PROTEST BY LICENSEES We don't want 7.5.3-beta. We want 7.5.3-fullversion without bugs

[editor]

PROTEST BY LICENSEE: We don't want 7.5.3-beta. We want
7.5.3-fullversion without any bugs.


So, folks of SW-Soft. Have you ever been here? Uh, last
posting of SW-Soft (User "webmin") was

http://forum.plesk.com/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=1

Between 30th July 2001 and 5th April 2005, you made
exact 34 - in words: thirty-four - support-postings. Don't
you think, that you have to be ashamed a little bit
especially if you present yourself as a worldwide-company?
0,02 postings per day while there are 9917 registered users
here? How about 1 posting per day? This would only need 5
minutes time for all your Plesk-licensees? I am sure, that I
am not the only one who want to know following:

All the forums are full of bug-reports of 7.5.3. Me as a
programmer, I have never seen such a software with so many
bugs. Mass-bugs. And nobody knows, if he should upgrade from
7.5.2 to 7.5.3. Nobody feels sure, if he should really
upgrade or not. Everybody need your clear statement what's
going on now with this mass-buggy 7.5.3.

Just now, it seems so, that you do not deliver the right one
7.5.3 as a full-version. It seems so for me, that your
offered 7.5.3 is a "hidden" beta-version. And you namefake
this beta-version to the licensees' Plesk-Servers, that this
is a "normal working full-version of 7.5.3" and the innocent
licensees should upgrade. You use the forum-users as
test-rabbits with all their report-postings of bugs -
instead of to call some students who shouuld make a big test
before it will be offered to the public market for
auto-upgrading. I don't like this way how you deal with it
just now.

So, when exactly will be 7.5.4 on the market? Upgrading from
7.5.2 to 7.5.3 is like lottery and full of risks. It makes
the admin busy for many days and nights. One week after the
next one week, because the admin must fix most things manual
by hand. After fixing all these mass-bugs, the 7.5.3 should
become a version-number of 7.5.4. And so everybody can
upgrade from 7.5.2 to 7.5.4 to avoid sleepless nights and
many grey hairs. And the 7.5.3? Forget it. In the meanwhile,
you should stop to offer 7.5.3-beta as a 7.5.3-fullversion.
Really. It doesn't matter, if f.e. I have to wait 6 months
for an upgrade from 7.5.2 to 7.5.3, no problemo, but then it
should work without any bugs.

Just my opinion.

@FORUM: If you agree with this, then sign it here as a
reply-posting. Post just a "ACK" or "FULL-ACK" here into
this thread. With or withour your URL, it doesn't matter.
This posting will be directly faxed to the CEO of
Plesk/SW-Soft (Novosibirsk, Russia and SWsoft Holdings in
Herndon, VA). Thank you very much.


P.S.: On 20th May at 2pm, we have in our editorial-office a
big editor-conference. Theme: "The buggy bugs bunny Plesk
7.5.3 is fed up to the back teeth". Or something like that.
I already suggested to make some interviews with some
Plesk-Licensees here, who can talk a little bit about their
problems. ;-)
P.S.: http://forum.plesk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23626

 

[postman]

FULL-ACK

FULL-ACK

I am getting to the point where I will have to wipe my server and set everything up again from scratch. 7.5.3 simply does not work.
I can no longer use the Updater, Migration Manager, Spam Assassin, Mail Settings etc
I should have been developing for the past 2 days but I have wasted all this time trying to find out how to get things working again.

www.newryjournal.co.uk

 

[Cranky]

If you're so concerned about these issues why not stick with Plesk 7.1.7, or CPanel/Ensim/DirectAdmin/HSPhere/Sphera/develop your own? I run more Plesk servers than the majority of people on here, and I think the software is great ... it definately meets the requirements of my business and my clients. Sure there's bugs, same with all software, but I don't honestly believe that there's enough bugs in Plesk 7.5.3 to call it a beta version, far from it and one of the best releases so far IMHO. SWsoft develop for a lot of platforms, and the software is very comprensive which means there is bound to be bugs (or we'd be here for years without a new release whilst they test it). I think the balance of features vs useability vs bugs is right at the current time. If you disagree then in all honesty why are you here? There's plenty alternatives... if you want to stay there must be a reason more important to you than the bugs that do exist? They'll get on top of the bugs in the release, if you can't handle bugs you need to wait until a later release in the branch like 7.1.7 is, or 7.5.7 will be. You've got options.

 

[bdobson]

FULL-ACK

I am not going anywhere near this new version until something is done about the issues. I cannot afford and do not have the time to fix things that should NOT need to be fixed.

 

[Waylander]

FULL ACK!

this "support" here is the *peep* ive ever seen. ill no longer ask here for help. why? this "support" will dont help us. and i DONT like the idea to buy 75$/hour to solve the own buggy software!

and @cranky...
this was not OUR idea to switch to plesk. our isp do it! he switch over from ensim. dunno why, think pleask is cheaper or whatever.
and yes, we lookin for a way to migrate to another hoster.

sorry for my bad english,

way

/edit: we have just update one of our (rh9) boxes, from 7.5.2 to 7.5.3... this need some minutes for the "update" and some HOURS to solve all the errors and bring the box back online...

*angry*

 

[thunder@]

I agree, this is my first dealing with plesk, and its complete garbage. WHM is so much better thought out, thank god we have shell access to fix the problems that this horrid software creates. And ive seen so many support threads go unanswered, way to back up your work

 

[sieb@]

SW-Soft doesn't provide support via these forums. If you have such a major problem after you upgrade, open a support ticket so they can fix it and be aware of the problem for future versions. Your not helping by just complaining.

If you don't like the software, use something else. No one will stop you. There are plenty of us here that don't have a problem with PSA.

And as I have said countless posts before, there is no excuse for poor preperation or not testing before hand. And no one is forcing you to upgrade to the bleeding edge version. Its impossible for SW-Soft to betatest and account for every possible configuration so yes, some installs will break. Its no different from any other software upgrade. I never upgrade production servers without first testing upgrades on virtual servers.

 

[Pagemakers]

I'm surprised. My 7.52 - 7.53 upgrades were painless. I had 2 small issues after the upgrade and Plesk fixed them both within a few hours of me reporting them.

I'm happy and in my opinion 7.53 is the best yet. (However I do feel sorry for you guys with problems. I know it's not fun)

 

[thunder@]

Originally posted by sieb
SW-Soft doesn't provide support via these forums. If you have such a major problem after you upgrade, open a support ticket so they can fix it and be aware of the problem for future versions. Your not helping by just complaining.

If you don't like the software, use something else. No one will stop you. There are plenty of us here that don't have a problem with PSA.

And as I have said countless posts before, there is no excuse for poor preperation or not testing before hand. And no one is forcing you to upgrade to the bleeding edge version. Its impossible for SW-Soft to betatest and account for every possible configuration so yes, some installs will break. Its no different from any other software upgrade. I never upgrade production servers without first testing upgrades on virtual servers.

To bad I dont have a choice its what came with our dedi, and even then it has nothing to do with an upgrade, nothing to do with config has changed! Even when it worked I found it lacking severly in features (for our clients, we dont use it).

 

[sieb@]

Originally posted by thunder
To bad I dont have a choice its what came with our dedi, and even then it has nothing to do with an upgrade, nothing to do with config has changed! Even when it worked I found it lacking severly in features (for our clients, we dont use it).

SW-Soft provides a free download and test license that you could have tested with. If you didn't like it, you could have chosen a different company to host with. That has nothing to do with this forum. Instead of complaining about how you think you made a poor investment, how about you clarify what features you find "lacking" that render it useless compared to others.

From my experience, all the other packages I have tried have been too cluttered and tried to do too much at one time which only makes it confusing to administrate. Or, they are just a more confusing (and expensive) adaptation of Webmin. I have yet to find anything "lacking" in the last three versions (5,6,7) of PSA I have used in production.

 

[webrebel]

ack...bleeding edge....translation, buggy. I AM happy however they did call 7.5.3 a beta. That was my queue NOT to upgrade. At least they are learning to be semi-honest. Last upgrade, they HIGHLY RECOMMENDED everyone upgrade ASAP, like it would be better version. However in reality they apparently just needed test dummies.

And the "they can't have all platforms covered" argument doesn't fly. Most bugs and forum post are usually plain vanilla RH OS's, not obscure systems that are Frankensteined in a 14 year olds garage. And if they can't have it working STOP CLAIMING IT TO WORK FOR ALL THESE SYSTEMS!

Let's face it, Plesk is SUPPOSED to be a WYSIWYG. I find it amusing that a program that supposed to keep you out of having to use a command line requires so much shell admin time. Problem is not knowing what is safe to use and what will crash your system....

For the record, Migration Manager, Backup Manager, and apparently Spam Assassin and Dr Web does not work in 7.5.2.

 

[superbock]

I think many people on this forums rely on the sofware to make everything work automagically with no glitches. And i'm sure this happens in every other forum related to hosting software, be it Cpanel, Ensim, etc..

But that is just wrong. PSA is not a self-contained software, it installs over a determined OS and relies on services and packages running on it.

So, to handle all this, you NEED to know how things work below your pretty web interface. There's people here so surprised that that they sometimes have to go into CLI.. and that really is unbelievable..

If you can't handle the technology involved, and just expect a pretty GUI to do all the work for you, then maybe u're in the wrong business.

Sincerely, i feel sorry for end-users that host their websites with people that simply can't handle much more than clicking the pretty buttons.

And BTW, my migrations to 7.5.3 worked great.

Have fun!

 

[Limedrink]

Originally posted by superbock
I think many people on this forums rely on the sofware to make everything work automagically with no glitches. And i'm sure this happens in every other forum related to hosting software, be it Cpanel, Ensim, etc..

But that is just wrong. PSA is not a self-contained software, it installs over a determined OS and relies on services and packages running on it.

So, to handle all this, you NEED to know how things work below your pretty web interface. There's people here so surprised that that they sometimes have to go into CLI.. and that really is unbelievable..

If you can't handle the technology involved, and just expect a pretty GUI to do all the work for you, then maybe u're in the wrong business.

Sincerely, i feel sorry for end-users that host their websites with people that simply can't handle much more than clicking the pretty buttons.

And BTW, my migrations to 7.5.3 worked great.

Have fun!

I second that.

For example, cPanel is just plain unstable and insecure at times, although it is arguable in many respects. People find cPanel more attractive, but they don't see the fact that Plesk is better built in the backend, and contains the same, if not better, window-of-opportunity as every other control panel. It's quite deceiving.

Every server is going to require admin-work, whether it's securing or upgrading the box, or solving mis-configurations and bugs with your control panel . Control panels are developed to make every-day tasks easier, not completely setup, secure, monitor, and fix all your problems.

If you are relying on your control panel's GUI to handle all your tasks, you will run into some trouble later on, and realize it's time to re-evaluate how you manage your server.

If you are seriously concerned about the upgrade and what after-math it will pose on your server, do not upgrade right into your production environment.

For the ones that have almost crashed there box upgrade to PSA 7.5.3, consult a server administrator. I'm sure that their knowledge may be able to assist you, and it could be possibly one small mis-configuration that is bringing everything to a halt.

Someone is always going to complain about something wrong with a control panel, because it is not the expected 'perfect control panel' in their eyes.

As Cranky previously noted, "You've got options."


Limedrink.

 

[sieb@]

I am currently in the process of migrating our standalone servers to Virtual Machines running in VMWare GSX server, ontop of a robust windows 2k3 host server. With VMs, I can take a point in time snapshot of a server, upgrade it, if it bombs, just revert to the snapshot. I can also build a standard machine, and quickly clone it for quick loads. This saves me from having to spend a day loading a server from bare metal, installing PSA, loading the most recent backup, then installing the upgrade to see if it works.

I also just switched over to using ARTs YUM repos so there is little customization on my end anymore after an install. Plus, I get the added piece of mind knowing that the Founder of PSA is scrutinizing the installs before he adds them to his repos for us to use. He has yet to add 7.5.3, which is fine by me. It dulls the "bleeding edge".

 

[littlefrog]

Simple upgrade.. so i thought... used the auto updater..

Now can not sign into plesk without manually adding fields in the mysql database

then once i get in i can not add any domains. i can not use migration manager. I for the most part can not use plesk what so ever.

I am going to have to try to downgrade without loosing any data and clients.

Does anyone know when the fix for these problems is going to be out?

 

[bdobson]

I would like to know when fixes will be out as well but so far I have seen nothing that they even admit theres a problem.

 

[editor]

Discussions are always welcome, but please not in this
thread. Here, we collect only ACKs or FULL-ACKs. And if
someone wants also to post the reason for his ACK, no
problem. But we do not collect the NOACKs here.

But if you want to start a discussion about a special theme or a
problem or a noproblem, then please feel free to start a _new_
thread. Thanks.

Would be good, if you will delete your NO-ACK-Postings here
and to start a new thread aka "CPANEL or PLESK?". You can
also copy your NOACK-opinion for a new thread before you will
delete your posting here. I also have something to report, of
course.

 

[Rick]

99% FULL ACK

After using plesk for several years (1.x on up) and using most of the other panels at one time or another I have to say Plesk is still the best package out there.

However, every version just seems to get worse and worse regarding update problems and features that don't work. Since SW-Soft has taken over, the condition has deteriorated even more rapidly.

7.5.1 to 7.5.2 caused enough problems on one of our machines that we we skipped the upgrade on another hoping it would be better with 7.5.3. Now it looks like I don't dare upgrade any production servers to 7.5.3 without risking days of work.

How about a version with no new features next time? One that upgrades without breaking services that must be diagnosed and fixed manually would be really nice.

Rick

 

[jshanley]

All software has bugs, but...

95% ACK

Originally posted by Cranky
If you're so concerned about these issues why not stick with Plesk 7.1.7, or CPanel/Ensim/DirectAdmin/HSPhere/Sphera/develop your own? I run more Plesk servers than the majority of people on here, and I think the software is great ... it definately meets the requirements of my business and my clients. Sure there's bugs, same with all software, but I don't honestly believe that there's enough bugs in Plesk 7.5.3 to call it a beta version, far from it and one of the best releases so far IMHO. <SNIP> There's plenty alternatives... if you want to stay there must be a reason more important to you than the bugs that do exist? <SNIP>

I've got three comments to make here, and then I'll stop.

1) First, the praise. Plesk is (imho) the best looking hosting control panel for unix, and it does have a lot of features. It is nice that they develop for multiple platforms.

2) However. I get the impression they do not do much testing of their product before release. I dont know if they even have a "beta test" group - and if they do, I've never heard of it. I'd volunteer to mirror the disk of one of my production machines and do some testing, but SW-Soft does not appear to want the feedback. I think they do a little basic testing and then push it out the door. There's almost no way they can test for all situations, so WHY dont they do a limited "beta test" period a week or two before they intend to release an upgrade, where we can do some trial upgrades from our various versions and provide feedback? It's crazy that they don't offer this as an option, especially since they dont seem to be able to adequately test in-house.

3) There is no official bug-reporting area. Users post here, and (presumably) SW-Soft occasionally reads what is wrong with their product (but never acknowledges anything posted here). Or of course you can pay for support, and they will send you back the typical "we've forwarded it to our developers, you should see a fix for this sometime, from a few days to a few months" kind of response. If you don't have paid support, and there IS a known bug/issue, you'll usually receive the standard "your support contract has expired" response, even if it's a showstopping bug.

So in other words, sometimes they'll acknowledge their bugs, and offer to fix it for you (privately though - in support emails), but not acknowledge the bug publicly, or provide a public fix for the problem for at least a few weeks or months (example: the serious bugs in FreeBSD 7.5.2 that were left for months until 7.5.3). There were private fixes for the problems via support email, within a few days -- but only if you happened to have a paid support contract. That just seems wrong to me... bugfixes should be considered part of the software; I should not have to pay a support contract to receive bugfixes for known issues.

Anyway, I like the capabilities and features of plesk - but I hate how they handle bugfixes and stuff like that. It makes me feel like the thousands of dollars over multiple servers that I've spent on their software really means nothing to them - they're more interested in the (almost pure profit) support contracts instead. It seems like the "paid support" is how they handle bugfix releases if you want them in any reasonable timeframe.

Of course I'll still continue to use Plesk until some competitor offers a similarly featured product that freely, publicly offers bugfixes for software you've purchased from them - in a timely manner. You know - a company that genuinely cares when their bugs are impacting their customer's businesses.

Then I will move away from Plesk as fast as possible. Anyway - I think saying "go somewhere else if you dont like it" is like saying "I dont see a problem here". But there is a problem. It's up to SW-Soft to acknowledge and work on that problem; it's in their best (business) interest to do so.

edit: With all that being said, I'm quite comfortable at the commandline of linux/bsd/etc, and haven't run into upgrade problems that I couldn't eventually solve. I just think the way they handle releasing "known bugfixes" to paid clients is really horrible. My 30 days of paid support expires, fine - but I'm still supposed to get a year of software updates - I shouldn't have to wait for the next major release to download a known bugfix (unless of course I pay for extended support). I also think there should be a known bug "official wiki" or something like that, but whatever.

 

[bdobson]

I know this thread was not meant to be a discussion but its shaping up to house some very valid viewpoints.

I do not have the time to "fix" things which should not be fixed. These are PRODUCTION boxes, not testing boxes. I upgrade to them and then tell the customer that "Sorry, it will be a few days while I fix everything that broke." They wont understand nor should they have to understand things like that. All they understand is it was just fine (in their eyes) one day and broken the next.