Tag Archives: site

Major website migration complete

To address unanticipated changes forced upon us by functional components used by our website and online store, we have migrated the main Arca Noae site to a different server on our network. We hope this solves the most pressing issues regarding site availability, performance, and checkout completion.

Meanwhile, this migration brings with it some changes to procedures, namely, population of subscription content lists in the Download and Renewal Center. The new process will refresh content for all subscribers over a longer period of time vs on-demand download of fresh driver packages (as an example). The change should be fairly transparent to the end user (when a download link is displayed, it will be functional, as before), but note that there may be some delay between the announcement of new or updated content and downloads actually being listed. We are continuing to work to improve this feature.

For all those who have experienced difficulty with renewals, for a limited time, we have extended the normal grace period to one full year before the late renewal fee is applied. This should give everyone ample time to renew his or her ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription(s) without concern. This is a limited time offer, however, so if you have been holding off on a renewal due to site frustrations, please do so now at your earliest convenience.

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.

ArcaOS

I want ArcaOS 5.1!

TO CLARIFY: ArcaOS 5.1 HAS NOT YET BEEN RELEASED. Please read this post all the way to the end to get all information.

ArcaOS 5.1 is complete and waiting for release. The holdup is really related to our distribution system, which is based on the WooCommerce platform.

Until we can produce multiple versions of ArcaOS ISOs, in multiple languages, WE MUST HOLD UP THE ArcaOS 5.1 RELEASE.

While WooCommerce is a capable ecommerce solution, Arca Noae’s requirements to be able to allow ordering of a personalized ISO have now become considerably more complicated than they were for the 5.0 release in 2017. Instead of only spinning the same ISO with personalization data for each customer, we now must continue to have 5.0 ISOs available, and offer 5.1 ISOs in several languages. In addition, instead of maintaining one subscription channel for ArcaOS, we now must maintain two separate channels, one for 5.0 and one for 5.1. Upgraders will also need to change subscription channels when they upgrade ArcaOS. This work has proven more complicated than we had anticipated.

In the meantime, we have taken steps to upgrade our infrastructure to expand our capacity to build and warehouse more ISOs, and we are now at a point where the missing pieces of the puzzle are just the software enhancements for the website to bring everything together.

We have always avoided stating narrow windows for anticipated delivery dates, and take great efforts to avoid the appearance of vaporware. ArcaOS 5.1 is real, and it is coming…soon.

In the interim (and after the release of ArcaOS 5.1), ArcaOS 5.0 will continue to receive critical updates and support, and from time to time, we may even release new bugfix ISOs for ArcaOS 5.0 (generally when an update impacts the installation experience).

It is also important to note that not all languages for ArcaOS 5.1 will be made available when English is released, nor will all non-English languages be released at the same time. Translations of German, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, and others are in varying states of completion. As we deem a certain language ready for release, we will make it available.

We appreciate everyone’s continued patience. We want to bring you ArcaOS 5.1 as much as you want it!

Extended service outage due to Tropical Storm Isaias

All systems are back online as of 5:00am EDT, following a blackout which began at approximately 2:25pm EDT, yesterday.

Power, fiber optic broadband, and even wireless communications were impacted by yesterday’s passing of Isaias, rendering even the best of contingency plans inadequate. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

See our new product and activity roadmaps!

We often get asked,”so what’s next for ArcaOS?” “Where can we see you guys?” “What have you done with XYZ?” We realize our original roadmap page fell short, and the more work we did, the harder it became to keep updating that page — especially when it was all-in-one.

So, we decided to do something about that. We’ve split our roadmaps into different targeted areas, namely, General, ArcaOS, Drivers, Software, and Advocacy & Events. We’ll do our best to keep these pages updated with our latest plans and releases.

2019 is starting off as a great year for Arca Noae, and there is a lot of great stuff on the horizon. ArcaOS 5.0.4 is in beta, which will include a number of great updates including Samba 4.9 and a handy updater feature which should update even an early 5.0 release to the latest code in a matter of a few minutes. USB 3 is also on the way very soon, now.

Watch for more updates to our software and to our roadmaps as we move further into this year.