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UltraRecall stability problems?
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Aug 23, 2007 at 10:37 AM
I thought I’d start a separate thread on UR stability problems I have been reading about in various other threads. I have been using the program since version 1 in various PC setups and I have only had it crash once—and that was another application’s fault.
More specifically, for security reasons, I have relied for quite a few years on the Steganos Safe which creates encrypted virtual drives. I keep my main UR database in such a drive. I once accidentally closed Steganos, therefore virtually disintegrating the drive, while UR was open. When I switched to UR and selected another item UR crashed.
It is possible for such an accident to occur because UR only opens the current item in its database files; therefore UR files can actually be backed up while open by the program. Another application would probably lock the file, and the Steganos Safe would not be closable.
Anyone else willing to share their specific experiences?
alx
Posted by Thomas
Aug 23, 2007 at 12:21 PM
That’s definitely one of the possibilities.
Other application locking a file is source of problems with a lot of software. It’s most often various aggressive antivirus, antispyware and similar programs.
While these above behave non-standardly (perhaps trying to outsmart viruses, implementing even more aggressive hacks to the system), it shall be also treated in the application (UltraRecall in this case). UR shouldn’t crash when another item is selected but the database is not accessible - if nothing else it creates bad impression.
It shall display a message, and perhaps retry in a moment (as eg. with antivirus, they usually unlock the file in few seconds), and close the application the “nice way”.
Posted by PIMfan
Aug 23, 2007 at 03:56 PM
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>More specifically, for security reasons, I have relied for
>quite a few years on the Steganos Safe which creates encrypted virtual drives. I keep
>my main UR database in such a drive. I once accidentally closed Steganos, therefore
>virtually disintegrating the drive, while UR was open. When I switched to UR and
>selected another item UR crashed.
Just curious…..If the above situation happened to me, I would immediately do a “Save As” in and save the current database to another safe (non-encrypted non-virtual) drive. Is there a reason why you attempted to keep working with an app that you knew could not longer access the data?
Pretty much any database application (including UR) is going to have a major problem if in the middle of running it the database “disappears”. I really don’t see this as a UR stability issue as much as an unfortunately situation that happened to you and UR was simply one of the apps that was impacted…..
peace,
PIMfan
Posted by Jan Rifkinson
Aug 23, 2007 at 06:28 PM
I’m no techie but, from my day to day experience using UR for all things data, including web research, writing articles, daily journal, GTD tasking, Bookmarks, Linking to all my HD correspondence, email & documents, etc.on a w2k-sp4 machine, I would not describe the program as having stability problems.
As for backup which has been mentioned, I don’t save to an encrypted db but I do back up daily w SyncBack SE, frequently in the background while I’m doing something else w/o conflict.
At the same time I am also running a DSL connection, NOD32 (anti-virus) & Sygate (Firewall) & Macro Express in addition to using memory heavy DAM software + Firefox.
Have I had errors? Sure, I’ve had a few AV errors that get reported & get fixed but I wouldn’t call this program instability &—in any case & most important AFAIC—I haven’t lost 1 byte of data yet.
This is not to say that others don’t have problems with UltraRecall. All I can do is report my personal experience w this product so while I think there are individuals that do have issues, I’m not sure it’s fair to characterize the product as having stability issues.
—
Jan Rifkinson
Ridgefield CT USA
Posted by Chris Murtland
Aug 23, 2007 at 07:03 PM
I’ve used UR heavily since it first came out, and I wouldn’t call it unstable, either. I’ve had a couple of crashes, but never any lost data. I’ve personally found it to be pretty much stable and bug-free.