Ottomatic has become a preferred DevOps Claris FileMaker Hosting Platform for multiple businesses, non-profits, partners, SBAs, and schools. With our low-latency data center locations, world-class support, and variety of managed services, we can help you deploy, manage, and safely watch over your data!

In addition, we've built in some pretty amazing internal DevOps tools to help keep your FileMaker system running smoothly. We monitor all of FileMaker's processes for memory leaks, failures, outages, and performance-hindering utilization (runaway scripts) so we can "Ottomatically" heal them. In fact, we monitor almost 15,000 data points, every 30 seconds of every instance we manage!

All this, plus Otto, are included with every Ottomatic subscription. Test us out for 7 days and see for yourself.

Proof+Geist: Supporting Your FileMaker Ecosystem​

At Proof+Geist, we know that the Claris platform is a key puzzle piece to any business ecosystem. With our world-class hosting platform, professional development tools, and expertise in both Claris FileMaker and web technologies, we are ready to innovate and help support your business. For questions, comments, or more information, drop us a line at info@proofgeist.com.

Ottomatic has expanded its Asia-Pacific footprint to encompass the Indian Subcontinent! We are proud to announce 3 new data center locations for FileMaker Cloud Hosting and General Infrastructure deployments: Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi NCR.

The new regions present an opportunity to take advantage of the big data and infrastructure services onshore while staying compliant with India's data laws and regulations.

The 3 new data centers mark Ottomatic’s 25th, 26th, and 27th global locations and is yet another indicator of progress on our mission to support the new Modern FileMaker Revolution.

Today, for Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi you can select our FileMaker Cloud instances powered by 3rd Generation AMD EPYC™ processors, or our Intel Xeon Cloud Instances.

For more information, please contact us or sign up here.

If you're taking full advantage of hosting your Claris FileMaker app with FileMaker Server, you are likely using Perform Script on Server (PSOS) in your scripts, as well as scheduled scripts run on a given interval. Occasionally, your users might see an error that the host capacity was exceeded.

The capacity error​

FileMaker Host Capacity Exceeded, error code 812, occurs when the number of concurrent Script Engine Sessions exceeds the limit set in the server configurations. The Script Engine sessions relates to both PSOS sessions and script schedules configured in the FileMaker Server Admin Console.

Resolving the FileMaker Server capacity issue​

The standard way to resolve error 812 messages is to modify the ServerConfig setting ScriptSessions.

FileMaker Server 14 - 16​

For versions of FileMaker Server 14, 15, and 16, the configuration of the script session limit is managed in the FileMaker Server Admin Console, under the Database Server > FileMaker Clients tab. The setting Maximum Simultaneous Script Sessions will determine the limit on the number of script sessions and can be set to any value between 0 and 500.

FileMaker Server 17+​

For versions of FileMaker Server 17+, the management of the configuration of the Script Sessions limit can be accessed by the Command Line Interface tool "fmsadmin". In order to view the current value set for the "Maximum Simultaneous Script Sessions" limit, use the following command in a Command Prompt or Terminal window: fmsadmin get serverconfig. ScriptSessions will determine the limit. To modify the limit, use the following command: fmsadmin set ScriptSessions=###, where ### is an integer limit between 0-500 as the new limit to the script sessions. Note that the admin console account credentials are required to get and set the serverconfig in the command line.

But wait, there's more!​

If the setting has been modified to the maximum allowable value of 500 Script Sessions and users still see the error message that the "Host Capacity Exceeded" then there are two additional solutions to consider.

First, the server may lock up and not complete processing scripts, which means it won't release the resources. If there are hanging PSOS or schedules in the Client Section of the FileMaker Server Admin Console, then restart the FileMaker Scripting Engine process with the following command in a command prompt or terminal session on the FileMaker Server: fmsadmin restart FMSE -y. The command will stop and start the scripting engine, which should stop the processing of the hung scripts and release the sessions; it will also produce errors in the Event log of scheduled scripts failing if they processed during the time that the command was entered.

Second, reduce the number of calls so that there are less than 500 concurrent script session at any given time. In this scenario there are no locked up scripts and the maximum script session limit is set to 500. The only way to prevent error 812 will be to examine the FileMaker databases hosted on the server and refactor the solution to limit the number of PSOS calls made to the server.

Hosting your FileMaker Solution​

At Proof+Geist, we know the importance of the Claris platform for business-critical workflows. Having a trustworthy cloud hosting platform is a must-have in a world where innovation is constantly happening in the cloud. That's why we created Ottomatic, a worldwide hosting platform crafted to make your FileMaker apps do amazing things at great speeds.

With our world-class hosting platform, professional development tools, and expertise in both Claris FileMaker and web technologies, Proof+Geist is ready to innovate and help support your business.

Aloha, from Hawaii​

Ottomatic is excited to welcome Honolulu, Hawaii as one of our newest data center locations!

We are here to empower FileMaker developers, businesses, and schools at the center of the Pacific. With Hawaii becoming a fast-growing spot for data, we want to further demonstrate our commitment to cloud-first and the modern FileMaker Revolution in offering Ottomatic’s high-performance, low-latency FileMaker Cloud Hosting in Honolulu.

The importance of decreasing latency​

A hosting rule of thumb: host your FileMaker database in a location close to your users. Latency is the time it takes for data to move from its origin to its destination. The closer your users are to the data center, the better your odds for a faster experience for your users.

Meet DRFortress, Our Data Center Partner​

DRFortress is the largest, and the only carrier-neutral, data center and cloud marketplace operating in Hawaii. The data center is a whopping 55,000+ sq. ft. facility located at the Airport Industrial Park in Honolulu. They are connected to Hawaii’s largest set of low-latency and neutral network carriers and are dedicated to providing the best services and support by their operations team with over 100+ cumulative years of data center service expertise.

Without a local provider, FileMaker solutions in Hawaii previously meant hosting in Los Angeles or Japan, both with massive amounts of latency to the center of the Pacific. With the addition of this data center, your FileMaker apps will experience a massive performance boost including super fast 10GB connectivity, Otto bundled at no cost, and our experts monitoring and managing your cloud instance 24/7.

Sign up to try out Ottomatic in Hawaii free for 7 days.

With their powers combined: Otto & Ottomatic deliver exceptional Claris FileMaker hosting​

Ottomatic, our performance-based Claris FileMaker Cloud hosting platform, includes access to Otto!

Every cloud instance we deploy for the FileMaker Community will now take advantage of Otto at no additional licensing costs. If you deploy a development instance and a production instance with Ottomatic, you can save $400 per year in Otto licenses. Already purchased an On-Prem license of Otto for your own deployments? We offer a credit when you move your hosting and license over to Ottomatic.

Contact us for more information.

About Otto​

Otto is a FileMaker developer's dream. It packs some powerful features, including automated file and data migrations, scheduled deployments, and easy access to live files and backups. It's an excellent DevOps tool that expands the reach for developers: receiving webhooks, custom and unified application logging, and Google Groups authentication. Plus, it supports Linux (also supported by Ottomatic).

We chose to bundle Otto with Ottomatic because we think the Otto is a requirement for all FileMaker deployments. We strongly believe that FileMaker thrives when we Imagine pushing from dev to prod with a few clicks. You'll be able to download backups in a quick and simple way. Otto makes every part of a professional Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) easier.

Learn more about the current version of Otto.

About Ottomatic​

Proof+Geist is proud to offer a cloud service focusing on speed, optimization, and security. We have 26 data centers worldwide and a network built on low latency global peers.

Ottomatic is supported by high-performance processors and NVMe disk sub-systems, contributing to a better overall performance with FileMaker Server. Other hosting providers might offer you metered instances, but Ottomatic removes those limitations. This means you get more performance per dollar than others that meter your CPU, Disk, and Traffic.

Get started today all around the globe​

Ottomatic is available in 26 locations across five continents, ready to host your FileMaker solutions:

• North America: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Miami, New York, Seattle, San Jose, Toronto
• South America: São Paulo
• Europe: Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Paris, Stockholm, Warsaw
• Asia: Bangalore, Mumbai, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo
• Australia: Melbourne, Sydney

At Proof+Geist, we know that the Claris platform is a key puzzle piece to any business tech ecosystem. And having a sturdy cloud hosting platform is a must-have in a world where innovation is constantly happening in the cloud. That's why we created Ottomatic, a worldwide, low latency hosting platform crafted to make your FileMaker apps soar.

With our world-class hosting platform, professional development tools, and expertise in both Claris FileMaker and web technologies, Proof+Geist is ready to innovate and help support your business.

Learn more about the Modern FileMaker Revolution.

Many of our clients use FileMaker WebDirect to give users access to their FileMaker apps via browser. In the recent days of Claris's FileMaker Server 19.5.1 and 19.5.2 (specifically on Ubuntu 20.04 / Nginx) releases we had a number of FileMaker hosting support tickets regarding WebDirect timeout issues.

The WebDirect Error​

Notice the message at the end: Invalid JSON from server: 1|X

If your WebDirect session was set to log out in less than 40 minutes, you may not have seen this error.If you changed the settings for an extended login time, greater than 40 minutes in 19.5.1 and greater than 80 minutes in 19.5.2, you surely would have noticed.

A post in the Claris Community Pages discusses how you can modify the wpe.prefs file to get around the maximum 60-minute timeout that the FileMaker Admin Console imposes on WebDirect Connections.

In our case, our users specified 480 minutes or 28800000 ms, and prior to the Nginx change, this worked.

Testing FileMaker WebDirect Timeout​

We adjusted the /opt/FileMaker/FileMaker Server/Web Publishing/publishing engine/conf/wpe.prefs line: 14 (server/parameters/config/iwp-session-timeout) to 28800000 (8 Hours).

We tested in 19.5.1 and 19.5.2 and saw different max timeout times.

FileMaker Server 19.5.1: 2500000 ms or 41.66 minutes

FileMaker Server 19.5.2: 5000000 ms or 83.2 minutes

In the browser developer tools and console, we saw the following warning:

Websocket closed, reason: Connection was closed abnormally (that is, with no close frame being sent). - wasClean: false

log @ vaadinPush.js?v=8.12.3.fmi:1

warn @ vaadinPush.js?v=8.12.3.fmi:1

ax.onclose @ vaadinPush.js?v=8.12.3.fmi:1

Note that once this warning occurs the web page creates new WebSocket connections at the URI: /fmi/webd/PUSH

wss://server.fqdn.com/fmi/webd/PUSH?v-uiId=3&v-pushId=413193e2-e78c-4d5e-825e-b0054445aa72&X-Atmosphere-tracking-id=e6ff4fcc-68f7-44ac-b6a0-5db28e9943cf&X-Atmosphere-Framework=2.3.2.vaadin1-javascript&X-Atmosphere-Transport=websocket&X-Atmosphere-TrackMessageSize=true&Content-Type=application/json;%20charset=UTF-8&X-atmo-protocol=true

The Communication Issue​

The communication is timing out to the back-end Tomcat service, which is utilizing something called Long Polling.

According to other sources referencing Load Balancers and Vaadin Push, we were able to determine that the issue is related to a Load Balancer or Reverse Proxy (Nginx is the reverse proxy in this case) timing out the WebSocket connection after the aforementioned timeouts.

The Workaround for FileMaker WebDirect​

In order to avoid the communication error, we edited the Nginx conf located here: /opt/FileMaker/FileMaker Server/NginxServer/conf/fms_nginx.conf

In the server block we added a directive: proxy_read_timeout 86400. Then we saved and rebooted.

After this, we noted that FileMaker Server 19.5.1/19.5.2 running on Ubuntu 20.04 (Nginx) then obeyed the iwp-session-timeout in the wpe.prefs without issue.

**Please note: there is a reason Claris sets the max timeout in the FileMaker Server Admin Console UI to 60 minutes. When sessions run for long periods of time, WebDirect can cause a memory leak and require a cycle every so many hours. It is best practice to change your workflow to function within the 60 minute timeout period or setup automations to cycle the scripting engine. There are also security concerns leaving a web session logged in for long periods of time.**

FileMaker WebDirect and Ottomatic​

At Proof+Geist, we know that the Claris platform is a key puzzle piece to any business tech ecosystem. And having a sturdy cloud hosting platform is a must-have in a world where innovation is constantly happening in the cloud. That's why we created Ottomatic, a worldwide, low latency hosting platform crafted to make your FileMaker apps soar.

With our world-class hosting platform, professional development tools, and expertise in both Claris FileMaker and web technologies, Proof+Geist is ready to innovate and help support your business.

Learn more about the Modern FileMaker Revolution.

We here at Proof+Geist and Ottomatic are pleased to say that the recent announcement of FileMaker 19.5 server is looking pretty great so far!

With over 400 bug fixes, performance enhancements, and security improvements, Claris says that this is their best release to date. In this post, we'll highlight some of the new features in 19.5 and provide an overview of the changes made to FileMaker Server.

These last few months have been a whirlwind for Ottomatic! We've been busy building a world-class, global, Claris FileMaker hosting infrastructure and adding upgraded features along the way.

A simple but effective part of a transparent cloud service is a status page. Today, Ottomatic is announcing its new status page, which will better inform our users about our data center and service statuses. In addition to real-time monitoring, it also adds the ability to subscribe via email and receive updates on issues and future maintenance notifications.

The Modern FileMaker Revolution requires a cloud-first approach, and it needs the best in class processors to power it. Ottomatic is pleased to announce that we will be powered by 3rd Generation AMD EPYC CPUs and 100% NVMe SSD Storage.

At Proof+Geist, we know that the Claris platform is a key puzzle piece to any business tech ecosystem. And having a sturdy hosting platform is a must-have in a world where innovation is constantly happening in the cloud. That's why we created Ottomatic, a worldwide, low latency hosting platform crafted to make your FileMaker apps soar.