I wanted to buy Scalix.

[joako]

How can Scalix be the most mature with error messages such as "See doc XYZ" yes it said to see "DOC XYZ" in some error messages.

This was an oversight in a early version of Scalix 11 and has been fixed in 11.1 or 11.2, so you won't see that message with current software.

[/quote]

What an oversight. I am running 11.1 and the error is still there. How is your firm not conducting extensive QA testing before each release? Upgrade to 11.2 sure but I have no clue how to do it. I don't understand why SuSE 10.1 support is dropped (#1) and my SAC doesn't work (#2) I ran the installer again and reconfigured everything as someone suggested and that didn't help either.

How can Scalix be the most mature with no documentation on how it works? No KB to look up error messages.

Which specific error message are you talking about?

I'll have to dig those up. But the doc XYZ error is one... have 100% of your users upgraded to 11.2? Why isnt that in your knowlegebase?

And we call Scalix and ask for help you send us to some company in Canada that wants to charge us $2000 to get it working? We have our own administrator you just need to tell him how your software works.

What exact type of help did you request?

Help regarding the fragile balance of all the Scalix components.

IMO Scalix is very fragile.

Sorry, but if one makes statements/accusations like that (especially in wording as above), one should please also include the meat and the actual content of the problem and we'll look into it and will solve it.

IMO is a common acronym in the English language that means "in my opinion." Too many problems I've had with changing the hostname or IP address of the server. I changed an IP address on the server... but both are still on the system... and SAC just breaks. I've read all the doucmentation including two of your Wiki pages and have yet to figure it out.

It would be nice if you could get all your configuration into ONE config file not 50 as it currently is I think this will solve half the problems.

I've seen both completely useless and undocumented error messages in products published by Microsoft (which is the world's largest software company?) and have had much larger quotes for very little from people dealing with other products.

I've been able to solve 98 maybe 99% of Microsoft issues by typing in the error messages into support.microsoft.com, I actually fixed the sync issue with my WM device just the other day by looking up the error in that fashion. I was having problems watching videos on netflix.com and I fixed my problem by searching the "Support code" provided with the error message.

I've been able to solve only 1-5% of my Scalix issues in the same fashion.

I've found the "Samsung Contact Technical Reference Guide" to be a better resource in regards to my Scalix issue. Too bad many of the openmail features/commands have been removed in Scalix. But this is the sort of documentation we need. Something you could give to a sysadmin and then never see it again. I guess you are just trying to make revenue on selling support.

I'm very willing to look into what problems you have and see if they can ge resolved in a professional and reasonable way, but please let's stick with hard facts first, and not contribute to global warming by spreading FUD.

Cheers,
Florian.

FUD? I am recounting my experience after using and supporting Scalix for almost a year.

"Unexpected sync error type 2": viewtopic.php?t=8791&highlight=

SOAP27: viewtopic.php?t=9276&highlight=

Expire the user's password, and don't tell them: viewtopic.php?t=8986&highlight=

Outlook connector is flaky:
viewtopic.php?t=8770&highlight=

OM XXXX errors are not documented:
viewtopic.php?t=7885&highlight=

HTTP links in SWA mostly broken:
viewtopic.php?t=8018&highlight=

SWA search never worked, even on a fresh install:
viewtopic.php?t=8027&highlight=

I'm trying to dig up an email you sent me but I can't. Outlook is hanging

3:35:25 PM ================================================================
3:35:25 PM =============== Scalix Cache Manager Log =======================
3:35:25 PM Synchronization started 12/9/2007 3:35:25 PM for sclx-protean
3:35:25 PM ================================================================

3:35:25 PM Connecting to Scalix server...
3:35:25 PM Connected

Well it was 3:42 when I closed outlook it was just hung. "New mail has arrived. Would you like to read it now" I can not click yes or no in that box.

"Microsoft Visiual C++ Runtime Library

Runtime Error!

Program c:\PROGRA~1\Scalix\Connect\SXCacheMgr.exe

R6025
- pure virtual function call"

Let me spend 10 minutes digging it up because SWA search doesn't work.... well I can't find the email due to technical issues... but you said you were going to help me or get me to someone that can help. This was some time in July, if I am not mistaken.

[joako]

Here's another one I was just typing an email in SWA and it popped up:

"Warning; unresponsive script. A script on this page may be buys, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will respond"

Usually I only get that error when I am manipulating large mailboxes. E.g.: deleting 500 messages in a mailbox with 5,000 message.

[florian]

What an oversight. I am running 11.1 and the error is still there. How is your firm not conducting extensive QA testing before each release?

Well, as a matter of fact we put more than you work in a year (equal 1 man year) in QA testing into every release. In addition, we dogfood our software internally for quite a long time.

The error you are referring to is a really rare case and very few users or customers have ever seen it; it appeared when you delete a SmartCache cache profile from your Windows computer while no connection to the Scalix server was available. The bug is documented as fixed in the Scalix 11.2 release notes, available as http://downloads.scalix.com/.community/ ... html#fixed

Upgrade to 11.2 sure but I have no clue how to do it. I don't understand why SuSE 10.1 support is dropped (#1)

Well, again, reading the doc is a good place to start. From The same release notes document:

Note: Fedora 7 and OpenSuSE 10.2 are supported for evaluation purposes only; these are generally less suitable for production environments than their "enterprise" counterparts due to their frequent updates and short release cycles

We've always made it clear that we don't consider operating system distributions which change 2-3 times a year suitable for a corporate email system - this is typically designed to last longer. We simply cannot afford to support too many distributions, as we do QA testing on each and every one of them - and we'd like to focus on things that are relevant. Therefore, for those eval-only distros we only support one and update it once in a while. I've decided against replacing Fedora 7 with Fedora 8 and openSUSE 10.2 with openSUSE 10.3 for Scalix 11.3, for some more continuity, but I'm sure some F8 and OS10.2 fans will not be pleased with this decision. We will, however, introduce initial support for CentOS 4 and 5 with Scalix 11.3, to have a more stable and consistent platform for those who want a free, no-cost Linux distro yet want to build a production system with Scalix.

Reading your other post in viewtopic.php?p=43212#43212 I am now somewhat surprised. First you ask us to do thorough QA, then you recommend other people in that thread to use a unsupported and untested software and OS combination. That doesn't go together too well with asking for stability, IMHO. I've added a comment to that effect to that thread.

and my SAC doesn't work (#2)

What exactly does not work in your SAC?

I'll have to dig those up. But the doc XYZ error is one... have 100% of your users upgraded to 11.2? Why isnt that in your knowlegebase?

Well, I guess I've responded to that one. It isn't in the knowledgebase because nobody has contacted support about that one yet.

What exact type of help did you request?

Help regarding the fragile balance of all the Scalix components.

Well, I assume someone didn't give you a quote on a request with just that statement on it, right? Again, what particular topic were you talking about and what was quoted?

Too many problems I've had with changing the hostname or IP address of the server. I changed an IP address on the server... but both are still on the system... and SAC just breaks. I've read all the doucmentation including two of your Wiki pages and have yet to figure it out.

Well, have you ever tried to change a hostname or IP address on a system running an Oracle database or a SAP server, certainly two of the most mature applications in the world. It's a total PITA with all larger server apps, unfortunately that includes ours as well. The Wiki doc is a starting point, it sounds like you've some problems with your Apache virtual host config, but that's only a guess until someone looks at your system. I think we can cover this help in the scope of a standard support incident/case, if you really need some.

It would be nice if you could get all your configuration into ONE config file not 50 as it currently is I think this will solve half the problems.

Sure, it would be - but this is a system that has been built over more than 15 years of time and with maturity comes some complexity. We're trying to make some of that easier and I think in some areas we've succeeded, in some areas there is work left to do. I for my part would not want to go back to the OpenMail or Samsung days, and I've worked with both.

However, having cleartext config files is still better than systems like your typical Microsoft product where most config data is stored in binary files, the registry, some database, Active Directory or a combination thereof. At least, here it's all ASCII.

I've been able to solve 98 maybe 99% of Microsoft issues by typing in the error messages into support.microsoft.com, I actually fixed the sync issue with my WM device just the other day by looking up the error in that fashion. I was having problems watching videos on netflix.com and I fixed my problem by searching the "Support code" provided with the error message.

I've been able to solve only 1-5% of my Scalix issues in the same fashion.

That doesn't say that there are some you can't resolve. Have you actually tried Google for Scalix? This has been highly successful for me and some customers. We can't beat Microsoft with amount of information available, however, I believe once we get close to their market share, that will be fixed as well.

I've found the "Samsung Contact Technical Reference Guide" to be a better resource in regards to my Scalix issue. Too bad many of the openmail features/commands have been removed in Scalix.

Which OpenMail feature/command has been removed from Scalix? I'm aware of very little and that would rather refer to the old webmail client, the old Windows-3.1-based PC-OMADMIN and the infamous "omgui" email client. Other examples?

But this is the sort of documentation we need. Something you could give to a sysadmin and then never see it again. I guess you are just trying to make revenue on selling support.

I would guesstimate that there is more information on Scalix available today than there ever was for those systems; however, given that we've probably added a good 50-100 man years of development time to the system in the meanwhile, it's grown quite a bit, functionality level is different and so that's very natural. There are a few things that could be better documented, and we're always working on improving the docs as well, but all in all I think there is a lot you can get. These forums are invaluable as well.

FUD? I am recounting my experience after using and supporting Scalix for almost a year.

"Unexpected sync error type 2": viewtopic.php?t=8791&highlight=

Have personally never seen this one, please contact support, this needs to be investigated.

SOAP27: viewtopic.php?t=9276&highlight=

As mentioned in my response in this thread, some occurrences fixed in 11.2 and finally wrapped up some more in 11.3.

Expire the user's password, and don't tell them: viewtopic.php?t=8986&highlight=

Point taken, at least against SAC there is a bug logged for this already, not sure if it's closed yet.

Outlook connector is flaky:
viewtopic.php?t=8770&highlight=

Thread is missing Outlook connector version information. Can't comment.

OM XXXX errors are not documented:
viewtopic.php?t=7885&highlight=

All occurrences mentioned in the thread fixed in 11.2. Engineer discussed cause of the error. The two errors mentioned specifically were of the generic "unknown" error type that can occur when there is memory corruption, which seems to have been the root cause. Also, the thread discusses the "omsolve" command that provides for more information in some cases where the error message is not self-explaining. I think that's a very good thread, actually.

HTTP links in SWA mostly broken:
viewtopic.php?t=8018&highlight=

Firefox issue, some error deep in their renderer. Never happens with IE6 or IE7. I'm a Firefox user, too, what's funny is that it typically happens only for the first click after a browser start. When I do it later, it magically works. So far, we only know that the same JavaScript code does different things at times with Firefox - believe there is a bug logged against it, but we haven't had the chance to start digging into Firefox source code to find the reason of this.

SWA search never worked, even on a fresh install:
viewtopic.php?t=8027&highlight=

I believe this has never occurred again with 11.2 or even with 11.1.

3:35:25 PM ================================================================
3:35:25 PM =============== Scalix Cache Manager Log =======================
3:35:25 PM Synchronization started 12/9/2007 3:35:25 PM for sclx-protean
3:35:25 PM ================================================================

3:35:25 PM Connecting to Scalix server...
3:35:25 PM Connected

What version of Outlook (including Patchlevel, please), Scalix Connect and Windows is this?

Let me spend 10 minutes digging it up because SWA search doesn't work.... well I can't find the email due to technical issues... but you said you were going to help me or get me to someone that can help. This was some time in July, if I am not mistaken.

Assume you just CC:'d me on that email of yours to Rich? I wonder what happened there and I'm certain to bug him as well for not following up, if he hasn't.

Florian.

[florian]

Here's another one I was just typing an email in SWA and it popped up:

"Warning; unresponsive script. A script on this page may be buys, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will respond"

Usually I only get that error when I am manipulating large mailboxes. E.g.: deleting 500 messages in a mailbox with 5,000 message.

Again - what version of SWA is it and what browser and version? For Firefox, there is a JScript timeout that needs to be increased to support some long-running operations, however, deleting 500 messages should go fast enough that that doesn't matter.

Florian.

[joako]

The error you are referring to is a really rare case and very few users or customers have ever seen it; it appeared when you delete a SmartCache cache profile from your Windows computer while no connection to the Scalix server was available. The bug is documented as fixed in the Scalix 11.2 release notes, available as http://downloads.scalix.com/.community/ ... html#fixed

It seems to happen to me 100% of the time when I am deleting a profile in Outlook. Then again I only have to delete the profile when the connector goes flaky and stuff decides not to update, etc.

Upgrade to 11.2 sure but I have no clue how to do it. I don't understand why SuSE 10.1 support is dropped (#1)

Well, again, reading the doc is a good place to start. From The same release notes document:

Note: Fedora 7 and OpenSuSE 10.2 are supported for evaluation purposes only; these are generally less suitable for production environments than their "enterprise" counterparts due to their frequent updates and short release cycles

Support for SuSE 10.1 is dropped. I asked on the forum and don't recall getting an answer. How to upgrade the operating system and Scalix? Or if I just want to setup a RHEL or SLES box what is the procedure? Install SLES and then Scalix and then copy a certain folder over and everything will be as it was left? Install SLES then Scalix 11.1 then copy the mystery folder over and then upgrade??? Is there a full export / import option so I can just click (or type) export on one machine then when I get scalix on the other just click import????

[

and my SAC doesn't work (#2)

What exactly does not work in your SAC?

It does not work at all. Last time I tried to login it just does not accept the login says userid or pw is invalid. TOday I try again I get a Error 503 from Apache. SWA works fine. The Mobile client will show up but not accept the username or password... always says its invalid.

Too many problems I've had with changing the hostname or IP address of the server. I changed an IP address on the server... but both are still on the system... and SAC just breaks. I've read all the doucmentation including two of your Wiki pages and have yet to figure it out.

Well, have you ever tried to change a hostname or IP address on a system running an Oracle database or a SAP server, certainly two of the most mature applications in the world. It's a total PITA with all larger server apps, unfortunately that includes ours as well. The Wiki doc is a starting point, it sounds like you've some problems with your Apache virtual host config, but that's only a guess until someone looks at your system. I think we can cover this help in the scope of a standard support incident/case, if you really need some.

It would be nice if you could get all your configuration into ONE config file not 50 as it currently is I think this will solve half the problems.

Sure, it would be - but this is a system that has been built over more than 15 years of time and with maturity comes some complexity. We're trying to make some of that easier and I think in some areas we've succeeded, in some areas there is work left to do. I for my part would not want to go back to the OpenMail or Samsung days, and I've worked with both.

However, having cleartext config files is still better than systems like your typical Microsoft product where most config data is stored in binary files, the registry, some database, Active Directory or a combination thereof. At least, here it's all ASCII.

I see many variable such as hostname, IP adress, etc that are used constantly. Any variable used in any configuration file should only be used ONCE. Your current setup there is great potential for someone to mess up (probably what is going on in my setup) by placing different IP or hostname in different files.

There should be ONE place where to define:
hostname
IP address
etc
etc

Those config files can still be plaintext. There is no reason not to simply it.

I've been able to solve 98 maybe 99% of Microsoft issues by typing in the error messages into support.microsoft.com, I actually fixed the sync issue with my WM device just the other day by looking up the error in that fashion. I was having problems watching videos on netflix.com and I fixed my problem by searching the "Support code" provided with the error message.

I've been able to solve only 1-5% of my Scalix issues in the same fashion.

That doesn't say that there are some you can't resolve. Have you actually tried Google for Scalix? This has been highly successful for me and some customers. We can't beat Microsoft with amount of information available, however, I believe once we get close to their market share, that will be fixed as well.




I could go on forever but right now if you could just tell me how to get to the latest Scalix version maybe that will fix all the issues?

[florian]

For moving to another OS, I would typically recommend the following procecure:

1. use the same hostname and IP address as before. That saves you a lot of trouble.

2. on the new server, create Linux user and group scalix with the same userid and groupid as before (check /etc/passwd and /etc/group on the old server)

3. with this being done, copy your /var/opt/scalix tree and /etc/opt/scalix tree. Make sure that you use a tool for copying that preserves all file and directory permissions. rsync will work, so will tar or cp when used with the right options. Do not use scp.

Run Scalix Installer. It shoudl recognize that you already have a message store and should install correctly.

If you *have* to change your hostname, delete your queryadmin user on the old system using omdelu -n sxqueryadmin. Then copy over the files, however, before you start the install, delete everything under /etc/opt/scalix with the exception of the instance.cfg config file. Edit this file and fill in the new hostname. Also, delete everything under /var/opt/scalix/?? with the exception of the "s" subdirectory. Then rename /var/opt/scalix/?? to be /var/opt/scalix/XY, where X is the first letter and Y is the last letter in your new hostname. Do the same replacement in instance.cfg. Now run the installer.

A final alternative is to do the sxqueryadmin deletion, but then only copy over /var/opt/scalix/??/s to the new server, however, don't put it under the same location, but in /var/opt/scalix. (this should then have subdirectories like "sys", "user", "data", etc.). Then run your installer. It will move around the directories as it believes it looks at a Scalix 10 directory structure. Make sure you do not copy anything from /etc/opt/scalix in this case.

I agree that configuration could be simpler, however, this is really hard to do with a grown system, that, in addition, is also capable of running in a heavily distributed multi-server environment, where not all the components are kept on the same system and the server needs to know on how to connect them. Flexibility has it's price, unfortunately. Most times you should not have to worry - hostname change is an exception.

I've responded to your SAC question in one of your other threads. I think upgrading to 11.2 is a good starting point for further investigation. Or wait one more week and go to 11.3 directly.

Florian.

[joako]

My upgrade to 11.1 was not too smooth. I'd rather do 11.1 -> 11.2 -> 11.3 in a short period of time to get a better "feel" for what the long term implications of deploying Scalix would be.

I will say with all my problems.... if you just want to set it and forget it and pay someone for support or migrations when needed Scalix is not a bad product.

[florian]

What did you upgrade from when you moved to 11.1.

That's fine. Once you've managed to get to 11.2, platform support will be the same, so you'll be able to do a in-place upgrade using the installer.

The only remaining risk looking at your other thread is your hostname issue, that could become a possible difficulty in the upgrades, so we should get that perfectly straight.

Florian.

[joako]

11.0.something. I basically had to revert some configfiles that the installer changed (that I also had to revert when installing 11.0.x)

[simonasg]

Hello there!

In our country there are no any Scalix reseller, so I contacted scalix website. but there day after day there are no any reaction from Scalix side. Do I need to look for resseler in other coutries (we are IT company, and we want to re-sell Scalix to our customer), o go for another solution (i.e. Open-Xchange)

Simonas, Lithuania

[Stoepsel]

Hello there!

In our country there are no any Scalix reseller, so I contacted scalix website. but there day after day there are no any reaction from Scalix side. Do I need to look for resseler in other coutries (we are IT company, and we want to re-sell Scalix to our customer), o go for another solution (i.e. Open-Xchange)

Simonas, Lithuania

Hello Simonas,

please contact me per mail. christians(at)xandros.com

CU
Christian