Unwelcome 10.0.3 idle timeouts

[leehack]

I know this isn't any help, but it's info at least - after Lee upgraded our V9 site to 10.0.03 (running W7 64-bit) we haven't had any obvious issues at all, apart from the usual oddities which we're used to with Actinic anyway
Nothing show-stopping.
We also get the upload or snapshot screen disappearing, but a drill-down through the windows reveals it's still there, beavering away.

LOL Sean, you didn't get any problems because i had them all my end before you got it back. I took one for the team!

[brucet]

Lee, we did as much as we could to get external testing of v10.0.3. I personally asked a number of people to try out the betas for us. We don't normally have budget for external resource to test interim releases, we do rely on goodwill, but obviously its in everyone's interest to have as broad a test base as possible.

With regard to Windows 7, TBH we have not identified a single issue that is definitively Windows 7 specific. Most people don't seem to have any problems with it. A handful have reported issues which they experienced for the first time on upgrading to Windows 7. But in literally every case, someone else has reported the identical issue in another version of Windows, and it always seems to be intermittent. In v10.0.3 we looked for possible loopholes in our Win 7 compatibility, and plugged a couple. But we still haven't found anything specific that we can pin down to a cause. We haven't given up, but we have hit a bit of a dead end with it ATM.

TBH I never thought v10.0.3 would be the complete answer, there are still some known issues that we need to address, and these frustrating intermittent ones that we can't yet pin down. But we will keep pushing forward on that front. Most people do seem to have found v10.0.3 a significant improvement, so hopefully we are heading in the right direction.

[brucet]

Darren, you're probably already aware of this, but there is a tick box 'Allocate Stock for PSP Pending Orders' within the Stock Control setup in Business Settings. It might be worth checking that it's on the correct setting.

[leehack]

10.0.3 is a giant leap forward, I totally agree with that, to fix so many bugs in one release was great.

If you've ever had a very old car and you go to start it in the Winter not 100% sure it will start, that is the feeling you get using Actinic at the moment. It works, it does its thing, but you never feel totally at home with it if that makes sense, particularly if you are about to go on a long holiday. Hopefully that helps to explain how it makes you feel.

With regards to Windows 7, you might have made a very good point in that i did not have a Vista desktop, so have an XP one and now a Windows 7 one. I have a Vista laptop but I rarely use that for anything design related. So what i perceive as Windows 7 issues are in fact Windows issues for versions of Windows after XP.

The problem with that is the timescale, Vista must be a few years old now, the issues that presented still exist today and have rolled forward into W7 (as they are not W7 specific issues as i wrongly perceive them).

What i think you need to understand and appreciate as a company better is that 6 months ago I bought a brand new system, £2500 worth, quadruple monitor, quad processing, the dogs bollocks to take my designing forward for the next few years. To date it sits to the side of me, not used unless manicly busy and i still chug away on the XP machine. When i bought the system, i had the obvious excitement and loaded all my software, transferred files etc. Of all the software i use, there was only one (no bullshit) that did not install and work properly, i'm sure you can guess which one, but that one is the crux of my business.

I understand you're a small company and do not have the backup of these massive organisations that create most of the software i use and i do make allowances for that, but that allowance has to run out at some stage. I have to be able to (within a decent timescale) use your software on any current operating system with very little problem, for my business, actinic is the only one that does not do that.

I first voiced Windows7 problems i think, i also gave permission to dial in and see the problems. You struggle to reproduce the errors, i can reproduce some of them whenever i want to, yet noone has used the option to dial in. So what happens then is you tell us you do give a monkeys and are working on it, but i don't see that, BUT you might have done extensive testing with the problems i mention on other systems and using my system would add nothing. Problem being i don't know that and more importantly you have not come out and said 'We do not know what the issue is, nor do we think we can fix it'. It's those old buzzwords, communication and transparency.

[Sean Williams]

LOL Sean, you didn't get any problems because i had them all my end before you got it back. I took one for the team!

Good Man!
Keep Calm and Carry On

[brucet]

Lee, sorry we didn't take up your offer to dial in. That one fell off my radar somehow. I will get in touch with you offline and see that it happens. It could be very useful.

[Steve G Griggs]

I don't think it's a win7 compatibility problem from the Actinic end as I had one problem cured by a re-installation of Actinic 10.03. It feels more like a general win7 thing. I'm suspicious of the FTP side as I have had problems with ftp in another program (dropped connections, trouble logging in to a server, then magically it works... I also find this with Vista too. So although I do find Actinic 10 a bit "buggy" some of the problems don't seem to happen in XP, and I don't find I need to re-install to cure a problem.
Puzzling.

[malbro]

I can't put my finger on anything exact, but 10.0.3 just doesn't quite seem right to me,

I have to admit I am refusing to move to 10.0.3 due to the same feeling. I have been waiting to upgrade a client from V9 to V10 since October thinking better to just go to 10.0.3 rather than go via 10.0.2, bit the bullet today and upgraded them to 10.0.2. I do not expect to move over until I get a better feeling about it, might even wait for V11.

[malbro]

I'm suspicious of the FTP side as I have had problems with ftp in another program (dropped connections, trouble logging in to a server, then magically it works...

Just to confuse it more I have no problems with ftp and Win7, I use Cuteftp with Win7 x64 and have never found a problem with it or with Actinic uploading.

[Goz]

Like Malbro, I'm not making the move up to 10.0.3 - impressive as the list of bug fixes and development work is, there just seem to be too many issues coming out of the woodwork.

I don't have too many problems using 10.0.2 (or 9 or 8) on my Win7 system - but I find that Win7 in general causes problems. Double clicking on a file in Explorer often results in a system error "There was a problem sending a command to the application". Search doesn't work properly. AVG and MS Outlook won't work together (but identical versions on XP are fine!).

Everything definitely ran better under XP.

[Darren B]

Darren, you're probably already aware of this, but there is a tick box 'Allocate Stock for PSP Pending Orders' within the Stock Control setup in Business Settings. It might be worth checking that it's on the correct setting.

Thanks Bruce, i had wondered if this was the problem though, i dont have it turned on as i never allocate for psp pending, but something about stock does not seem to sit right, a few products suddenly have stock even though i know they were out of stock. I will continue to dig and see if i can pin point it.

[Darren B]

You struggle to reproduce the errors, i can reproduce some of them whenever i want to.

And this is the same for me with the payoffline psp. I can reproduce the error by simply placing and order then going to my local post office and paying for it. Call back comes through order moves from pending psp to fully paid and the status changes to test mode, i have to then edit the db and change some of the fields to force it to move to completed.

Actinic had my snapshot, and tell me nothing is wrong but when i asked support if they actually placed a live order and paid for it? ermm no

so how this is fully investigating i dont know, as i told them it was fine in v9, v10 broke it.

[DJames]

Hello Darren B

Regarding your Payoffline PSP issue Can i contact you offline to investigate this issue.

[leehack]

The same happens on snapshots Jan as i believe that mirrors what an upload does, had it myself today. Snapshot fails, open site back up and works fine next time. This time it was on XP though, so that crushes the Windows 7 theory.

10.0.3 is the first time i have struggles to take a snapshot since the early days of V8, i can't ever recall one failing before.

[brucet]

Just some factual clarification, because the rumour mill seems to be working overtime here...

I can't comment on the initial report which started this thread, which is only likely to get resolved through the usual support channels. But most people in this thread already reported issues prior to the release of v10.0.3. They are only a handful, and we are working to try to resolve them.

Secondly, we have seen over 2,000 downloads of v10.0.3 in the short time since it's release. There have been a few issues reported, but less than we would normally expect from such a large release after that many downloads.

If you have replaced the usual product links in marketing lists with links to Extended Information Pages, you should wait for v10.0.4 before upgrading.

Otherwise you should definitely at least give v10.0.3 a try. Most people we have been in contact with have found it an improvement - but of course those aren't the reports that tend to get posted here...