[Zope] Broken products after transferring Data.fs file

[Brian K. Holdsworth]

I have seen a number of threads that talk about products becoming broken in
a Zope installation with no apparent cause.  I had a similar experience the
other day.  I moved my Data.fs file, which included several third-party and
custom made ZClass Products, from one server to another.  After moving the
file, many of the ZClass Products were broken on the new server.

In order to fix this, I ended up also moving the complete contents of my
lib/python/Products directory tree from the old server to the new one.  This
fixed everything.  However, most of the products that were orginally broken
did not depend on anything that was in the Products directory.  Here is my
best analysis of what might have happened:

One of the Products I was using was based on the "Renderable" add-on product
which is installed into the lib/python/Products directory.  Initially, I did
not have this product on the new server.  What I think happended is that the
abscence of this product caused several other unrelated products to appear
broken, even though they did not use "Renderable."  If anybody can confirm
this through similar experiences, we can probably get the problem fixed in
the code.

While this is an annoying problem, I am still BLOWN AWAY by how good Zope
is.  What I didn't mention yet is that the old server was an Intel box
running Linux and the new server is a Sparc box running Solaris.  I am very
impressed that my application and data moved from one platform to the other
so seamlessly.  It is really awesome that Zope and the ZODB files that it
uses are so cross-platform friendly!  Bravo to the developers!

Best Regards,
Brian Holdsworth