Experiences so far with FM 12 - Somewhat Problematic

[josebetzy]

I rarely write, mostly read and learn. Have been using FM since 7. Currently using FM12 Pro, Pro Advanced, Advanced Server. All are up to date. Actually never had any version prior to FM 12 crash. Now am experiencing unexpected crashing, slow responce when simply navigating to another layout and many other anomalies that we never experienced before. This happens in XP-Pro, Windows 7.

 

What is disconcerning is we moved three big clients (50 licenses two of them and 25 the other) to FM 12.  We now spend more time trying to figure out why the sporadic crashing, slowness at times and just wierd anomales. Obviously FM 12 is quite unstable at this point in time. We now look at this as unreliable and are thinking of moving over to another platform before selling any more. Perhaps we are precipitating. We have written Filemaker directly but no response. That in itself is a concern.

 

There is no doubt that FM12 has many great features, looks great. But reliability is our chief concern, more so with so many clients and several big ones awaiting. We just do not have the time nor the expertise to figure out why.

 

I did not post any of the screen crashes because we see them in all of our clients and am pretty sure you all have seen them.

 

Filemaker Pro.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

 

This recent one using FM12 ProAdvanced while making changes: 

 

AppName: filemaker pro advanced.exe AppVer: 12.0.3.328 ModName: dbengine.dll

ModVer 12.0.3.914 Offset: 0001a615

 

We have read many of the threads, performed many of the suggestions, rebuilt, recovered, etc. etc.

 

Hopefully a solution comes out shortly.

 

I thank greatly this Forum. It is because of this forum that we have been so succesful implementing and using Filemaker so far.

 

[Ocean West]

Some things to think about:

• Ok, have you ensured all machines are updated to current versions of OS including all patches and updates.
• have you investigated all issues related to Java.
• are you using any plugins from third parties - are they current?
• have you removed outdated plugins from both locations on the machines.
• Is this solution converted or developed from scratch in 12?
• Do layouts contain placed graphics ( sometimes can be cause of corruption )
• have you done an inventory of ROUTERS & SWITCHES and ETHERNET cables  how old are they?

You mention you may consider another platform? - that seems just a bit drastic. As I am sure you may have hundreds of development hours invested that

may never be recovered, and translated into another platform.

 

plus the tandem development effort to build another solution alongside existing solution, and the necessary bug testing and fitness testing. 

 

Have you telephoned your FileMaker Systems Engineer? perhaps they can assist you directly when in your area to review logs and to determine

if its the solution or the deployment. I have gone on a goose chase myself with random crashing (pre 12) and after we replaced some hardware

switches & cables the deployment became stable and solid. 

 

If you find it in your budget perhaps you could install a temporary properly prepared server machine to start isolating from the top down to see

if the problem could be hardware / software specific.

 

I am sure you tried many of these but wanted to throw some more ideas your way.

[josebetzy]

Thanks for the kind advice. Yes it is a bit drastic to change over. Perhaps it is just the frustration of the moment.

We use no plug-ins and never have. This current application is a conversion from 7 to 8 and so on to 12.

There are close to 135 tables with an average of 100 fields per table.

We had removed all graphics except our corporate logo which appears on the opening menu only.

With FM12, external graphics is really not needed (our opinion).  FM12 offers excellent options for pretty inter-phases.

 

Thinking about equipment, the one pretty stable client is the one we ourselves installed a Dell server, switches, etc.

Even the cabling one of our own did the work.

But in all others they installed their own equipment. In Spanish there is an old saying that never fails (lo barato sale caro).

Translated... buying cheap becomes very expensive.

 

We have followed up with our customers regarding updates be installed, correct service packs for the OS, reliable switches be used, etc.

In fact, we always check and review during sale phase to make sure that it will run. During this phase we check and make recommendations. But budgets are tight and we install anyway and as time goes by we always try to have them upgrade to quality equipment.

 

The issue with Java is one that we are now beginning to follow up on and that has seemed to normalize and minimize crashes.

Also, we found out that certain HP laser print drivers are causing random crashes from any program.

It is tough at times to tell someone that using Word on a single PC is as basic as you can get, but deploying a complex application to so many users, departments and within Windows is truly complex and challenging.

 

But, we will continue since we have so much invested.