Hi Stan,

This is really useful to know and we might think again about our upgrade plan.

Is anyone else on Bb9 experiencing the JVM memory problems? Because our Bb9 system is only used for testing and there is no real load, we have not seen JVM memory problems. However we have observed that response speed of Bb9 is slower compared with Bb7.3 on servers of similar capacity.

Jie

-----Original Message-----
From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stan Stanier
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 11:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Blackboard Version 9

Hi Jie,

No we've not spotted those issues with characters - but we don't have that
many users usig greek here. Also we don't use the content system so have
avoided the webdav problems.

Our issues have been:

1) Servers crashing due to JVMs running out of memory (at a time of lightest
load and we're using a load balanced set up!!!)
2) File download issues
3) Some seriously bad interface design - not sure who Bb employ to design
their interface but they have clearly never studied human/computer
interaction
4) Course copy not working
5) Course templates unusable
6) Our data feeds for adding users & registering them on courses broke

I could go on...

The problem with SP1 and HF1 was that, having got work arounds or fixes for
some of the above, sp1 and HF1 both then broke them again. HF1 in particular
caused us real issues as it appears to have broken more than it fixed.

In my opinion Bb 9 is not currently fit for purpose - we only decided to
upgrade now because Bb we pulling the plug on support for 7.3 so we felt we
had to. If you have the opportunity, I'd seriously advise postponing any
upgrade until at least Easter if not next Summer.

Best wishes,

Stan 


On 07/08/2009 10:58, "Shen, Dr J." <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Stan,
> 
> We are planning to upgrade in a week's time, but found a showstopper issue
> last week and still await for a fix.
> 
> The showstopper issue: text coded in symbol fonts by VTBE is not displayed
> correctly in Bb9. For example if you enter a 'p' and apply 'symbol' font to
> it, the VTBE would produce <font face="symbol">p</font>. Using IE7, this is
> displayed a pi in Bb7.3 correctly, but in Bb9 it is displayed as 'p'. We have
> many instances that people use symbol font to insert Greek letters and other
> symbols in science based course sites. We cannot go ahead with upgrade if
> Greek letters being wrongly displayed as Roman letters.
> 
> We also having problem with WebDav in Content Collection and Search function
> in Content Collection. Our course site stats generation is quite slow. There
> are numerous other minor issues (see
> http://www2.le.ac.uk/institution/lts/talent/blackboard/blackboard9upgrade/know
> n-issues).
> 
> I wonder you are experiencing these issues too. What has been broken by SP1
> and HF1?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Jie
>  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stan Stanier
> Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 10:34 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Blackboard Version 9
> 
> We went live 2 weeks ago having upgraded from 7.3.
> 
> General view is far more things are now broken than have been improved and
> we've had ongoing performance issues with JVMs crashing on a regular basis.
> 
> All in all - a nightmare I would advise you avoid at least until Bb release
> next service pack.
> 
> Oh, and did I mention both sp1 AND hotfix 1 broke loads of other stuff too?
> 
> Stan
> 
> 
> On 07/08/2009 09:54, "Chris Poyser" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> Hi 
>> 
>> Could I ask how many of you have gone Live with Bb version9 and who will
>> be going live within the next academic year, we here at Canterbury have
>> just installed Version 9 on our Development Environment but are probably
>> going to hold back from going live with Version 9 for at least another
>> year (testing, training, testing, fixing bugs testing etc)
>> 
>> Many thanks
>> 
>> Chris
>> 
>> ____________________________
>> Chris Poyser
>> Faculty Learning Support Officer
>> Learning Teaching Enhancement Unit
>> Canterbury Christ Church University
>> Tel: 01227 767700 ext 3927
>> Email: [log in to unmask]
>> *****************************
>> For all Blackboard queries please email [log in to unmask]