3rd Party Question (Split from Global Server Thread)

[Enlighten]

Jay, thanks for the move to the right place and sorry bout that



In regards to updates and new versions of esignal and specifically the file DBCAPI.dll:

What is esignals policy on notifying their 3rd Party Software/Developer Affiliates that the file has changed? If there is a policy then is it up the the 3rd Party software to make sure that their updates are not conflicting with the version put out by esignal? IF there is no policy then is it up the the 3rd party to contact esignal when they update or is it our responsibility to get in touch with both before upgrading anything?

Also:

1. Is it possible to have esignal software while running list a DBCAPI.dll version of one number while another software is in fact using different because it has overwritten esignals from a later update? I am using 7.7 bld 679

2. Maybe not only esignal can list specifically the new version numbers on their upgrades but could also the 3rd party?

I am basically trying to figure out where to direct questions and if there was a policy understood by esignal users (if there is somewhere I don't know where to find it , sorry) then there might be issues that would be taken care of before they might become problems.

I would like to think that esignal and its partners, developers would communicate in a way to lessen their customers mishaps and then have more time for themselves to develop a better product than trying to explain what is really happening to the user or have a user not know where to ask.

[JayF]

It's no problem, Michele. I can understand why you may have wanted to post in the former thread as it had a lot of activity at the time. Onto your questions...

All of our dbcapi.dll's are always backward compatible. This means that having a newer DLL installed during the installation of a new version of eSignal will not break 3rd party applications that were written on an older DLL. Because of this backward compatibility, most 3rd party vendors don't typically update their software each time we put out a new release.

We do have a process in place to notify our 3rd party partners, when there is new API documentation available.

There is one big item to note here. When 3rd party software is installed that has an older version of the API (dbcapi.dll) and their installer either overwrites eSignal's dbcapi.dll or the older DLL gets loaded before eSignal's newer version, then this can cause a eSignal crash. Many times an eSignal crash can be attributed to this. The solution is to search for and delete or rename any older dbcapi.dll's.

I hope that helps.

[Enlighten]

ok Jay thanks,

but now what does the user do to get back a newer dbcapi.dll version that has been overwritten to a earlier version? Every file of the dll has been overwritten how can I rename it now if it no longer exists? And how does a user know if all will run correctly or better or worse?

Are you saying I would now have to reinstall esignal to get the newer dll back or is there somewhere you get this file separately?

does esignal list with its release of versions the dbcapi.dll version number somewhere?

WHen i open up esignal it is saying i'm using a version number that is no longer on my machine....

at this point I am clueless if I should upgrade anything mainly because I am not sure what will ultimately happen based on the different versions and the different work pace of developers as they do updates and how it will all interact ..... and it seems to me that it is a try on the users part to see if all works.

I don't mean to waste your time but I am not a programmer and I'm just totally confused on these things..

oh one more note: you state that all esignals dbcapi.dll's are backward compatible. Are the 3rd party forward compatible?