Error "FINREQ - Locking error ABATPAR/ABP fstat=1 (44000)" in serveur.tra

There are intermittent issues with recurring jobs in the batch server whereby they sometimes just stop processing and do not restart. When they are manually relaunched then they continue for a while with no error. 

 The serveur.tra file shows the error " FINREQ - Locking error ABATPAR/ABP fstat=1 (44000) " around the time of the recurring task stopping. 

 It is often the Accounting Tasks jobs which are effected and may be particularly prevalent when using multiple Accounting Task jobs, rather than just the default one. 

 This issue has been noted on Sage X3 Version 12 but also Version 11 may have similar issues

CAUTION: Use caution when working with the below product functionality. Always create a backup of your data before proceeding with advanced solutions. If necessary, seek the assistance of a qualified Sage business partner, network administrator, or Sage customer support analyst.

Steps to take:

1. Check/update the Accounting Task's Recurring Tasks to purge the batch job records

Navigate to Usage, Batch Server, Recurring Task Management
For all your recurring tasks running ACCBATCH Task Code, query back the recurring task and check the "Purge" checkbox is ticked. If not, then tick this box and save the change.

2. Change time between searches for batch server configuration. The objective is to throttle the batch server jobs back to reduce the chance of the reported issue occuring. Both the changes discussed below will take effect when you restart the batch server.

Navigate to Administration, Administration, Endpoints, Batch Server
a. Edit and change "Time between two searches (secs)" to value of (at least) 60 instead of the default value of 30 seconds. NOTE: If this initial change makes no apparent difference, you could try increasing further to 120 seconds.

b. Check "Maximum active queries" and change to the minimum value you require. This value is site dependant, as it will depend on things like how many "One Single Query" jobs you have specified as well as how many CPU on the runtime server(s) where the batch jobs are running.

3. Setup batch server purging

It is important to keep the database batch tables and the serveur.tra log file to a reasonable size in order to preserve best performance

a. In the Housekeeping document for V12 referenced in the blog article https://communityhub.sage.com/gb/sage-x3/b/sage-x3-uk-support-insights/posts/time-to-tidy-up
On page 10 you can see "Example of setup for ABATCH task" which sets up the ABATCH task to purge the batch server data

b. You should also periodically archive the serveur.tra file:
- Shutdown batch server
- Manually rename the serveur.tra file (for example to "serveur_June2021.tra")
- Startup batch server

NOTE: 2021 R4 (12.0.28) provides a radical change in the locking mechanism, which provides a complete solution to this error.  For more details, review "Sequence number independent from ABATPAR" in the "Changes" section of the 2021 R4 Release Notes