode, allowing it to create rules for the Sage Data Service as needed.  Re-enabled ESET and Sage continues to work as before.  None of this had been necessary for the last few years so something must have changed in the last week or so.

    Hope this may help anyone else with the same setup.

*Community Hub is the new name for Sage City