FileMaker not compatible with Mac OS X Leopard

[grumbachr]

I'm not taking this new very well. I was just planning a big server / client upgrade. I know i should have not been the first guy on the block to upgrade but it was time. (Sorry if this has been posted before.)

From Macworld

With the release of Mac OS X Leopard just 24 hours away, one company is bucking the trend of announcing compatibility with the new operating system. Apple owned FileMaker said its products are not compatible with Leopard.

“We are currently working on Leopard compatibility updates for FileMaker Pro 9, FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced, FileMaker Server 9 and FileMaker Server 9 Advanced. At this time FileMaker does not recommend the use of FileMaker 9 products on computers running Mac OS X Leopard,” said a support note posted to FileMaker’s Web site.

Representatives from the company told Macworld that they couldn’t be more specific on when updates would be available.

FileMaker also said they have not performed compatibility tests on older versions of FileMaker, but they do not recommend using them with Leopard.

FileMaker 9 was released in mid-July.

[comment]

It does sound alarming, esp. concerning previous versions. AFAIK, FMI has never released a patch for a version other than the current one. If it turns out that developers running Leopard cannot provide support for solutions developed with older versions of Filemaker...

[Lee Smith]

FYI,

This was just posted on another list by Brian Dunning:.

Subject: Re: FileMaker & Leopard

Note that the previous announcement of incompatibility has been

pulled from FileMaker's site, and replaced with a support note that

says simply:

"We continue to test FileMaker 9 products under Leopard. We will have

a compatibility announcement when Leopard is released October 26th."

Lee

[Tori Mitchell]

*Steve Jobs Gives FMI's manager a black-eye*

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT OUR ONLY SUBSIDIARY DOESN'T HAVE SUPPORT FOR LEOPARD?!?"

*giggle*

Still though, I'll have a box to test it on and I'll not deploy 'till I'm sure that things *work*.

[ricardito]

I have a runtime solution that I've been selling since 1996 to small business owners. I have hundreds of people running their business using this on Macs and I need to know TODAY that if they install Leopard their business is going to come to a grinding halt.

I've sent emails to Filemaker requesting information but have not heard back.

If anyone finds anything on this I'd greatly appreciate the info. I'll check back here often.

R

Just saw this on Filemakers site:

http://filemaker.com/support/leopard.html

November 19th? NO mention of previous versons compatibility which is what I need to know.

Edited October 26, 2007 by Guest

[Genx]

There apparently won't be any support for previous versions: http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/190897/post/270668/#270668

I'd suggest you just convert your soln to FM 9, and publish it - just provide a different download for your clients.

[ricardito]

Thanks for the link but providing another download isn't so simple with a runtime solution.

So, an Apple owned company has not even tested previous versions of their software for the next great Apple OS.

Exactly what part of a new high profile release from Apple did they not get? Were they caught by surprise regarding the delivery date?

They make this announcement one day ahead of it's release. Anyone else find all of this just a little strange?

Edited October 26, 2007 by Guest

[wintergreen]

I just got bitten by this. Installed Leopard on my macbook pro and everything works great. load FMP9 and go to open a file... everything crashes. After reading the note on the website I now have to have the Mac's region set to US rather than UK. Shouldn't be too big of a deal i hope as i've customised everything back to UK settings anyway.

[ricardito]

Just got off the phone with Filemaker. They said that they don't know if someone installs Leopard if a runtime will work or not.

This is great. I have almost 300 clients that have purchased the Mac version in the last 11 years and about 2/3 of them in the last 2 years (I guess Mac's are becoming more popular). So this weekend I could conceivably have any number of people who simply can't use their business software anymore.

Perhaps I'm being paranoid and all will be well but the fact that I have to worry about this is unbelievable. I guess after 6 I'll drop to one knee and bow my head. According to Filemaker there is no other option.

[Lee Smith]

It's called the bleading edge of technology.

Notify your clients what to expect if they are going to upgrade to 10.5. There was a similar problem when Window released their last operating system too.

I would also send them the links, or copies of the notifications released by FileMaker.

Lee

[ricardito]

One small difference, we knew well in advance that it was not compatible with VISTA.

This last minute crap is what is annoying me.

[Tori Mitchell]

Seems that FMI and Apple Inc. just don't have it all together right now. What's even sillier is that, because FM6-8.5 use the old Win32 MFC classes (depreciated but still there), the Windows clients are still more supported under vista than the Mac clients are under Leo.

With the extreme delays in Leo, I can imagine that FMI did what they could to ensure that they could at least *know* of the issues but, I'll almost guarantee that there was almost no time between the GM build getting to the compiled stage and the Disc going to the press. FMI seems to have gotten the brunt end of the shaft here from Apple, Inc.

As to whether the older versions of FM will work under Leo, we'll have to see. FM6 shouldn't be all that bad to run. 7-8.5 might be a little bigger problem. The fact that they won't even update 8.5 which isn't old at all... eh, I'm really kinda irritated about that as it's still a supported product.

[ricardito]

I couldn't agree more about 8.5. How long will they force us to upgrade by not releasing updates to older versions? Even one generation back? They're guaranteeing cash flow with this business model and I think it sucks big.

Can anybody name one other software company that does this, stops updating their older software as soon as a new one arrives? I can't think of a single one.

[bongo]

i just tried the 10.5 update on an intel imac. beyond the reported issues v8.5 and 9 both crash when trying to open a remote database.

strange enough v8 doesn't crash and seems to work fine. first idea was a bad intel port so i tried 8.5 and 9 also via rosetta. no change, crash on open remote.

:bang:

[Tori Mitchell]

I'm currently running 9 with a PPC mac. Open remote works fine and so does most of the rest of it.

[comment]

I now have to have the Mac's region set to US rather than UK. Shouldn't be too big of a deal i hope as i've customised everything back to UK settings anyway.

Oh, so it does work with a custom region, as long as it's based on US - is that what you're saying?

How about 8.5 and earlier?

[trev hatchett]

i use filemaker every day, have just bought leopard, only to discover filemaker says...

quote:

We are very excited about the release of Leopard... blah blah blah

FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced generally run on Leopard although there are two known issues:

the Instant Web Publishing feature does not work

each language version of FileMaker Pro 9 and FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced works only when the Mac OS System Preference "International Formats Region" is set to a specific region

FileMaker Server 9 and FileMaker Server 9 Advanced currently do not deploy properly on Leopard.

We are working on Leopard compatibility updates for FileMaker Server 9 and FileMaker Server 9 Advanced but do not have an estimated availability date at this time...

We have not tested earlier (pre-FileMaker 9) versions of FileMaker software on Mac OS X Leopard and do not intend to release updates for earlier versions.

wtf

[longterm_solutions]

So, an Apple owned company has not even tested previous versions of their software for the next great Apple OS.

Exactly what part of a new high profile release from Apple did they not get? Were they caught by surprise regarding the delivery date?

They make this announcement one day ahead of it's release. Anyone else find all of this just a little strange?

My guess would be that FMI was hoping that it wouldn't be necessary to report this incompatibility, that the problem wouldn't manifest itself in a final release of Leopard; they may have had no way to know for sure if the incompatibility would still exist in the final release.

At any rate, a few weeks is not the end of the world; how long do users wait for updates to big applications when they don't work with new versions of major OS releases? This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened--Photoshop would be a perfect example.

As a software developer and FileMaker consultant, my opinion is that it is incumbent upon me to stay current with new OS releases, and must update his software regularly to keep current. This applies to runtimes as well as other types of applications.

For my clients who have purchased runtimes from me, I will post a notice on my website, advising my clients that their FileMaker runtimes will not work with Leopard, and that an update will be forthcoming as soon as possible. If users jump on a new OS release with the first couple of weeks of its release, they run the normal risks that early-adopters always face. If this presents a problem for them, they should have done their homework before installing Leopard. They could have read in a hundred places that there is a compatibility problem between Leopard and FileMaker Pro.

Bob Patin

Longterm Solutions

[email protected]

615-333-6858

http://www.longtermsolutions.com

Member of FileMaker Business Alliance and FileMaker TechNet

CONTACT US VIA INSTANT MESSAGING:

AIM or iChat: longterm1954

Yahoo: longterm_solutions

MSN: [email protected]

ICQ: 159333060

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Edited October 27, 2007 by Guest

[ricardito]

"I will post a notice on my website, advising my clients that their FileMaker runtimes will not work with Leopard, and that an update will be forthcoming as soon as possible."

Thanks so much for that info. I would never had thought of doing such a thing. What a nice person.

The point is that it's one day notice on a Friday. My clients don't come to my web site everyday (or month for that matter) so they won't see it. So a weekend for them to go and install Leopard and have their software fail and be real po'd come Monday morning.

You people that are offering up possible reasons for why this happened ain't selling me. My clients could read in a hundred places? You have no idea what my client base is and I can tell you it's not technical. They ain't reading it anywhere and if they did they wouldn't connect my solution, which has it's own name, to Filemaker.

You may be the forgiving type but I'm not. This is bs. They haven't even TESTED earlier versions according to their "notice". How did they manage to miss testing earlier version?

I've seen shareware advertised as being Leopard compatible.

It's owned by Apple for crying out loud.

[xoomaster]

I think it can be summerized as "Poor management" !

There is great, new technology in itunes ( another DB ) that can be carried and used and replicated in FMP products. There seems to be a disconnect between Apple and FMP. This is kind of sad . I have mentioned this before, FMP is not keeping up with Apple

What happend to sharing technology ? What happend to testing FMP with Apple OS before releasing it to the market ? It just does't make sense. It hurts if you have many clients who would be at best shocked of incompatability between Apple OS and FM product !

[wintergreen]

Oh, so it does work with a custom region, as long as it's based on US - is that what you're saying?

How about 8.5 and earlier?

I don't have an 8.5 license to try it out any more, but to answer your other question, yes as long as it's based on the US region it's fine. I'm just really glad I installed Leopard on my laptop before rolling it out onto the other machines. Now I'll have to hold off until November 20th.

What really sucks about this is that pretty much every other piece of software I've got installed seemed to be able to get their s*** together in time for the leopard release. I can't believe FM weren't aware of the problems way in advance. Vista was a completely different story: no-one expected anything to work out of the box, in part because they made such fundamental changes to the way everything worked (User Access Control anyone?)

If Firefox, Quicksilver and other free widespread apps can release updates in time, why can't filemaker? Um perhaps for the same reason that they release a server version which crashed repeatedly until it was patched some 6 months later.

[wintergreen]

Ok I just saw this: http://www.macrumors.com/2007/10/26/apple-seeds-mac-os-x-leopard-9a851-to-developers/

so I take it back about FM dragging their feet.

[comment]

Thanks.

[ricardito]

another disgruntled developer

http://www.filemakermagazine.com/blogs/editor/filemaker-falls-behind.html

here's the best case scenario:

8.5 runtime installs and works fine in leopard. great!

still, i MUST buy 9 then even though i've only had 8.5 for just under a year.

i just can't kvetch enough about that (as you can tell!).

[Andreas T.]

Just so you know, the developers at Filemaker must have known about these issues for a long time as Filemaker is guaranteed to be on the early distribution list of all Leopard builds that are made available to the developer community.

And there has been several such builds, not to mention the almost finished preview build that every attendee got this June at Apple Developer Conference.

This is assuming that the Filemaker developers test their products, which I expect they do.

So I suppose this is just sloppy quality control and poor management.

[Cortical]

I think it is pitiful. Was it just blinkered parochialism not thinking to check if something as basic as English language system setting didn't work for anything other than US? Or just sheer incompetence?

My clients who have purchased FMS and invested in a chunk of FMP licences earlier this year, are seriously unimpressed at being forced to upgrade to 9, as a result of adoption of Leopard in the coming months.

FMS and FMSA 'currently do not deploy properly on Leopard', not deploying 'properly' means they do not deploy; in the real world.

IWP doesn't work at all?

The last major version 8.5 not supported?; you arrogant bunch of minions in marketing need jettisoning.

Get your priorities right FMI, focus on devoting resources to the fundamentals, and stop fantasising about market supremacy; you currently don't have what it takes.

[Vaughan]

"I think it is pitiful. Was it just blinkered parochialism not thinking to check if something as basic as English language system setting didn't work for anything other than US?"

I think it was John Cleese that observed that when the British hold a "World Series" they actually invite other countries to compete in it.

Please keep your comments civilised. Several of the FMI technicians post regularly to the TechNet forums, and they seem very dedicated, intelligent and competent. Enough to be able to hold a conversation without embarassing themselves.

Remember the Duck Principle: there is more going on that cannot be seen from above.

[Genx]

Please keep your comments civilized. Several of the FMI technicians post regularly to the TechNet forums, and they seem very dedicated, intelligent and competent. Enough to be able to hold a conversation without embarrassing themselves.

I'm sure there's nothing wrong with the developers or the marketer's - They're great at what they do. I mean the marketing team managed to somehow portray 8.5 as an entirely new version of FileMaker. Unfortunately, what "they" do is directed by FMI. If FMI tells them to take shortcuts in testing, they take shortcuts in testing... and FMI like Apple have very odd ideas about what constitutes customer support.

Apple for example assumes that any fault in their products could not possibly be hardware defects caused by faulty manufacturing or design and blames everything wrong with the products on the customer refusing to cover anything under warrantee (lol, bad experience sorry) and FileMaker's support system is virtually useless:

There is no communication about known issues to the support staff who seem to know virtually nothing anyway except maybe how to direct people to the cd tray in a pc or mac so they can tell them to re-install FileMaker, or even the whole OS, and the support for their products (which retail for the same amount as an OS, and VLA again for roughly the same amount) ceases at the release of a new version. It's like their trained to say click start, run, now type format C: that should fix all your problems ahahahaha - remember when that used to work. C:/DOS C:/DOS/RUN RUN/DOS/RUN! (i apologize).

It's like what would happen if Microsoft stopped supporting windows XP immediately after it released Vista. The fact is not everyone has adopted v9 - it was introduced barely 2 or 3 months ago - and given that FM charges the same amount for their db as apple and Microsoft charge for their OS's, i think its only fair that the standard 5 year support period be provided (well that's what Microsoft gives anyway).

[Cortical]

I was very deliberately 'keeping my comments civilised'.

Whilst I am sure that there are people from FMI "that seem dedicated, intelligent and competent' , I am quite certain that there are people within FMI that actually are 'dedicated, intelligent and competent'.

FMI performance on this occasion, is not a manifestation of those qualities however.

[Fancytricks]

Hi There,

This is a very simple issue...

Change the International settings in system preferences, formats to US. open filemaker then change it back to the UK..

easy as that! They are coming out with a fix on the 18th of Nov

[ricardito]

"Please keep your comments civilised."

How on earth is questioning a company relevant to those who work there?

This is pitiful and Filemaker's lack of support for 3rd party developers is pitiful and Filemaker's pricing scheme is pitiful (why is every new added feature a full price upgrade? 5.5 to 6? 8 to 8.5? Ridiculous).

When was the last time Filemaker released an updater for the runtime?

Why do we have to pay to be listed with them?

The list goes on.

I don't know how any person who works for Filemaker could find these remarks about the company uncivilized. It's not directed at them. It's FMI's policies that are being questioned, and for good reason.

"My clients who have purchased FMS and invested in a chunk of FMP licences earlier this year, are seriously unimpressed at being forced to upgrade to 9, as a result of adoption of Leopard in the coming months."

And rightly so. I'm going to have to fork over yet again for more upgrades that don't warrent the asking price. Imagine this guys clients and what they're going to have to fork over.

[Genx]

Lol, I was going to put "powered by FileMaker" on sites powered by FM, but then I remembered that we don't really get any support from FMI so I shouldn't really feel obliged to advertise them.

[Andreas T.]

Filemaker responded quickly to this issue.

An updater is already available to sort out the most serious issues.

http://www.filemaker.com/support/leopard.html

Cheers,

Andreas

[Greg O'Connor]

The last major version 8.5 not supported?; you arrogant bunch of minions in marketing need jettisoning.

Get your priorities right FMI, focus on devoting resources to the fundamentals, and stop fantasising about market supremacy; you currently don't have what it takes.

I am very happy to have found this thread and I am excited to second Cortial's contribution. There is a real world out there where performane is required. It is just 'not on' as a major developer of database software such as FileMaker to show such a lack of preparation. Where has the FileMaker Inc quality gone?

Talking about 'civilised': FileMaker Inc are showing that they just lost it. In business we read 'indications' of their behaviour, and this here as a result is more than bad attitude. Something is very wrong with it. I am stunned about people who are not criticizing FileMaker Inc but rather defending them.

If we do not raise our hands when those misconducts (like the lack of preparation for a major OS upgrade) happen, then we are allowing FileMaker Inc to even further to decrease performance, and we as clients and user will loose out more and more. Just have a look to the MS world, it happend there before.

I hope we are not all 'yes sayers'.

Cheers

Greg

[Genx]

LOL @ minions, i love it.

I have to admit though, I don't think i've seen anyone actually say yes in this thread, or elsewhere and though I do defend FileMaker up to around 2 months following an OS release, I do not by any means agree with their: "support the latest released version brought out 3 months ago even though we could patch the previous version which is built on essentially the same architecture which is primarily shown in the exhibition of the exact same bugs"... policy, which seems to me thickheaded beyond belief.

Even Vaughan was just defending the Techies.