Hold Off 16 Upgrade?

Question asked by Brian Ebers - 10/13/2017 at 11:11 AM

Unanswered

I've been patiently waiting to upgrade from 14 to 16, after 16 had time to "season" with fix releases the last several months since May initial release. I was considering doing it this weekend, then I came across a thread about inbox refresh problems and problems viewing mail. What is the general opinion at this moment in time, hold off until this issue is permanently fixed? is this the only major problem? Any other major problems experienced not related to web interface?

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Brian Ebers Replied

10/13/2017 at 11:14 AM

More info: I have a multitenant setup with several hundred mailboxes spread over about 20 separate customer primary domains.

Dave Hunter Replied

10/13/2017 at 12:01 PM

v16 is not ready for production yet.

Neal Culiner Replied

10/13/2017 at 1:45 PM

If we don't use the web UI is v16 production ready from an email server standpoint? I'm on v15.latest and all is fine, if v16 server side only is better let me know.

John Marx Replied

10/13/2017 at 3:26 PM

We haven't had any issues with our "Outlook" or IMAP users that don't use the interface. We only have 300 or so users. Only issues seems to be related to users using web mail. The web mail users that complained the most we got them to use Outlook (or equivalent) and they are happier.

Victor Braun Rodrigues Replied

10/14/2017 at 12:19 PM

Wait, wait. Last week I upgraded to v16 and in less than 24 hours we were forced back to v15, look here

https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a89717/smartermail-16x-installed-but-webmail-access-is-very-slow.aspx

Brian Tesene Replied

10/15/2017 at 5:49 PM

I cannot agree more. DO NOT UPGRADE. My experience with v16 was a nightmare. When we first upgraded we had to deal with lots of small issues (browser capability issues, etc) that eventually got fixed in minor updates. After we got past the first few minor updates everything was running fine and then, suddenly, the web UI slowed to a snail's pace. Every page was taking approximately 34 seconds to load. This happened out of the blue with no changes being made of the server. I tried reverting to previous minor versions of 16 with no luck. I opened a support ticket with SM, still no luck. I finally had to revert back to v15. 16 had some super features but 15 is rock solid and fast.

Neal Culiner Replied

10/17/2017 at 8:33 AM

I'd love to know what ST did so wrong in this release (v16.x). I'd like to hear from them, be transparent, what went wrong and when will it be trustworthy again? I'm staying on v15 until further notice. If the Web UI needs a complete do over, so be it, just state it. Tell us what happened, what's the corrective action, and just be completely honest about the situation.

Matthew Leyda Replied

10/17/2017 at 11:12 AM

Unfortunately, Gut feeling is Ver 17 and raise the price will be the fix. Same thing that happened to Imail around 2005.

Kendra Support http://www.kendra.com support@kendra.com 425-397-7911 Junk Email filtered ISP

Nathan Replied

10/17/2017 at 12:24 PM

Haven't checked but I received an email to advise price rising was coming 1st October, so I suppose we now just have to wait for v17 now :-)

Seriously though, give we all pay Smartermail tax, sorry upgrade protection I wonder if there will be any goodwill credits given we have all lost many months of being able to upgrade to a newer/working version.

Neal Culiner Replied

10/17/2017 at 3:56 PM

Sure would be honorable of ST to say "ya know people, SM 16 didn't quite work out like we wanted and we made a few mistakes. We're going to extend everyone X months (9-12) as a courtesy as we need(ed) extra time to get it right."

Matthew Leyda Replied

10/17/2017 at 7:42 PM

Ha Ha Ha Ha .... Neal made a funny :)

Kendra Support http://www.kendra.com support@kendra.com 425-397-7911 Junk Email filtered ISP

Paul Blank Replied

10/18/2017 at 12:16 AM

My two cents' worth: stay on v15 (or whatever older version is working for you now) for the time being.

Richard Frank Replied

10/18/2017 at 4:01 AM

I know it's a joke.. but v15 is also still updated with fixes.

I just don't understand why ST took something good and crippled it. I hate hate hate the v16 interface. Maybe people hates change all together, but I really don't like those spatial interfaces. lot of screen space is waisted.

Paul Blank Replied

10/18/2017 at 9:37 AM

Then I guess it's not so um.. spacial. (sorry about that)

Richard Frank Replied

10/18/2017 at 2:29 PM

Matthew Leyda Replied

10/18/2017 at 4:39 PM

I stayed on Ver 15 and stopped paying the Smartermail tax, sorry upgrade protection. With a little luck this will give me some time to see if SmarterMail will come around.

Kendra Support http://www.kendra.com support@kendra.com 425-397-7911 Junk Email filtered ISP

Matthew Titley Replied

10/20/2017 at 5:54 AM

Hi Brian,

I'm in the same boat as you. My company has about 400 users across a few dozen domains. I'm waiting patiently to hear some seasoned SmarterMail admins come here and say, "Wow! I absolutely adore v16! and here is why..." but until that time I'm staying on v15. I get the feeling from all the discussions that it's the web interface that is the major issue and not the underlying SM engine. Only a small subset of my clients use webmail but it is important nonetheless.

Matt

Paul Blank Replied

10/20/2017 at 6:49 AM

Webmail is (was?) one of the great reasons to use SM. Some of my clients are gravely concerned about its future, given ST's behavior regarding v16. They are actively looking for alternatives, and have me doing so as well.

The move will likely be to G-Suite or Office 365 at this point.

Brian Ebers Replied

10/20/2017 at 7:34 AM

Thanks to all for your thoughtful responses. I will upgrade to latest rev of 15 and call it a day for now, putting serious consideration into whether to continue upgrade protection. Frankly, I have been migrating a smattering of clients who had full on premises Exchange to Office 365 and it has been working out very well. Since ActiveSync for Outlook has been deprecated by MS (it never really worked that great with ST anyway) and ST is caught short without MAPI, I may just bite the bullet and migrate everyone to Office 365 and use the Kiosk type license for those not needing the full integrated Outlook experience.

Paul Blank Replied

10/20/2017 at 7:51 AM

Smart move IMO.

dean brown Replied

1/26/2018 at 11:30 AM

Any update to people's experiences going from 15 to 16?

I've done a single hosted domain, with no issues, a few weeks back, but I'm hesitant to move my main server with almost 500 users and 50 domains

Rick Moses Replied

1/26/2018 at 11:40 AM

Don't do it. My ISP forced the v16 upgrade on us a few weeks ago, and I hate it. The new web mail interface, despite the claims, is slower, features were removed, viewing mail is inconsistent, deleting is problematic. I'm still waiting on a response from my ISP on corrective actions. I'm actually considering going back to Outlook on the desktop.

Paul Blank Replied

1/26/2018 at 11:57 AM

Staying put here as well. Not going to v16 at this time.

Brian Ebers Replied

1/26/2018 at 12:10 PM

So I am really curious what this thread's subscribers think about this:

https://www.smartertools.com/blog/2018/01/18-SmarterMail-17-Introduction

Rick Moses Replied

1/26/2018 at 2:01 PM

Not impressed. It sounds more like they're focusing on adding more bells and whistles instead of fixing what they broke and restoring what was removed in the v15 to v16 switch.

Hemen Shah Replied

1/27/2018 at 3:40 AM

Am happy with SM 15.x and so as the users, atleast if any issues we are able to debug,

with seeing V16 posts and daily new posts on new issues, am just wanna stay on 15.x and keep watching the threads when on some day some admin will post that SM16 is now worth upgrading to.

Thanks

Rick Moses Replied

1/27/2018 at 6:44 PM

I've been raising a fuss with my ISP over v16. I finally heard from them that they are planning to go from their current 16.3.6558 to 16.3.6600 next weekend. I'm hoping this fixes a number of problems. One of the most annoying is this... I tried opening 4 messages, waiting 5 seconds between each. Instead of getting 4 different messages, I got 4 copies of the same message displayed. Hopefully this kind of thing is fixed in 6600.

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