Firefox 3 causing Personal Call Manager to Slow down?

[Jlorenz]

Nothing more to add, it is getting to a point of no return and its futile to try and explain.

Best of luck though, simply, typical unrealistic demands

[ceverett]

Originally Posted by Jlorenz

Nothing more to add, it is getting to a point of no return and its futile to try and explain.

Best of luck though, simply, typical unrealistic demands

That's funny...the only post between your last two was mine, and I was agreeing with you:

Originally Posted by ceverett

I wouldn't expect ShoreTel to have tested Call Manager with Firefox 3, or Open Office or the millions of other available third-party software out there. After all, normally two programs running on the same system shouldn't even know that the other exists unless there's some kind of inter-process communication going on. That's why it's required for ShoreTel to test for compatibility with Office 2007 and Office 2003 SP3, because they communicate with each other. Call Manager also interfaces with the operating system, so that's a requirement (as it is with any software). I think ShoreTel is testing against all of the correct products, those that should possibly have an issue with it.

I'm guessing that maybe you were responding to an earlier post rather than mine.

I've worked for software companies for the last 12 years, so I understand that you can't test against everything. And since there's no reason why Call Manager and Firefox should interact badly, there's no reason why it should have been tested against. Well, unless there's some sort of browser integration in version 8.

I always have assumed that the only reason there were 'tested and approved' browsers was because of the ShoreWare Web Access client.

[Jlorenz]

I mentioned it not from yours, just in general, its wasn't meant to be directed at you just a general statement as you noted. Sorry for the confusion. One reason I hate Net forums, you lose 80% of the communication skills

Originally Posted by ceverett

That's funny...the only post between your last two was mine, and I was agreeing with you:



I'm guessing that maybe you were responding to an earlier post rather than mine.

I've worked for software companies for the last 12 years, so I understand that you can't test against everything. And since there's no reason why Call Manager and Firefox should interact badly, there's no reason why it should have been tested against. Well, unless there's some sort of browser integration in version 8.

I always have assumed that the only reason there were 'tested and approved' browsers was because of the ShoreWare Web Access client.

[Jlorenz]

Everyone

I want to clarify and apologies if I have been what may be perceived as a bit strong in responses.

It is not that I disagree with testing / compatibility and assuring products work as they did in previous releases as many have pointed out. I have been in QA, Sustaining, CS, in the field, project managing and other various duties in the 20 plus years in this field.

I come from the point of view that it is virtually impossible for any company to maintain compatibility with releases of software out of their control. Firefox is a good example as to how difficult it is to maintain when FF is a Public "GNU" software with no real structured development team, SDK, corporate certified partners and so on. Having said that I maintain and not in defense of:

ShoreTel or any company offering a product as they do, including hardware has a bullet list of items that are agreed on with each new release. In that it is called a road map, in that road map the discussions and many times fights come over several areas. NUMBER 1 on the list is ETA of General Availability. If they say GA will be in August 2008, they have to make everything else fit, especially if it has been announces officially. As a Public company now, that means everything.

SO the departments involved, Engineering, QA, Support, Technical Publications, Marketing, Sales, Shipping all have to start bartering over what gets in the release and what does not.

No ones focus is on any version of software (I.E. Firefox 3) especially engineering to rewrite code to make a beta software compatible, when they have to bring the new IP 265 on line as an example. Resources, time line, UNKNOWNS always are being adjusted. QA tests to Marketing Requirements and Engineering Specs "PERIOD"

In the mean time Support has to deal with the Firefox Beta;s, the Windows Defender, the Windows SP's and Partners installing applications not tested, certified or supported.

In a perfect world everything will work as they should, but, you get some CRM that installs another TAPI driver that crushes ShoreTel and it becomes a SHoreTel Issue.

From a TAC perspective, they will follow what is supported, you should not get upset with TAC, when you know fully well something is not going to work. These guys and gals in TAC work hard for you they follow the guidelines and occasionally they get KUDO's and fix issues not supported. If you have issues like FF3, open a SR, expect nothing for the moment, contact your Sales Engineer form ShoreTel, let them know and see if they can pursue it further.

Chances are the issue is not even related to FF3 & PCM or whatever, chances are it is something entirely unrelated on the Users PC or Environment.

Thats all I will say on this anymore. I hope that makes more sense

[Rob Bush]

Jlorenz... "Rob Bush: You took out of context and misrepresented my reply to an individual. It is not debatable."

You are making it very hard for me to just drop this entire thing and move on. Where do you get off on saying "It is not debatable"? As far as I'm concerned, it is debatable. You are accusing me of twisting your words, and I'm asking for proof so that if I really did "twist your words," I can understand how or where, and then apologize (or possibly vice-versa?)

In addition, you still are not answering my question. How is PCM integrated with a browser? Where is the minimum specs of PCM that say what browser you have to be running? Where on the Shortel KB is a document indicating what browsers are "supported"?

My point is this... You are pointing fingers at someone running a beta FF3, and saying that they can't expect Shoretel to support PCM with a beta FF3 running on the box. (Be sure and tell me if you feel I'm taking the jist of all your posts out of context.) I'm asking you... Why is that so un-reasonable to question why PCM would be crashing when FF3 is installed, when it would seem that PCM doesn't have any integration with a browser to begin with and it is not part of any minimum requirement? (Remember, this was the original poster's question to us on the forum.)

What happens when FF3 is not in beta any more, and PCM is still crashing? Are you going to say that FF3 is now supported? How would we as users be informed that FF3 is now supported? Is it possible that a non-beta application is *not* supported by Shoretel? Again, how would we know? How would Shoretel communicate with us about every possible software package, that has no integration with PCM, being either supported or not supported? How could they ever test every application that is not directly integrated with PCM and then deem it "supported" or "unsupported"?

Which begs my next question, how could Shoretel even make a "supported" comment like this (recognizing that I have not seen Shoretel make this comment, only you... "Firefox 3 is not supported in Shoretel at this time".) After all, if I have to worry about FF3 being the reason (in beta or non beta form) for crashing PCM, then I must expand my concerns to every application I have installed.

Now we're all professionals here, and of course we are going to look for any reason that PCM is crashing if we were in this scenario. We will of course ask the first question, what changed? In the case of the original poster, the thing that changed for him/her was FF3 being installed. So, being the good professional that they are, they turned to the board to say "hey, I just installed FF3 (the thing that changed) and noticed that PCM seems to be crashing more, anyone else experiencing this?" To which you told the user "Firefox 3 is not supported in Shoretel at this time." So, the user, without further posts from anyone else, is left wondering, did FF3 really cause the PCM instability, or was it something else? Your comment (which is what my first reply addressed) didn't help the user to figure out the root cause of their PCM instability. You instead just made a broad statement about an application not being "supported," which just sounded crazy to me that Shoretel would even put a claim out there about any non-integrated application being supported or not.

To the original poster: I just searched the Shoretel Knowledgebase for any documents related to "Firefox" and only four documents came up, nothing related to PCM instability when Firefox is installed. I'm personally running Firefox 2.0.0.14 with PCM 8.0 build 13.9.5704.0 and I do have occasional instability issues the PCM (random crashes.) Most of the time, it crashes when I open up the local help file for the PCM. I couldn't for the life of me tell you if Firefox 2.0.0.14 is "supported" by Shoretel, so I have to assume that Firefox is not causing my PCM instability, but who knows, maybe it is?

Originally Posted by Rob Bush

To the original poster: I just searched the Shoretel Knowledgebase for any documents related to "Firefox" and only four documents came up, nothing related to PCM instability when Firefox is installed. I'm personally running Firefox 2.0.0.14 with PCM 8.0 build 13.9.5704.0 and I do have occasional instability issues the PCM (random crashes.) Most of the time, it crashes when I open up the local help file for the PCM. I couldn't for the life of me tell you if Firefox 2.0.0.14 is "supported" by Shoretel, so I have to assume that Firefox is not causing my PCM instability, but who knows, maybe it is?

Original Poster here...Thank you SO much for your help in researching this. Truth be told, I can't yet verify 100% that Firefox 3 is causing a delay / lag in the PCM software. Basically the PCM application ends up with a 5-10 second delay between the actual phone call making my phone ring, and indication of the call's status on the computer screen. There's also a 5-10 second delay in transferring a call on the PCM software, and the call actually being transferred off my phone. The app itself is not crashing.

Yesterday, I went back to Firefox 2, and I plan on leaving FF 2 running constantly to see if the problems continue. So far, so good. (Calls are appearing instantly, and transfers are happening instantly, as they should)

I'll definitely keep you posted as this develops.

If anyone wants to troubleshoot, I'm running "ShoreTel Operator Call Manager build 12.14.8701.0"

Right now, I'm on Firefox 2.0.0.16, and the problems were happening running Firefox 3.0 (full verson, not a beta) I posted the version string from that Firefox 3.0 in my second post. I'm also using Windows 2000 SP 4.

Also, I apologize for causing any drama or hard feelings in this thread, I'm just looking to see if anyone else is having problems with Firefox 3 causing delays in the call manager software. The 3rd Party Forum summary (or whatever it is) says "Ask Away!" so I'm asking..

Finally, I want to thank everyone again so much for your help with this. I really like Firefox 3, so I'm hoping to definitely troubleshoot this issue by not running Firefox 3 for an extended period of time, to see if it's another program on my system that may be causing the issues.

[Jlorenz]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Original Poster here...Thank you SO much for your help in researching this. Truth be told, I can't yet verify 100% that Firefox 3 is causing a delay / lag in the PCM software. Basically the PCM application ends up with a 5-10 second delay between the actual phone call making my phone ring, and indication of the call's status on the computer screen. There's also a 5-10 second delay in transferring a call on the PCM software, and the call actually being transferred off my phone. The app itself is not crashing.

Yesterday, I went back to Firefox 2, and I plan on leaving FF 2 running constantly to see if the problems continue. So far, so good. (Calls are appearing instantly, and transfers are happening instantly, as they should)

I'll definitely keep you posted as this develops.

If anyone wants to troubleshoot, I'm running "ShoreTel Operator Call Manager build 12.14.8701.0"

Right now, I'm on Firefox 2.0.0.16, and the problems were happening running Firefox 3.0 (full verson, not a beta) I posted the version string from that Firefox 3.0 in my second post. I'm also using Windows 2000 SP 4.

Also, I apologize for causing any drama or hard feelings in this thread, I'm just looking to see if anyone else is having problems with Firefox 3 causing delays in the call manager software. The 3rd Party Forum summary (or whatever it is) says "Ask Away!" so I'm asking..

Finally, I want to thank everyone again so much for your help with this. I really like Firefox 3, so I'm hoping to definitely troubleshoot this issue by not running Firefox 3 for an extended period of time, to see if it's another program on my system that may be causing the issues.

The best thing for you to do, is contact your partner or TAC. They will need to enable DEBUG on PCM, replicate the issue and see exactly what might be causing the issue.

Debug is very easy to enable if you want to do this yourself and send the Logs in via Start > Programs > ShoreTel > Support


Turning on Debug
Open PCM
Click once in the Dialog box to input a Telephone Number
Press CTRL plus the F12 Key

This will bring up a new dialog Box with some DIagnostics.

Check Everything except Parse #'s
Set level to 7
Set log size to 60 MB
Set CSIS and Outlook

Restart PCM and replicate the issue.

You can then send your logs to TAC or open a SR vie the web attaching these files.

I can look at them if you care, please PM me if your interested

On a personal note, to Rob Bush, My apologies if you misinterpreted my presence here.

OP here again...

@ Jlorenz: Thank you. My general plan for troubleshooting this will be as follows:

Remain running Firefox 2 and all my other usual apps / programs for a week or two, and see if the Call Manager lag returns at all.

If the lag does not return, I can safely say that it's an issue with Firefox 3. At that point, I'll re-install Firefox 3, and if the problem returns (as I would expect it should), I'll start debugging.

A number of people on my network use Firefox 3.01 without issue. The Firefox installation does very little system hooking and should not effect your PCM in any way. My only suggestion may be that it is a system resource issue - is your Firefox memory usage exploding from lots of surfing, pushing the PCM out to virtual memory and causing it to page back in before it can "pop up"?

As for testing, I'm willing to bet that if the people at Shoretel are anywhere as geeky (in a good way) as the other engineers and coders I have worked with, it's already been unofficially tested everyday on their machines

I run Gran Paradiso (Firefox nightly build) and don't have any problems. I don't even think PCM is interacts directly with the browser at all. That could only mean it's a computer resource(s) issue, not necessarily anything to do with the browser. So from that perspective what is it that ShoreTel should be testing?