Hi

Unfortunately the release of version 11.05 of LandlordMax didn't go off without any hiccups, and as a result we had to temporarily disable the download for some hours today as we resolved the issue. On a positive note the software is again available for download and you can upgrade when you're ready. I do apologize for this inconvenience and you can read more about in the details that follow.

As well we do ask that you please bear with us in terms of support requests. We are trying to respond to all support requests as quickly but we do have a pretty high volume of requests due to this issue. As a result we will have longer hours of operations today so that we can try to respond to every support request we've received. That being said, again, please bear with us as we respond as quickly as possible. We also ask that you avoid sending multiple support requests if at all possible because this only slows down our response times as we process the same requests, and as a result it takes us longer to respond to everyone.

If you're interested in the details of what happen, I will now go, otherwise if you want to just go ahead and get the new version please go right ahead and download it now.

That being said the issue we encountered this morning was not one with the software as per say but rather with the encryption system that prevents reverse engineering of the software. Basically as a final step in the process of releasing software we run the application through an encryption system so that it makes it almost impossible to reverse engineer. Pretty much every software system in the world today does this.

For those of you who aren't as technical or don't know what this means, a good analogy is that if we don't encrypt the software it would be the same as you trying to get your tenants to pay their rents by you giving them all your financial details, credit card numbers, bank cards, checks, passwords to your financial institutions, etc. so that they could pay you. Obviously this is not a good idea, and as such most transactions are performed with a minimum amount of data, sometimes requiring you to enter a pin, etc. The same is true with software, you don't want to expose your programming code (give all your banking data, passwords, etc.), you only show the software application (use your credit card, etc.).

The problem we encountered today is that the build system somehow reverted a configuration file used by the encryption system (we're still investigating why it was reverted) which in turn caused it to omit part of another system that the software depends on for a specific feature/setting in the software. As a result if your instance used this it would be missing and hence failed. The solution was to adjust the configuration file for the encryption system to it's previous state.

Our testing unfortunately did not catch it because the testing was done before this happened. We did do post-testing, but unfortunately it looks like it only affected a certain subset of people because it was only in some situations (our estimate is anywhere from 10-20% of people using the software), and for whatever reason this was missed which is really unfortunate. In other words certain installs missed including a system of the application that some people required. If you were one of these unfortunate people it would've happened as you tried to upgrade.

Therefore as soon as we discovered and confirmed this issue we immediately disabled the downloads from the website to prevent any further people from experiencing this. This is why if you went to upgrade earlier today you may have seen a message saying the downloads were coming back shortly.

Thankfully we were able to resolve the issue after some time and we re-released a new updated version of LandlordMax called version 11.05a today. The very good news is that anyone affected by this issue can just re-download and re-install the software and it will completely resolve the issue for them. And for anyone who didn't upgrade yet, well it's even simpler, you can just download and install it from the website worry free.

Again I do want to apologize for this issue and the inconvenience it has caused those people affected by it today. Fortunately the issue is resolved and the solution is as simple as re-downloading and re-installing the software.

And without further do, I once again welcome you to start using the newest version of LandlordMax!