Downgrade to a Pre-10.1 Version of MX

Changes in MX v10.1 to the way MX stored passwords both on the MX App Server and on mobile devices necessitated changes to the structures of the configuration databases in which passwords are stored. This means that the configuration databases are not backwardly compatible with those used in versions of MX earlier than v10.1. As a result, if, having upgraded to the newer Digitise Apps, for any reason you want to revert to a pre-v10.1 version of MX you will need to delete or edit the relevant databases before you can re-install your earlier version. Note that on mobile devices you cannot edit the local databases and will need to uninstall Digitise Apps on the device which will delete any associated local databases at the same time.

The Digitise Apps App Server is compatible with earlier versions of the MX Client, including Standalone Apps built with earlier versions of the Client. Consequently, if you were to downgrade a Client or a Standalone App you should only need to downgrade the App Server software as well if you are downgrading because of an issue which affects both the server and the client. Likewise, the latest Digitise Apps Client is backwardly compatible with earlier versions of the MX App Server software and so downgrading the App Server software would not necessarily require you to downgrade your Clients and Standalone Apps as well.

In addition, because Standalone Apps are self-contained, you can run Standalone Apps built with different versions of the MX and/or Digitise Apps Client on the same device at the same time. This means that if you were to experience a problem with one Standalone App but other Standalone Apps on the same device didn’t have that problem, you may only need to downgrade the Standalone App which was experiencing the issue.

On most Platforms you can run both a standard Client and Standalone Apps on the same device. In this situation, once again, if you were to experience an issue you may only need to downgrade those individual items which experienced the problem.

The sub sections which follow provide additional information:

To downgrade an App Server machine:

  1. On the App Server machine, stop the NDL Digitise App Server service using the Windows Services applet.

  2. Uninstall Digitise Apps.

  3. Look for and, if found, delete the following folder on the App Server machine:

    C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\ndl-metascybe

  4. Using SQL Server Management Studio, you now need to connect to the SQL Server instance used by this App Server to store its Digitise Apps configuration data. Locate the App Server Configuration Database. Before MX v10.1, the App Server Configuration Database was always called ndlmetamx. From 10.1 onwards, the default name for the database is still ndlmetamx, but you can now specify your own name when you install MX or Digitise Apps. If you haven’t used the default name in your version of Digitise Apps, you don’t need to do anything, as it won’t use the same database as your old MX version. If you have used the default database name, you can either delete the whole database, it will be recreated when you install your previous version again, or you can edit the database to remove existing passwords.

  5. To remove existing passwords, you can simply delete the entire Users table. Alternatively, you can edit the Password column within the Users table and replace each of the existing hashed passwords with an empty string and set the HashedPassword column, for each row you edit, to 0 (zero).

  6. You can now re-install your earlier version of MX.

    If you are running multiple App Servers in a load balancing or failover configuration, you must make sure that you are running the same version of App Server on all servers in order to ensure correct operation of your system.

 

On a development PC, if you have installed any Standalone Apps on the PC, first uninstall them all.

You then need to follow the same steps outlined above for downgrading an App Server machine. However, in this case, you need to delete or edit the App Server Configuration Database used by your test App Server running on the development PC. In development environments, the SQL Server instance is commonly installed on the development PC itself.

After uninstalling the Digitise Apps software, check for the following folder and delete it if found:

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\ndl-metascybe

Note that if you downgrade after you have opened or edited any Projects in the latest App Studio, you will need to be aware that there could be incompatibilities, between these Projects and the earlier version of App Studio you are re-installing, that you will need to take account of.

 

On Android devices when you first run the Client, if the device has an SD card, you will be asked whether you want to store your app data on the SD card or in the device’s internal memory. If you later upgrade the Client, your original choice will be retained and you will not be asked again. Standalone Apps automatically use internal memory and do not ask the user to choose.

If you opted to use internal memory for the Client, uninstalling the Client will automatically delete the relevant databases for the Client. Likewise, uninstalling a Standalone App will automatically delete the databases for that Standalone App.

However, if you want to downgrade a Digitise Apps Client for which you opted to store data on the SD card, after uninstalling the Digitise Apps Client you will need to manually delete the following folder from the SD card:

com_ndl_mx_sec\Applications

Once you have uninstalled the required items and deleted the folder, if necessary, you can re-install your earlier MX versions.

 

On users’ live iOS devices, you can only install Standalone Apps but on a Developer’s test device you could install both a pre-configured Client and Standalone Apps as part of your testing.

If you want to downgrade one or more Standalone Apps simply uninstall each App you want to downgrade, which will automatically delete the relevant databases from the device.

If you want to downgrade a pre-configured Client, uninstalling the Client will delete the relevant databases.

After uninstalling all items that you want to downgrade, you can then re-install the earlier MX versions.

 

On Windows devices, in order to run Windows Desktop Standalone Apps you need to have a copy of the Windows Desktop Client installed on the device. Consequently, if you want to downgrade, you will have to downgrade the Client and all Standalone Apps – you cannot run different versions on the same device.

If you have any Standalone Apps installed, you should uninstall these first and then uninstall the Windows Desktop Client.

When you have finished uninstalling, you will need to delete the following folder on the device:

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\ndl-metascybe

You can now re-install an earlier version of the MX Client followed by the earlier versions of your Standalone Apps.