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Theatre Manager and Sonoma

Compatibility Notes about Sonoma (Sep 27, 2023)

There is a release of Theatre Manager that works on macOS 14 (Sonoma). If you have installed Sonoma, please download and install the version of Theatre Manager using the link above.

An auto-update will be released by mid December to migrate all mac users to the Sonoma version automatically.

 

2022 - Theatre Manager Desktop on M1/M2 may require reinstall

Venues using Theatre Manager on M1/M2 Mac's in Native Mode may need to download and reinstall Theatre Manager after November 5th, 2022.

The Issue

Apple is very strict that applications must be signed or they wont run. Quite inadvertently (and accidentally), our existing digital deployment certificate was revoked late in the evening of November 4th. Consequently:

  • Some people may not be able to use Theatre Manager on apple silicon machines (M1, M2, etc)
  • We have rebuilt an installer with a new digital certificate that works

The Solution

If you run into the issue where Theatre Manager will not start and Apple says its not trustworthy, you will need to:

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

2021 - Theatre Manager Does Not Use Log4j (CVE-2021-44228)

Theatre Manager's server processes have never used Java in any way, shape or form. Nor do we use Apache web servers (Theatre Manager uses Nginx).

Arts Management investigated this vulnerability as soon as it was announced and there is nothing in our software solution that we supply to our venues that uses log4j.

For further reference, the NIST description of the log4j vulnerability

Theatre Manager 64 bit is ready for deployment.

The 64 bit version of Theatre Manager for Mac and Windows has been released. Theatre Manager contains notifications to help guide you in the migration process and an eblast was sent to all users who receive Three Thought Thursday notices.

 

Existing 64 bit operating system

If you already have a relatively recent 64 bit operating system on your computer, you will likely have to do two things:

  • Download the 64 bit installer and run it. You can do this
  • If your Pricing Maps and seats are no longer appear aligned, be sure to read and follow the instructions how to adjust your maps. The seats may look skewed at the box office - online they will be fine until you replace your SVG map with one of a proper ratio. Please re-enable pick your own seats.

CVV2 requirement and possible effect on post dated payments

Your merchant processor may be set up to require use of CVV2 - which is a setting you may wish to turn off in their online portal, if you follow the steps below.

Theatre manager cannot store the CVV2 data per the PCI council.

The chart on the right indicates which data can be stored and it is explained further in PCI Requirement 3 rules.

 

Since the vast majority of credit card transactions are real time with a CVV2, most venues will see limited effect for 99% of credit card authorizations:

It will affect:

  • situations where the credit card provider is down or unreachable - a rare occurrence which does happen
  • authorizing existing post dated payments and recurring donations
It may affect:
  • Mail order - since your customers should not write the CVV2 on any form you send to them to remain PCI compliant.

Community: the Theatre Manager Discussion Forum

We are excited to announce Community; a forum for Theatre Manager users to meet and share questions, tips, tricks and news with each other. A number of categories have been set up to explore. You will also find past issues of Three Thought Thursday and some lunch and learn videos created by Proctors. Community is searchable; if you don't see what you are looking for, type something in the search box and see what pops up.

 

This extends existing support forums so that you have:
  • Community: a forum for Theatre Manager users to share business practices and cool solutions amongst each other.
  • Emailing the Artsman support team at support at artsman . com to create a support ticket in our incident reporting system
  • The TM User Conferences which are designed to bring people face to face for in-depth and informative discussions on current topics of interest.
  • help.theatremanager.com which describes how various parts of the system work and what fields mean.
  • Three Thought Thursday - a weekly email containing a cool picture and 3 short tips on features available in Theatre Manager. We try to make these topical to the annual business cycle and/or to introduce new features. Contact sales at artsman . com if you are not receiving these and wish to get them - they are very popular

Please join us and check out Community!

2018 - Third National Theatre Manager User Conference

Third National Theatre Manager User Conference

Save the Date for a Proctors/Arts Management Collaboration
REGISTER NOW for early bird pricing

Mon, April 30 - Thurs, May 4, 2018
at Proctors Theatre
Schenectady, New York.

 

2017 - Offsite Backups are a key way to thwart recent Ransomware viruses

While travelling home from the excellent TM2 conference (thank you all that attended), I saw an article in USA Today indicating bad guys had unleashed a ransomware virus for windows based on some leaked NSA tools. It hit places in Europe first and then some in North America.

In the vein of better be safe than sorry, we always suggest that venues make an offsite backup of their database on a daily basis. It is better if this backup is:

  • on a different network than the main database and/or
  • on an external drive that is physically disconnected from the server after the backup is done and/or
  • sent to an FTP site or machine external to the server and/or
  • sent to some cloud backup

The important concept is that if you do get hit by ransomware or malicious software, then you have a backup that is ‘airgapped’ on another machine that is not connected to this machine. It is also why recommend that the database sever never be on a domain - making it harder for a virus to propagate from a download.

Today, we are suggesting that everybody make a backup onto another device, especially if you have windows servers — and make it standard practice going forward. Copying todays backup to a USB key today and removing it is probably a good first step.

 

If you want to read about the virus.

There is some good news — apparently the makers of the virus software put a kill switch in it — and a particularly astute individual diagnosed this and helped mitigate the attack.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/13/accidental-hero-finds...

 

Those who are:
  1. using linux or OSX database servers are not affected.
  2. running their servers on our Cloud are not affected.
  3. using our cloud backup storage for offsite backups - have an offsite backup from last night at minimum

Regardless, making a backup just in case and copying to another machine is wise.

We apologize in advance if this might sound urgent (it is) .. and, like any cold prevention - better to stop it before you catch it. if you have any questions or need assistance, please let us know on the support email.

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