We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.24.1 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.

Changes and Fixes

This is a maintenance release to correct an issue with starting PhonePad that affects some users:

• FIXED – A couple of error messages were being hidden, which gave the appearance of PhonePad not being able to connect to the server.  PhonePad had stopped on the errors waiting for user  input.  For some reason these errors were not being displayed to the user.  Over the last few versions we have been extending PhonePad’s logging capabilities to log any errors that may occur.  A user experiencing the connection problem sent us their logs using Log Viewer and we were able to locate the errors in the logs.  This showed us where the errors were occurring and we fixed them.

Workstation Updates

If you are updating from a Version prior to 5.24.0, you will probably get the following message displayed on your workstations when starting PhonePad:

This is because we changed the workstation update system in Version 5.24.0.  PhonePad versions prior to 5.24.0 don’t know how to use the new update system and so don’t know how to update.

The solution is in the message, as shown above.  Click the Download and install PhonePad 5 Workstation link.  It will download version 5.24.1 and install it on the workstation.  From that point onwards, any future updates will update automatically.

Installation Information

Please note: Server Updates must be installed on your Server or Host PC, not your workstation (unless your workstation is also the Host PC) – they cannot be installed directly on your workstations.  Make sure all users are logged out of PhonePad as the PhonePad Server will be stopped during the update and then restarted once it has completed.  Workstations will be automatically updated when PhonePad 5 Workstation is started on each workstation.

Important: When downloading and installing an update from your My PhonePad account, make sure it’s actually the update and not the server setup program.  The update will update your database whereas the setup program will overwrite it with a blank database.

You can download the update from your My PhonePad account or by using the Application Update option on the System Admin menu in PhonePad 5.

These updates are available for both fully licensed users and trial users.

Please contact Support if you have any problems or questions.

We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.24.0 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.

What’s New

Performance Improvements

The main focus of this release is to improve overall performance.  A bug in the database engine that PhonePad uses was causing significant speed issues to the point where PhonePad would almost freeze for some customers.  An update from the vendor of the database engine has fixed this issue.  We have also increased performance by extending the use of parallel processing techniques in our source base.  The end result is PhonePad should run faster on your systems.

There was also a bug affecting server connections.  This has also been resolved.

Smart Startup

If you have PhonePad set to run automatically when Windows starts, it may not start correctly if there isn’t a network connection available at that time.  To get around this you could add a delayed start up by adding delay=xx (in seconds) to the shortcut’s parameters.

Now there is an easier and better option.  PhonePad will check for a network connection and if your network adapter is still initializing, it will wait until it has connected to your network.

Check the Admin Guide for details on how to set this up.

Restoring Your Database Configuration File

When PhonePad 5 Server automatically backs up your database, it also backs up the database configuration file.  This file is critical for the correct operation of PhonePad.

Should it become damaged by an OS or hardware issue, power spike, server crash or an Act of God, the solution was to contact us so we could restore it for you.  This update includes a new program called Configuration Restore.  This saves you valuable time by enabling you to easily and quickly restore the configuration file yourself (we can still this for you if you like though).

So far we have only had to restore this file a handful of times, but it’s nice to know that if something goes wrong you can now do it yourself with a minimum of fuss.

Redesigned Welcome Screen

The pie charts are gone and replaced with easy to read indicators that show you the status of your messages at a quick glance.

New Service Monitor

If any of your PhonePad services stop or become unresponsive, the new Service Monitor can help with that.  It can monitor selected services and restart them if they stop running or don’t respond.  Naturally we would like to know if this happens as it’s not normal.

What Happened to Version 5.23.0?

Yeah we skipped a version number.  Version 5.23.0 was a Beta version that we only gave to customers that were having perfomance issues.  They tested it for us to confirm that the issues were fixed.  Once that was done we added some further changes and then released it as 5.24.0.

Changes and Fixes

• NEW – Config Restore program makes it quick and easy to restore your database configuration file in the event it is damaged.
• NEW – Service Monitor can restart PhonePad services if they become non-responsive. You can also automatically restart the services every day.
• ADDED – Workstation Config has a new “Wait for network connection on startup” option that, when enabled, forces PhonePad to wait for a network connection to become available before looking for a PhonePad Server.
• UPDATED – Database engine updated to 2.26 Build 3.
• UPDATED – Control Center has been updated to include the new Service Monitor service.
• IMPROVED – Welcome screen now displays easy to read message status.
• IMPROVED – Log Viewer now displays Windows Event Viewer messages for PhonePad.
• IMPROVED – Database and user interface performance improved using parallel processing.
• IMPROVED – Workstation update system is faster.
• FIXED – Field lengths for Address Book so that they are set to the maximum length.
• FIXED – Server connection issues.
• FIXED – Error when saving SMS settings under Communication Settings.
• FIXED – Access Violation when closing Log Viewer.
• Various minor fixes and improvements.

Security Software (eg. Anti-Virus, Anti-Malware, Anti-Spyware) Reminder

When you update PhonePad to a new version your security software may see this as brand new software.  You may need t0 reconfigure it to allow PhonePad, particularly if it uses any form of real-time scanning or protection.  The security software we use has to be reconfigured every time we update any software on our systems.  Yours may be similar.

If you have speed or connection issues after updating, please check the security software on your workstations and Server/Host PC before contacting us.  Chances are it is intefering with the clean running of PhonePad.  Make sure that PhonePad Workstation and PhonePad Server are not being real-time scanned, protected or monitored.

Installation Information

Please note: Server Updates must be installed on your Server or Host PC, not your workstation (unless your workstation is also the Host PC) – they cannot be installed directly on your workstations.  Make sure all users are logged out of PhonePad as the PhonePad Server will be stopped during the update and then restarted once it has completed.  Workstations will be automatically updated when PhonePad 5 Workstation is started on each workstation.

Important: When downloading and installing an update from your My PhonePad account, make sure it’s actually the update and not the server setup program.  The update will update your database whereas the setup program will overwrite it with a blank database.

You can download the update from your My PhonePad account or by using the Application Update option on the System Admin menu in PhonePad 5.

These updates are available for both fully licensed users and trial users.

Please contact Support if you have any problems or questions.

If you have read through the Admin Guide you may have noticed that we recommend installing PhonePad 5 Workstation on your server.

There’s a good reason for that.

If you ever experience a connection problem when launching PhonePad 5 on your workstation, having PhonePad 5 Workstation on your server can help determine what is causing the problem.

• If you are able to successfully run PhonePad 5 Workstation on the Server then you know that PhonePad 5 Server is working correctly. This means that the problem is being caused by something external to PhonePad, ie. something is blocking the connection between the workstation and the server.
• If you are not able to launch PhonePad 5 Worktation on the Server then you know it’s a problem with PhonePad 5 Server, or at least the problem lies somewhere on the Server.

For information on what can cause connection problems, refer to this article:  Connection or Speed Issues

If you are using Webroot SecureAnywhere (a great product) and you notice that PhonePad is a bit sluggish after installing it (or installing an update), then check your Webroot settings on your Server or Host PC, and your workstations.

You can do this by following these steps:

1. Click the arrow icon in the System Tray/Notification Area

2. Right-click on the Webroot icon.

3. Select Control Active Processes from the popup menu.

4. In this example you will see that PhonePadRun.exe and PhonePad5Server.exe are set to Monitor.  This is not good as it will slow PhonePad down.

5.  Change them both (and any other PhonePad related application) to Allow.  You should find that PhonePad immediately speeds up.

If you use an IT Support company then you may find that you don’t have the Control Active Processes option.  They could be controlling this for you centrally.  In that case get in touch with them and ask them to check these settings.

If you are having either of these problems with your PhonePad then read on.

Connection Problems

If PhonePad has trouble trying to connect to your server then there are some things you should check.

Is the Service Running?

Run Control Center on your Server or Host PC and check the overview screen.

There should be a green status indicator next to PhonePad 5 Server.  If it’s red then the service is installed but not running.  If it’s gray then the service isn’t installed.

If the service is running, try stopping and starting it.

Anti-Virus Software and/or Firewalls

When PhonePad is installed, firewall rules are automatically set up for the Windows Firewall.  Unfortunately many anti-virus products that have their own firewalls ignore these settings.

If your anti-virus software has its own firewall then you may need to configure it to allow PhonePad connections between your workstations and your Server or Host PC.  It will need to be configured to allow TCP and UDP communication on ports 12600, 12601, 12602 and 12603.

Port Conflicts

Although unlikely you may have other software running on your Server or Host PC that is using the same port numbers.  As only one application can listen on a port this will cause a problem.  This should show up in the logs.

Speed Issues

If PhonePad is running slow on your network then there are a couple of things you can check.

Anti-Virus Software

This is the number 1 cause of speed issues.  Many anti-virus products have some form of real-time scanning or monitoring.  What they’re doing is checking a program when it runs, when it accesses a file, etc.

For most software this isn’t a problem.  For example, if you open a Word document the time it takes for the anti-virus software to scan it is very small, maybe even unnoticeable.

However, with a database-based system where the data files can be accessed multiple times per second, the delay can quickly build up to several seconds.  And the more users accessing the system, the longer the delays become.

The recommended solution is to exclude the PhonePad 5 and PhonePad 5 Server folders, as well as the data folders, from real-time protection.  If that’s not possible you may need to disable real-time protection altogether (that would be a last resort).

You don’t need to exclude the folders from your scheduled virus scan though, just the real-time protection.  You can safely excluded the data folder as it doesn’t contain any executables or DLLs.

One important consideration: try to schedule virus scans outside of business hours.

Message Checking

The next most common cause of speed issues is automatically checking for messages too frequently.  You will need to be logged in as a PhonePad Administrator to check this.

We recommend that you use the Dynamic Refresh option for message checking.  Whenever a new message has has been received for the logged in user, the notification will be pushed to the workstation.

If for some reason Dynamic Refresh is not working for you (please tell us if this is the case), you can use the alternative method which frequently polls the server for new messages.

But don’t set the check time too low (ie. frequent) as this can slow things down.  Setting it to 30 seconds is good, 15 seconds if you really have to, but lower than that is not good if you have more than a couple of users.

What if you have done all of this and you still have speed issues?  It’s then time to contact us and let us know so we can investigate it.

If you downloaded and installed Server Update 5.22.2 you may have experienced a problem running PhonePad (it didn’t affect all customers).

There was a problem relating to the generation and storage of temporary files.  This caught us off guard because the test machines didn’t detect this problem.  As soon as we became aware of the issue we tracked it down and fixed it.  The fix is in Server Update 5.22.3 which was released late last night.

If you have experienced this problem please install PhonePad 5 Server Update 5.22.3 on your Server or Host PC.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

You may not have noticed this but when you install a PhonePad Server Update, it automatically takes a “snapshot” of your existing PhonePad installation on your Server or Host PC.

A snapshot contains all of your PhonePad program files and your database as it was before the update, allowing you to quickly revert to the pre-update state.

This feature is designed to get you back up and running again quickly in the event something goes wrong with the update.

Although this doesn’t happen very often there have been cases where files have not updated correctly and left PhonePad in a state where it couldn’t run, or it ran with errors.  If this happens to you then follow these steps:

1.  Run the RestoreSnapshot program on your Server or Host PC by right-clicking on the application and selecting Run as Administrator.

2.  Select the snapshot you want to restore from.  This would normally be the most recent one.

3.  Click the Restore button.

4. When prompted to continue, click Yes.

5.  Your files will be restored from the snapshot.

6.  After a couple of minutes your Server or Host PC should be back to the way it was.

7.  Report the issue with the update to support@cybercom-software.com so that we can investigate and fix it.

If your workstations have already updated to the newer version of PhonePad, they will display a version error message when they start PhonePad.

This is because you have restored your Server or Host PC to an earlier version of PhonePad 5 Server.  You can easily fix this by clicking the link in the message.  It will download the correct version of PhonePad 5 Workstation and install it on the workstation.

So remember, if you ever encounter issues with an update, you can quickly revert back to the previous version and get back up and running again.  This will reduce any downtime and give us a chance to investigate the issue for you.

We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.22.3 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.  This is a maintenance release that fixes an important issue.

Changes in This Release:

• CHANGED – Modified temp folder used by PhonePad, to resolve issues some users were experiencing after database engine update.

Please note: Server Updates must be installed on your Server or Host PC, not your workstation (unless your workstation is also the Host PC) – they cannot be installed directly on your workstations.  Make sure all users are logged out of PhonePad as the PhonePad Server will be stopped during the update and then restarted once it has completed.  Workstations will be automatically updated when PhonePad 5 Workstation is started on each workstation.

Important: When downloading and installing an update from your My PhonePad account, make sure it’s actually the update and not the server setup program.  The update will update your database whereas the setup program will overwrite it with a blank database.

You can download the update from your My PhonePad account or by using the Application Update option on the System Admin menu in PhonePad 5.

These updates are available for both fully licensed users and trial users.

Please contact Support if you have any problems or questions.

We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad 5.22.2 Server Update, which is available for immediate download.

Changes in This Release:

* ADDED – Email columns to Address Book.

* FIXED – Truncation error for Title field in Address Book.

* FIXED – New message notifications when there are no new messages.

* FIXED – Connection errors due to temp folder settings on server.UPDATED – Log Viewer now captures trace logs.

* UPDATED – Rewrote logging system and included log queuing to improve performance and prevent errors that were occurring on some systems.

* UPDATED – Database engine to 2.26 Build 2.

* Various minor fixes and improvements.

Please note: Server Updates must be installed on your Server or Host PC, not your workstation (unless your workstation is also the Host PC) – they cannot be installed directly on your workstations.  Make sure all users are logged out of PhonePad as the PhonePad Server will be stopped during the update and then restarted once it has completed.  Workstations will be automatically updated when PhonePad 5 Workstation is started on each workstation.

Important: When downloading and installing an update from your My PhonePad account, make sure it’s actually the update and not the server setup program.  The update will update your database whereas the setup program will overwrite it with a blank database.

You can download the update from your My PhonePad account or by using the Application Update option on the System Admin menu in PhonePad 5.

These updates are available for both fully licensed users and trial users.

Please contact Support if you have any problems or questions.