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Are you using Synergy 2?


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  • Synergy Team
Nick Bolton

Some users have installed Synergy 2 Beta without knowing that it's now a beta version (users who purchased between Nov 2017 and June 2018 have access to Synergy 2 Beta and Synergy 1). Synergy 2 Beta still at the early prototyping stage and contains many bugs, so you should only use it if you like testing out cutting edge software.

You may not be aware that Synergy 1 is actually the current stable version. So if this is the case, we recommend that anyone having problems with Synergy 2 Beta download Synergy 1 and use that instead. Make sure you uninstall Synergy 2 Beta first though.

Otherwise, if you're simply reporting a bug in Synergy 2 Beta or want to share your feedback, use the Early Access Beta forum.

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  • 1 month later...
  • Synergy Team
Nick Bolton
1 hour ago, Carlin said:

We can't download Synergy 1 as the link redirects to Synergy 2.

Hey, I fixed your account. Sorry for the inconvenience, it looks like the Synergy 1 license was disabled on your account for some reason.

You should now be able to download Synergy 1.

If anyone else reading this is having problems with their account, please contact customer service.

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This is the first time in a quite some time I popped in to see if there are any updates to Synergy 2.  Totally missed the announcement that it got redeclared as Beta.  I'm a bit peeved at that, honestly, given how much I struggled to get it working and that I now know that you guys knew it wasn't ready ;)  I eventually just gave up and used ShareMouse, which is working like a g'damn charm.

Given the frustration I had to just get Synergy 2 working consistently, not gonna touch the beta with a 10' pole :P  I'm not intending to drive the knife further - I'm certainly rooting for you guys, your support folks were very responsive and eagerly tried to help.  As a result, I'm rather anxious to see Synergy 2 when it's ready and all that.  Keep me posted please =)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm using 2 and it is better than 1 by far IMO, but I have encountered a couple of wrinkles. 

My two machines at present are both laptops running Win10 1803, connected to the router by wifi.

Occasionally, the clipboards don't sync and I have to reboot to restore that feature, but the biggest nuisance is that after sleeping overnight my slave machine mouse cursor becomes sluggish and jerky - almost unusable for fine movements although faster moves sorta work normally.  I say sorta.  The keyboard seems fine. A reboot restores normal motion, but that is a pain. Additionally, on startup, sometimes it takes a few tries to get the mouse to cross to the slave.

I changed the Synergy priorities on the slave to realtime but that did not seem to help, so I am wondering if this issue is common or something to do with these machines only..

Other than that I am happy, I have used MWB and Sharemouse, etc, but came back to Synergy, paid the upgrade price and I'm not sorry. 

I'd like to see more info and links on the GUI, though, like help and links to this forum.  As it stands the GUI is unexplained and mysterious.

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I went back to Mouse without Borders  due to 1 big issue... When I was using v2 and started a Zoom session, I lost mouse click abilities on the remote system. To fix it, I would have to restart the service on the host system. Why didn't I go back to v1? The config was clugy at best and I'll patiently wait to see what happens in v2 once it goes GA. Perhaps they fix it, if not, I will ask for a refund.

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Christopher S. Bates

It happens in both the latest version of 1 as well as version 2.

 

I was on 2 originally, but moved back to version 1 hoping it wouldn't happen there.

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I'm using Synergy 2. Part of the wave predating the beta re-declare. When it works it's great. When it doesn't it's 100% dead (I'm guessing this is some kind of server sync issue). I'm usually a miser when it comes to paying for software but this is a clear case of: Take my money (so long as the software is working).

Win10 & MacOS 10.14

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  • Synergy Team
Nick Bolton
15 hours ago, karrdi said:

Synergy 2. When it works it's great. When it doesn't it's 100% dead

Yeah, this is down to a fundamental design flaw in Synergy 2. We're going to re-design the whole thing from the ground up (apart from the core) to be just as stable as Synergy 1 (and hopefully a little bit more so), just as easy to configure as Synergy 2.0 Beta (again, maybe easier), and with all the advanced config bells and whistles of Synergy 1 (but we'll present them with more modern UX design).

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Allan Jackson
5 hours ago, Nick Bolton said:

We're going to re-design the whole thing from the ground up

Oh wow. This has me both excited and worried. I'm still using Synergy 2, and it works just well enough that I haven't gone back to v1. (I basically always have to force-quit the synergy process to get it to connect initially, but then it works great.)

I'm excited because I'd love for Synergy 2 to work reliably. I'm worried because your phrasing makes it sound like it might still be a while before there are any more v2 updates. Any idea on a rough timeline for this rewrite?

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  • Synergy Team
Nick Bolton
On 10/19/2018 at 2:59 PM, Allan Jackson said:

Any idea on a rough timeline for this rewrite?

Roughly speaking, for the next major version with the config app rewrite, I'd say it'll be a few months before the first alpha/pre-alpha. As for the beta, could be within the next 12 months. The final, stable, finished product will most likely be a couple of years away. Anyone who paid for Synergy 2 will get a free upgrade to the next version. Anyone who doesn't want to wait can get a refund (if you don't want to fund the development of the next version).

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Because of all the problems I went back to Input Director several months back. Now I need to work with a Mac, so I have switched back to Synergy but installed Synergy 1. Synergy 2 was just not ready IMO. So after installing version 1 I see I am running in basic mode which means no encryption which I am not comfortable running. So I see there is a V1 Pro version which has the encryption. So considering we purchased V2 and all the problems we have had since release, we need to pay more money for V1 Pro?

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I am still on Synergy 2 (2.0.12) and I must say that all in all, I am very happy with how well it has been working out for me so far. There were a few bugs in the beginning but these have been ironed out. I have three Windows 10 computers being controlled by one keyboard and mouse. On the odd occasion that one PC refuses to connect, I use the Windows Task Manager to end the Synergy Service and that usually gets the PCs connected again. 

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  • Synergy Team
Nick Bolton
7 hours ago, notta said:

So considering we purchased V2 and all the problems we have had since release, we need to pay more money for V1 Pro?

I understand where you're coming from. Would you mind contacting customer service so we can help?

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Christopher S. Bates

So, it's odd because everyone keeps saying that sunergy 1 is more stable than 2. I switched back to Sunergy 1 pro on my devices, and every problem I had in version 2 was even worse, and occurred more often. I have moved back to v2 and am happy with it. Really looking forward to some stability fixes and patches.

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I wonder how much of this has to do with the uninstaller not doing a thorough job. I had trouble with two after installing a VPN and tried uninstalling and reinstalling Synergy 2, only I found with a quick search that most of it was not uninstalled. I reinstalled anyhow and the problem persists. Life is too short and I don't have time for fooling around.

Incomplete uninstalls was a problem I reported with version one and I thought had been addressed.  I guess not.

Especially after many versions had been used, the amount of garbage left after a supposed uninstall was amazing and it took me hours to root it all out.

My guess is that you now have pieces of both versions and maybe more. 

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I went from 1 to 2 before it was redefined as Beta, and generally it worked OK on a Win7 M / Ubuntu 15 S setup. Configuration was "easier", but once I figured out how 1 worked (a chore), "easier" was not real draw to upgrade in itself; I had been hoping for additional features and stability.  Anyway, using 2 Beta, when I went from Win 10 M / Win 7 S, strange things occurred -- didn't track them, sorry, since it looked like you abandoned the whole project. Also, in 2 I saw no way to lock the Master desktop (keep the mouse within the Master), which in 1 sometimes works by toggling ScrollLock, so I went back to 1, bugs and all.  I will wait until you decide if 2 is worth salvaging.  As for Clipboard sharing, it hasn't worked in either version, nor drag-n-drop file-sharing.  But I haven't spent a lot of time troubleshooting it.

That being said, I would say there are some oddities in 1 (maybe here is not the place to discuss?), the biggest now is that in the Win7 Slave when I get a Kaspersky AV warning the mouse pointer will not enter the dialog box.  You shall not pass!  I have to use the Slave's "real" mouse to acknowledge the alarm.  Weird.

I do hope you will fix 2, since Synergy is a very useful program, one of the few simple, non-Freeware utilities I have found productive enough to buy.  Good luck with it.

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  • 4 weeks later...

What happened to v2.0.9 stable? I had this installed and working beautifully on my Ubuntu desktop (server) and iMac (slave desktop). I cannot get v2.0.12 working, have a post that is currently pending approval that details my current challenge, and unsure how to access the configure server screen, or if the app is reading the synergy.conf file in my /home/mike directory or another?

I love this software, when it works it's fabulous! When it doesn't - well it's frustrating.

 

Mike

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Kelvin Tran
On 11/22/2018 at 1:17 PM, MikeSchi said:

What happened to v2.0.9 stable? I had this installed and working beautifully on my Ubuntu desktop (server) and iMac (slave desktop). I cannot get v2.0.12 working, have a post that is currently pending approval that details my current challenge, and unsure how to access the configure server screen, or if the app is reading the synergy.conf file in my /home/mike directory or another?

I love this software, when it works it's fabulous! When it doesn't - well it's frustrating.

 

Mike

The Synergy 2 branch (and any "dot" releases thereafter) are no longer considered stable.

You have two options. If you like the feel of Synergy 2 and it's been working out for you, great! Since I see you're having issues with 2.0.12, please post about it in a separate post in the appropriate forum (Early Access Beta).

If you want to switch to a more stable branch of Synergy, Synergy 1 is the right bet for you with a more mature feature set. Please let me know what you'd like to do.

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  • Synergy Team
Nick Bolton
2 hours ago, Kelvin Tran said:

If you want to switch to a more stable branch of Synergy, Synergy 1 is the right bet for you with a more mature feature set. Please let me know what you'd like to do.

Don't forget, we can also give customers a refund if they don't wish to use Synergy 2 Beta. To get a refund, contact us directly.

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Neuntausend

I used Synergy 1 (the free version) a lot in the past. Then, once 2 was considered to be stable you started pushing it quite hard, and Linus (the canadian, not the finnish one) promised all sorts of cool things like dragging and dropping files across machines and such (a feature I would still really like to see), so I decided to finally give you some money (you deserved it anyway) and try it out. Suffice to say it was a mess. Not only because it didn't work half the time, but also because I simply don't like this hole "hands off" approach. Don't get me wrong: It's nice to have a tool that just works out of the box without me having to configure anything, and it's probably a good idea to not push a whole bunch of tech jargon in the users face right from the get-go if it's not strictly necessary, but I really like to have the option to see what's going on and change things around if need be. This alleviates the whole "doesn't work" thing a bit as well, as I might be able to see where exactly things don't work and do something about it. At least, that's how I do it with Synergy 1, as that doesn't always work properly right away either. Ok, Synergy 2 supposedly has a console at least, but it's apparently bound to the "tilde" key, and I have no clue where that's supposed to be on a german keyboard. I know where the ~ is alright, but that key on a german keyboard doesn't open the console in Synergy. So, not only could I not randomly mess with things until the bloody thing gives up and starts working (which is how I approach most applications), I also had no idea what was wrong in the first place.

I'm back to Synergy 1 now, as even if it does work, 2 can't do anything more than 1, really. And 1 works just fine. What was so wrong about it that you felt you needed to remake the whole thing with all sorts of online shenanigans in the first place?

In any case, however odd it might look to reclassify a once "stable" software as beta, I still think it was the right decision. If something obviously doesn't work quite right, then it's better to admit it and get back to the drawing board, and I wish more developers had the class to do that. While you are at it: Maybe make it just a little bit less "hands off" in the future. An application window with nothing in it that I could click just feels wrong and weird.

As a side note: Shouldn't a "beta" be mostly feature-complete, if maybe still buggy? I don't think an early prototype passes as a beta version. :P

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I'm using 2 lately and it works most of the time for what I need to do. 

Addressing the development and optimizing issues could be a marketing problem, not a programming problem. 

With enough money, the problems should be manageable.

I'm wondering if part of the issue is trying to support too may operating systems with too little income, but getting people to pay is a problem. 

People throw money ate the stupidest causes, but are reluctant to pay for software they use daily.  

I wonder what the distribution of usage is.

At one time, I was using a number of operating systems, but now am using Windows only and if I use another, it is in a VM.

I suspect that just keeping up with the many Windows installation options and changes may be a challenge without all the other various systems out there.

I realize that supporting multiple operating systems is the reason may may choose Synergy, but wonder if it is a sustainable business model. 

I'm guessing that getting paid is not easy and maybe a good look at where the money is and pursuing those directions might be worthwhile. 

It is commendable to try to please everyone, but it is hard to do while starving.

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