Author Archives: Lewis Rosenthal

Website issues impacting new and renewal orders

Our most recent website updates (mandatory, for security reasons) seem to have led to some instabilities. We have worked to manage the situation while we continue to solve the underlying problem(s). In the interim, customers may experience intervals of exceptional slowness on the site and there is a potential for failed payment processing.

We apologize for the inconvenience. If your order fails to process, please try again.

Meanwhile, we believe we have solved the issue with renewal orders not properly displaying the required credit card input fields for payment. Renewal orders should add the renewal to the cart and land on the Shop page. From there, proceed to checkout. If you find that your link has taken you to the checkout page directly, select the link there to visit your shopping cart, then use the Proceed to checkout button (or use the Renew button for your subscription from your Download Center).

At times, changes to our website are forced upon us by the software developers, generally in response to a security concern. It is impossible to predict how an update to one facet of the site may impact something else. We do our best to handle these situations when they arise, and appreciate your patience.

More credit card processing news

As we mentioned previously, we continue to receive reports of failed credit card payment attempts, generally caused by lack of card type selection during checkout. The card type is not selected because the radio buttons are not presented consistently.

We have just updated to the latest version of the credit card payment gateway plugin for the site, as this seems to address several rendering issues, per the plugin’s changelog.

So, if you are still experiencing payment processing difficulties, please follow the steps previously suggested (clear cache and cookies, then restart browser completely). This should allow the new gateway content to render.

As always, if you continue to have problems making credit card payments, please let us know. We’re here to help.

Warpstock hotel room block is closing

As reported here previously, Warpstock, the annual gathering of OS/2 users, developers, engineers, and enthusiasts is scheduled for Friday, November 7 through Sunday, November 9, 2025 at the Holiday Inn Little Rock Airport Conference Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA.

Among those scheduled to present live are Arca Noae Managing Member, Lewis Rosenthal and Dmitriy Kuminov, CPO of bww bitwise works, GmbH, an Arca Noae strategic partner.

The hotel room block for this year’s event will be closing October 5, so be sure to register for the event and to book your hotel stay soon.

For more information regarding planned sessions and for details on the event, please visit the Warpstock 2025 event page.

Warpstock is an annual event hosted by Warpstock Corporation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization unaffiliated with Arca Noae, whose volunteers are dedicated to promoting education, information, and social opportunities to those persons interested in computer operating systems and related software.

Difficulties with credit card payments? Try clearing browser cache

It seems that after our major site backend upgrade in July, some customers have experienced difficulty when processing card payments through our Stripe gateway. The issue manifests itself as a payment failure, sometimes with a message about “no card type selected.” (The gateway should provide a set of radio buttons to select the type of credit card being used. If this is not visible in order to make the selection, the payment cannot be processed, and is considered a failed payment.)

We are continuing to monitor this situation, as it is inconsistent. It appears, however, to be related (at least in some cases) to outdated browser cache (potentially from the older version of the Stripe payment gateway).

Should you experience problems when attempting to process a credit card payment on our site, please clear cache and cookies and then restart your browser and return to your shopping cart to check out. (Restart the browser completely; exit the application and start it again, not just the tab or window pointing to your shopping cart at Arca Noae.)

If the problem persists, please feel free to contact us for assistance.

Learn, share, contribute at Warpstock 2025

Warpstock, the annual gathering of OS/2 users, developers, engineers, and enthusiasts is scheduled for Friday, November 7 through Sunday, November 9, 2025 at the Holiday Inn Little Rock Airport Conference Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA.

Arca Noae Managing Member, Lewis Rosenthal, will be on hand to present not only his annual roadmap update, sharing things planned for the next releases of ArcaOS, but also to moderate an OS/2 quiz to test the depth of knowledge of the audience. Of course, there are several other sessions scheduled, with likely more to come.

If you’ve never attended a Warpstock event, you’re in for a treat. In addition to knowledgeable speakers and the ability to take them aside to bend their ears about what you’d like to see in terms of improvements to the operating system or new applications, there is plenty of time to socialize with like-minded people, and put faces to names of people you may recognize from online interactions. You literally never know who may turn up at Warpstock!

Register now to take advantage of the early bird discount, and get an even better deal on this conference (which is already a great value for the information and opportunities it provides each year).

Main site upgrade complete – all services available

Thanks to everyone who gave us the time required to get things properly sorted and address our site upgrade and login issues.

We are pleased to announce that as of yesterday afternoon, all services are back up and running as expected, and all logins work for the main site, the bug tracker, and the subscription RPM and WarpIN repositories.

If you have a subscription coming up for renewal, now is the time to see to it! Or, if you’ve heard about ArcaOS, but don’t yet have a license and a personalized ISO in English, German, Spanish, or Russian, now is the time to get one!

Status update on web services

Thanks for everyone’s patience throughout this process!

We are pleased to announce that the upgrade of the main site has gone well, and all services hosted on the main site (the store, customer portals, wiki, FAQ, static pages, etc.) should all be working as expected.

That said, due to a major security enhancement introduced in the most recent versions of WordPress (which runs this site), when an existing user logs into the main site, his or her password will be rehashed, and all new users will have their passwords hashed using the new algorithm. This means that until we complete some other changes, once these new password hashes have been stored in the database, logging into the bug tracker will not be possible. This same issue impacts subscription RPM and WarpIN repositories.

As soon as we have addressed these latest security changes, we will post a follow-up here. In the interim, new ISO requests, support renewals, and downloads from the Download and Renewals Center should all be working as expected.

Major website updates this afternoon

A breaking change by our credit card processor necessitated the upgrades of several of our website components today. This work is ongoing, and may impact ordering, payment, subscription downloads, and other functions of our main website over the next couple of days. Our other servers (bug tracker, code repository, RPM and WPI repositories, email, and FTP) are not impacted by these changes.

We regret any inconvenience this may cause. No bug reports are requested at this time. We will continue to keep everyone posted as we continue the process, however.

The Download Center is now the Download & Renewal Center

In January of 2023, we introduced the ArcaOS Download Center. After expanding this download center to include all subscriptions and their associated downloads, we renamed it simply the Download Center. However, because this portal has so much more functionality which may not be apparent without visiting it first, we have again modified the name to the Download & Renewal Center.

If you are not familiar with this handy tool, in the left navigation area you should see the Download & Renewal Center link. Clicking it will bring you to a consolidated listing of your ArcaOS licenses and associated downloads followed by your other subscriptions and their associated downloads. Need a new ISO? No problem. Just find your ArcaOS license with active support, and request a new one. In addition, no matter which type of subscription you have, you’ll be able to see at a glance when the subscription is set to expire, and have the ability to simply click a button to renew a subscription. That’s it!

So, if you are using an email client or web mail which for some reason does not properly provide you with a usable link in your renewal reminder email, simply visit your Download & Renewal Center, select the license with expiring support, and click Renew.

Warpstock Europe 2025: A Huge Success!

If you weren’t able to attend or watch the live stream of the sessions at this year’s Warpstock Europe event in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, you should soon be able to watch the polished, post-production videos linked from the site. There was a lot of great information presented, and of course, a good deal of audience participation and discussion. In all, the event was a tremendous success!

There are currently two annual Warpstock events, run by two separate though coordinating entities: Warpstock, the original event, typically held in North America in the fall, sponsored by Warpstock Corporation, a US 501(c)3 non-profit organization, dedicated to educating users about the use of alternative operating systems; and Warpstock Europe, typically held in central Europe in the spring, sponsored by Stichting VOICE International, a Dutch non-profit entity.

If you’ve never attended a Warpstock event, the experience is unique. You get to spend time one-on-one with not only like-minded users, but with the developers shaping the OS/2 landscape and the engineers supporting it. There is plenty of time outside of actual classroom sessions to relax and exchange ideas, request improvements and new features, and to break out into smaller groups for ad hoc discussions.

The next Warpstock event is scheduled for Friday, November 7 through Sunday, November 9, 2025, in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. Early registration is now open, providing a generous discount for those who register for the full conference before August 1. Once again, some of the Arca Noae staff will be on hand to present roadmap and how-to sessions, as well as others with various areas of expertise.