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    Anne S
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Poll: how often does your Congo crash?

Hi guys,
What's the crash rate for your Congos? My facility has two [both v4.2.1], so my impression of frequent crashes may be misleading me and I'd love to hear about other people's mileage. 
This is what I can lay my hands on right now, I'm pretty sure there have been a few more:

9/23/06
9/26/06
11/7/06
1/3/07 [hang]
1/9/07
1/25/07 [3 times]
4/14/07
4/15/07
4/28/07
4/29/07
6/9/07

Does this jive with your own experiences? 


Parents
  • Hi Anne,

    I think it's a little bit inappropriate to post something like this on an open forum. A lot of perspective users/buyers may be turned off by Congo by reading this post. As an owner of two congos (one sr, one jr) I have never run into this amount of crashing and may be something unique to your system. I would suggest you contact ETC directly and have them look at your system.

    Mike Zinman
  • in reply to mzinman
    mzinman:
    Hi Anne,

    I think it's a little bit inappropriate to post something like this on an open forum. A lot of perspective users/buyers may be turned off by Congo by reading this post. As an owner of two congos (one sr, one jr) I have never run into this amount of crashing and may be something unique to your system. I would suggest you contact ETC directly and have them look at your system.

    Mike Zinman

    Mike,
    Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but I don't believe my question is inappropriate at all. It is a simple request for information from the wider Congo-using community so that I can place my own issues in the proper context. From a user's forum I expect to learn about the experiences of other users in the field; and your own response--"I have never run into this amount of crashing"--is exactly the kind of thing I need to find out, namely, is my experience unusual? According to you, it is, which is a) a relief, because I like the Congo, and b) helpful, because it should mean, as you say, that something unique to my system is causing it. This is important. 

    I'm not concerned with turning off potential buyers because I'm not selling the Congo.  Perhaps potential buyers would be more turned on to hear that 99% of the Congos in the world work perfectly and as long as I've got the karma suck out here in the Midwest, any Congo they purchase will be bombproof. 

    And Richard, I have been running 4.2.1 because when 4.2.0 came out, also including improved functionality and upgrades, it crashed frequently for me both in performance and in programming and it hamstrung Backup Sync, so my 2nd Congo couldn't act as a safety net. For me, software upgrades are a two-edged sword. Obviously 4.3 should fix some stability problems, but will it fix mine? and which ones will it open up?  I've been hanging on until our season ends--basically today--so that I can upgrade to 4.3 and wring through it on my own time while the facility is dark and I do maintenance. Call me gunshy, if you want, but it was a bad autumn for me and my clients after 4.20, and I've been hoping to hear what other users report about 4.30's stability. (Which is why I posted the question on May 4, asking for opinions. 2 so far, thanks Jen and Mat!) 

    I don't know why you guys assume I haven't contacted tech support? As anyone should, when a crash happens I always send showfile, system logs and the best description I can of what was happening at the time, and I always get a prompt and courteous response. 
  • in reply to Anne S

    Sorry - I didn't mean to imply that you didn't contact Tech Support!

    I try to post here in fairly general ways when possible, so that the information will hopefully be useful to more than just the original poster - I always think it's much better if you can just search the forum and find the answers you're looking for, than have to post a question and wait for the answer.

    Thanks for your comments on your reasoning for waiting a while before applying the upgrade - it does make a lot of sense to wait for a short hiatus before making the leap as the extra features and changes may take a little while to get used to.

Reply
  • in reply to Anne S

    Sorry - I didn't mean to imply that you didn't contact Tech Support!

    I try to post here in fairly general ways when possible, so that the information will hopefully be useful to more than just the original poster - I always think it's much better if you can just search the forum and find the answers you're looking for, than have to post a question and wait for the answer.

    Thanks for your comments on your reasoning for waiting a while before applying the upgrade - it does make a lot of sense to wait for a short hiatus before making the leap as the extra features and changes may take a little while to get used to.

Children
  • in reply to Richard
    No worries Richard; in fact Anders and Ben do assure me that some, at least, of the problems I experience should be taken care of in 4.3, which is, of course, why they go to all the trouble to write the upgrades to begin with. But upgrading is a risk-assessment game we all play depending on our situation, and we've just happened to be at a better point in our production schedule to hunker down and wait than to, er, boldly go where no one has gone before. 
  • in reply to Anne S

    Hi Anne-

     I completely understand your crash problems.  We were in  a similar situation or maybe much worse and there were some dark days.  However, all is well now. (Knock on wood)  What we discovered was that our crashes were origonally related to a problem with the Client software.  The client crashes then left other problems in the console software that led to more crashes.  (I'm sure someone from ETC may be able to better explain this.)  After much investigating on ETCs part this has been fixed and we are now up and running quite nicely; file server, client and all.  I'm a big fan 4.3 and it's fixes, and I'm looking forward to some of the added features in 4.4

  • in reply to Mat
    Thanks very much Mat! My boss has been wondering if our file server/client connection might be relevant, as our particular configuration is apparently not what's shipping now. Do you might if I quote your post next time I talk to the service folk? 

    I'm mid-upgrade right now; 4.30 in one room and 4.2.1 in the other. It's probably well worth checking into any similarities, in case there's any damage to the older board, before upgrading it as well. 


  • in reply to Anne S

    No go ahead and let them know you think you're problems are similar to what was happening at the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis.  I think we are among the few places out there using the client but it makes a great designers display.  In the mean time we did have improved stability when we disconnected the file server and the client.  We were also mid production when 4.3 came out and decided to wait until the show closed to upgrade.  We did a complete format and reinstall as part of our upgrade to 4.3.

     Good luck,
    Mat

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