New Flex2SQL v10.x Feature: Auto-Reconnect

If the server is set to time out a client connection due to lack of activity, then a DataFlex program will encounter unexpected errors if the user is not aware of losing connection to the server.  With this new feature, the driver will automatically reconnect to the server and continue from the same point where disconnect happened.

Some customers have seen that after a long time of inactivity (leaving the computer for hours on end), that when they come back they have been logged out by the  server. SQLFlex offers the advantage that you can even put a machine to sleep, disconnect it from the network, then bring it back up, and it will not have missed a beat.

To the end user, there will be no visible impact of losing connection from a server most of the time.  The exception is for the transactions. Since driver has no control over the application (or DataFlex runtime) to re-start a transaction, if for any reason an application is disconnected during a transaction then driver cannot re-start the same transaction once again, so the operations done till the disconnection will be canceled anyway.

Basically the driver code that handles the auto-reconnect after a mirroring failover is the one used to handle other disconnections caused by a time out or due any other reason.

So for some customers this could be an important feature that helps them out a lot. Customers with WebApp, customers with unreliable connections (especially if they are connecting over the Internet), and customers leaving their applications idling overnight will find this feature useful.