Thank you for evaluating our software. The fact you’re reading this document means you’re probably having a problem launching or using one of our software products. For me, there’s few things worse than double clicking a new piece of software only to have it fail to launch or run properly. If our software doesn’t work for you, it nearly always means your computer either is configured in a way we haven’t tested or your computer has software installed that conflicts with our program.
I assure you that we test all of our software products extensively on a wide variety of computer configurations. However, as a small company we understand that in spite of our best efforts there are configurations and conflicts we’ll never see or hear about until we release a product to thousands of users worldwide.
A Reason to Persevere
After much thought as to how to make our software as reliable as possible, we’ve come up with what I think is a novel idea. If our software doesn’t work for you and you take the time to isolate the problem and tell us about it, I’ll commit to do two things:
1. I’ll verify the conflict and make every effort let other users know so they don’t have to go through the same headache you did.
2. If you uncover a previously unreported configuration or software conflict that I can reproduce, I’ll give you a $50 discount on the purchase of your software license.
Please understand this does not include regular bug in our software. We take responsibility for those and will fix all reported bugs as rapidly as possible. Think of it this way, if we gave you the $50 to report a bug, we’d have to lay off the person we’d otherwise be paying to fix them!
The remainder of this document explains how to determine why our software won’t run on your computer and how to report a discovered conflict.
Troubleshooting First Steps
If our software periodically locks up your computer or simple won’t launch, try the following:
1. Make sure your computer meets the system requirements for the program.
Minimum system requirements can be found in the installation portion of the program User’s Guide or from our web site at www.redcort.com. This information is usually found on the ‘More Info’ web page for each product.
2. Restart your computer without using any 3rd party Extensions.
Extensions are small programs load at computer startup and that modify the way your computer runs.
A. Open the Extension manager (Apple menu-> Control Panels -> Extensions Manager).
B. Note the current set displayed as you’ll want to make sure you reselect this set when you are done testing. By default, this set is called ‘My Settings’.
C. Select the set "Mac OS 9.04 All" (using whatever version of the OS that is loaded).
D. Restart your computer.
This causes your computer to load only Apple system extensions while turning off all 3rd party extensions. If our software runs in this mode, you’ve encountered a software conflict with some 3rd party extension. If our software runs properly with the Mac OS Extensions only, skip down to the ‘Isolating Conflicts’ instructions below.
3. Restart your computer with all extensions turned off.
A. Using the Extension Manager, reset your Extension set to your original extension set as noted in 2B above. Close the Extension Manager control panel.
B. To restart without any extensions, hold down the shift key as soon as the computer chimes and hold the shift key down until the welcome screen tells you that you’re starting up with extensions off.
If our software runs properly only with all extensions off, you’ve probably encountered a system software conflict. See the ‘Isolating Conflicts’ instructions below.
4. If the above doesn’t help, increase the memory allocated to our software.
- From the desktop, click once on the program icon
- Select ‘Get Info’ from the file menu
- Select ‘memory from the Show popup
- Increase the minimum and preferred memory by the program
5. If none of the above works, please run an Apple System Profile (under the Apple menu) or provide a full description of your configuration. Send this via email to us at support@redcort.com. Please tell us exactly what’s happening (or not). Detailing your steps to the problem as exactly as possible helps a lot.
Isolating Conflicts
If disabling extensions eliminates a problem using our software, there’s a fairly rapid way to isolate the extension or extensions causing the problem.
1. Restart your computer normally.
2. Open the Extension Manager control manager.
3. If our software ran properly without using any 3rd party Extensions (#2 above), select the set "Mac OS 9.04 All" (using whatever version of the OS that is loaded). If it only ran with all Extensions off, begin with your standard default set (2B above).
4. Disable 1/2 of your remaining enabled Extensions (those with an ‘X’ in the On/Off column). Be sure to note the range you disable (i.e. ‘Print Spooler’ to ‘Xmodem Tool’)
5. Restart your computer.
6. Try our software with the computer running the current1/2 of extensions running.
This tests one half and acquits the other half of your extensions. If our software still fails to run, repeat steps 1-6 above, disabling 1/2 of the remaining extensions each time until the program runs properly.
If the program begins to function properly after a reboot, the conflict has now been isolated to those extensions just disabled (and noted in #4) on the previous turn.
7. Enable the last ‘1/2’ group of disabled extensions while turning all the rest off.
Restart. The software should now once again fail.
Repeat steps 1-6 above. Halving the confirmed problem bunch each time will quickly get you to the offending extension.
Once you know the offending extension, run the program with JUST this offending extension turned on. If our software doesn't run, you've found the conflict.
If it does run, it a combination conflict. If it's a combination conflict, repeat the steps above, only this time ALWAYS leaving the originally discovered offending extension on. This will narrow it down to the combination of offending extensions.
Reporting a Conflict
Once you’ve established that there is an extension or combination of extensions conflicting with our software, please email us at support@redcort.com or send us a fax at 559.435.7412
Let us know the name of the conflicting extension(s) or what you did to get the software functioning on your configuration. Include an Apple System Profile or detailed description of your computer (kind, memory, OS version, etc.).
We will confirm the problem and seek to either work around it or partner with the extension’s vendor to resolve the conflict. In the interim, we’ll update our literature to let others know of the conflict and how to deal with it.
Once a new conflict is confirmed, we’ll give you a $50 discount on your software registration or a $50 rebate if you’ve already registered. It’s our way of partnering together to make Redcort Software the absolutely best it can be!
