Reminder – NPrinting and QlikView 12.50 Compatibility

[Jamie_Gregory]

Hello Qlik Users!

Happy Friday! I hope everyone had a great week.

This is a reminder to clients using Qlik NPrinting regarding the compatibility with QlikView 12.50.

QlikView 12.50 is not support with any current version of Qlik NPrinting.

Per Qlik Help:

The following versions of QlikView are supported for connection with Qlik NPrinting. 

• QlikView 11.20 SR15 or higher
• QlikView November 2017 (12.20) or higher
• QlikView November 2018 (12.30) SR1 or higher
• QlikView April 2019 (12.40) or higher

Currently, we do not have any information on which future version of NPrinting will be supported with QlikView 12.50 but we will pass along any information received from Product Management.

In the meantime, please make sure to take the followings steps when upgrading NPrinting:

• Check the System Requirements* in the Qlik NPrinting Help pages
• Review the Release Notes* (available as a companion download for each major product release from theQlik Downloads site)
• Back up your current environment before upgrading
• Test the new version in a test or QA environment prior to upgrading the production environment

*These links are for NPrinting September 2020.

Carefully following the above will provide necessary information around compatibility between our product versions as well as any notable changes to the system. By thoroughly preparing for an upgrade with necessary backups, you are providing yourself with the ability to roll back should any issues come up during testing. Hopefully it’s not needed, but it’s always important to have a roll back plan should things go awry.

If Qlik Sense or QlikView are being upgraded at the same time, please make sure to follow the above steps as well. System Requirements and backup instructions are found on the Qlik Help site, the Release Notes are found on the Qlik Downloads site and the Qlik Sense upgrade guide and QlikView upgrade guide provide information on upgrading the environments.

Please let us know if you have any questions using the comments below. Be sure to subscribe to the Qlik Support Updates Blog by clicking the green Subscribe button to stay up-to-date with the latest releases. Also, give this post a ‘like’ if you found it useful.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! Thank you for choosing Qlik!

Kind regards,

Qlik Digital Support

Update: Support for QlikView 12.50 SR2 and higher has since been implemented. Please see this blog for more information.

[Or]

This lack of support is quite confusing to me - nobody mentioned this when we were upgrading. Not our Qlik partner, not the release notes, not Qlik's Digital Support (when responding to posts in this space asking about things to note for upgra....  Additionally, Qlik issued an emergency licensee patch for 12.50 specifically to address an NPrinting compatibility issue - why would this happen if NPrinting is not supported?

We upgraded from our previous unsupported version to 12.50, have had to rollback to our unsupported version due to the major bugs in 12.50, and we'd really like to have Qlik step up and tell us when they're going to be fixing these issues.

[korsikov]

How is this "no message"? We've all seen this post and have paused the planned update to Qs April 2020

https://community.qlik.com/t5/Qlik-Support-Updates-Blog/Issues-with-QlikView-12-50-and-NPrinting/bc-...

[Or]

@korsikovThat post is dated July 2nd and *requests* that NPrinting customers refrain from upgrading. QlikView 12.5 was released in April, and our failed upgrade was in June.

This reminder is not news, it is a reminder - but this issue has been ongoing for more than two months.It's September and Qlik still hasn't let out any official word on a timeline for NPrinting support for those of us who are waiting.

[korsikov]

@Or  sad but true. 

This is a global trend in software release - low quality of testing. As the practice of recent years shows, the September release better be not installed at all. Before I used to write off everything for the vacation period. And this year, with the situation about Covid-19, it is difficult for me to predict how serious the problems will be. It all started with you that the initial build QS September 2020 just didn't install. Great start.

It annoys me most that I have to spend a huge amount of resources testing each new release before install it on production environment.

[Or]

@korsikovIndeed, my level of faith in new Qlik versions being stable has gone south after this particular effort, and having to test as extensively as we did only to find out that there were major issues that didn't pop up in our testing (who would have thought to check task manager for hung QV.exe?), is quite discouraging.

My issue is that we are now stuck with an unsupported version of QV and no word on when a new version of QV might be available which actually supports our installation, which includes NPrinting. I don't want to start a major testing and upgrade project to 12.40, which is already 18 months old and lacks the most recent QV upgrades we'd like to have (and we'd have to upgrade one year sooner to keep getting support in the future).

I appreciate that Qlik is working on the problem, and that they don't want to commit to a firm release date they're not sure about yet. However, as a customer (and contact point for our hundreds of users), I need some sort of clarity, both for my own upgrade needs and for my communication with users.

[Jamie_Gregory]

@Or Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We will take this feedback to the Product Managers so they can look into addressing cross-platform support which would allow us to communicate earlier as opposed to when issues are brought to Support's attention via customers. We try to communicate as soon as we hear anything from our customers and R&D  so we can help mitigate issues for as many customers as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.

It is always recommended to check the System Requirements before upgrading and if you have multiple Qlik products that talk to each other, the System Requirements should be checked for each product. We provide support matrix's or lists for our products. If the version you wish to upgrade is not in the list or matrix, your Qlik Partner should be reaching out to confirm with either our Support team or their Partner Manager. If you would like us to follow up with your Partner, please let me know via private message.

There is currently a licensee patch available for QlikView that addresses QV-20513 and QV-20560. This blog shares how you can get access to that patch as well as an update on SR2: Information on QlikView 12.50 Service Releases. Please note that applying the licensee patch or SR2 when it is available will not put QlikView 12.50 and NPrinting in a supported state. I will be sure to blog about when the two are officially supported as soon as I find out, either way. Our Help site documentation will also be updated to reflect this change once the version is supported.

Once again, thank you for bringing this to our attention and giving us the chance to address our communication strategy for the future. We appreciate your patience in this matter and look forward to any additional feedback you may have so we can continue to improve.

[Or]

"Please note that applying the licensee patch or SR2 when it is available will not put QlikView 12.50 and NPrinting in a supported state."

This isn't great, but at least it's some clarity - now we know that we have to either install an older version, or not have NPrinting support at all for at least as long as it takes Qlik to release a SR3.