Sorry to bug you guys again but

Thats great but I have to disagree. You have not given us any idea of how to improve them… what part of them do you not understand? I would love to improve mine if you can give me some ideas of what didnt work in it?

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The part where I’m having to convert the db and then put in the connection string. Because it just didn’t explain deep enough what to do. It didn’t explain how to get samba db into sql and then it didn’t explain the connection string other than what to type, and it did not apply to me. What I mean by that is what you had on your screen was not what I had on mine. Like I would follow the steps exactly and then I’m like where did that come from I don’t see that how do I do that. And it wasn’t explained at all. And so I’m lost and don’t know what to type for my pc. But the connection string thing won’t work until I have an actual sql database that isn’t local db. I’m going to try your tutorial and if it doesn’t work I think I’m going to take about a week off and consider reaching out for help remotely or from a buddy of mine who knows a good bit about pos systems and networking.

@polosrestaurant I assume you did not miss my quite long post above about 20 minutes ago where I explained everything in quite good detail. Since you are still talking about converting the database I fear you missed the post? Sorry to bug you guys again but

Just follow the steps or take me up on my offer :wink:

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You don’t have to convert the database because you are using Local DB not CE. If you were using CE it would say CE on title bar not SQ. Just like the tutorial says that part of it is optional only if your using CE.

Your connection string consists of a few things and its easier to just use the edit button and type them in seperately. The server is your compuers IP address that is hosting SQL server

The instance is the instance you setup when you installed SQL Express and by default if you didnt change it the instance is SQLEXPRESS if your using windows authentication then you do not need to specify a login and password. Its recommended to use mixed authentication mode and enable the SA username and set a password for it. The instructions to enable that were in the Common Problems tutorial I just posted.

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Once you get it connected to your database you can load your previous backup by simply going to Database Backup tool and loading the backup you made. I highly recommend you studying SQL Express. I do not mean from our forum but look at actual blogs or help desk support from Microsoft.

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@markjw thank you very much for summing it up. I’ll improve wiki document by using parts of your post but I can’t login to wiki for a reason now. I’ll do it after solving that.

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@emre thanks :slight_smile: Yeah one issue I did find when researching this topic was that there isn’t a really complete setup guide, most do miss a few parts as they cover a specific case scenario. Good to know my effort can help to make a more complete guide.

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Probably what hangs people up the most is Windows Home or Professional in general by default is not setup to run as a server in a networked environment in fact most of it is setup to protect you from unwanted file sharing and or networking.

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I’m using Windows 7 Ultimate on both pcs. One is 32 bit other is 64 bit. It’s to my understanding that both computers should run the same OS. I was going to put 64 bit on our second pc but it does not have 64 bit drivers so I had to use 32bit. And it’s a bit older and slower so it’s maxed out with 2gb ram. But it runs samba fine with little lag and issues. After reviewing everything on this post I’m going to try one more time. I’ll come back tomorrow or tonight later with an update and any questions.

Thanks again for all the help. I’ve had some trials and challenges with Samba in the past due to it being completely open source and customizable but through the help of this forum and tutorials out there I’ve managed to conquer those problems and make the owner and staff here happy with my work. Now this is my biggest challenge yet. Please send me good vibes that I’m able to do this!! I won’t to do what I’ve done in the past and conquer this problem and make everyone at the restaurant happy with my service. As much food as I’ve bummed and the owner is writing me a nice big check I need to be able to do this! So I can add it to my list of dragons that ive conquered and put it on my resume so I can try to get other local restaurants and businesses using Samba.

Make sure your server / main system is the most powerful one with most RAM. Different edition and version of OS is convenient but not essential, nothing to say you could have some on Windows 7, 8 and 10 and all working happily.

Got 6gb ram in main station. It’s definitely a super pc. It had 8gb but I had to borrow 2gb for the 2nd station lol. The main station is also hard wired. The 2nd station is wireless from about 20 feet away. Once we get this server thing figured out were adding a 3rd station.

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You might have been talking about v3… but since v4 SambaPOS has not been open source v5 is not open source either.

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Ah. I was misinformed. I compare samba to an android phone. And other systems to an iphone. If that makes any sense. I just mean it’s a lot different and everything is done manually/differently compared to other systems. There’s a lot less restrictions… if you know what you’re doing the possibilities are endless. With other pos systems thediscount buttons and send buttons were already there with samba I had to create the button and then tell samba what to do when the button is pressed. I’m saying other systems weren’t as easy to customize as samba once I learned how to do it. It was very difficult to create custom buttons pictures templates etc. In the programs we’ve used in the past… now if I can just manage to get this server going then we truly will have a a perfect system! <3 Samba!!

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Yes SambaPOS is different in that regard and it can require a learning curve. Thats what makes it special. The other systems in the name of keeping things simple purposely cut you off from customization. This allows them to control their support they provide for example you ask them for a specific configuration they likely will say we do not support that and end of conversation or they will charge you another $5000 to develop it or worse they will say we are working on it for future and 10 years it stays in future plans.

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Not sure about the Android vs iPhone analogy however yes, I look at SambaPOS as more of a platform for building your perfect POS on. I thought you are the restaurant owner given your username but if you are a reseller, like I am myself, I just get around this by creating my own base install, that has all the standard features I need, plus always add to the base one when I make something better for one client or someone gives me an idea, or I see something worthwhile to add from the forum. So yes the learning curve is more and not so “off the shelf” as some other systems out there, however I feel you get more, and the end user is not being forced to change the way their business operates because of the way some POS software works - with SambaPOS it is often the other way around with the vast configuration we have.

You say you have done a lot of the complex things in SambaPOS already but your main issue is the SQL setup for databases. I know for me personally I didn’t find that complex, however I’ve been using SQL server and networking for years now before I started with SambaPOS so for me it was easy. But actually it is quite easy, and you need to know it. Once you have it working once, its easy the second time around. Just please please get the idea of systems sharing files via mapped drives out of your head! Nobody does that these days for any modern networked system that uses a database. That’s all old skool stuff with file based databases and are very inefficient in use as well. Even if you used CE as a database, after a few thousand tickets your system gets slow, but with SQL Server (even LocalDB) you can have 100k tickets and still same speed as having 10 tickets.

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I find that a lot of users get the server installed and running just fine the problem is they dont realize it. They get hung up when trying to connect a second computer to it and I have to say Windows in general is at fault for that. Windows default setups like I said are configured to block this type of setup. You have to enable it and allow it to act as a server when it really just wants to be a desktop.

Windows server editions are built the other way and typically they come out of box ready for networked server applications and can be easier to configure in this regard although they are infinitely more complex with options.

All that said though there is an endless amount of documentation on the web showing very detailed instructions to get SQL Express as well as other basic networking working for you.

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I have reason to believe the server has been successfully setup on the host pc… the activation now says it’s unactivated but I know how to fix this. But this is what I’m getting on station 2 when trying to connect. I put in the exact same thing for the connection string that worked with the host pc. I do have connections enabled on sql settings is there something specific I should check for and change because it looks like to me the server exist. But the client is not finding the sql server on the host pc.

Turn off Windows firewall and try using IP address instead of ComputerName.

Well now the messaging server on main pc is not connected. I used the default 8080 port and it connected fine the first time now it won’t connect. It keeps saying message server not connected at the bottom when I try to connect nothing happens. How do I find the right port to use? I’m wondering if this is the issue. So before I can do anything with system 2 I need system 1 (host) message server running again. All I did was restart the program after reactivation samba. The db migration caused samba to go back into unregistered mode. It’s activated now and still running off the sql db but message server isn’t running now. And I don’t remember the port # I originally used when I installed sql. Like I said I’ve always used the default 8080