ActivInspire 1.7.62196 & Java 7 u45

[Norphy]

I pushed out Java 7u45 to our PCs this morning and it seems to have killed ActivInspire. The splash screen comes up for a second or two but the "flames of learning" don't fill in and the program just stops. Remove Java 7u45 and it all starts working again. Is this a known issue? We're using Windows 7 x64 and have both x86 and x64 Java installed.

[hardtailstar]

Yes! We rolled back activ inspire to previous version as one of our programs need the java 7u45 update.

 

Its a pain

[phillyrovers]

Hi Norphy & hardtailstar,

I have just updated to Java 7 update 45 onto my machine with ActivInspire v1.7.62196 installed. ActivInspire loads up as expected without any issues.

I then restarted the machine, and ActivInspire loads up normally and as expected as well.

 

I suspect that something has gone wrong during the install of the Java update on your machines.

As a test, on one machine, uninstall Java, restart the machine, install Java 7 update 45 directly from the Oracle website and then test ActivInspire and see if this opens up.

Does the issue affect all users on all machines?, have you tried using the local administrative account to see if this works?

 

If it doesn't open up at all, I would recommend that you contact Promethean Support directly for them to look at the issue in more detail.

 

Thank you

[hardtailstar]

Hi Norphy & hardtailstar,

I have just updated to Java 7 update 45 onto my machine with ActivInspire v1.7.62196 installed. ActivInspire loads up as expected without any issues.

I then restarted the machine, and ActivInspire loads up normally and as expected as well.

 

I suspect that something has gone wrong during the install of the Java update on your machines.

As a test, on one machine, uninstall Java, restart the machine, install Java 7 update 45 directly from the Oracle website and then test ActivInspire and see if this opens up.

Does the issue affect all users on all machines?, have you tried using the local administrative account to see if this works?

 

If it doesn't open up at all, I would recommend that you contact Promethean Support directly for them to look at the issue in more detail.

 

Thank you

 

did all that, except contact promethean as Im extremely busy at the moment and needed it to work but will be doing in due course.

[alixjg]

We use System Center Configuration Manager 2012 R2 to deploy Java, and it seems like 7u45 32bit is causing issues. If I uninstall it, ActivInspire works fine, then if I do a clean install, it still works. It seems like ActivInspire has an issue with 32bit Java being updated... we haven't figured that part out yet.

[Norphy]

That's how I've been doing it too. At the moment, I suspect the best way to get around it is to force an uninstall of old java before installing new java. Experiments are in progress.

[alixjg]

We are doing the same here now, we have 7u45 setup to supersede and uninstall the previous version.

[Michael]

Hmmm, what doesn't make sense is ActivInspire doesn't actually need Java to run, so who knows as to why it's stopped working.

 

On a related issue, is anyone here having issues with the v5.9 ActivDriver? It seems a lot more problematic than v5.8 which was stable. I don't have Java installed on workstations (as it's not needed). Symptoms are simply that it loses interactivity with the whiteboard. All are USB based and not serial.

[phillyrovers]

Hi All,

The testing which I carried out on my own machine to re-iterate, was as follows:

-ActivInspire v1.7 installed and working correctly.

-Updated Java to version7 update 45, using the check for updates option within the Java control panel.

ActivInspire v1.7 continues to function correctly.

It is worth noting that I did not have ActivInspire or web browsers running at the time that were active and using Java at the time.

 

Potentially the deployment and or the installation of the Java update when using your deployment environment has not installed the update correctly, or has failed to remove any redundant files which are no longer required in the update.

 

Whilst ActivInspire itself is not Java based (it predominantly uses Flash) there are components of ActivInspire which are Java applets (the equation editor being the main one). ActivInspire upon launching, performs a test to ensure that the flash and java components are installed and working so that they can be used when requried, if this process fails because either the flash and or Java is not working as expected then this may cause ActivInspre to fail to load.

 

If you are still finding you are having issues I would recommend you log this with Promethean Support for them to look at this in further detail.

[phillyrovers]

Hi Michael,

The issue you have mentioned about the v5.9 driver not being as stable as the v5.8 driver is once that I have not personlaly seen.

You have mentioned that interactivity is lost. It would be really useful if you could find out the following: (this will assist in pinpointing what is happening)

1. When the interactivity is lost, does ActivManager still show that it is connected to the board?

2. When interactivity is lost what colour is the light at the top left of the board?

3. When interactivity is lost if you put the pen to the board does the light at the top left hand side change colour?

4. When interactivity is lost what colour does the amplifier light go on the side of the board (If you have a board with an integrated amplifier).

5. What ActivBoard models have you seen this issue with?

 

I think that should be enough initially to get us started looking at this one

 

Thank you

[Michael]

Hi Michael,

The issue you have mentioned about the v5.9 driver not being as stable as the v5.8 driver is once that I have not personlaly seen.

You have mentioned that interactivity is lost. It would be really useful if you could find out the following: (this will assist in pinpointing what is happening)

1. When the interactivity is lost, does ActivManager still show that it is connected to the board?

2. When interactivity is lost what colour is the light at the top left of the board?

3. When interactivity is lost if you put the pen to the board does the light at the top left hand side change colour?

4. When interactivity is lost what colour does the amplifier light go on the side of the board (If you have a board with an integrated amplifier).

5. What ActivBoard models have you seen this issue with?

 

I think that should be enough initially to get us started looking at this one

 

Thank you

 

I'll try and find out these answers for you ASAP

[jslate1980]

Hi has anyone found a fix for this as every time I update java this issue occurs?

[phillyrovers]

Hi jslate1980,

This issue is not one that is "wide" in that it affects all users of ActivInspire.

As with all product updates when you perform an upgrade if the upgrade hasn't installed correctly (for whatever reason) then you do get some issues.

I have just performed an upgrade on my own machine to update 55 of Java and ActivInspire runs perfectly.

It would be good if as a test one machine you have is update manually, and one using SCCM (if you use it) and see which one fails.

If the SCCM route causes the failure then the issue would be SCCM.

If the manual update fails then this would require Promethean to look closer at the issue, and I would recommend that you contact tech support with a sysinfo report so that they can take a closer look.

 

Thank you

[FN-GM]

Hi jslate1980,

This issue is not one that is "wide" in that it affects all users of ActivInspire.

As with all product updates when you perform an upgrade if the upgrade hasn't installed correctly (for whatever reason) then you do get some issues.

I have just performed an upgrade on my own machine to update 55 of Java and ActivInspire runs perfectly.

It would be good if as a test one machine you have is update manually, and one using SCCM (if you use it) and see which one fails.

If the SCCM route causes the failure then the issue would be SCCM.

If the manual update fails then this would require Promethean to look closer at the issue, and I would recommend that you contact tech support with a sysinfo report so that they can take a closer look.

 

Thank you

 

We use SCCM for everything no issues like this.

[Norphy]

This happened to me when I installed Java using the MSIs extracted from the Java packages over the top of an existing Java installation.

 

Instead of doing this, I now have a Powershell script which removes any existing version of Java and installs the new one from the executable files. This is still being pushed out with SCCM so updates are happening.

 

Here is my script:

 

param (
   [string]$JavaPath = ".",
   [string]$JavaInstallerx86 = "jre-7u55-windows-i586.exe",
   [string]$JavaInstallerx64 = "jre-7u55-windows-x64.exe"
   )


#This scans the PC for any existing Java installation and nukes them if found
Get-WmiObject -Class win32_product | ? {$_.Name -like "*Java 7*"} | % {msiexec /x "$($_.IdentifyingNumber)" /qb /norestart | Out-Null}

#This installs x86 and x64 Java. Default is 7u45 from working directory but both working directory and java version can be overridden from command line

#cmd /c echo $JavaPath\$JavaInstallerx64 /s
cmd /c $JavaPath\$JavaInstallerx64 /s
#cmd /c echo $JavaPath\$JavaInstallerx86 /s
cmd /c $JavaPath\$JavaInstallerx86 /s

[FN-GM]

We also removal all versions of Java before updating and don't have this issue. We use this VBS script.

 

It is called via a batch file during the install.

 

Batch File

 

cscript /B /nologo "Remove-Java.vbs" /keeponly
msiexec.exe /i "x86\jre1.7.0_55.msi" /quiet
msiexec.exe /i "x64\jre1.7.0_55.msi" /quiet

 

The VBS Script is attached.

 

Thanks

Remove-Java.vbs