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Post date: Apr 1, 2017 11:34:35 PM
On Monday 27 March 2017 I discussed (see: Family Tree Maker TreeSync to go Offline Effective Wednesday!):
- The poor handling of the planned transition from TreeSync to FamilySync
- The end of support for TreeSync; and,
- The poorly handled release of Family Tree Maker (FTM) 2017.
If you use FTM, then you have probably noticed that the release of FTM 2017 and of FamilySync did not quite happen as... "planned" is the wrong word for it. Let's say, it did not happen as well as could have been hoped. This is precisely the fear that was expressed in the previous post.
Mackiev posted the following on their website at what appears to have been about 5:30 AM ET:
3:30 AM UTAH TIME - APRIL 1
"Our shipping review meeting ended at 2:30 am Utah Time without an agreement to release quite yet. A thousand beta testers were called into service yesterday evening, at the end of the second day of testing FamilySync live on the Ancestry servers with TreeSync disconnected.
"Our shipping review meeting ended at 2:30 am Utah Time without an agreement to release quite yet. A thousand beta testers were called into service yesterday evening, at the end of the second day of testing FamilySync live on the Ancestry servers with TreeSync disconnected.
"Our quality assurance staff have called for more research into issues raised in beta testing. Our engineers are in the office and are going to spend the day following the trail of the most worrying issues raised in testing yesterday. They may turn out to be nothing, but we aren't going to release until we're sure.
"Our quality assurance staff have called for more research into issues raised in beta testing. Our engineers are in the office and are going to spend the day following the trail of the most worrying issues raised in testing yesterday. They may turn out to be nothing, but we aren't going to release until we're sure.
"In the meantime, Ancestry have agreed that existing FTM editions may continue to work until we ship That means that Ancestry hints, search, merge, maps and the Web dashboard will all keep working a few more days. We'll be sending out an email to everyone who has pre-ordered FTM 2017 a bit later today. .We will keep this page updated with our progress."
"In the meantime, Ancestry have agreed that existing FTM editions may continue to work until we ship That means that Ancestry hints, search, merge, maps and the Web dashboard will all keep working a few more days. We'll be sending out an email to everyone who has pre-ordered FTM 2017 a bit later today. .We will keep this page updated with our progress."
This should never have happened. FTM 2017 and FamilySync should have been properly tested before its release, which should have included months (or at least weeks) of beta testing (in a live environment), and before either party agreed to discontinue TreeSync support.
Subsequent to the above post from Mackiev is an update from around 6 PM ET (4 PM Utah time). This updated (see below) indicates that a new build of FTM is being tested today, and will either be released tonight, though it will probably not be released until until Monday!
4 PM UTAH TIME - APRIL 1
We have been working through the day today with those beta testers reporting unusual problems. While some were not issues after all, some indeed were and we have made a new build which is being tested by those same beta testers right now. If that testing is completely successful, we could technically launch tonight, though we will more likely decide to wait until Monday when we can consult with Ancestry engineers and do further live stress testing on their systems.
We have been working through the day today with those beta testers reporting unusual problems. While some were not issues after all, some indeed were and we have made a new build which is being tested by those same beta testers right now. If that testing is completely successful, we could technically launch tonight, though we will more likely decide to wait until Monday when we can consult with Ancestry engineers and do further live stress testing on their systems.
In the meantime, all those with existing FTM editions may continue to work until we ship. At this point, only syncing has been disconnected and Ancestry has agreed to temporarily maintain all other connection functions that will be replaced with FamilySync in FTM 2017. That means that Ancestry hints, search, merge, maps and the Web dashboard will all keep working until FTM 2017 is released. We'll be sending out an email to everyone who has pre-ordered FTM 2017 shortly. We will keep this page updated with our progress.
In the meantime, all those with existing FTM editions may continue to work until we ship. At this point, only syncing has been disconnected and Ancestry has agreed to temporarily maintain all other connection functions that will be replaced with FamilySync in FTM 2017. That means that Ancestry hints, search, merge, maps and the Web dashboard will all keep working until FTM 2017 is released. We'll be sending out an email to everyone who has pre-ordered FTM 2017 shortly. We will keep this page updated with our progress.
It sounds like, regardless of when the new build is released, it will not have been tested for very long, so it wouldn't be surprising if the new release is a little buggy. It may therefore be reasonable to expect that it will be some time before all of the serious issues are ironed out.
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