PHDM Upgrade from v15 to v16 on 2 machines was a very bad decision.

I was a pretty happy user of Paragon Hard Drive Manager on 2 separate windows 10 PCs. I paid for 2 upgrade licences a few weeks ago just so I wasn't too far behind the upgrade curve,but I wish I hadn't bothered. I use Paragon daily and it is one of my 'go to' tools but after the upgrades Paragon takes minutes to load. When it has finished loading and I select ... advanced mode > backup ... for instance, it will hang again for ages again.

Both machines have the very latest Windows 10 release with updates (not Beta), SSD system drive, a standard repo drive, a network share and maybe a memory stick plugged in. I also use quite a lot of development software and various programmers and development boards that may or may not have a block mode device driver or Virtual com port or USB port but most of the time they are not plugged in when running Paragon Drive Manager.

The thing is, everything was fine before the upgrades. In fact after the first upgrade I held back a few days on 'upgrading' the 2nd machine because I was so shocked how bad it was. Unfortunately the second machine was very similar.

FWIW, both machines are intel processors. One an i5 and the other i7.


Please help!

suggestion -
download the latest version, UNINSTALL your prior install, then reinstall.
I've found that the latest version is much more stable, seems most of te bugs have been fixed

isyours the paid or free version? if the paid versino, and problem persists, post a support ticket. response is not the fastest but the support guys are very good at helping.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aoz987

suggestion -
download the latest version, UNINSTALL your prior install, then reinstall.
I've found that the latest version is much more stable, seems most of te bugs have been fixed

isyours the paid or free version? if the paid versino, and problem persists, post a support ticket. response is not the fastest but the support guys are very good at helping.

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I have 2 paid versions of the software.

I filled in a support ticket the day I posted this message. It took 3 weeks for a response. I created all the logs exactly as they required and replied to the email send. A week later nothing. I then tried to send it via the support ticket, the logs were 1.2GB and the upload limit was 50Mb. It would take 31 seperate zip files uploaded 1 at a time. In the end I gave them a google drive link a week ago. That was on the 30th of November.

To say I am disappointed is an understatement. I am loosing confidence in the critical software I have recommended to many many people. All in all it would be termed a cluster f**k.

try this. I was always hesitant to send tons of stuff as log files, so I had asked them what was the LEAST data that they needed. here was reply

send the StubAct.log file
C:\Program Files\Paragon Software\Hard Disk Manager 16 Basic\program\stubact.log

Dear Nicholas,

Could you please also provide us with your brv.log and fdisk.txt?


ALSO, a suggestion - UNINSTALL the program, THEN clean out prior data as follows (from both support, and from Shepherd, one of the web monitor people) - this will clean out OLD logs that don't seem to get uninstalled when you do an uninstall, stuff hangs around. do these steps, AFTER uninstalling and rebooting, THEN reinstall, try the program, and generate the log files. I bet the files are smaller

Re: how to do FULL UNINSTALL, and then clean install, removing all job references?
Do NOT use ANY third party uninstallers. We have bunches of tickets regarding to that.

Uninstall using "Control Panel => Programs and Features".

Remove

"C:\ProgramData\Paragon Software\[product name]"

"C:\ProgramData\Paragon\[product name]"

"C:\Program Files\Paragon Software\[product name]"

Clean registry manually.

Probably you have to handle UIM individually as described in "How To Uninstall Previous Version Of Universal Image Mounter".


C:\ProgramData is hidden: Just put your cursor into the address field, Ctrl-A, type "C:\ProgramData" and your in.

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04.12.18, 05:49
#6
shepherd
Administrator
Join Date
Sep 2010
Posts
181

Re: how to do FULL UNINSTALL, and then clean install, removing all job references?
Additionally 3 folders in "C:\ProgramData\Package Cache" one containing an EXE file (e.g. hdm16advanced_x64.exe) two containing MSI files (e.g. hdm16advanced.msi and UIM.msi)

Clearing %TMP% could be helpful as well: put your cursor into the address field, Ctrl-A, type %tmp% and your in. Then Ctrl-A again and the del key. Skip everything throwing an "access denied".

COMMENT -
I am as frustrated as you are. I can show you about 25 support requests, related to vrsion 16, with bugs/quirks/chaos that I found. I don't work for paragon, but I support their product. The REASON is I don't believe that anything else exists out there that is any better (or worse). I used to use Acronis trueimage, then it got so bloated that I switched to paragon about 10 years ago. There is macrium reflect, and a couple othr ones. BUT, if you go to web support sites, the same/similar problems exist with them also. Geeze, even Microsoft has gone off the deep end, losing major files when doing the latest patch/upgrade/enhancement/degradation

I believe the core engine of paragon works well. I have tested it multiple times with backing up disks, then restoring to a different one, etc, booting with the new one, to test it. it is the new interface, and drive detection, that is problematic; I have seen improvements, but yes, support replies take forever.

SO, for lack of something better (if you find something let me know), i'd hang in there, let's see if we can get a more streamlined log info to send them for you
nick

Firstly thank you very much for such a helpful and detailed reply.

I will do everything you suggested this evening when I have finished my days work.

Your help is appreciated and I will report back with my findings/results.