2 Weeks of MLS financial data missing

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
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johntshaw
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2 Weeks of MLS financial data missing

#1

Post by johntshaw »

Logged into MLS yesterday, and got a popup message of urgent items to review. One of them indicated no financial data had been entered for 11/20 and 11/27. In reviewing what was in the computer, nothing showed up for either date. No donations received. No checks printed.

We processed tithing and wrote checks on both days. The data was there on Wednesday night (I ran tithing settlement statements showing donations for families on both days). When running the same tithing settlement statements yesterday, nothing from 11/20 or 11/27 show up.

I can see the .bak files for 11/20 and 11/27, but have no idea how to pull the financial information out of them and restore them to the system. To complicate things, we processed donations yesterday, so I'm worried that if I do restore the 11/27 data, we'd lose yesterday's donations.

One other question: Would it work to simply manually re-enter the two missing weeks, or would Salt Lake expect a corresponding deposit with the new entries (since the financial information was already transmitted to Salt Lake)?

TIA
russellhltn
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#2

Post by russellhltn »

Call CHQ and have them look into that. The solution depends on the details of what's happened. That's why I'd suggest you call rather then try to do it yourself.
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crislapi
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#3

Post by crislapi »

If I had to guess, it sounds like some did a restore from backup and picked one from a couple weeks back. I guess at this point, you are picking your poison. Re-enter the missing two weeks of data or restore that and re-enter yesterday's. I would suggest reloading the latest backup you can find (11/27) and see if your missing information returns. I would also check your financial transaction reports to see if any checks were printed after the latest backup.

I would definitely call LUS and get their input first. They may be able to send down a set-up file to restore the missing financial info. You can manually re-enter the batches, but will want to call LUS so you don't end up with a duplicate batch on their side. Checks you can re-enter. Enter the original check number but print it on a blank piece of paper (you've already printed the check).

I'd also have a conversation with those who use the computer to see if/why it was restored to a previous time period.
johntshaw
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#4

Post by johntshaw »

Update: CHQ was able to easily replace the missing data electronically. In talking with the financial clerk who booted up the computer on the day that the data went missing, Windows went through a lengthy update process at startup on the day the data went missing. I'm not overly familiar with Windows 7, but I was under the impression that other versions of Windows typically update on shutdown (if it's not done automatically while the system is up and running). It sounds like there was some sort of automated system restore back to a former state that predated the two weeks of missing information.
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dajoker
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#5

Post by dajoker »

windows seven does a lot of its update work on startup for some reason now as well as shutdown so you can be slowed down no matter which operation you are doing in a hurry. :-)

With that said, it shouldn't be touching user files and I would be a little skeptical that it arbitrarily back-rev'd files in the filesystem (I do not really think that is even possible for non-system files) for fun. Even the restore points features did not touch user files; those were made to make the system work, not to save your lost data (meaning they would not mess with MLS files). That would still seem to be the case today: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... -questions

Anybody know if there is a log MLS writes by default on things that it's doing, such as backup/restore operations?
russellhltn
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#6

Post by russellhltn »

dajoker wrote:Anybody know if there is a log MLS writes by default on things that it's doing, such as backup/restore operations?

I'm not sure about backup/restore, but MLS does have a log file.
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dajoker
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#7

Post by dajoker »

Google just found this thread: https://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.p ... -Log-Files

mlslog.txt in the main MLS directory sounds promising. My system does not have it which is a bit odd, but I'll check the office computer tomorrow.
jdlessley
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#8

Post by jdlessley »

The MLS log file you are looking for is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\LDS Church\MLS\data\mlslog.txt in Windows XP. For Windows 7 it is C:\ProgramData\LDS Church\MLS\data\mlslog.txt.
JD Lessley
Have you tried finding your answer on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org Help Center or Tech Wiki?
russellhltn
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#9

Post by russellhltn »

It used to be in the Program Files directory, but that was before they made MLS Win7 Compatible.
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