Nightmare !!! (Mac OS X)

[kygeek]

We evaluated the ZCS network edition some months ago on OSX 10.5. it worked great ... had a few issues at the beginning but overall was extremely reliable. We purchased a commercial license and support package. Last thursday we upgraded the server to 6.0 and the nightmare began. Upgrade went flawless, but the server became very unstable ... lots of deferred mail in the queue and it seemed the MTA was dying periodically. Submitted a support case. Yesterday a technician logged into our machine and played around all day basically getting no further than I did with it. the end result "a bug in the apple operating system causes my issue" There was a bug submitted long ago about this.

here is the response i received from the Zimbra Support Team

Your Zimbra server is now up and running. However you are running into a bug that we have identify and is caused by Apple's OS. We have filed a bug against the OS with Apple on this issue as well.

Bug 32613 – OSX 10.5 DNS and other issues after system failure

There is no fix for this issue at the moment. A work-around per the bug is to restart postfix and amavisd services. Comment #6 of the above bug contains some information on a script attached that can be ran and execute if the box gets back to the same stage. The script restarts zmmtactl and zmamavisdctl.

this bug was submitted almost a year ago and against 5.0.10. we did not have this issue with the pre 6.0 versions...

the work around mentioned just isnt going to cut it in my opinion. I expect alot more from something that i purchase commercially and purchase support with. Letting something lay around for a year is just not good practice. I suppose my question would be ... has anyone else had this issue and if they have the issue then how was it resolved. We are in kind of a tight spot here... we evaluated ZCS on a mac we had already... when we went to production we ordered a pricey mac pro to run the server and need to make that hardware work for this purpose so moving to another OS is not an option at this point.

thanks

[phoenix]

Well, as you've already seen from the bug report it's an Apple problem and filed in their bug tracker system as #6869867 and too date (AFAIK) there's been no progress on the Apple bug report. I'm not sure how you think Zimbra can resolve a bug in the Apple o/s.

[kygeek]

just because Zimbra says its an apple bug does not mean that it really is. Honestly when i develop a piece of software and i find something odd in the OS that causes what i have done to act strangely then i am left with the responsibility to my customer to make it work. Its simply alot easier to pass the buck to someone else than make it work properly with what is available. Its not like the so called 'bug' in the OS cropped up during the 2 months we evaluated ZCS. It happened AFTER an upgrade to 6. So yes i blame Zimbra completely for not having a fix for something that they sell commercially.

[phoenix]

I think if you read the bug report in detail you'll find that it's not a ZImbra bug, you could always look at the Apple bug tracker to follow the progress of the bug - particularly from the users in that report and commants #38 onwards.

[kygeek]

yeah i read the entire bug report. you would think that if DNS does not properly work on Mac OSX then that would create a whole slew of other issues with many pieces of software out there. Not just zimbra. Problem is that Zimbra is the only software i have this issue with. and it is the responsibility of Zimbra to make their software function. Apple's bug tracker seems to not be working at the moment as i just tried to login to investigate. That will not fix my problem anyway. I cannot wait around on two companies to fight amongst themselves to decide whose fault it is. I need my mail server to be stable as it was less than a week ago. that is the bottom line.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by kygeek

yeah i read the entire bug report. you would think that if DNS does not properly work on Mac OSX then that would create a whole slew of other issues with many pieces of software out there. Not just zimbra.

Well, as you've read the bug report you'll see that it's an intermittent problem. They're usually somewhat difficult to track down never mind fix. That's also confirmed by the user comments as an Apple problem.

Originally Posted by kygeek

Problem is that Zimbra is the only software i have this issue with. and it is the responsibility of Zimbra to make their software function.

The software does function but it's the fact that the o/s doesn't return valid DNS information that causes the problem. Zimbra has underlying requirements, one of which is DNS (required by Postfix), if that doesn't work then Zimbra won't.

Originally Posted by kygeek

Apple's bug tracker seems to not be working at the moment as i just tried to login to investigate. That will not fix my problem anyway. I cannot wait around on two companies to fight amongst themselves to decide whose fault it is. I need my mail server to be stable as it was less than a week ago. that is the bottom line.

It's not a case of 'two companies fighting', a problem has been identified with Apple software reported to them and the fix is their responsibility. You are, however, quite welcome to add your comments to the Zimbra bug report and make your feelings known, you should also get further clarification about this problem from either your sales contact or support - or both if you prefer.

[kygeek]

you can defend Zimbra all you like. The bottom line is that it does not work and it is sold as a working product. you cannot blame an OS for your commercial product not functioning. I think that ZCS is a great piece of software with a lot of potential, however, it is the responsibility of Zimbra to resolve my issue not apple.
ill assume that since you do not experience my issue that you have no advise on how to actually fix the problem. I appreciate your comments
thank you.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by kygeek

you can defend Zimbra all you like. The bottom line is that it does not work and it is sold as a working product. you cannot blame an OS for your commercial product not functioning. I think that ZCS is a great piece of software with a lot of potential, however, it is the responsibility of Zimbra to resolve my issue not apple.
ill assume that since you do not experience my issue that you have no advise on how to actually fix the problem. I appreciate your comments
thank you.

I've already given you my advice, post your comments to the bug report and contact support - that's the correct place to pose your questions about the state of an open bug report.

BTW, do you think that if there was a fix in Zimbra for this problem that it would be left languishing as unfixed - I can assure you that wouldn't be the case.

[p24t]

I don't think anyone has advice on how to fix the problem, save perhaps employees at Apple, Inc. If something in the OS isn't working properly, then blaming the OS is the only recourse. (FYI, the google results for 10.5 DNS issues are quite numerous)

[kygeek]

no need to post a redundant comment on the bug report... have already contacted support with no help...thats why i was here.