Contribute Reliability

[Jalz]

Hi Guys,

How reliable is Contribute? I designed a site in Dreamweaver, got it hosted
and purchased a copy of Contribute for my client. This software was installed
on Windows Server 2003 and used in a Terminal Server environment (only one user
knew or wanted to edit pages).

Setup was easy, but I found Contribute to crash quite frequently. The problem
was if the user was editing pages, and the software crashed, it would "blank"
that particular page.

Is there a general rule when designing a page in Dreamweaver, and has anyone
experienced these kinds of unreliability.

I've tried to get in touch with Adobe who haven't replied - heck they didnt
reply when I sent them a pre-sales enquiry telling them that their webshop
wasn't working....but I still purchased the product as I think it is what I
need an cant find any alternative out there.

[Tom Benjamin]

I haven't run into Contribute 3 crashing, and I have it installed on a Windows
2003 server, Windows XP desktops and also on aCitrix server. The only issue
I've run into that might be relevant to your Terminal Server environment is the
location of Contribtue's working directory. The installer makes a bunch of
registry settings for Contribute and the sites it works with and they are in
the user's profile - Local Settings\Application Data\Macromedia\Contribute
3\Sites in particular.

[Jalz]

Hi Tom do you get any server disconnections?

Whilst editing a page, on my clients machine it occasionally disconnects, and
this makes a page with content into a totally blank white page.

I may reinstall it and give it another go and see how I get on. Is there
anything specific I need to do whilst re-installing it in this environment, or
shall I let the autoinstaller let it do its job.

[Tom Benjamin]

My setup is on a corporate network so I can use LAN connections which are very
stable. Are you using an FTP connection? One thing I have certainly run into in
the past with Dreaweaver and FTP is the need to use the right connection mode -
active or passive. Having the wrong one does lead to disconnections in
mid-operation! Check the advanced option when you export the user's connection
key.

I would think the regular auto-installer would be fine, but backup the user's
local sites folder if they have any draft pages saved.