OnLine 6.0 experiences

Fellow Netters, The questions; how good is 6.0, is the performance improvement great, has it any bugs etc. have been posted to this group throughout the year. I have not, as yet, seen a comprehensive reply to this type of question. Since the beginning of this month we have installed the OnLine Version 6.00.UE1 on our development system so as to test it ourselves before releasing any product with it. The development team is circa 20 with perhaps 30% using an I-Net connection. We have upgraded from OnLine 5.x with Informix-Star. After a successful but limited test of OnLine 6.0 we decided it was a good idea to put it on on the development system in place of OnLine 5.x. We expected the system to run smoothly enough so that, in turn, our customers would only notice the improvements and have no problems. O.K. installation/configuration was taken into account, data conversion and, of course, the fact that the engine was tied to the client/server configuration. I was very optimistic ( I can be a sucker at times !! ). I am not interested in the excuses, I just expect new releases of a trusted product to be as dependable as the old. Our experiences of OnLine 6.0 include... DB_ERROR 566 - cannot initiate sort occuring when the system runs out of virtual shared memory. This is helpfully shown in the online.log ( MSGPATH ) This happens on a daily basis, it can probably be configured out but I don`t have the time to spare. I would rather it had an alternative to the DB_ERROR. DECIMAL(16) Was documented in the 4.0 handbooks as decimal floating point (page 4-17) in my copy. It was not so defined in 5.x Doks. but in 6.0 the fieldtype was clearly not available (Ansi databases). This leads to imaginable problems. When a datatype changes that means, for me, that the product is not upwardly compatible. HANGING... In these last trying weeks with OnLine 6.0 we have experienced hanging, i.e no connection although the engine remains online no checkpoints are made and no helpful hints appear in the message log. I suppose the network can be blamed for this but I don`t need more excuses. I have to say that I am not happy with OnLine 6.0, one hates to offend a respected partner ! I have to explain to my wife that this weekend is out because the system has to put back to OnLine 5.x. I have to tell my bosses that OnLine is not ready to fill our expectations in a way that OnLine 5.x did. I am disappointed with OnLine 6.0. I would advise you to consider again any planned move to 6.0. In any case, don`t plan any holidays directly after the upgrade. I hope that the discussion on OnLine 6.0 (pros and cons) may yet prove that the release is worth the grief and that other users may concur/disagree with my opinions. Yours etc. Tom Hogarty Standard Disclaimers Apply SNI Paderborn Germany Tel +49-52518-11602 +49-5254-65553($HOME) e-mail <hogarty.pad@sni.de>