Getting technical support
Getting technical support has become too complicated. I have two issues at present where something has gone wrong. I can get rouind both these problems, though in ways which make my workflow more complicated. So I sent an email to the supportr desk expressing my disillusionment with the latest arrangements (with the demand for log files and screen capture whether or not these are really needed to answer a simple question) and advising that I was now considering changing to a different editing programme. I wasn't surprised to get an automated reply, which implies that my message won't have been read. Is there any other means of expressing my dissatisfaction to Capture One management? Are other users equally frustrated by this delevopment?
Ian McColl.
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Support questions are submitted at the bottom of the page here: https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/requests/new Pick one of the 4 options from the list box to open the form.
I’m unaware of a direct email. Posts here are seen by reps from Capture One but this is primarily a forum of users. Even we mods are just users and no affiliation to the company.
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moving to another topic as this is not a feature request for Capture One
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Hi Ian McColl – I can see that your last support request was submitted by email, which won't be handled. As Brian Jordan points out, you'll have to fill out the request form in order for us to fully understand the issue (operating system, version you're using etc.)
Please use this link to submit a support request and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Please bear in mind we released 16.3 on Wednesday, so there might be a slight delay in response times.0 -
Thank you Brian for your response, but alll you have done is to reinforce my concern. The form to which you refer is exactly the one to which I was referring when I mentioned the demand for log files. I spent quite some time last night working out how to find these as my desktop didn't exactly match that shown in the online instructions. I did get there in the end but it was a tortuous process which is a huge discouragement to seeking technical help except in a situation of complete crisis. I can understand the need for log files in that kind of situation but they have never been needed before when I have received help - which I used to get using an email address which no longer works. Hence my view that Capture One is no longer as user-friendly as it was, and my wish to draw this to the attention of management. By the way I had selected the option of seeking technical support from the four that you mention, not that of repolrting a crash.
It turns out that one of the kssues which I had has self-corrected. This was that in one of the catalogues in which I was working the Library's folder panel had disappeared, so the folders weren't listed. I could access the images on which I wanted to work from the list of recent additions, from my memory of the date on which I had added that folder, but that hardly seemed ideal in the longer term. However the folders are now listed, but recent additions are no longer liosted in that catalogue. This is a problem with my other issue, which is that one image ( of nearly 200) in a folder has gone dark in the browser and won't open for editing from there. So yesterday I re-imported it but that isolated import either as a folder or a recent addition, I can't work on it again at present without re-importing it for a second time. Ideally I would like to have it re-established in its original folder. I don't understand why I can't ask this as a simple question without having to go through the tortuous process of submitting log files.
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I agree. I may have to look elsewhere as well. I sure don't want to move and will continue trying to understand my problems to see if I can make corrections.
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Ian McColl Hey, Ian. (This is kinda long but it's going somewhere. Please read.)
I get what you're saying. Back not too long ago I retired as IT manager for an engineering firm. When I started we were 1 location, <100 people. I was the guy. If it plugged in and had a screen, I fixed it. The day they hired me, the entire infrastructure was 2 servers sitting on a folding table. When I retired, we were multi-location, multi-state. >1000 employees. Server rooms in 3 states. Ticketing systems. The works. A lot of those original 100 folks had a lot of trouble with that ticketing system.
I don't speak for Capture One but let me tell you how things progressed for us there and, likely, why there's a support request form instead of an email now. In a nutshell, it came down to a bottleneck. I was the bottleneck. When something, anything, broke somebody would come fetch me and I'd try to fix it. Never mind what I was doing/how important that thing was/how important or unimportant their issue was. Then we started growing. People would still come to me and I'd have to either send them to one of my crew or go pass them off to one of my crew - or maybe "Aw, it's just a simple thing...I'll stop what I'm doing real quick and fix it for them. So much easier than all the work to submit a ticket!! Joe, you're a good guy." I'm still the bottleneck.
Capture One's support email was very likely the same way. That email either went to one desk or, maybe, into a rudimentary ticketing system and someone would get pinged. Who? Whomever happened to be free or next. So they'd read the email then pass it along to someone else or maybe you'd get lucky and that person would have the skillset to help you. From there they or someone would reach out to you and ask you questions. What happened? When? What were you doing at the time? Heck, what OS even. So now you've spent time sending the email. The email recipient has spent time on triage. The hopefully appropriate tech has reached back out. You've now spent more time answering questions and likely gathering logs or doing a screen share where they gather logs. Sending files. Whatever it takes. Now that tech goes away and does testing and research. More time. Then they email you with the solution or to ask for more info. Even more time. Around and around it goes.
That's a lot of time and a lot of people touched.
So, now the base has grown and there are more people asking for help and more specific expertise required to answer a lot of those questions. One of two ways to handle it: more support staff and a much deeper cross-training cycle or a more efficient support flow. Of course, the latter is the answer. We can all agree with that. Now they want logs. Screenshots. Whatever you can send up front to get them informed from the get go. Why? Because that will give them most, if not all, of the info they need to route your question to the correct support person thus saving the time of both the tech who can't help you and you while you wait for your ticket to flow across their desks and on to someone who can. That person will have most, if not all, of the info they need to at least become very informed of your issue ---and--- maybe they can come back to you with a solution right off the bat. If not a solution, then a much better idea of exactly what additional information they need to get to the solution.
What appears to you to be a less personal approach kinda is. It's not you and Joe down at the water cooler. It's you getting as much information to them as efficiently as possible so that they can help as many people in as little time as possible with as small a staff as they can reasonably get away with. On the one hand it really does suck. Even I with my IT manager hat on hated telling someone I'd worked with since the beginning that they needed to submit a ticket - even more when I knew deep down that I could fix that problem in just a couple of minutes. But at the end of the day everyone was able to get better service on average and, frankly, I got to go home every day at a somewhat reasonable time. Everybody - the support desk customers (you), the support crew, and the company - came off better in the long run
Again, I don't know that any of this is applicable to Capture One but I'll bet you a cup of coffee that I'm pretty close. And, hate it though you and I may, we also have to admit that if we just do the few steps to send them the info they need, we'll spend less time back and forth and, hopefully, be back up and running with as little interruption as possible.
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The handle you have on the situation is very accurate Brian Jordan. I started working and supporting Capture One whilst we were under Phase One's umbrella and the "water cooler" situation you described was kinda how we operated, especially when coupled with the hardware business.
Then we went solo and a lot of things changed. One of the things we needed to do was not spend so much time on "bespoke" support. We had to become quicker with auto responses, macros, and yes, gathering all the information we usually requested after 2-3 correspondences in one hit, at the beginning of the request, so that no time was wasted on missed information further down the line.
I hope that you will consider contacting us still Ian McColl – there's always the option of a Zoom call if things get really confusing or complicated. Just fill out the request form and mention that you have been in discussion with me on the forum, it may help speed your case up a little bit.
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Thanks to all three previous respondents. I appreciate the situation as described by al of you. I remain a little concerned about the obligation to send log files. I can see the relevance of these for solving a problem when something has gone wrong, but not if an enquiry is along the lines of "Is it possible to do ... and if so how?" I guess that the answer to most of those questions can be found in the documentation or by asking the community. My dislike of automated systems is motivated partrly by the questions we now get asked before we can speak to someone when we phone a business. More often than not the is at .least one question to which none of the answer options apply to my particular issue, and usually the automated system fails to understand my explanation of it. Fortunately it is still possible to just wait and someone will answer eventually. And perhaps, in due course, AI will become able to understand the reason for the call. But that time hasn't yet come.
I had two issues. I have found the solution to one in the documentation. The other self-corrected but recurred again last night. This is that in one of the two catalogues on which I am currently working the folders in the catalogue are not being shown in the Library. I can access and work on the images from the Recent Imports list, but prefer to do so from the Folders list which is missing. I'm sure there must be a simple solution, which perhaps I can get from the community. Perhaps, also, if I wait a few days the problem will again self-correct. If not I will eventually fill out the request form with log files.
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Thanks - Windows 10.
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Ian, hi. You mentioned "Is it possible to do ... and if so how?" type questions. I generally start those with a basic Google search. Mooooooost of the time someone has a video up on YouTube. If you can't find an answer in short order, I encourage you to post here. Someone is generally around and happy to help. Please do remember, though, that the people here are users and we do this between other demands on our time. Responses are rarely immediate but are most often timely.
Specific to your question about missing folders, I think it may simply be that the folder isn't added to the catalog. Open the catalog in question and click on the Library tool tab. Scroll down until you see the Folders section. Expand that.
Off to the right of the word Folders you'll see a +. Click that. It'll open Mac Finder of Windows File Explorer. (Sorry, I forget which platform you're on.). Navigate to the missing folder and click on it. That will add the folder to the catalog which will then become 'aware' of that folder and show it to you going forward. Please note that you can only select a single folder at a time so you'll have to repeat this process for each of the missing folders.
Brian-
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I am now in despair. I have discovered that eight of my folders have disappeared, six of them from the catalogue which has stopped listing them and is showing only Recent Imports (which don't include the images in these six folders although all have been imported in the last six or seven months) and two in a catalogue which won't open. I decided to seek technical help and spent nearly two hours completing the form according to the instructions given. I included three screen shots, dragged and dropped into space on the form where it seems they are meant to go, and they were then listed beneath it; and the two sets of log files which were requested, copied into the same space on the form and also then listed beneath it. I then clicked on Submit, reasonably confident that I had done everything that I needed to, but no, a message has appeared in red asking for log files and a screen shot. If what I have done isn't right what should I have done - and why can't Capture One make it simpler, or explain better what they want? There is much about Capture One that I like, but with this experience I am sorely tempted to trial another programme.
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Thanks Brian - my last comment crossed with yours. I have just tried to do as you described but have somehow ended up in an impasse. When I click on the + sign I get a loud sound and nothing happens. Ditto when I try to close the programme, and even when I click on a different image in my browser. I'm going to have to shut the computer down with Capture One still open - hoping that that won't do further damage. I have used Capture One now for about four years - with a licence until this summer, when I switched to a subscription after buying a new camera. Having used the programme successfully for these four years I can't really believe that I am as technologically incompetent as I feel at this moment.
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In fact I didn't have to shut down the computer. The problem was a hidden window that was locking the Capture One window. When I found that and closed it I could also close Capture One. I then reopened it to follow your instructions, which I think I did correctly, but nothing happened.
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I was just typing that. Windows, especially, has a bad habit of allowing windows to open 'without focus'. They open behind other windows. Here we are trying to do sometime and can't because this other window wants us to click a button. I find it happens a lot with program updates that install automatically or notifications of some completed process.
Can you post here a screen grab of your folders section expanded to the area where the folder should appear and a screen grab of window finder showing the actual folder on the drive (edited)?
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I greatly appreciate the attention, Brian, Jack and SFA, that you ared giving me, especially as I can't get any help from Capture One. You haven't commented on the failure of my support form to submit last night. As I wrote then, I had included three screen captures by drag and drop and two sets of log files by copy and paste, but when I tried to submit the enquiry the system responded by asking me to do this, as if I hadn't already done so. I really don't know where to go from there. I thought I might try again this morning, but now I can't even access the support form. If I click on Help/Resource Hub/Support, nothing happens. If I click on Help/Capture One Support, I get a screen which offers various kinds of support, but no longer the support form which, even yesterday, was available there. I also noticed yesterday that the support form had changed in some respects since last week. I'm wondering if Capture One is in a state of transition with its approach to support, and is frankly in a mess with it.
Brian, I have tried to attach a screen shot. It wouldn't have been expanded because I don't know how toi do this. But it wouldn't attach anyway, because it is 3.3 MB, there is a limit of 2 MB and I can't work out how to downsize it.
So I can't now see any way of rectifying the faults which have occurred. The images on which I am currently working are still available through Recent Imports, so I don't have an immediate problem. Where I will have a problem is if I want to return to my earlier folders to make prints using the Capture One print module. I do have saved TIFFs and still have an old version of Lightroom on my hard drive, so my fallback position would be to import the TIFFs into LR and use the print module there. I am not, therefore, in a total disaster scenario. Rather, my confidence in using Capture One has been badly shaken, especially as regards the sheer impossibility of accessing their technical support, but also in my concern that the problems I am now experiencing may persist and occur in new catalogues if/when I open them.
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No, I'm quite unfamiliar with file sharing services. And my IT knowledge, awareness and expertise is limited, so that I don't always understand the terminolgy. I am basically a landscape and wildlife photographer. I hope I am reasonably intelligent - I did gain a doctorate in chemistry, but many years ago, before the digital age!
As I can't even access the Support Request form this morning I can't check whether I saw all the guides in the information line above the box. I rmember seeing only one guide, which was about how to find the log files, and I followed that. Were there some others? Was there a file size limit? I didn't see that in the guide I was following. But you seem to be saying that that is why my form didn't submit.
My comments earlier this morning about the file size of my screen shots were in relation to Brian's request for them. The 2 MB limit was for attaching them to this conversation. They appeared to attach correctly to the box in the Support Enquiry form because they were then listed below it, without any warning sign that they were unsuitable.
Moving on to your last three questions, my library panel starts with the line for selecting the catalogue in which I want to work. Below this is the line entitled Catalogue Collections. What I'm now noticing is that this tells me that the number of images in the catalogue is 332. This must include all the missing folders as there are only 183 images in the two accessible folders. It also, of course, gives me a way of accessing images in the other folders if/when I want to print or re-edit them, which I hadn't noticed and which is obviously a positive.
Below this, the Recent Imports are listed, followed by three lines labelled Recent Captures, Trash and User Collections which I always ignore. Then, Folders, with an active + and a suppressed - sign, followeds by In Catalogue below it. Normally this is followed by a list of the folders in the catalogue, shown as sourced from my F:/ drive. That statement of source, and the folders listed under it are both missing from the catalogue which is flawed. In that the next line after In Catalogue is Noise Reduction. I have tried clicking on Folders but nothing happens; on In Catalogue, when a right click offers a number of options which don't seem at all relevant; and on the plus sign, as suggested by Brian. That last action ( a left click) opens up my F:/ drive, but clicking on the folders there, as suggested by Brian, had no effect.
I hope that desacription answersd your last thbree questions. So where next?
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Thanks for that. Your first option is what Brian suggested last night. It didn't work then and it didn't work just now. BUT your second suggestion worked a treat - clicking on just one image in the last of my missing catalogues brought them all back into the catalogue listing, and then on one image from the last of the two folders shown in the Recent Imports, brought both of them back into the cataloguie listing. Very easy, and, as you said, very quick. So that's my biggest issue dealt with.
On catalogue size, my policy is to keep my catalogues fairly small if only so that the regular back-ups don't take too long.
I still have two other issues. The first of these involves an image in that troublesome catalogue which went dark in the browser and wouldn't open. So I deleted it from my hard drive and then copied it back from my back-up external drive. I then tried to import it from each of those drives in turn but it was blocked because it is "already referenced" in the catalogue. Curiously, though, when I tried to do this the last six of the eight folders in the catalogue disappeared from the listing in the Library. That wasn't a problem because I could bring them back in the exactly same way as I just brought the first six back a few minutes ago, but I did think it was odd that that happened. Meanwhile, though, having no access to that one image isn't too much of a problem as I have another in the folder which is only slightly different. I only need one, though I did have a slight preference for the one I have lost. Perhaps I could restore it by renaming it in its source folder, but if not I will do without it. Of greater concern is that I would really like to know why it got blanked out in this way. This has never happened to me before, and obviously I don't want it to happen again.
My other issue is that I have a catalogue which won't open. I think this must have been my fault as I got in muddle withmy catalogue names. It has only two folders. If necessary, ie, if I want to do any further work with them, I will create a new catalogue for them, which I assume should work - certainly if I rename them.
So I will sign off now with renewed thanks to all of you who have given me your time and have responded so quickly to my concerns. Perhaps Capture One's support team isn't needed!
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... and to add to SFA's suggestion, a strategy that sometimes works is to create a new catalog, and then import the troublesome catalog into it. Also worth a try.
Ian
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Catalogue trash is empty. Where do I find system trash? But, as I said, this image isn't that important to me.
The catalogue that I said "won't open" is actually "not found". It isn't allowing catalogue verification to run, nor restoration from the back-up. The catalogue simply isn't being recognised. My earlier comment that perhaps it was my fault ... was wrong - it was another catalogue where I caused a problem, and I sorted that out some time ago. I'm not aware of anything I have done which would have led to this catalogue being "moved, renamed or deleted". I've tried to import it to an existing catalogue (rather than creating a new one) but I'm not getting the option to choose it in the "Import from" tool. Anyway it has (or should have) only two folders, with just 49 images and I'm not sure that I will want to do any further work on any of them so I'm happy enough to let things be for the present - just a bit concerned that this has happened and therefore that it could happen again with another catalogue.
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I have again lost the list of folders in the catalogue on which I am working from the Folders area of the Library. It happened when I was trying to import an image from the same source as the folder where I was working. SFA-s suggestion of right clicking on an image in the Recent Import section worked last time, due to other recent imports those folders are no longer there. So I have tried the other suggestion, starting from the plus sign in the folders section and selecting the one of the relevant folders. Unfortuinately nothing happened. So where do I go from here? And why is this problem occurring?
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I think I've discovered what's been happening. The file list, showing all nine files in the catalogue, reappeared while I was typing this reply to you. But the section headed Catalog Collections and the list of Recent Imports disappeared - except for the bottom line of the recent imports. I then scrolled up the page, which revealed the Recent Imports, but lost all but the earliest of the nine folders from the Folders list. So I'm concluding that my library tool doesn't have the space at the moment to show both, so either of them can become accidentally hidden behind the other. That would presumably explain why it was while importing an image that I "lost" the folders list.
So I now have it back, and also know where to look for it if/when it "disappears" again. But I also have plenty of unused space on my screen and assume it should be possible to expand the space at present allotted to this part of the library, moving the Noise Reduction and subsequent sections down. I would be grateful for your advice on this.
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Just to let you know, I had this happen to me as well. Sorry, but I am not in a position to do much about it at the present.
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In the Library tool (as in many tools) there are a couple of features that may help if you are not seeing all you want to see for lack of space. See my screen shot of what I see when I click the ... on the Library tool.
The size options may help (though on some tools Auto sizing takes up more space than it needs on occasion). Also if you move the tool to the scrollable area of the tab, it can stay open as much as you need it to while you scroll on down to some other part of the tab.
Ian
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Thanks Ian - switching from medium, which is where I was, to large has made the difference I was wanting. Problem solved.
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Ian McColl Hi, Ian. There's a book you may be interested in: Photographers Guide to Capture One (2023)
https://rawcaptureguide.com/photographers-guide-to-capture-one-23/ (about the book)
https://rawcaptureguide.gumroad.com/l/captureone23guide (purchase page)
In-depth. Well organized. It might give you a resource to lean on and can likely introduce you to some features of Capture One you aren't familiar with or always kinda wondered "how does that work?" I'm not connected with the author but do find the book useful.
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I agree with Brian Jordan. It's an excellent book.
Ian
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Thanks, I've bought it. At just $19 dollars it seemed crazy not to. There is so much in C! that I haven't discovered, much of which I won't ever use anyway, but there are certainly times when I will benefit. I've used C! now for about 4 years, roughly from when I changed from Sony to Fujifilm cameras. I wouldn't want to go back to LR. One plus point for me in C1 is the ability to set up export recipes and then to do a bulk export into several different folders simultaneously, eg, high res JPG, low res JPG and TIFF folders, which I'm told is still not possible in LR. I did think I would miss the history panel of LR but in fact cloning variants is a better way of keeping an edit safe while experimenting to see if it can be improved. I've no idea whether that can now be done in LR but it certainly couldn't when I used it. So, despite occasional frustrations such as I have had lately, I'm happy to be using C1. And also grateful for all the help I've had with these frustrations.
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