Services
Superbase
Technical Support Services
Three different levels of support are available:
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Critical Support Service
( CSS)
This is a premium service aimed at Enterprise level. With
the CSS, you receive priority telephone assistance, priority
access to support staff after hours, weekends and holidays.
You also receive visits at your sites when it is necessary.
In addition, the CSS package includes all product upgrades,
maintenance releases and access to Superbase Online Technical
Support Centre.
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Standard Support Service
(SSS)
This is a cost-effective package. With the SSS, you get access
to support staff during business hours (8:00AM to 5:00PM PST
for USA and Canada) and (8:00AM to 6:00PM GMT for Europe).
You also get all product maintenance releases and access to
Superbase Online Technical Support Centre.
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Basic Support Service
( BSS)
This is a free service to all Superbase customers. With the
BSS, you receive unlimited e-mail support and access to a
fax support line. Answers to requests are not guaranteed to
take place quickly, since this is not a paid support system.
Customers are strongly encouraged to use the public newsgroups
that provide peer-level support and where an answer may be
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Contacting Technical Support via Email
Technical support can be reached via email at tech@superbase.co.uk.
Please make sure that you indicate in your email which version of
Superbase that you are using and any information pertinent to the
problem. Do not send any unsolicited attachments, as emails with
attachments that are unexpected may be automatically deleted.
Help! What is...?!
If you wondered about the meaning of a technical term or simply
have forgotten what it means, the following site is your salvation!
http://www.whatis.com
Technical Documentation Archive:
Part of our services is to supply very comprehensive and detailed
documentation about our products and related issues, in one
archive, and in an easy-to-find way. The archive is vast and expanding,
with new material added frequently. Please look in regularly to
keep up with these new additions.
Superbase for the technical minded:
What
is new in Superbase Classic
What
was new in Superbase 2001
Installation
Information for SB 2001
What
was new in Superbase 3.6i
What
was new in Superbase 3.5
What was
new in Superbase 3.2
What was
new in Superbase 3.0
Maintaining
Superbase Applications
Tours:
Superbase
Classic Tour
PPCS Remote
Connectivity Example
Tools:
ODBC Driver
Introduction
ODBC
Driver Manual in PDF format
Superbase
Internet Webserver
Superboxes
Networks:
Networking
Fact Sheet
Opportunistic
Locking Explained
Discussions:
Superbase News Groups
Converting From Old Versions:
Converting From Amiga Superbase
Latest Tech Problems:
vdm*.tmp Files appearing in Windows 2000 environments
This is a known problem with Windows 2000. It appears to be specific
to SP3. There are a number of discussions about the problem on the
Internet, one of which seems to provide a fairly clear description
of the problem and its source and that can be found here.
Extremely slow performance when using Windows NT
SP6 or later together with Windows NT SP5 or earlier (or Win 9x
clients)
This is a known problem that affects numerous products (typically
desktop databases) including MS Access 97-2000, Paradox, Clarion,
and Visual Objects to name a few. The problem is Windows NT SP6,
SP6a, Windows 2000, result in very slow network performance from
Windows 95, 98, 98SE, Me and Windows NT4 SP5 and earlier workstations.
Same is true for the other direction, SP5 or earlier server with
SP6 or later clients. The issue is one of mixed TCP/IP implementations.
The specifics are in various DLLs that changed when SP6 was released.
Related Microsoft articles indicating that this problem exists:
Q249799,
Q254930,
Q150384,
Q129202,
*Q264239,
*Q236316.
In addition, there are numerous discussions on the Internet with
respect to people having sudden slowdowns when installing NT SP6
or SP6a in a network that otherwise uses SP5 or earlier. These reports
cover the range of products including Access 97, Access 2000, Visual
Objects, Clarion, Paradox, as well as Superbase and various others.
On our own news server there are a number of discussions of this
phenomenon which doesn't affect other users running other servers/protocols.
One of the threads found mentioned that running IPX/SPX instead
of MS TCP/IP made a 3 to 10 fold difference in speed. Our own users
have found that running MS NETBEUEI as the default protocol can
make a significant speed difference in a moderately sized to small
network. Sufficient perusal of the above-mentioned Microsoft articles
can assist in tuning and updating various components of the TCP/IP
installation but it may still not reach the performance that NETBEUEI
does simply because of the amount of overhead required by TCP/IP
in comparison with the much lighter weight NETBEUEI protocol.
Here are some links to conversations found on groups.google.com
where the same results have been found by users of other products
such as Clarion,
Visual
Objects, and MS
Access 97-2000.
A complete analysis of this problem was done by a Clarion user
based on two of the Microsoft articles referenced above (the ones
with the leading asterisks). This is the newsgroup
article that contains the analysis.
Slightly related to this was a discussion
of protocols, specifically TCP/IP vs. IPX/SPX with respect to
Access 97-2000.
Superbase recommends that no mixing of service packs is done and
in hybrid environments that include Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, or Me
together with Windows NT SP6, SP6a, 2000, XP, etc. that testing
be done before committing to that architecture for the reasons outlined
above. Another alternative that has been shown to result in even
faster network speed for desktop database applications such as Superbase
and which has been reported favourably by our user base is to use
MS NETBEUEI as the default protocol. Note that in large corporate
networks this is probably not the best solution.
Windows 2000 hangs when running reports
This is a known problem. The issue is that in the NTVDM in Windows
2000, where Superbase is running, after a certain number of calls
to the memory allocation function provided by the operating system,
the available memory handles are used up and the call to allocate
memory never returns. This has been fixed by Microsoft, but has
not yet been incorporated into a service pack (it was not part of
service pack 2, it may be part of service pack 3). Here is a link
to the Microsoft site with information about the problem and a link
to the download that fixes it, Microsoft query number Q288165.
Windows 2000 write caching setting not persistent
The issue appears to be that when the write caching is turned off
for a drive in Windows 2000, that the setting is not persistent
and will only apply during the current session. After a reboot the
write caching is re-enabled. This has been fixed by Microsoft, but
has not yet been incorporated into a service pack (it may be part
of service pack 3). Here is a link to the Microsoft site with information
about the problem. There is currently no link to the download, you
will have to contact Microsoft to get the hot fix, Microsoft query
number Q281672.
Office 2000 SP2 and Office XP break Simple MAPI,
Outlook Object Model, and CMC
The Outlook Email Security Update that is part of Office 2000 Service
Pack 2 and is built into Outlook 2002 makes applications that use
the Simple MAPI interface virtually unusable. The issue is that
the update forces a prompt to appear each time the address book
is retrieved and each time a message is sent. The prompt forces
a 5 second delay before enabling the OK button. This makes any type
of automated mailing using Simple MAPI impossible for all practical
purposes. Superbase uses the Simple MAPI support to provide its
email services. It is not alone, MS Word 2000 also uses Simple
MAPI and is equally affected as are Excel and Access. For more information
check out the following links: Outlook2000
Email and Fax Guide from Slipstick Systems, OL2002Developer
Information About Outlook Security Features Q290500, and OL2000:Developer
Information About the Outlook E-Mail Security Update Q262701.Currently
there is no scheduled plan to rewrite the MAPI support in Superbase
2001, though that is currently under discussion. It will be weighed
against the cost to our current next-generation product development.
There are some workarounds available to these issues. For standalone
users, they can either stick with Outlook 2000 SP1 or earlier, or
use a different mail client to provide MAPI, such as Eudora Pro.
For Exchange users, there appears to be a way to fix this by using
a specific security form that is published in a public folder (see
Slipstick's site for more information).
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