Family Historian User Group

Yesterday evening I had an email from Calico Pie telling me that the paragraph problem has been fixed with a link to a new version 7.0.1.1. I down loaded this installer, ran it and it hung on the screen Creating Directories. After an hour I aborted it using Task Manager as no progress was being shown and it indicated not responding. After this FH7 would no longer work. I tried this new installer a few times, all with the same result. I thought I would reinstall FH7 with my original file, but that too failed at the same point. I rebooted, uninstalled FH7 and tried again with the same result. It seems I can longer get FH7 installed on my main laptop. I have replied to Calico Pie but await a response.

Fortunately I have second laptop with FH7 which on so I have not lost anything. I'm not going to try this 'fix' on that as well just in case.

Any ideas why the original installer will no longer work as well would be appreciated.

Update - I have got FH7 back, I had to leave the installer running for a couple of hours. I will try the fix again now and just leave it running.

I also received an email saying that the issue I reported had been fixed. I downloaded the update and ran it on my main and my laptop, in both cases, I was forced into a reboot without warning, luckily, the blue screen was brought up, and I had the option to force close and reboot anyway , or return to Windows, I chose to return to Windows, where I was faced with the do you want to reboot now or later message box from FH. I chose later and the install was completed. Initially, I thought it was because my main desktop computer was awaiting a reboot to install downloaded updates, but when the same thing happened on my Laptop, I assume it is a bug in the FH 7011 installation file. I did reply to my email pointing out the issue.

The issue that I reported (inability to insert a data reference when adding a column on Research Notes window) has been fixed and works perfectly now.

Sadly, the reports issues I have, do not

I left v7.0.1.1. installer running and after 48 minutes including a reboot it completed and I am pleased to say that the paragraph markers seem to be being recognised now. See below. I then saved the report as a pdf but that still saved as a bloated image, ~10mB for a couple of pages. Good progress and a quick response from Calico Pie, may be they will work on the bloated images soon. I have reported this back to Calico Pie

I too received the email from CP and the link to 7.0.1.1. In view of the previous comments about installation problems I think I'll wait a while for further feedback before trying to install.

In my case the email told me that two of the bugs I have reported have been fixed:

Diagram text scheme not correctly saved in V7 (18321)
FH asking to save Gedcom changes when there have been none. (18360)

LornaCraig wrote: ↑10 Jan 2021 11:42 I too received the email from CP and the link to 7.0.1.1. In view of the previous comments about installation problems I think I'll wait a while for further feedback before trying to install.

In my case the email told me that two of the bugs I have reported have been fixed:

Diagram text scheme not correctly saved in V7 (18321)
FH asking to save Gedcom changes when there have been none. (18360)

FH7 no longer asks you to save when exiting the program, after opening and viewing a note in the note window if no changes have been made.

David W - thanks for the update.

I have had some correspondence with Calico Pie and I downloaded the upgrade 7.0.1.1 on my backup laptop and ran it again this evening. It went perfectly completing in seconds followed by a reboot. As far as I can see it OK to use. I have noticed a few other improvements like when you enter/edit additional names the entry box is larger and clearer to use (for us with less good eyesight).

dewilkinson wrote: ↑10 Jan 2021 08:31 Yesterday evening I had an email from Calico Pie....
.... with a link to a new version 7.0.1.1.

oddly the installer if you now download from the website is 7.0.1.1, but if you have 7.0.0 installed, selecting "check for updates" suggests that 7.0.0 is the latest version.
I wonder if the 7.0.1.1 is not yet intended for general release, especially in light of the issues you're having with it?

I have told Calico Pie that the update 7.0.1.1 went perfectly yesterday but I cannot comment how Calico Pie choose to roll it out

I have now installed the update on my laptop. The process took about 15 minutes, including a reboot, so definitely much slower that 7.0.0. I have not yet tried the desk top. Two of the bugs I had reported (see my previous post in this thread) have been fixed.

davepacey wrote: ↑10 Jan 2021 09:40 I was forced into a reboot without warning, luckily, the blue screen was brought up, and I had the option to force close and reboot anyway , or return to Windows, I chose to return to Windows, where I was faced with the do you want to reboot now or later message box from FH.

That reboot behavior also happened to me. I started the FH7 trial installer with only FH6 present on my Win10 PC, no FH7. I don’t recall any recent examples where an installer forced other running programs to close and triggered a reboot in quite as unsettling a way.

Hi All
Well no email must mean my bug request has not been addressed. No matter. Are there any release notes with this update?

Thank you.

Hi All
I took the plunge and installed the FH update into Win 10. It installed very quickly but as others have said it invokes the Windows Blue Restart screen before the FH Installer has actually finished. So to be sure I clicked cancel on the blue restart screen and clicked Finish on the FH Install screen. And then performed a restart.

All seems okay, very slightly slower in my opinion but not a problem. I wish there were some release notes to advise what was fixed in general.

Current download from the FH site is v7.0.1.2 (as at 22nd Jan!). I ran the install of this and it went through to completion very quickly with no problems - standard "reboot is needed to complete" window shown at the end.

I haven't had an email from CP. I checked for updates via the Help menu and got the message I have the most recent version (7.0.0)...is it being rolled out gradually?

CP seem to be notifying people who have reported bugs and asking them to test the fixes
They haven't started a 'real' rollout yet.

The FH version currently downloadable from CP's website is v7.0.1.2

Yes, but if you 'Check for Updates' within FH7, there are no updates available.

I suspect that the current "updates" are interim builds fixing various bugs that have been reported, as there have been posts on here indicating that CP have sent links to the new builds to users who had reported specific bugs. That's my experience. I was informed that a bug I reported had been identified and was believed to be fixed. A link to 7.0.1.2 was provided and I was asked to install it and report my findings. A few days later, it appeared as the "latest" version on the download link on the FH website.

As it's not unknown for software revisions to introduce additional unintended bugs that weren't present previously (one only has to look at Windows updates for an example) I suspect CP are following good practice in releasing incremental specific bug fix builds to users who can test the specific fixes, then if all appears to be going well, make the latest build available on the general download link to increase its exposure, without pushing it out to every user of FH at once.

That way, if a problem arises, the affected user base is limited, but the possibility of a new bug being discovered increases as the user base is widened without affecting everyone simultaneously. Once a certain number of the bugs reported following the initial FH7 release have been fixed in a series of incremental builds, and the then latest build deemed stable, it may well be released as a full update and notified through the program itself.

I have no inside knowledge of this. I'm simply surmising, but it does appear to be what may be happening, and seems sensible.

I use financial software which operates in a similar way (or certainly used to, as I have stuck to a release that is now a few years old, but which serves my purpose and unlike the current versions, doesn't require an annual payment for subscription renewal. I believe the current update practices are still similar though). Program updates are initially notified to a relatively small proportion of the user base. The rest won't receive any update notifications through the software at that time. If the initial release goes well, the upgrade is progressively offered to more users until it is either paused to fix a previously undiscovered issue, or rolled out fully. I always decline initial update notifications, taking the view that I will let other users do the beta testing for me. If I decline the initial update notification though, I can't change my mind and retrieve it until it has been fully rolled out and notified as an available update to all users through the software.

Nice theory on the 'released' updates, which would hold well if the new versions were clearly identified as 'test builds', which some developers do, but I'm afraid that it falls down very quickly, because the fact is that if anyone who downloads the 'current' version (as at 24 Jan 2021) from https://www.family-historian.co.uk/install7 they will get Version 7.0.1.2 and that, of course, includes all new purchasers/upgraders.

So unless anyone having software problems is asked for their precise version number there's no telling whether it might already have been 'fixed'. Should they be advised to try downloading the 'latest build', whatever it might be, to see if it solves their problem.

Mervyn

mjashby wrote: ↑24 Jan 2021 14:25 Nice theory on the 'released' updates, which would hold well if the new versions were clearly identified as 'test builds', which some developers do, but I'm afraid that it falls down very quickly, because the fact is that if anyone who downloads the 'current' version (as at 24 Jan 2021) from https://www.family-historian.co.uk/install7 they will get Version 7.0.1.2 and that, of course, includes all new purchasers/upgraders.

But no pre-existing users will get it unless they specifically go looking for it, which does effectively limit its distribution, and from my experience users who had been explicitly offered it to confirm whether it fixed bugs they had reported would have been sent it several days before it becomes the "current" version on the website link. I suspect the majority of FH7 users are on the original released version, being upgraders from a previous version. Some, including a number of subsequent purchasers or upgraders will have been offered 7.0.1.1, as current purchasers are now being offered 7.0.1.2, so each subsequent build is effectively being exposed to limited distribution in the wild.

So unless anyone having software problems is asked for their precise version number there's no telling whether it might already have been 'fixed'. Should they be advised to try downloading the 'latest build', whatever it might be, to see if it solves their problem.

If CP want to know the precise version number following receipt of a support ticket, they can ask for it in the ensuing email exchange. If they wanted everyone on the same precise build, they could have offered the new builds automatically through the program (with the default check for updates automatically feature enabled) which they haven't.

I wasn't "just" advised to download a new build to see if it fixed my problem. It followed several exchanges of information by email in which I described the issue I was experiencing, was asked if I could describe how to create it, then informed that they could re-create it, and subsequently that they believed they had fixed it, and could I try the new build to confirm if it had indeed been fixed. I know I'm not the only person to have received a link to that build, but it didn't appear on the general download link until several days later.

But it's all supposition anyway, I agree.

Ah - thanks for the info I'll wait for my email...

Teresa

ColeValleyGirl wrote: ↑24 Jan 2021 03:35 CP seem to be notifying people who have reported bugs and asking them to test the fixes
They haven't started a 'real' rollout yet.

Yes, I'd call 7.0.1.2 a soft release, rather than a test release, precisely because, as we understand it, anyone going to the site will get that. But people aren't being prompted to go there "all muck and nettles" to get the next version.

The standard new version is up to 7.0.1.3 already, so there are clearly very frequent new builds coming out of CP. They seem to be gradually fixing issues, but not constantly prompting every user each time there is an incremental upgrade. That makes sense in terms of managing customer perceptions.