Getting help and reporting a problem

RESTORE, which makes pb-diff, answers every technical question itself. There are three ways in, and they all reach the same people and the same queue:

• Help ▸ Report a Problem in pb-diff, which sends the report with this computer's licence, so no account is needed - see Report a Problem below;
• the support portal, support.pbdiff.com, where you read and answer your tickets;
• e-mail to support@pbdiff.com.

Support is for subscribers and active trials. A message from an address no licence knows is answered with where to start a trial and where to buy.

Whichever way you write, your first report opens a ticket and you receive a confirmation by e-mail with its number; reply to that e-mail to add anything. The confirmation of your first ticket also carries a link to choose a password for the portal, where you see your own tickets and nobody else's. "Forgot password" there works with your licence's address.

What to send, and what never to send

Say what you did, what you expected and what happened instead, with the exact text of any message - a copied line is better than a summary. Name the objects involved, the PowerBuilder version, and whether the library is a .pbl, a .pbd or a PowerBuilder 2025 Solution. If the problem is a wrong difference, a screenshot of the compare helps.

Do not send your source code, or a library, unless RESTORE asks for it and you have agreed in writing. Most problems can be reproduced without it. When a file is needed, RESTORE says which and why; it is kept with the ticket only, never copied anywhere else, and deleted when the ticket closes. What is turned into a test is a synthetic reproduction, never your code.

Tickets are deleted 24 months after they close, with everything they hold.

Security problems

A security vulnerability in pb-diff goes to security@pbdiff.com, not to Report a Problem or the portal. Anyone may write there - you need not be a customer - and it is read by a restricted group. A security report is kept 10 years after it closes, as the record of how it was handled.

Payments and invoices

Questions about buying, payments, invoices and refunds go to the shop you bought from; its contact is on your invoice. Questions about a licence key, a trial or moving a licence are support's.

Report a Problem

Help ▸ Report a Problem opens a window with three things to write:

• Subject: one line, at most 150 characters.
• What happened, and what you expected to happen: as long as you need.
• Reply to: the address the support service writes to. It is your licence's address - for a trial, the one you started it with - and it cannot be changed here: the support service answers a licence at its own address only. To have it changed, write to support@pbdiff.com. Only when the licence names no address do you write the one you want answers at.

Below them, pb-diff adds: its version, the commit it was built from, whether it is a beta build, your Windows version and the kind of licence. Nothing else about this computer is sent.

What pb-diff-ci finds in a library

If the problem is about a library, tick Include what pb-diff-ci finds in a library I choose and choose up to three with Add Library… (a .pbl or .pbd file) or Add Folder… (a folder of exported objects, or a PowerBuilder 2025 Solution). pb-diff runs the pb-diff-ci.exe installed beside it: validate on each, and check on a folder. What they say names the objects and what is wrong with them - a damaged chain, a merge conflict left in a file - and never shows what an object contains, which is the rule pb-diff-ci is built to. Every path in it is reduced to the file's name, so no folder, and no user name, leaves the computer. Stop ends a library that takes long; Remove takes one out.

What will be sent

What will be sent shows the report exactly as it goes, as JSON. One thing is not shown: this computer's licence key, which proves the report comes from a licence and is written there as (this computer's licence key). Nothing is sent until you choose Send, and Send waits until the subject, the description and the address are filled in and any library has been read.

After Send

The window says how it went:

• Sent, with the ticket's number: a confirmation is on its way to the address you gave.
• Refused: the support service did not accept the report as it is - an address it cannot use, a licence it does not recognise, a report too large, or too many reports today from one licence. The window says which and what to do.
• Not reached: the support service could not be reached, and nothing was sent. Try again later, or use the portal or support@pbdiff.com, which the window shows.

Without a licence or a trial activated on this computer the window says so, and gives the portal and support@pbdiff.com instead: see Licence.

What Report a Problem sends goes to RESTORE's support server in the European Union, not to the licensing service, and only when you choose Send.