FNC 11.6 Agent with FNC 11.5 Server

[TimStVCS]

Hello, I am resuming my development of a custom UI to handle the notifications for our customers. I have installed FNC 11.5 on a test server, but am using InstallShield 2010 and the 11.6 version of the FNC Merge Modules in the installer that I wrote to install the custom UI for testing purposes.

My question is if anyone knows if this is a supported configuration, or of any problems that exist? The reason I am asking is I am seeing some rather strange behavior in my testing when I test the download method on an update that I have multiple times. It is only the first time that I try to download the available update that it works the way I think it should, on the second through nth attempts to download the same update, I am seeing really strange behavior.

Any help would be appreciated!

Tim

[#2]

While it would probably be ideal to update to 11.60 server, the configuration should work.

What specific behavior are you seeing?

[TimStVCS]

Hi Bryan, I have created an incident for this and am awaiting Acresso Support to get back to me, but basically here is my problem: I want to be able to let our customers choose a filename and location for saving the available updates. Thus, I have coded a filesavedialog to allow my customer to do this and am passing the location to the download method. I also want the progress dialog boxes to show while the selected update is being updated. This all works fine the first time you download a given update. Beginning with the second through nth time that you attempt to download the same update, the behavior varies from simply not showing the progress dialog boxes, to not even downloading the selected update.

We need to be able to allow our customers to download the same update multiple times as I could envision someone downloading it and forgeting where they chose to save the file and need to download it again. Our business model is that a single system administrator will download any available update on a test server and will never choose to download and install in the same session. Typically, they will download the available update to a test server, wait a few hours to a few days to actually run the installer on the test server.

I have to believe that re-downloading an already downloaded update is something that FNC can handle and that I am just not smart enough to know how to do it?

Tim

[#4]

Generally speaking, that is a scenario that should work. Fortunately, our support staff should be able to assist you here. I'll leave it to them for further investigation.

[TimStVCS]

Hi Bryan, Acresso support was able to tell me that the registry entries that are created when you download any given update need to be deleted in order to redownload the update. However, this is not really documented anywhere that I found, and I had to write my own logic to delete these entries from the registry as there is no method in the existing FLEXnet Connect API to do this.

This is somewhat surprising as I would have thought that the ability to redownload an update that had previously been downloaded was something that more than I would want or need to do?

I am still an Acresso believer, but it is becoming clearer to me that our use case scenario for how our customers use FLEXnet Connect is not something that the existing API was designed for. I am hoping that the tickets I have created thus far will be taken to heart and incorporated into a future release of FLEXnet Connect.

Best regards,

Tim

[#6]

Generally, what should happen is that the FNC agent will attempt to determine whether the file needs to be re-downloaded by comparing the file size of the remote file and the local file. Is this the major problem for you? If so, could you describe your use case for why you would want to re-download a file that looks the same ( possibly contents change, but size doesn't? )?

[TimStVCS]

Good morning Bryan, our use case scenario is that typically a single system administrator at a customer site will be responsible for receiving and acting upon any published updates, patches, etc. This person would download the selected update(s) to one of several different locations. They could download it to a network share they set up for this purpose, they could download it to the desktop of the computer they happen to be working on, etc. Several days if not weeks could lapse between the time any given update was downloaded and the system administrator was in a position to run the installer on the desired test server. Thus, I could envision a situation where they forgot the location of where they had downloaded the file and need to download it again.

I hope this makes sense!

Tim

[#8]

Do you have the incident number that was assigned to your issue when you discussed this with our support department? You can PM me with that number if you'd feel more comfortable that way.

It sounds like your scenario may include the possibility that the user is electing to download the file to a unique location, but you're not seeing the file end up at the user specified location. So for example:

1) I choose to download to C:\users\bryanwolf\downloads
2) Having forgotten, I download to C:\users\bryanwolf\my documents

Your issue sounds like the download #2 isn't happening and the file never appears in C:\users\bryanwolf\my documents. Is that correct? I just want to make sure I'm following before I jump to any conclusions.