Developer Support For FME Objects

This page is intended to assist developers who require support for FME Objects.

Application Development Assistance

Technical support for normal installation and usage of FME Objects is included with your FME Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC). However, If you are developer who requires advanced support, Safe Software offers an Application Development Assistance program.

This program is intended to help you work through general FME Objects design, development, and optimization issues. This way you can get dedicated support throughout the life cycle of your development, when you need it the most.

Bug Reporting

If you think you have encountered a bug during normal installation and usage of FME Objects, please follow the steps below before submitting a technical support request:

  1. Review the Troubleshooting Tips section of the Building Applications with
    FME Objects     (PDF) document.
  2. Read the FAQ on fmepedia.
  3. Search for FME Objects discussions on our Google Group FME Talk.
  4. Try to reproduce the problem with the FME Universal Viewer. The Viewer is also an FME Objects application. A technical support request based on Safe’s own Viewer behaviour is much easier for our developer support group to investigate.

Technical Support Requests

If the steps above do not help you resolve the problem, the next step is to submit a technical support request. Safe Software’s developer support group will require the following information to diagnose the problem:

Component

Description

 

Overview

A description of the FME Objects functionality being used: text or diagrams are fine.

Environment Info

Obtain the FME build number from the About box in the FME Universal Viewer. Also include details on the operating systems and any third party applications involved in reading or writing the data.

Reproduction Application

Unless you were able to reproduce the problem with the FME Universal Viewer, please submit a reproduction application, including source code. The reproduction application should include the minimum amount of code required to reproduce the problem.

Test Data

Please include all the data required by the reproduction application. If the input data is from a database, please include the SQL scripts required to recreate the necessary tables and records.

Build Scripts

The reproduction package should include the scripts, projects, makefiles, etc. required to build the application from source.

Reproduction Steps

The list of the steps that must be manually performed to reproduce the problem, e.g., “run start.bat”.

Verification Steps

The list of steps that need to be performed to verify that the problem occurred, e.g., view log file, how to examine output data. We always recommend that you examine the output data with the most appropriate application. For example, if you are creating DWG data, use Autodesk Map 3D; for MIF/MID data, use MapInfo Professional, etc. Although the FME Universal viewer is a good tool for inspecting many different spatial data formats, it is better to use the application specifically associated with the output data.

Miscellaneous Information

Please include any other information that you think may assist the technical support staff include (e.g., screen captures, log files, specifications, etc.).

Once you’ve assembled all the required information, zip it or tar it and e-mail it to support@fmeobjects.com.

Template Applications

The most time-consuming part of creating a reproduction package is often the sample application. To assist you in this task, we’ve put together some template applications, in various languages, which you can use to get started. There are also many FME Objects sample applications available that may be functionally similar to what you are trying to accomplish.