Troubleshooting and FAQ¶

Thriftly says my license is invalid/has expired. What do I do?¶

If your Thriftly installation was previously working as expected, and your license hasn’t actually expired, it’s likely you’ve changed some piece of your hardware. Sometimes, even firmware updates can trigger Thriftly to read a license as invalid. To resolve this issue, deactivate and then reactivate your license as described below:

• To deactivate/reactivate a Thriftly Developer license:

  1. From the Windows Start menu, select Thriftly Developer > Developer Assistant.

  2. From the System Tray, select the Thriftly.Developer icon. Then select Thriftly.Developer > About.

  3. When the About Thriftly Developer window appears, select the Deactivate Machine button. Then, select Reactivate License.

• To deactivate/reactivate a Thriftly Deployment license:

  1. From the Windows Start menu, select Thriftly Deployment Server > Thriftly Admin.

  2. When the Thriftly Configurator appears, select the Options button.

  3. From the About tab, select the Deactivate Machine button. Then, select Reactivate License.

This will update our licensing server to accept your hardware’s new fingerprint, without requiring or activating a new license.

If you’re using Thriftly on a virtual machine, copying the virtual machine or changing its virtual hardware parameters can also trigger this error. Again, if this is the case, please deactivate and reactivate your license. This will update our licensing server with your hardware’s new fingerprint.

If neither of these scenarios resolves your licensing issue, contact us at support@thriftly.io, so we can help you resolve the issue.

My computer crashed, and I need to reinstall Thriftly. Do I need a new license?¶

If you’re reinstalling Thriftly on the same machine, you can simply reactivate your existing Thriftly license on that machine. Our licensing server will detect you’re activating the same machine and reissue the same license.

If you’ve migrated to a new machine, and you were unable to deactivate your license before your previous machine crashed, contact us at support@thriftly.io so we can manually deactivate your license, which will allow you to reactivate it on your new machine.

When I attempt to run my Thriftly-enabled Java application from Eclipse, I receive the error below. How do I resolve it?¶

If you receive this error, your application’s likely using the 64-bit version of Java Runtime Environment (JRE) rather than the 32-bit version. To run your application with Thriftly, you must update your application to use the 32-bit version of JRE. To download the 32-bit version of JRE, click here. To learn how to manually switch a project to reference a different version of Java (in this case, the 32-bit version), watch this video.

When I attempt to add the Thriftly library to my DataFlex application, I receive the following message. Why, and what should I do?¶

If you are using a DataFlex version other than 18.2, you must update the Thriftly library to reference your version of DataFlex Studio before you can import it. To do so:

1. From the DataFlex Studio tooblar, select Open File(s).

2. Browse to <User>\Documents\Thriftly Developer\Dataflex\Library. Then, select and open ThriftlyLib.

3. When ThriftlyLib.sws opens in DataFlex Studio, update the Version= string to reference your version of DataFlex Studio.

I’m deploying an application, and I’m having trouble selecting the correct executable file. Any tips?¶

Due to the variety of programming languages Thriftly supports and the variety of standards organizations use to store and access their applications, we can’t offer you much guidance here. However, if you’re having trouble locating your app’s executable file, we recommend you work with your organization’s application developers to determine exactly what file to select (as well as whether you need to specify command line arguments and/or a separate working directory for your app) as you deploy your application.

I’m deploying an application, and I’d like to view Thriftly events in Windows Event Viewer. Can I?¶

Absolutely. Thriftly automatically logs most events to Windows Event Viewer, as well as information about those events. To view this log, open the Thriftly Configurator (Windows Start menu > Thriftly Deployment Server > Thriftly Admin) and select the View Logs button. The Thriftly event log will appear in Windows Event Viewer.

I’m encountering firewall-related issues (errors authenticating with the SSH server, messages saying my internet connection might not be available). How do I resolve them?¶

To resolve these issues, we recommend that you:

1. Check your firewall settings and update them to allow access for Thriftly Developer, Deployment, and Dispatch Service.

2. Check your antivirus settings and update them to allow access for Thriftly Developer, Deployment, and Dispatch Service.

3. If you are using Thriftly Deployment, update your firewall to allow outside access to your APIs (using the instructions in the Updating Your Firewall to Allow Others to Access Your APIs section).

What’s the difference between Thriftly Developer and Thriftly Deployment?¶

Good question; we get this one quite a bit. Thriftly Developer is a set of tools you download to help you create, run, and test APIs built from your own existing applications. Thriftly Developer is meant to be used by Windows application developers, creating Thriftly APIs from existing Windows applications.

Thriftly Deployment, on the other hand, is an application that allows either independent developers or a company’s IT staff to deploy APIs created using Thriftly Developer. Thriftly Deployment allows you to configure certain aspects of how you connect to and call your API, but it does not allow you to actually create a new API. All of that work is done using the tools installed with Thriftly Developer.

Again: Thriftly Developer = API creation. Thriftly Deployment = API access and deployment.

What programming languages can I use to create a Thriftly API?¶

Thriftly currently supports the primary development languages that Windows desktop applications use: .NET/C#, Java, DataFlex, and Delphi.

However, we’re constantly assessing our customers’ needs, and we plan to support other programming languages in the future based on customer demand. For example, we’re currently examining support for building APIs from VB6 applications.

If there’s another language you’d like us to support in the future, please contact us at support@thriftly.io to let us know.

I’m an independent developer who will develop and deploy my own Thriftly APIs. Can I install Thriftly Developer and Thriftly Deployment on the same machine?¶

No, due to application licensing limitations, you cannot currently install Thriftly Developer and Thriftly Deployment on the same machine. You must install Thriftly Developer and Thriftly Deployment on separate machines, or install Deployment within a virtual machine created on your Development machine. We often install Thriftly Developer and Deployment within virtual machines when performing our own testing.

Can I really integrate my Thriftly APIs into any application?¶

Absolutely. The whole reason we created Thriftly was to open old code up to new applications. In doing so, we wanted to allow our customers to integrate their existing functions and business logic into any or all of their new applications or systems. This includes applications built using JavaScript, PHP, Swift, Android, and other programming languages and hosted using a variety of web servers and other systems.

It’s a bit technical, but you can see some of this support within the demo hosted at (fittingly) Thriftly.io/demo. From the demo’s Consume tab, you can see how applications written in JavaScript, PHP, Swift, and Android would consume a sample Thriftly API, created from our own sample Windows application.

In short, if you can call an API from within the application or system you’re creating, you can integrate your pre-existing code into that app or system using Thriftly.

I’ve heard of Apache Thrift, and it seems like Thriftly is similar. How is using Thriftly different than just using Apache Thrift myself?¶

While Thriftly does utilize the Apache Thrift framework, it also provides a number of advanced features and functionality that the basic Apache Thrift framework does not support.

For example, Thriftly extends Apache Thrift’s core functionality to provide true, comprehensive multi-protocol support, allowing you to easily connect the same API to different applications using different protocols. Additionally, Thriftly Development and Deployment include advanced features that simplify API testing, security, and management.

While you might be able to use Apache Thrift to replicate some of what you can achieve with Thriftly, it would take you a very long time, and you’d still lose out on Thriftly’s simple-to-implement advanced features. We’d argue it’s worth your money to create, serve, and access your APIs using Thriftly, rather than starting from scratch with Apache Thrift.