New: Ultimaker Cura 3.5

[burtoogle 513]

Contributors have a huge advantage over UM employees in that the amount of time we can spend working on a new feature or improvement is only limited by our own characteristics (impatience, laziness, etc.). We are not subject to the commercial constraints of deadlines, etc. that force employees to "make do".

[burtoogle 513]

For example, the gyroid infill feature that should be available to all in the future probably took the best part of a working week to bring it to the point where I thought it was OK to submit for inclusion in a release. I spent a lot of time on the details because although I had something working quite soon, it was obvious that it could be better and that's what took the time. Testing and thinking. Testing and thinking. Is it perfect? Almost certainly not but I am happy enough for people to try it out.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

2 hours ago, bagel-orb said:

Also the Cura team might take on tasks which are more challenging or more bug-prone.

That may be so, but, you have to admit that this current version release is bug ridden and not tested for some basic things before being released.

 

And, this really does not support their position. Junior people should be supervised and knowing there are junior people, someone should be expecting issues to arise and overlooking things just a tab bit harder.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

2 hours ago, smartavionics said:

We are not subject to the commercial constraints of deadlines, etc. that force employees to "make do"

Not sure I can go along with this completely as, a) Since this is a commercial project, would it not behoove them to test things and set up something as rigorous for testing as they have implemented for product manufacturing?

 

and B) Since Cura is as much of a face for the company as the machines, should it not be be tested for the most basic of robustness?

 

And c) You are right, you guys get to work on the really fun stuff that gets a lot of cool reviews, such as the gyroid infill, so, I do feel for them, but first bug that begged me off upgrading is that the 'dark' UI did not even display the right side interface. I feel that was a warning sign of issues to beware of and, it does seem to be a good thing, from what I have read so far.

 

Look, I am not slamming them for doing things the way the programmers are working programming department. But, I am raising issues for the people who run that area to keep an eye out on the idea that it should be as well thought out as the manufacturing process and not just to meet arbitrary deadlines.

Edited October 15, 2018 by kmanstudios

[Msuurmond 28]

The remarks here don't do justice to all the hard work the Cura team and system testing is putting into making sure every release is more stable than the previous one. It is certainly not the case that we don't test stuff and 'just put it out there'.

 

We followed the same development and testing process for 3.5.0 as we did for all previous 3.*.* releases. With an expanding automated test I would even argue we tested 3.5.0 better than the previous releases. During the 3.5.0-BETA we got very little bug reports so we assumed 3.5.0 was ready to be released. From our point of view 3.5.0-BETA was ready to be released to the public.

 

When looking into the crash reports, we see that two bugs (crash in the Lockfile and a TypeError when searching for containers) contribute for 88% of the crashes we see. Without these two we would have a a new record low of startup crashes. Of course we want to reach 0, but we have to do this in steps.

We are finishing up 3.5.1 and think all major bugs are fixed but of course it is difficult to determine if it is fixed when we can 't reproduce it, we haven't seen these two bugs at any system here at Ultimaker.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

9 minutes ago, Msuurmond said:

It is certainly not the case that we don't test stuff and 'just put it out there'.

Nobody has said that as far as I can see. But it has been shown that there are a lot of bugs this version that could have been caught with a set of testing procedures that hit these areas that are brought up. Is anyone making a list of things to put into place as a set of final tests that get performed before release? I am thinking that the afformentioned UI issues would be one of the most basic of things tested.

 

9 minutes ago, Msuurmond said:

With an expanding automated test I would even argue we tested 3.5.0 better than the previous releases.

Then I would ask, why is this release so seriously debilitated in functionality?

 

Edit: Automated testing? Huh? What is that? This suggests the removal of people....yes, no?

 

9 minutes ago, Msuurmond said:

Without these two we would have a a new record low of startup crashes.

That is just one issue, I do not see other issues being defended this way.

 

9 minutes ago, Msuurmond said:

it is fixed when we can 't reproduce it

Not to have company secrets revealed, but what are the reproducibility of things process, on how many systems? It is a tall order, I agree, but it is an issue when others have multiple accounts of the same issues that you guys do not reproduce.

Edited October 15, 2018 by kmanstudios

[Link 34]

I don't get why people are bashing the UM team here, this software is free !!!! and whilst anyone who works in software development knows you can't find every issue, it's how you deal with it when they come up.

 

If the current version doesn't work for you (it works for most), then roll back to 3.4.1 whilst they fix it (which they are), the isolated nature of the people affected clearly shows that the UM team didn't just release any old software, not to mention it was in a released Beta phase for a while.

 

[bagel-orb 61]

 

33 minutes ago, kmanstudios said:

and B) Since Cura is as much of a face for the company as the machines, should it not be be tested for the most basic of robustness?

 

The process is as follows: First some feature or bugfix is implemented, then the code changes are reviewed, then other programmers test the feature/fix, after that there is a Cura testing team which tests the feature/fix and related functionality. At the very end of the line the whole system combination of Cura and Ultimaker machines are tested. On top of that there are automated test scripts which continuously test for some bugs.
If at some point any of the tests above fails the issue is reverted to the original programmer.

Don't assume that because you experienced a major bug that everybody is having that bug.

[burtoogle 513]

15 minutes ago, Msuurmond said:

We are finishing up 3.5.1 and think all major bugs are fixed but of course it is difficult to determine if it is fixed when we can 't reproduce it, we haven't seen these two bugs at any system here at Ultimaker.

 

Please consider including https://github.com/Ultimaker/CuraEngine/pull/865 in 3.5.1 it would be shame not to fix that at the same time.

[bagel-orb 61]

Same holds for fixing Connect Polygons https://github.com/Ultimaker/CuraEngine/pull/843

[kmanstudios 1,120]

6 minutes ago, bagel-orb said:

 

 

The process is as follows: First some feature or bugfix is implemented, then the code changes are reviewed, then other programmers test the feature/fix, after that there is a Cura testing team which tests the feature/fix and related functionality. At the very end of the line the whole system combination of Cura and Ultimaker machines are tested. On top of that there are automated test scripts which continuously test for some bugs.
If at some point any of the tests above fails the issue is reverted to the original programmer.

Don't assume that because you experienced a major bug that everybody is having that bug.

I did not update due to the nature of the prints I am doing.  But, the bugs I am referencing here are not just individual bugs. So, I have not updated.

 

12 minutes ago, Link said:

I don't get why people are bashing the UM team here, this software is free

Ummm, not bashing the team. Raising issues, yes, but not bashing them. questioning how some really simple things got through. There is a difference. Yes, it is free. But it can also seriously compromise setups that are implemented in a production environment. Perhaps the option then is to operate at a level behind until the community at large finds all the serious stuff?

[burtoogle 513]

1 minute ago, kmanstudios said:

Perhaps the option then is to operate at a level behind until the community at large finds all the serious stuff? 

 

That sound good but then it relies on one or more point releases being made. I guess if no showstoppers appear within a month or so of a new release then it could be fairly safe to upgrade anyway.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Here is an issue I do not personally experience: I have no issues with Win 10 other than, well, Win 10 in general, but that is another story.

 

And, I had reported the memory usage just growing and growing when I first started. So, that still happens. And, it has caused me to reboot just to be able to load a program that I was able to load large files into before using cura.

[ahoeben 1,948]

19 minutes ago, kmanstudios said:

27 minutes ago, Msuurmond said:

It is certainly not the case that we don't test stuff and 'just put it out there'.

Nobody has said that as far as I can see.

 

1 hour ago, kmanstudios said:

you have to admit that this current version release is bug ridden and not tested for some basic things before being released.

 

Seems you said "that".

 

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Just now, smartavionics said:

 

That sound good but then it relies on one or more point releases being made. I guess if no showstoppers appear within a month or so of a new release then it could be fairly safe to upgrade anyway.

Fortunately, my printing schedule has made that a reality even if this version were perfect.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Just now, ahoeben said:

 

 

Seems you said "that".

 

Not in the global sense that he suggested. But, seriously, when the Dark  UI is not even showing up the right side interface, yeah, that was not tested. So, we can split hairs, but testing for some things does not mean all things are tested for.

[ahoeben 1,948]

31 minutes ago, Msuurmond said:

During the 3.5.0-BETA we got very little bug reports so we assumed 3.5.0 was ready to be released.

 

That may be true, but a fair amount of code was added after the release of 3.5.0-BETA that was not community tested; both the Settings Guide plugin and part of the Cura Connect rework was added after the beta was released, and both of these "break" with the dark theme.

 

Perhaps having a second beta and/or one or more release candidates would be a good idea.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

7 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

Perhaps having a second beta and/or one or more release candidates would be a good idea.

I would agree with that.

 

7 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

That may be true, but a fair amount of code was added after the release of 3.5.0-BETA that was not community tested

That could very well be the fly in the ointment. But it does strike as being an odd practice at best.

Edited October 15, 2018 by kmanstudios

[ahoeben 1,948]

Normally, only bug fixes are allowed in after a beta release, but this time some exemptions seem to have been made for Cura Connect changes. The settings guide is a plugin, and simply wasn't made available during the beta phase.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

3 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

Normally, only bug fixes are allowed in after a beta release, but this time some exemptions seem to have been made for Cura Connect changes.

In any project I have ever been part of, not programming, but it should illustrate the volatility of allowing this, has gone badly.

 

In one instance we implemented a 'lockdown on things' and then released other things later as a bonus pack for marketing purposes once tested.

[P3D 46]

54 minutes ago, bagel-orb said:

Same holds for fixing Connect Polygons https://github.com/Ultimaker/CuraEngine/pull/843

 

Yes, please fix that soon, those random connections have been a massive PITA, especially in multi-material printing (e.g. with Breakaway or PVA as support)

[bagel-orb 61]

3 minutes ago, P3D said:

 

Yes, please fix that soon, those random connections have been a massive PITA, especially in multi-material printing (e.g. with Breakaway or PVA as support)

For now you can simply disable Connect Infill Polygons and Connect Skin Polygons

[P3D 46]

12 minutes ago, bagel-orb said:

For now you can simply disable Connect Infill Polygons and Connect Skin Polygons

 

Thanks for the workaround! Are there any downsides I need to be aware of?

 

EDIT: The lines are still there when disabling "Connect infill lines" (the only setting that matches the description you gave)

Edited October 15, 2018 by P3D

[bagel-orb 61]

2 minutes ago, P3D said:

 

Thanks for the workaround! Are there any downsides I need to be aware of? 

Nah. Only that you're missing out on a new feature because it's buggy.
The Connect Polygons feature was added recently, but I found out that it introduced bugs.

[P3D 46]

7 minutes ago, bagel-orb said:

Nah. Only that you're missing out on a new feature because it's buggy.
The Connect Polygons feature was added recently, but I found out that it introduced bugs.

 

OK, somehow Cura does not display those settings for me, even when I select "show all settings... maybe the "old" custom material profile carried over from 3.4.1 is to blame?

 

Edit: just checked... nope, the settings aren't there, even in a new project with default ultimaker material profiles.

Edited October 15, 2018 by P3D