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Chad Shackley

Considering a Timeslips upgrade

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I’m hoping someone can give me some advice. I do computer consulting for a law firm. They had been using a very old version of Timeslips (from the ‘90s when it still said Timeslips Corporation). Anyway, they bought a 5-user license of Timeslips 2010. Unfortunately, the person handling their billing at the time was not willing or able to learn a new piece of software so it sat on a shelf.

Fast forward about 5 years and they have new employees and are finally making use of the Timeslips 2010 software. Unfortunately, they no longer have access to the service releases for that product and without them it is buggy as hell. Something goes wrong with it about every day. I think feature-wise Timeslips is going to be their best bet, but it is very tough to convince them to buy more software when their current version runs so poorly.

Is there no way to get access to those older service releases? I realize customer support is expensive, but providing access to service releases that are already written for software that was already paid for seems like a pretty basic level of support. I’m sure they would be willing to upgrade to a newer version if they could see some stability, but it seems like there’s no way to accomplish that with the 2010 version without the service releases.

If anyone has any insight, it would be appreciated.

Chad

Parents Reply Children
  • 0 in reply to Nancy Duhon
    Nancy,

    Thanks for the response. It is a little bit of everything. Multiple times I've gotten all 5 stations up and working simultaneously. Within a few hours to a few days, I will get a call that one or more of the stations stopped working. Sometimes it randomly resolves itself but usually not.

    The most common problem is the message "Another program is accessing your Sage Timeslips database in a way that prevents you from accessing it". This is the most annoying message because on multiple occasions I have gone to every single computer and made sure the install paths are the same drive letter and path. And it will work...for a little while.

    Aside from that, I occasionally see a message about not enough licenses (even though there are). That's fairly easy to resolve. Sometimes there are strange error messages that only show up once and after restarting it shows a different error. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the software on some of the stations, which resolved the problems...for a little while.

    The most frustrating thing is that as far as I know, nobody is doing anything out of the ordinary. They are just opening the program and it is opening a single database on a server. I get it working on all the stations, they will use it for awhile, and for no apparent reason, it will just stop working. I installed Timeslips 2013 for another client years ago with the service releases and they have only had a few minor issues.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    Chad
  • 0 in reply to Chad Shackley
    Are all of the workstations using mapped drives or UNC for the installation path? You can tell by going to help > about Timeslips on each workstation and looking at the path. I have found that some of the newer versions of windows will change the path randomly to UNC, even if you installed using mapped drives. Timeslips is very path sensitive. Best practice, to avoid problems, is to install all machines using UNC path. You can change the path on an individual workstation by going to start > all programs > Timeslips > Station Administrator > options > Change install path. Then browse to the timeslip.cfg file using the UNC path.
  • 0 in reply to Caren2
    Chad, If Nancy doesn't have the service release, I do. Contact me privately with your email address and I can send it.
  • 0 in reply to Caren2
    I have tried it both ways. Initially using drive letters that were all the same. Next time I used UNC on all of the stations. Today I tried the drive letter again.
  • 0 in reply to Caren2
    Thanks Caren, I sent you a private message.
  • 0 in reply to Chad Shackley
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    Yeah, that is really frustrating. Thing is, I don't think the Service Releases are going to do much for your given the symptoms. But it would be easy enough to put them on and see. They are relatively small files, you load them directly on the server copy and then the locals will be prompted the next time they log in to apply to the workstations.

    You could then tell the firm honestly, that we have done everything we could with what they have.

    The version they are running now is a Borland database, utilizing BDE (Borland Database Engine) and Paradox. Admittedly somewhat dated in the technology world. BDE/Paradox is somewhat notorious for being intolerant of subpar network performance. Now, that is subpar in BDE/Paradox's "opinion." Some of that is just (as Caren has said) newer server OSes and networking technology. So, for example, we have seen firms using say v2010, and having no problems. But then they get a new server and see trouble in Timeslips. Well, Timeslips didn't change, the environment did. But they will want Timeslips to be responsible for running in the newer environment. I.e., it couldn't possibly be the new server's "fault," so it must be Timeslips that is the culprit. When in reality it is much more like an incompatibility issue between the two.

    IF they decide to upgrade to v2017, it is a WHOLE different kettle of fish. v2017 uses a completely different database under the hood. It is now a Firebird SQL architecture. Note, not Microsoft SQL, but Firebird (open source) SQL. Which is much more up to date, and true client server. So if you have too much trouble getting v2010 to work, or the service releases don't settle things down, then we would advise upgrading the seven versions old v2010 to the new v2017. Firebird really is the database that you want to be on going forward.

    Hope that helps.

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