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TANGO Interactive, as any other software package, has its share of caveats. Once we recognize them, we try to fix them as soon as possible. If you think you have found a bug not described below, send us a message.
 
This page list the bugs, real or apparent, that have been recognized but are not yet fixed. The list is modified in each software release.

A system like TANGO Interactive must work on scores of PCs that have been configured and maintained by a variety of users with different level of skills  and preferences. While this is true for all PC software, the complex, distrubuted browser-based systems such as TI rely on correct functioning of a much larger number of software modules than usual monolithic applications. We have found out the hard way that, on an average PC, there are astonishingly many ways the setup of a browser may be damaged. Many of these setup errors won't show when the user browses simple content, but an attempt to use our system may fail nevertheless. The general rule is:

To run TANGO Interactive, your browser setup must be is a pristine condition.

Nothing more, but not much less. TI system is guaranteed to work  on correctly configured machines. If TANGO Interactive does not start even though you followed all the instructions, it is usually your system or installed application software that causes the problem.

The list below is an ever-changing catalog of TANGO Interactive bugs and oddities. Please, consult this list  before you send us an e-mail describing any anomalous system behavior.

Bugs and caveats:

In chat or in other application modules right-click menus are not shown

Description:
Some applications, including Session Manager, have pop-up menus invoked by right-mouse-clicking. If the menu items have child menus, such child menus are sometimes not immediately displayed.
The bug only affects users of Netscape browser.

Origin:
Shaky Repaint Manager in Java Swing library.
.
Workaround:
Move the mouse over the area when the menu should be shown. It will be "painted" while you move the mouse around.

Permanent fix:
No forecast is available at present.

SharedAgent (application sharing) does not work under Windows 2000

Description:
self-explanatory

Origin:
Windows 2000 comes with NetMeeting v. 3, which has an API incompatible with API for NetMeeting v. 2.11.

Workaround:
None at present.

Permanent fix:
Working on it.

Chat application appears to hang

Description:
Chat does not respond to keyboard/mouse

Origin:
Chat in TI has a feature allowing for accommodation of the latecomers. This means, users joining a chat session late will be sent the entire chat transcript when entering the chat room. As the session is dynamic, and as there is no perpetual "master" instance of chat, the process of maintaining the chat transcript is quite complex. The algorithm used appears to be CPU intensive. We observed that if the user tries to type or use mouse to operate chat while chat instance is sending or acquiring "initial state", the module may hang. The condition may be transient (chat recovers) or permanent (needs restart).

Workaround:
Don't type into chat window until you have received a complete transcript of the session upon startup.

Permanent fix:
Eventually, we will fix the algorithm. It is considered a low-priority bug.

Application won't start and a "Cannot run process" message appears

Description:
self-explanatory

Origin:
T
ANGO Interactive application modules are not all Java applets. Applications written in other languages, including Java applications (as opposed to applets) need to be installed on your machine before they can run. The diagnostics above indicate a non-existent or faulty installation of such a "local application".
It is always a faulty installation problem, not system bug.

Workaround:
Install or correctly configure application in question.

Permanent fix:
Ditto.

BuenaVista fails to start with the message "Audio device not available"

Description:
Self-explanatory. Happens only on PCs

Origin:
Two possibilities: (1) your machine either does not have audio card or the drivers for audio card are having problems; (2) You have another active application using audio channel. On PC platforms,
only one application at any given time can access audio channel. MS DirectX package is addressing this problem , but until all applications use this library, the limitation holds. BuenaVista is a C application. If you use TI's audio or video on demand players,  BuenaVista won't start
.
Workaround:
Close other audio applications and restart BuenaVista. If you think you don't use any audio applications, restart BuenaVista anyway.

More help:
Please, refer to our
"PC Audio Configuration Guide"

Permanent fix:
Not expected until all PC applications, including Java VM, use DirectX. This is expected in Windows 2000.

Join Session or Remote Open fail without system message

Description
Normally, if you attempt a session control operation such as "Join", "Remote Open", or "Become Master", the system is either expected to execute the operation or notify you if the requested operation cannot be executed. For instance, if you requested to join a private session, the system is expected to notify you that you cannot enter. The system is not expected to just ignore your request. Yet, under certain rare circumstances, it does.

Origin:
This happens under various circumstances. To execute the operation, your Session Manager (SM) must be able to talk to the remote user's SM. If the remote SM does not respond, your request may be left hanging. An SM may fail to respond when browser is busy (for instance, trying to resolve a non-existent DNS name, contact a non-responding server, or simply waiting for a document arriving on a slow link). Such conditions are transient and often another attempt to execute the operation will work.

Note also that certain TI applications request security privileges. If a remote user receives a request to grant a privilege but fails to either grant or decline, no further action will be taken: your request will hang indefinitely with neither a "yes" or "no" from the remote user.

Workaround:
None at present. It is a very difficult, general  problem in distributed systems. Anomalies of this kind are almost always caused by transient or permanent failures of Internet infrastructure (servers, networks, etc.) and resulting misbehavior of the browser. We have been unable to find a set of consistent heuristics enabling collaboratory engine to reliably and automatically deal with all kinds of "remote failure" problems.

Permanent (?) fix (???):
For certain type of "hanging" operations we provide a well-hidden "reset" shortcut (Alt-double-click at the session entry in SM).

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