Are all supported platforms supported equally?

[Former Member]

I guess there is a little facetiousness in my question. My primary development machine is a Mac running OS X 10.5.8 and I get the distinct feeling that it is not well supported.

When I use ISQL or Sybase Central -- two tools I use all day long -- I RDP into a Windows machine and run it there. It works ok, but it would be SO much nicer to run ISQL and Sybase Central on my Mac.

Yes, I have SQL Anywhere version 11.0.1.2279 installed on my mac, but it crashes all the time. So, I'm ever hopeful than and EBF will come out any day that will clean that up.

SQLA EBF's come frequently for Windows platforms... 11.0.1.2436 came out two days ago. But the last EBF release for Mac was 2279 last November.

Now, its entirely possible that every single one of the changes that happened between 2279 and 2439 were irrelevant to the mac platform. But I doubt it.

I have a workaround to my Mac platform SQLA applications -- and that is simply not to use them. But my development environment would be so much nicer if it were all integrated.

Any thoughts?

Ron

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I wanted to address a couple of aspects of the original question. We absolutely do our best to support all platforms equally. However, the reality is that we have many more customers (and internal users) on Windows than on the other platforms we support. That is why you see more problems reported on Windows and Windows ebfs posted more often than the other platforms.
That said, if you do need an updated ebf for a platform that does not have it, feel free to ask us. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" is very much a motto in the QA department 8-)

As for stability issues, we take these very seriously, and want to know about them when you have them. I know of one issue currently affecting the Intel core i7 architectures running Mac OS, and we are currently working on completing Snow Leopard testing.
We do run the same database server testing on all platforms, so if you are running into crashing issues outside these areas, it is likely we don't know about them (or they would have been fixed), and can't fix them unless we hear about them from you.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks Jason... after I posed the question, I realized that I'm not even a paying customer for the mac platform... I use the free developer edition on my primary development machine -- a mac. I don't consider OS X to be the ideal server platform for SQL Anywhere, so that's why my licensing dollars go to the Windows version of SQL Anywhere.
If I can get the newly EBF'd mac versions of ISQL or SybCentral to crash, I'll do my best to document it and forward that along.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

I forgot to make my point! I'm grateful that there is client side support for SQLAnywhere on the mac -- In my case, it's a generous gift from Sybase.

[reimer_pods]

Seems your requests have been heard: finally there's an EBF for Mac:

SQL Anywhere swr/ebf: 0 ver. 11.0.1; Mac Licensed EBF/Patch May 28, 2010 http://downloads.sybase.com/swd/detail.do?relid=13689&baseprod=144&client=mysybase&EMC=notificationm..."

Cheers Reimer

[Former Member]

Thanks Reimer -- I did the the download and installed... so far so good! (Even though I found nothing relevant in the readme). progress is a good thing!

[Former Member]

Well... that EBF was working fine. Decided to install it on my second dev machine (also a mac), and I find the EBF is no longer available... with no explanation why.

[reimer_pods]

That's really weird. I've read about a case where one specific EBF was recalled because it contained a serious bug (encountered in special environments). Possibly that's the case with this one too.

[Former Member]

Sorry for my late reply. There are no core dumps yet and I don't have a chance to reproduce it as the configuration has been changed back to ASA 9. I will try to test it wiht ASA 11 on Mac as soon as possible but I am not able to do this for the next days as I am very busy at the moment.

As I wrote before the clients were running an Access application by means of ODBC.

Regards, Andreas

[Former Member]

Hi José,

in my case the server crashes during normal operation. The clients are Windows based PC's that run an old Access application. But crashes are reproducable and often enough to postpone the migration. As far as I know, Snow Leopard is not yet officially supported by ASA 11.

Regards, Andreas

[Former Member]

What sorts of things are you actually doing when the server crashes? Is there a repro and/or a core file you can submit to us?

[Former Member]

Andreas, you are right in that SA11 does not currently support Snow Leopard. However, we are working on adding support for that platform. In the mean time, as Phil suggests, submitting a core file would be beneficial - it will help us determine why the server is crashing. If you can do that, please send it to me: jramos_at_sybase.com.

[Former Member]

Hi Ron and Andreas,

You are both reporting database crashes on the Mac and I'd like to help you out. Could you please tell me if this crash happens when the server starts? Or are you experiencing stability issues where the server starts and runs fine for a while, but then terminates unexpectedly?

Thanks,

José Ramos
Product Manager
Sybase, Inc.

[Former Member]

Jose - in my case, I don't use the mac server at all... I use ISQL and Sybase Central against 9.0.2 databases. I observe fluky interface things like things disappearing (database names come to mind), other times the entire app crashes. I really don't want to run a mac database server, just connect to one running on Windows.

[Former Member]

Hi Ron,

I have the same impression like you. I have bought two SQLAnywhere 11.0.1 Workgroup Edition servers recently and experience fatal crashes on Mac mini servers. The service is back to an old 9.0.2 on a Solaris x86 machine. Either the stability issues need to be fixed soon or I will leave Sybase behind.

Andreas