IMAP problems with 6816

Problem reported by Nicolas Fertig - 9/3/2018 at 12:24 AM

Resolved

Hi,

We updated this night to the latest build from 6802, since then, many customers are reporting issues with IMAP (mostly people on mac).

The say that it can't connect and return a timeout. I thought it was just a specific user issue as I was able to connect with thunderbird, but multiple people reported the issue.

We reverted back to 6802, and the problem is gone !

Really what is going on. Since a few month we're having troubles like every two updates we apply :(

edit: we also have a customer with a java app that connects to imap, they also couldn't connect the whole time we were running 6816, reverting fixed it too.

94 Replies

Reply to Thread

Ale Replied

9/3/2018 at 12:38 AM

Hello,

same is happening here.

Anyone has a link to download 6802 installer?

Starting to get tired of all the bugs introduced with updates...

Nicolas Fertig Replied

9/3/2018 at 1:26 AM

We're archiving every installer since a few month, exactly for this reason.

I've sent it to a wetransfer, you can grab it here:

https://we.tl/t-cPktDGW2i7

edit: there really should be a previous releases download page, it's amazing you can't grab a previous version from the vendor site, in case you need to downgrade...

Ale Replied

9/3/2018 at 1:40 AM

Tx a lot!

Will start doing the same, but really thinking to move away from SM.

Nicolas Fertig Replied

9/3/2018 at 1:50 AM

You're welcome.

I hope it will help you fix the issue as it did for us.

ps: did you receive any notification when a topic you're registered to is replied on here?

Ale Replied

9/3/2018 at 2:08 AM

Actually I didn't.

It is a while I don't post in the forum so I've no other evidence, but I can remember I was notified in the past.

Nicolas Fertig Replied

9/3/2018 at 2:29 AM

Okay, thanks.

I can't remember receiving a notification of a reply and double checked the account settings, but no notification mail is coming since a long time too :(

Manuel Martins Replied

9/3/2018 at 3:40 AM

Hi,

Same problem here, will do a downgrade to 6802, thanks for the link.

Neal Culiner Replied

9/3/2018 at 4:11 AM

Isn't it sheer brilliance ST releases a build on Friday before a long weekend and is no where to be found to triage their severe bugs? I don't get it. Most unprofessional situation I've witnessed in a long time by a software company.

Reto Replied

9/3/2018 at 4:20 AM

Same for Version 15, we had to revert back to 15.7.6782 from 15.7.6816.

Ale Replied

9/3/2018 at 5:20 AM

Just downgraded to 6802, and the issue disappeared.

IMAP is (still) a main protocol to access a mail server, it's simply unacceptable that could be completely broken by an update, without a solution after 4 days.

Definitely looking at alternative products - after 8 years with SM :(

Ray Cook Replied

9/3/2018 at 6:10 AM

Well, that's a life saver. I would advise everyone to save the previous working installation file.
I must say, ST now seem to be more concerned with 16.x and 17.x and we have never trusted 16.x - very disappointed in ST's QA

Alessandro Pereira Replied

9/3/2018 at 7:15 AM

Same problem here, we downgrade to 6802 and problem is over.
It is no longer possible to rely on SmarterTools updates

Paul Blank Replied

9/3/2018 at 8:36 AM

Just upgraded from older version of SM to 15.7.6782, including a move to a completely new server (Server 2012 R2). Thank heaven I've been following this forum for the last few days (actually, years), and did NOT upgrade to 6816.

That said, I planned pretty carefully, and the upgrade went smoothly.

Staying completely away from v16 here*. The days of using SM as a main email server are, sadly, numbered. ST is forcing my hand.

* this is the collective wisdom of many SM admins I follow

Paul Blank Replied

9/3/2018 at 8:41 AM

Looks as if I dodged a bullet here. Stayed with 6782 for a version upgrade. My full reply is below.

Ray Cook Replied

9/3/2018 at 9:10 AM

Can anyone upload 15.7.6782 somewhere for those of us who don;t have the previous install file.

Paul Blank Replied

9/3/2018 at 10:28 AM

Yes, I will upload that shortly and give you all a link. Stand by.

Paul Blank Replied

9/3/2018 at 10:32 AM

Link to 15.7.6782:

https://spaces.hightail.com/space/wgse7tZ0LB

Feel free to contact me if you have trouble with this link!

Ray Cook Replied

9/3/2018 at 11:17 AM

Extremely grateful for this - many tx

echoDreamz Replied

9/3/2018 at 12:19 PM

The other issue is that everyone has apparently vanished. I get that it is a Holiday weekend, even us as a "smaller" hosting provider, we have people round the clock monitoring tickets, servers, PRTG, our forums etc.

If something goes wrong, away goes the BBQ and beer and someone has to respond. Figured at least someone would be checking the forums going "Uh, guys, we may have an issue" and coming in to address the problem. Instead of waiting until the next open business day to get in and go "Oh... Oops..." then have to scramble together a fix.

echoDreamz Replied

9/3/2018 at 12:25 PM

Though, I assume they are waiting for someone to shell out $400.

Neal Culiner Replied

9/3/2018 at 12:33 PM

Just shows you ST's dedication, or lack thereof. Not how an enterprise product company operates. Maybe they'll get a clue why Microsoft releases their patches on Tuesdays.

echoDreamz Replied

9/3/2018 at 1:30 PM

Yeah, I had posted about releasing updates at the beginning of the week, at least this way they are all around when something breaks.

echoDreamz Replied

9/3/2018 at 1:34 PM

So far we have about 3 dozen clients on TBird complaining about saving sent emails to the "Sent" folder errors, macOS mail clients complaining of connection / sync errors and about half-a-dozen Android users complaining of errors for the native mail client. So far, Outlook seems to be OK. However, it is still a Holiday here in the US, so, a large portion of our clients are not in the office or are simply not at their computers.

Paul Blank Replied

9/3/2018 at 1:52 PM

Quite welcome!

Paul Blank Replied

9/3/2018 at 1:57 PM

The unfortunate takeaway is this: unless what you're currently running has a serious problem that the update professes to fix, wait at least couple of weeks before installing said update.

And check in here often!

Ray Cook Replied

9/3/2018 at 2:36 PM

Hello again. The installation did not work. I received an error when it tried to (re) install MS Visual C++ Redistributable Package (x64) - I chose to ignore and go ahead and all completed ok but SM was not running and I had to reinstall the latest version.

Any ideas?

Neal Culiner Replied

9/3/2018 at 3:21 PM

You would have to download a release and watch that one specific build for issues. Otherwise it's moot as they seemed to rely on automated "testing" and builds to pump out a build every Friday, untested as we all know. So if you wait a few weeks you really still don't know what you're getting. It's just another build that you can't trust. Pick your date of entry. This is not how businesses do software, I guess ST grew big and became arrogant, usually how a company implodes. I won't consider any more ST products, that's for sure. Glad they haven't touched SmarterStats and left that alone.

Ron Raley Replied

9/3/2018 at 3:36 PM

I should have read the forum before upgrading :(

Ng Cher Choon Replied

9/3/2018 at 4:52 PM

We are also facing this problem with several of our customers complaining about the sync with the emails with IMAP.

Paul Blank Replied

9/3/2018 at 6:12 PM

Neal, that is the only strategy (if you're going to stay with SM, and that's a big if). Watch the forum here, and pull the trigger when the complaints are at a minimum. Very sad, however, to observe what appears to be a train wreck in progress, especially when we are amongst the passengers.

echoDreamz Replied

9/3/2018 at 7:10 PM

The issue for us what that this update fixed an issue that was causing emails to stall in queue with exceptions in the delivery logs. So we had to apply it to fix a delivery problem, only to find that now IMAP is broken :(

echoDreamz Replied

9/3/2018 at 7:13 PM

It is an endless cycle of fix this and break that, fix this and break that, that does not seem to end. Previously was issue with SM ignoring the IP bypass entries causing emails from our backup MX gateways to bounce due to SPF, fixed that, then we started with this delivery exception, fixed that, now we have IMAP problems.

Reto Replied

9/3/2018 at 11:50 PM

@Ray, did you uninstall, reboot and install again? (this way it should work)

Ray Cook Replied

9/4/2018 at 1:47 AM

ah - I'll try it that way - I thought I could get away with it. I did think about uninstalling just the C++ but it got too late. If ST haven't sorted this today I'll have another go. Tx again

Damir Matešić Replied

9/4/2018 at 3:25 AM

No reply from SM team about this release full of bugs?

As always.

YS Tech Replied

9/4/2018 at 3:42 AM

Same issue, clients complaining that sent items aren't saving, etc.

YS Tech Replied

9/4/2018 at 4:10 AM

Thanks, I will start saving previous updates, very wise decision. And of course check the forums before updating next time!

Paul Blank Replied

9/4/2018 at 4:16 AM

This is the accepted procedure. That said, I've yet to encounter another program that allows you to install a new version when an uninstall is needed first. Other installation routines automatically stop services, uninstall previous versions and do other cleanup tasks before installing the new version, and then restart services and/or request a machine reboot.

Neal Culiner Replied

9/4/2018 at 4:23 AM

Paul, I'm not new to ST or SM, been using it for years. Amazed at ST's lack of transparency, they owe their high paying customers answers on what the heck happened with SM 16 and why they pump out builds and do not care about quality or impact on their customers and the customers of their customers. It's time to broadcast a BUYER BEWARE of ST products and look elsewhere for quality mail server products customers can trust and rely on.

Neal Culiner Replied

9/4/2018 at 4:25 AM

No, they went on vacation/holiday just after releasing the build, just like every weekend. They do not get it. Don't release something you are not around to support if something goes wrong. They've had enough time to learn this lesson with SM 16 yet have not made any changes to prove to us, the customers, that they are making changes to better serve us.

Damir Matešić Replied

9/4/2018 at 4:57 AM

This is SM standard behavior. I tried to explain to them that business is not working like this. Many time to some SM stuff. They don't have the right vision, and for sure have leaks in the internal testing procedures and coding. Maybe they think that the end user is the one that should test the PRODUCTION releases. They are able to make the same bugs over and over. Totally incompetence!

Neal Culiner Replied

9/4/2018 at 6:23 AM

ST could have at least taken one hour out of their weekend to PULL THE BUILD and link back the prior build for us. This happened about 2-3 weeks ago? Yeah, it happens weekly that something is screwed up but at least they pulled the build that time.

Proves one thing to developers. Automation does not work by itself. Automated testing, automated builds (using the same filename and web linking is pure lazy). A great example of how NOT to do things - that is SmarterTools. Or should we just call them Tools now?

SmP Replied

9/4/2018 at 7:01 AM

Really hoping for an out of band update today!

SmP Replied

9/4/2018 at 7:05 AM

We've received a number of reports specifically about macOS users experiencing the same issue since the release of last Friday's build.

SmP Replied

9/4/2018 at 7:53 AM

Indeed, we just made the jump last week and really thought that a year into 16, this would be more stable.

Ray Cook Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:03 AM

We thought of a different approach to a previous version of the install file. We have back-ups of the Smartermail folder from before the update.

The problem is we don't know which files may have changed since, like xml files that should not be restored. it would be useful if we know which folders and files can be safely restored then, I presume, you could just stop the service, backup the SM folder, copy over the old files and restart and you would be back to the previous installation?

Is this correct? Anyone tried it?

SmP Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:07 AM

We retain the version just before any upgrade as a practice as of SmarterMail 15 but in this case, we're still not sure what the ramifications would be to back-step. By this time we would have hoped that SmarterTools would be releasing an emergency fix but it's been very quiet this morning and the clock is running against us as tickets build.

Paul Blank Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:07 AM

:: sigh :: I am not sure that they don't care. Sadly, it seems to be an organizational problem.

SmP Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:10 AM

The lack of communication is a bit of a contentious issue for us. No updates on these threads or acknowledgement about the issues that now seem to be pretty well substantiated.

Paul Blank Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:10 AM

Ray, I'm not sure where I'd begin with an approach as you've suggested. Installing a previous version usually works (when you do the uninstall / reboot / reinstall), where the bug(s) were introduced with the later version UNLESS it's suggested that you can't revert.

Last I heard, even v16 could be reverted to v15, but I'm not so sure of that at this point.

Reto Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:10 AM

@SmP, we rolled back without a problem (uninstall, reboot, install) and since then we just emails that everything is working again

Paul Blank Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:11 AM

Much too quiet; noting that there has been an ST response already about a different problem:

https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a91074/cannot-login-using-chrome-latest-version-68_0_3440_106-official-build-64-bit-smartermail.aspx

Derek Curtis Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:24 AM

Employee Post

All,

We currently have all of the developers looking at the latest build to figure out what happened. We're planning on having a build ready ASAP, and once we have more info, we'll let you know.

Derek Curtis COO SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

SmP Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:25 AM

Thank you for the update Derek and we very much look forward to the build!

Damir Matešić Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:36 AM

Lol. This is not a case with SM

Damir Matešić Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:38 AM

Try to be serious this time and start to take care about your customers. The customers is all you have.

SmP Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:43 AM

Refreshing the downloads page like it's my job or like my job is on the line! We just convinced the powers that be to finalize upgrades to SmarterMail 16 last week :(

Ray Cook Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:45 AM

tx Paul - as ST now say they are on it I'll give it 24hrs for the next release before trying to revert with the old install file. I would have thought that they should be able to home in on the issue as they know what they changed and they have a lot of unhappy customers at the moment

Neal Culiner Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:56 AM

I'd like to know what happened in that this issue went this long to be looked at.

Why was it released prior to a long weekend where you obviously could not triage a problem with the build.?

Why wasn't the download pulled to prevent spread of this issue?

I believe I reported an issue Friday. Why wasn't it immediately investigated?

How is ST going to change things to better serve your customers going forward?

How can we get access to prior builds to triage this when you can't? (Archive? FTP list? what?)

How did this go unnoticed/untested?

Thomas Lange Replied

9/4/2018 at 9:11 AM

@Derek / @ST:

as already suggested by some of your customers - I would suggest:

A) do not release update-builds on Friday - perhaps Monday or Tuesday could be a better day

B) make download-archive available at your homepage - perhaps the last three builds of each main version-number

C) have at least one employee who monitors your community during the following 36-48 hours after an update-build is being released... (no matter if during weekdays or even over a weekend - in case you still prefer releasing updates on Fridays) - you must react ASAP.

D) quality assurance of the new builds is very, very poor - so you should name them more like "experimental" oder "unstable" builds - and move them to stable Download after one or two weeks without "fatal" issues.
Sorry to say this but In the past few weeks/month you had too many issues with new builds - not a real "Enterprise-ready" product... and a MailServer is an mission critical product - no one should mess around with it - and after a few issues with updates I can understand that users will quit using your software and switch to a competitor product.

Reputation of SmarterTools is going down.... if customers and upcoming customers are reading about such software-issues with almost each new build. :-(

And releasing any new build right before the long labor-day weekend was not the best decision at all!

Ron Raley Replied

9/4/2018 at 9:11 AM

Derek, please make all your builds downloadable. It would be utmost helpful!

Paul Blank Replied

9/4/2018 at 9:13 AM

Looks like this has something to do with the problem:

https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a91076/smtp-command-cut-off.aspx

Paul Blank Replied

9/4/2018 at 9:30 AM

My biggest SM client is indeed in the process of migrating to Office 365, and I have lost other SM clients as well. The writing is on the wall.

SmP Replied

9/4/2018 at 9:33 AM

Paul, unfortunately we're slowly sinking in the same direction despite our best efforts to make the case for SmarterMail. From a business standpoint, it's not even a question of cost but for such a critical aspect of business day, stability, and reliability.

Perhaps SmarterTools should consider an early adopter, general, and late release approach.

Neal Culiner Replied

9/4/2018 at 9:36 AM

PULL THE BUILD!

echoDreamz Replied

9/4/2018 at 10:16 AM

Our IMAP thread count is climbing steadily. Normally it is around 1000 - 2000 during peak times,

Damir Matešić Replied

9/4/2018 at 10:23 AM

Nice suggestions and nice threads in this post. SM should listen to our suggestions. If the customers are not happy than this will be the end for them. But by my past experience i think that nothing will learn from this. The v16 is not stable already from the release. How is possible that something like a basic feature (IMAP) stop to work? I would realize that some new cool fancy image is not displayed in the WEB interface for example. But how somebody can have confidence in the critical system like mail server if every new deploy show new and old bugs?

Paul Blank Replied

9/4/2018 at 10:26 AM

I try to respond as a Reply (see below), this way they can be upvoted, and might get the attention of ST.

Paul Blank Replied

9/4/2018 at 10:30 AM

It is said that Microsoft has generally won the cloud-email war over g-suite, mostly due to the inclusion of the all-powerful and very popular MS-Office suite in the product, and that in the next couple of years over 80% of businesses will have migrated to Office 365, for better or worse.

The ST product is quite powerful and quite complex, but the bugs are a deal-breaker. Who has time to track all these things, field complaints from users, and slog through the tedious uninstall/reboot/reinstall process every few days, keeping fingers-crossed all the while that it won't break something else?

Email is of paramount importance to almost all companies these days. This has just been painful here.

echoDreamz Replied

9/4/2018 at 10:43 AM

https://www.smartertools.com/smartermail/release-notes/16 Is 6821 the fix for v16?

Ron Raley Replied

9/4/2018 at 10:55 AM

Looks like it, but I'm not downloading it until they update this page:
https://www.smartertools.com/smartermail/downloads

Matt Petty Replied

9/4/2018 at 10:56 AM

Employee Post

We have not confirmed the fix yet with customers. It is very likely though that 6821 will be the release we push out to fix the problem. We are currently waiting to hear back from various tickets that we have open. However, if you'd like to test that build and confirm it that would be nice. Otherwise I'd suggest waiting until we get confirmation.

Matt Petty Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

Ron Raley Replied

9/4/2018 at 10:56 AM

And it is updated to 16.3.6821

Neal Culiner Replied

9/4/2018 at 11:01 AM

6821 installed per my support ticket with ST and IMAP on Mac OS is fixed. Should fix other IMAP issues as well. EAS Calendar in Outlook is still broken per another ST ticket.

echoDreamz Replied

9/4/2018 at 11:02 AM

I am waiting, our SM takes too long to start up for us to be applying random builds.

echoDreamz Replied

9/4/2018 at 11:09 AM

Thanks Neal.

echoDreamz Replied

9/4/2018 at 11:09 AM

Ronald, can you confirm on your end if does fix it?

Ron Raley Replied

9/4/2018 at 11:12 AM

FIXED. echoDreamz, I know it is daytime hours but just install it and give yourself some peace of mind!

echoDreamz Replied

9/4/2018 at 11:16 AM

Oh, I am not worried about the time lol, Our SM takes ~40 minutes or so to start up. So taking it down to install a "possible" fix is a bit much. At least with confirmation, it makes the downtime worth it.

Paul Blank Replied

9/4/2018 at 11:39 AM

Think I'll wait a week or two, unless I see major problems with this particular customer's 15.7.6782.

Derek Curtis Replied

9/4/2018 at 12:23 PM

Employee Post Marked As Resolution

Just to bring this topic full circle, here's some detail on what went on...

One of the things last week's release was supposed to include were some memory optimizations to our TCP code which is used by POP, XMPP, SMTP and IMAP. (Not EAS, EWS or WebDAV). These optimizations were to help streamline processing requests for those protocols as well as address a memory leak that was found. Unfortunately, what appears to have happened is that the code also caused commands to be half-read or for some requests from clients to contain incomplete commands. In either case, clients would drop connections altogether or error out with incomplete info written to the logs. The devs stepped through all that code again and were able to narrow down the issue and get it resolved. We were able to keep the optimizations while mitigating the odd behaviors.

Obviously, we're never pleased when bugs like this get released. We do have manual QC processes that occur before any minor goes out. 99% of the time, we find issues prior to release. Some issues are harder than others to see ahead of time, and, of course, everyone's environment is different with different protocols being used, different user counts, different clients, etc. We try to be proactive with testing and QC, but each install is different and user mileage varies. That said, Tim is obviously involved and we are actively discussing how to catch these types of issues more efficiently.

Derek Curtis COO SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

Thomas Lange Replied

9/4/2018 at 1:05 PM

Errors/Issues can always happen - but one of SmarterTools team-members should check community-forum probably every 8 hours per day for 24-48 hours after any new build is released.
Weekends or even long weekends and no one of SmarterTools interacts/reacts is not acceptable.

and allow me one question: is the actual v17 beta affected by the TCP code issues, too?
It has same 6816 in its build number so I am asking (17.0.6816).

Matt Petty Replied

9/4/2018 at 1:09 PM

Employee Post

Yes, everything rolls up to the next version unless its fixing or implementing something that doesn't apply to a higher version. We've rolled this fix into all versions future and currently supported 15, 16, and 17.

Matt Petty Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

Employee Replied

9/4/2018 at 1:11 PM

Employee Post

Thomas, 15.7.6816, 16.3.6816, and 17.0.6816 beta all had the same bug in the code. All of these versions have been patched with the TCP connection fix.

Matt Petty Replied

9/4/2018 at 1:13 PM

Employee Post

Continuing on my previous response, We bring down important bug fixes and improvements into 15 and since this was intended to fix memory issues is why it was rolled down into 15 from 16 and thus why 15 has the issue. Same applies to 17, if there is something we discover bug or optimization, we push it down to the lowest supported version so 16 and 15 get them.

Matt Petty Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

Thomas Lange Replied

9/4/2018 at 1:15 PM

thank you, it was not clear for me that the v17beta full-installer is already updated/fixed... no comments/posts with new beta version noticed yet - and no version number in the download link :-)

Neal Culiner Replied

9/4/2018 at 1:24 PM

Sir, do you understand the impact of releasing prior to a weekend or holiday when you have no way to triage an issue such as this?

Damir Matešić Replied

9/4/2018 at 2:00 PM

Derek, try to understand and learn something from this post and situation. There is a lot of constructive ideas. This kind of fail is not acceptable in a critical system like mail system. You and your company need to give a great apologies to all the people who had issues because of your internal immature attitude and way of make business.

Derek Curtis Replied

9/4/2018 at 3:01 PM

Employee Post

Damir, I hear you, and everyone else, loud and clear, and I agree 100%. Issues like these are unacceptable and, thankfully, rather rare.

I don't see where we've displayed an "immature...attitude", however. We're extremely thankful we have a responsible and responsive community of users who bring things to our attention and who work together, and with us, through good times and, more importantly, when things are not so good.

Derek Curtis COO SmarterTools Inc. (877) 357-6278 www.smartertools.com

Adam Replied

9/4/2018 at 8:45 PM

I just lost a big client now due to this massive bug. Moving to GMAIL.

I am a small hosting company trying to convince people that us as an alternative GMAIL/Office365 provider is just as good an option, but when fundamentals cannot work, how have I got a leg to stand on.

I am trying to build up this hosting company, so I need a quality product that doesn't keep breaking. This is not new, it seems more I look into SM the more I see the masses of your customers saying the same things.

Now IMAP seems to work OK, after this 6821 update, fingers crossed.

Adam Replied

9/4/2018 at 10:12 PM

It would also be super useful if you could send an email to those who download your bad updates to let us know you have a fix.

Alessandro Pereira Replied

9/5/2018 at 5:36 AM

We are also having problems with some customers wanting to migrate to other e-mail solutions because the ST solution is not reliable.

Alessandro Pereira Replied

9/5/2018 at 5:39 AM

We are also having problems with some customers wanting to migrate to other e-mail solutions because the ST solution is not reliable.

Paul Blank Replied

9/5/2018 at 6:43 AM

I am going to be a pest and beat a dead horse, so to speak:

ST posted a flawed update to SmarterMail and went away for a long weekend; apparently nobody from ST bothered to check the forum to see if any issues were reported. This is the real heart of the problem. Bugs happen, for sure. But not paying attention makes things worse.

All the apologies in the world don't help when users and admins have nowhere to go when this happens. And businesses selling SmarterMail as a service or as resellers lost clients. This is not new. This particular issue, however, was a big one.

A few years ago, I had migrated from iMail to SmarterMail, and used SmarterMail's own iMail -> SM conversion tool. Turned out that (unbeknownst to me) the conversion wrote a non-standard directory structure into SM, but SM dealt with this OK, and it worked normally from a user point of view. A bit later on, someone at ST saw all this code in SM that handled the non-standard structures, decided that it was useless and took it out. I installed the next minor upgrade and SM blew up on me and my customer.

Dealing with ST was quite difficult; they never fully explained the issue, but provided some help in straightening things out. But then, they also didn't tell me that after each user was fixed (took me a day's work to get all the users straight, one at a time), the changes would take time to propagate, so I had to figure that out as well - at some point early into this process, ST stopped taking my calls and responding to my emails - even though I had a 10-incident phone service package; leaving most of the cleanup entirely to me. And even though it was then clear what had happened, ST never actually admitted how they caused the problem. That should have been a sign, but I stayed. It is now several years later....

Until these kinds of irresponsible and unprofessional behavior change - and it's doubtful at this point that there will be change - ST will continue to lose customers.

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