serious issues with beta 2
I'm finding more and more as I use it today. In addition to Google Reader read items coming back as unread, the lack of threading and the problems when restarting Socialite after quitting it (no window displays until it's called from the menu bar, and the prefs are now greyed out), my Dock icon shows three unread items even though there's nothing unread in the All Events window.
I'm seriously about to try Seesmic Desktop and download NetNewsWire, it's gotten so bad. I'm particularly incensed because I've been a loyal EventBox user for quite some time, paid my $15 ages ago, and never ever had issues like this before. I understand this is a beta, but what did your alpha testing show? Any word on when the next update is coming out? This is unusable at this time, and even worse, I can't easily go back to EventBox without having to reinput all my prefs and data, etc.
C'mon-please address these issues and don't create more. I passed on a ton of suggestions to the previous developers, who were very responsive and interested in what I had to say. I'm not seeing any noteworthy improvements with Socialite compared to EB, and the regressions in usability are making me wonder why I even bother with EB/Socialite anymore. I want this to work and only get better, but I'm pretty annoyed right now, as should be obviousl
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2 Posted by markku on 02 Nov, 2009 08:17 PM
I agree. I hate Cosmic Machine for selling EventBox out.
Realmac Software is a disgrace, they don't seem to have any kind of quality control or actual alpha testing or closed beta testing before public beta testing.
EventBox used to work just fine for me - without any noticeable or major problems!
How on earth have Realmac managed to make a good software so much worse is beyond me.
3 Posted by dtoub on 02 Nov, 2009 08:32 PM
Now I'm finding that shortcuts don't work, either. I had set cmd-shift-S to open the Quick Send window-that isn't happening now.
Can I have my $15 back? Honestly, after using EB for many months as an early adopter, singing its praises online, etc., I'm disgusted with what RealMac has done. If all of this is fixable in short course, then I'm willing to stay on. I understand the challenges of software development and don't want to sound like a complainer. But how do TweetDeck, Seesmic and many others manage to get this right and since the RealMac acquisition, my favorite social networking app is getting everything so terribly wrong? And I even paid for it.
4 Posted by Jerry on 02 Nov, 2009 08:33 PM
Well, while I don't agree with bashing on a beta (a beta is a beta, after all), I am somewhat amazed at the level of bugs in this release compared to the previous EventBox releases. I do agree on the lack of quality control, as some of the more obvious bugs (like the hyper fast mark-as-read bug) should have been caught beforehand.
Still guys, it's rare that a company will just buy code and not hire the developer who knows it by heart along with it, so there's a fair chance you're still dealing with the same developer overseeing the project. Just a guess though.
Stay put, I'm pretty sure these kinks will be worked out.
Support Staff 5 Posted by Nik Fletcher on 02 Nov, 2009 08:51 PM
Hi Guys
Thanks for your thoughts. I'm sorry that you're disappointed. This particular beta has been a big engineering challenge as we've migrated over users from Eventbox and Multibox to one application. I'd be curious to know which version of the app you were using before - an Eventbox build, Multibox build or the previously available 'Socialite' build.
As Socialite remains in beta, we're going to be working through any reported issues and aim to fix them up for the time 1.0 ships. We've spent three works working through issues with the original Eventbox developer - particularly with persisting the read and unread status. In our testing throughout the last three weeks, running using and testing the application throughout every business day, we believe we had nailed the larger issues like this that folks had been reporting.
Whilst we're currently out the office (it's almost 9pm here in the UK) I've been unable to reproduce the issues you're reporting. If you've got steps to reproduce the issues (no matter how complex they may be, so long as they're reproducible we can chase the issues down) please let me know and we'll investigate these to get them fixed up.
There is one last thing I'd ask you to try, to see whether the cause of the issue is the migration from Eventbox's old data format to the new one in Socialite.
If you could find the following folder, and rename it (to say, Socialite-old):
~/Library/Application Support/Socialite/this will prompt Socialite to create a blank copy of Socialite with no services in it. If you re-add your services, and the issues still persist please let me know. Whilst it seems like an extreme suggestion, without the knowledge of whether this is a migration bug or bug in the syncing code within Socialite it's going to be tricky to track down.
Thanks for bringing these issues to our attention - if you have any further details about them we'd be incredibly grateful.
Kind regards,
Nik
-- Nik Fletcher
Support & QA Manager, Realmac Software
Our support team are in the office between 9am and 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday, and we aim to answer all requests within one business day.
6 Posted by markku on 02 Nov, 2009 08:59 PM
I have deleted the .sqlite file from Application Support/Socialite and started fresh, yet Facebook status updates problem remains.
http://support.realmacsoftware.com/discussions/socialite/94-faceboo...
Oh well, I guess a little bit more waiting can't hurt..
Thanks for the response though.
7 Posted by dtoub on 02 Nov, 2009 09:11 PM
Rebuilt the services and that did not resolve the Google Reader issue but so far has resolved the strange behavior upon restarting Socialite.
I was using EB 1.0, the last bleeding edge update (not MultiBox) and these issues were not present, nor are they present if I go back to EventBox.
To recreate the Google Reader unread issue:
Mark as read
Refresh services
Same items you just marked as Read appear as Unread in Google Reader
I'm also seeing some issues with FB updates-a lot is being missed.
And yes, threads don't work at all.
I appreciate that a lot of work has gone in to the current beta of Socialite. But that's not good enough. If it were just me, then that would be one thing, but clearly these issues are affecting a lot of other folks who have stuck with this software through many development betas. I'm willing to stick it out for a little bit longer, but if the fixes don't come, I'd like to request my money back, as this is not yet out of beta.
8 Posted by hattoriheiji on 02 Nov, 2009 09:26 PM
Renaming the old socialite Folder did help for me, now all my read items stay read...now I just have to add all my feeds again.
Was using EB 1.0 latest Version before switching to beta 2.
9 Posted by leced on 02 Nov, 2009 11:09 PM
migration simply didn't work, actually : nearly 40 minutes with the migration assistant window.
i just had put everything in the trash and then reimport my feeds (not pleased with that, to be honest), reauthorize the app with each service (quite simple and fast). I just didn't understand the whole PIN thing : how is it better than filling the credentials in the app?
i understand that a lot of work is done under the hood (like the sqlite thing), hoping it's worth, performance-wise. I bought the eventbox beta when it came out and this beta of socialite clearly is an improvement.
Still, i find it strange that in the activity monitor, socialite takes 40% when refreshing (i have a Macbook 2,26Ghz)
10 Posted by falko on 03 Nov, 2009 12:07 AM
every time i reopen "socialite", i have to confirm my flickr and facebook accounts.
11 Posted by drastudio on 03 Nov, 2009 01:03 AM
I am having the same issue with re-confirmation as @falko and the same reoccuring unread RSS items as @dtoub, among many others ...
In light of these issues, I am forced to revert back to EventBox ... the main concern being how I filter through content and the fact that I don't want to keep recreating/renaming elements. For the little time that I did use Socialite, I did find that it fixed the sluggish speed I was seeing in EB with as many RSS feeds as I had.
I am using the most recent build of EventBox.
12 Posted by dtoub on 03 Nov, 2009 01:49 AM
Facebook seems to keep trying to update without any luck-this happens from time to time since I installed Socialite. What's interesting is that Seesmic Desktop, which is crap in terms of its Adobe AIR UI, not only loads and updates FB very quickly but today integrated twitter lists into its services.
I'm not asking Socialite to necessarily integrate a lot of cutting edge features ASAP when it's still in beta. But when I see a crappy application like Seesmic outperform what had been Eventbox, it gives me pause.
The FB update issues I'm seeing are not a Facebook issue, since it clearly works fine with other clients. Can this be addressed?
I know I've hit you all with a lot of issues today, as have many others. My big ones are these:
While not a new issue, is there a reason why Smart Folders have no criteria for time? I would love to just make my own Recent folder, but can't, since none of the criteria have anything to do with time.
13 Posted by dtoub on 03 Nov, 2009 01:53 AM
Documentation of the Google Reader unread/read glitch: attached are three screenshots with the time displayed in my menu bar. After the first screen shot at 8:50:07, I marked these items read at 8:50:17, then refreshed and sure enough, they're back as Unread (8:50:25).
14 Posted by Rajiv Patel on 03 Nov, 2009 02:49 AM
I'm experiencing problems too:
I'm not willing to write this off - I understand merging Multibox and Eventbox was a monster task, but I wish this had gone smoother. Reconstructing my groups is going to be a big pain. (Any chance we'll see autocompletion of usernames in a future build? That'd certainly help make that job easier.)
15 Posted by richardgiesige on 03 Nov, 2009 03:18 AM
I have to second most of these problems.
Migration never happened for me, and I couldn't install the update from Beta 1 to Beta 2 thorough the update manager I had to install it from the website.
Facebook is just a complete bust I removed all the .plists and folders I could find and reinstalled the Beta 2 and it actually loaded but Facebook just sits their with the loading icon sitting next to it doing nothing.
I am really sad because Event Box was still working fine. I feel like I went back with this build. Hopefully you guys can fix this stuff and get it working again.
16 Posted by Ryan Stone on 03 Nov, 2009 04:13 AM
I've got a couple of problems w/ the new beta. I understand it is beta but it does seem like a definite step backwards. ( I know that on programming side there are significant changes but on the user side my experience is greatly diminished)
1: Google reader will not mark items as read. This was a persistent problem out Eventbox's outset but was eventually resolved.
#2: I only use the HUD and as such there are some really wonky things that happen. When i go to click on an item once it's deselected the old item is marked as read and i end up clicking on something else. Which in turn is marked as read and I have to open the All Events window and track down where the thing came from.
17 Posted by Jerome Dahdah on 03 Nov, 2009 09:26 PM
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Kind regards,
Jerome Dahdah
---
position: absolute - stuff for creative freaks
http://blog.parasight.de
18 Posted by xtfer on 04 Nov, 2009 06:49 AM
Although the initial migration seemed to work, on restart I had the same Twitter Auth problem as post #11.
Deleting the Socialite folder and restarting seems to have fixed it.
I have to agree with some other poster's here that this was a pretty poor upgrade (beta or not) for software which some of us had paid for already. Perhaps the Beta shouldn't have been pushed as a software update at all?
19 Posted by rotocamel on 04 Nov, 2009 10:12 AM
Like several other people noted here, my Facebook status updates simply do not load. Facebook on the app just keeps running the update over and over and over and I never see any content whatsoever in the status update section for fb. This is critical for me since the main reason I used Event Box was for fb. Two days ago before I updated to Socialite this was not happening.
Support Staff 20 Posted by Nik Fletcher on 04 Nov, 2009 01:10 PM
Hi Guys
We did need to push out this software update, unfortunately as we've changed API keys and keychain saving to fix up issues that existed in earlier versions of Eventbox.
We're looking into some Facebook status updates not appearing (Facebook's API appears to be timing out, however we're looking into ways to work around this and handle the error messages better).
If you migrated from an early build of Eventbox, and are still encountering issues, please try the steps listed above with a fresh library. Whilst we appreciate it's an inconvenience, it's the only way we're able to pinpoint any large migration bugs!
Of course, we're still hard at work on the next beta and as soon as I have more details on when it will be available you'll be the first to know.
Thanks for your patience,
Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
Kind regards,
Nik
-- Nik Fletcher
Support & QA Manager, Realmac Software
Our support team are in the office between 9am and 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday, and we aim to answer all requests within one business day.
21 Posted by sideshowcoder on 08 Nov, 2009 02:10 PM
A lot of the same Problems here, too.
Will try to delete All Settings and Database now, and see if it helps.
Support Staff 22 Posted by Luke Hefson on 09 Nov, 2009 05:00 PM
Hi sideshowcoder,
Are you still experiencing issues? Could you take a look at the following FAQ:
http://support.realmacsoftware.com/faqs/socialite/socialite-10-beta-fix-for-common-issues
Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
Kind regards,
Luke
-- Luke Hefson
Support & QA, Realmac Software
Our support team are in the office between 9am and 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday, and we aim to answer all requests within one business day.
Luke Hefson closed this discussion on 09 Nov, 2009 05:00 PM.