EBFs

[bigbillmac]

Does anyone know how to get EBFs these days?

Do I now need a support contract to download EBFs?

Even Microsoft provide free bug fixes.

Bill

 

[mbalent]

Go to Sybase.com and set up a 'user account' (doesn't cost anything). From there you can go to 'downloads' and then to 'EBFs/Maintenance'.

Matt

"Nature forges everything on the anvil of time

 

[bigbillmac]

I had done all of this.

The problem was two or three fold:

1)The sybase site was telling me that my password did not match. I had written down the password and was convinced it was right - but... who knows.
I then requested a new password, which came back immediately. I entered this and got a really strange screen. I was, though, using Firefox as a browser which can sometimes give some funny looking screens.
So changed to IE and went through the process again.
I logged in with the password sent to me and immediately asked me to change the password - all going well so far. Put in a new password (double entered as usual) and got the message "Unexpected Error" after hitting the enter key.
I tried this a number of times - at least 10 over period of 6 to 8 weeks on the assumption that their site had a temporary glitch.

2)Really got fed up with this. I had tried firing of some emails to contact email addresses on the sybase site, there are few of these and of course nobody could be bothered to reply.
So I rang up sybase uk and was told by a support person there that EBFs were only available to people with support contracts and that was why I could not log in.
But if this is the case why was I ever able to log in. I upgraded to PB10 about 6 months ago and I was able to download EBFs for 10.2 build 8011 - so I could do it 6 months ago.
So at this point I guess my anger showed, after all even Microsoft support products better than this, and the support person said that they would check out the situation and get back to me.
After a couple of hours they got back and said Oh yes of course there was a 'public' side to the site where EBFs copuld be downloaded etc etc, and all of a sudden I could log in and change my password.

It makes you think Eh! Sybase would like us all to buy a support contract but if this is the standard of support then is it worth it.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love PB, it is in my view the best RAD tool ever developed by quite some margin. I have in the past used Visual Basic in team situations and I always felt so sorry for these guys - VB is so crap compared to PB.

I have been using PB for many years, the first version I ever bought was version 3 - I was a young(ish) man then. So I am not an inexperienced user.

Anyway all is sorted now but it is worrying how difficult it is to contact Sybase with any sort of problem. Presumably you cannot even register bugs without a support contract. I upgraded to PB10 from PB7, which was a complete crock of s*&t (ver 7 that is) and Sybase never got the problems of this version running on win2000 sorted out. For a solution you had to upgrade, I am a one-man band and the cost of an upgrade to PB enterprise is not cheap, so it is not something I can do very often.

Sorry to blab on so much.

Cheers

Bill