Considerations for COM and DCOM Errors
If the error returned from the front-end application is not 0x8004A000, it is most likely caused by some COM/DCOM problem.
If the error message is of the form 0x8004XXXX, look up the error description in this appendix.
Often the error number returned contains only four digits, for example, 0X06D3 or 06D3 instead of 0x800706D3. When searching for the error in STAR TCC or in MSDN or on the Web, you could use 8007 or 8004 for the first four digits of the error number.
Sometimes the error number is returned in base 10. If all the digits are returned, such as -2147944147 for 0x800706D3, you can convert it to hexadecimal or simply look up the error message using the decimal representation of its number. However, if only part of the error is returned, such as 1747 instead of 2147944147, you may want to convert it to hexadecimal (06D3 in this case) to discover the complete error number.
Usually when a COM/DCOM error is generated, additional information is printed to the Event Log (Application, System, or both). Many times the information from the event logs is critical to solving the problem and may not appear anywhere else (such as the W4GL log file, application log, and so on) so always check the Event Log for errors when debugging a COM/DCOM problem.
If the problem appears to be with a connection, always use the comtestrso and comtestspo utilities to check that both the client and server machines are properly configured for COM/DCOM communication.
To check the local machine
Run the commands comtestrso and comtestspo.
To check that you can communicate by COM/DCOM from the local machine to the remote machine
Enter the following command:
comtestrso remote_machine_name | IP_address
Note: comtestspo can only be used to locally. If you want to connect both ways, you must run these tests from each side.
On UNIX the SPOs are no longer started automatically whenever a connection is attempted, so starting the rpcss process alone is insufficient. You must start the SPO or SPOs using the SPOCTL utility after you start the rpcss process. If you are using OpenROAD 4.1/0302 (Service Pack 2), use the orspostart utility.