Alfresco is not production ready

[unknown-user]

I have just spent a day evaluating Alfresco, but unfortunately have had a very bad experience with it.  I'm sharing a subset of the issues I've had here, in case someone can shed some light on why nothing works out of the box for me, when other people claim it is a stable, robust enterprise ready platform.

I installed from Alfresco-Labs-3c-Mini-Setup.exe on a WinXP box, using JDK1.6.0_03, without open office.

Problem 1 - Installation doesn't install JAXB jars into endorsed directory

After installing, I started the alfresco server and attempted to access the web client.  It came up with an error page, and I saw in the tomcat console window that there is a problem loading the JAXB jars.  I had to manually copy them into the Alfresco\tomcat\common\endorsed directory to get it working properly.  There is no mention of this in any installation documentation, and I don't see why it couldn't have been done as part of the installation procedure.  Can anyone explain why it doesn't work out of the box?

Problem 2 - Some boot scripts don't work if Alfresco is installed into a path containing spaces, such as under C:\Program Files

The install goes without a hitch, but when starting the alfresco server there is an error reported in the tomcat console saying it can't find a script called "C:\Program".  I had to uninstall and re-install in a directory with no spaces.  Again this shows the lack of maturity of the product.

Problem 3 - CIFS access results in permanent 100% CPU usage by alfresco server

As soon as I attempt to access my files via CIFS, the server process jumps to 100% CPU usage and stays there.  The CIFS server seems to work fine, although the whole system is then very slow.  It is also then impossible to shut down the server gracefully, it just reports a multitude of different exceptions and never shuts down.  This is the main functionality I was interested in, so from this bug alone I am convinced that Alfresco is not production ready and useless to me.

Problem 4 - Built-in WYSIWYG web content editor is useless

It doesn't allow the use of CSS classes at all, doesn't allow relative links, or links to other documents in the Alfresco repository.  It doesn't allow me to insert a picture from the local hard disk.  Overall very basic and useless.  I then did a bit of research to see whether there were any plug-ins that provide a better user experience, which led me to…

Problem 5 - Web Studio doesn't work

I followed the Web Studio Green Energy tutorial, but when I got to the part where I'm meant to start editing, I click to expand the web content panel and click to expand the Web Site node but there is nothing there.  I look in the tomcat console and the following error is in there:
==> macro serialize [on line 5, column 1 in org/alfresco/webframework/avm-metadata.get.html.ftl]
in user-directive serialize [on line 2, column 9 in org/alfresco/webframework/avm-metadata.get.html.ftl]
———-
Java backtrace for programmers:
———-
freemarker.template.TemplateException: Error executing macro: serialize
required parameter: object is not specified.
at freemarker.core.Macro$Context.sanityCheck(Macro.java:181)

I experienced quite a few other bugs, internal server errors etc, and each time there was an error it seems it is impossible to shut down the server gracefully.

Can anyone explain why I have had such a bad experience?  Is it something simple like the JDK version I'm using, or the fact that I installed it without open office?  If so, why isn't it documented?

I have built a web CMS platform that would integrate wonderfully with Alfresco's document management functionality, if only Alfresco worked properly.  It would be great if I could get it working reliably, but the sheer number of problems I've experienced indicates it would be a very steep uphill battle.  Please someone prove me wrong!

Cheers
Martin

[mrogers]

Where to start…

First of all is to say that 3C was never considered to be "production ready".   It was a labs release to introduce a preview version of web studio and an update for the media wiki integration.   http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Alfresco_Labs_3c_Release_Notes, 3D is better suited for production use since it contains the bug fixes for the 3.0 code line,  but if you are looking for stability, support and documentation then you need to look at the enterprise versions rather than the labs versions.

Now to your individual points.   Unfortunatly Alfresco did indeed apprear  to be suffering from some instability with Tomcat 6 and Java which accounts for the JAXB and shutdown issues, you will find both issues discussed on these forums. 

Problem 2 is I think a known issue.   Needs to be documented or worked around.

Problem 3 is a known issue that was fixed in 3D.

Problem 4 is outside my knowledge,  I'm sure someone else will comment.

Problem 5 some labs users do have web studio running,  but web studio is still preview quality code and is still some time away from being ready for production use.

[unknown-user]

Thanks for your reply mrogers.

I found the main cause of my problems - the alfresco labs download wiki pages are in a big mess.  I reached the download page http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Alfresco_Labs_Download via the "Downloads" menu option on the left.  This page says it is for "current releases" of labs, and has a link called "Download and install Alfresco Labs 3" to http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Installing_Labs_3 which contains the download link I used, which is version "3C".  From what you tell me, this isn't the latest version, so these wiki pages are out of date.

I now see there is an alternative download page http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Download_Labs only available via a link on the main www website, but not via the menus in the wiki site.  This has a link to a different set of download files, which are referred to as the "final" release.  Is this the "3D" version you are referring to?  The release notes don't mention "3C", "3D" or any other version descriptor, other than that it is "final".  The release notes also mention the JAXB issue, although the statement that the issue is not present in versions later than JDK 1.6.0_0 is incorrect, and it tells you to copy the jar into the wrong directory.  At least this set of pages has a link to installation documentation and FAQs, which did not exist on the old download pages and are full of information that would have been very useful last time around.

So I'll try installing the "final" version tomorrow and see if I have a better day than I had today.

I would however like a bit of clarification about the labs vs enterprise versions.  Is the labs stable release suitable for production use or not?  The name says it's stable, but you say if I'm looking for stability I should look at the enterprise edition.  The alfresco website also only recommends labs for non-critical environments, but also says it contains all of the functionality present in Enterprise Edition.  Is the labs stable release the same as enterprise 3.0.1?  Why do they have different version numbering systems?  There is a lot of contradictory information about this on the website. 

I don't want to waste my time evaluating software that isn't stable, so do I have to go straight to the enterprise edition even if at this stage I'm happy with support from the forums?

Does the enterprise edition not contain web studio at all?  If not, what is the most user friendly WYSIWYG plug in or system that is available for end users to create and modify web content?

I very much appreciate your help so far.

Thanks
Martin

[krithika123]

Problem 5 some labs users do have web studio running,  but web studio is still preview quality code and is still some time away from being ready for production use.

Hi,
With regard to the above i followed the steps and tried opening the Web Studio mentioned in the http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Web_Studio_Tutorial_-_Custom_Site#Getting_Started.But instead of displaying the login page it shows me a static page which says

Welcome to Alfresco Web Studio (both in Firefox and IE) and the page remains unchanged .

I am using Alfresco-Labs-3Stable-Linux-x86-Install for installation.

Can u please help and tell me if the steps i followed for the Web Studio setup was correct .