Unrealistic demands for getting support
I reported an issue - apparently the catalog gets corrupted in the latest version of C1, and literally hundreds of copies (variants) of each image start appearing - a directory with a couple of images suddenly contains 23000 variants. After I spent an hour collecting all the data required for a bug report (log file, system status, screen shots), I got an automated mail back which requested me to create an entirely new user, reinstall C1 and try replicating the problem. (Why not buy a new computer or reformat the hard disk and reinstall Windows, if we are on it?)
Apart from the fact that I do not have the permissions to create a new user and C1 hopefully should run without admin rights - how does that help? C1 corrupts my catalogue. It happens intermittently. Do you want me to work starting from an empty catalogue in a separate user name for the next two weeks and see if the issue happens again? And then - how do you locate the issue if you were not able to do it the first time? C1 has routines to check the integrity of a catalogue - if it says everything is OK, why would I have to start from scratch?
I cannot see how this request is related to the issue, and it's an extreme measure which will take hours of time. It looks to me as a user that the support tries to make users jump through hoops just to get rid of the workload, without actually even trying to analyze the issue.
To add insult to injury: The mail did not contain any request to respond. Nevertheless, two days later I received a mail that I had not responded, and they were about to close the case...
Really disappointed.
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Adding to JF's reply I also would ask support if they already went through all the info you provided before they requested you to take these actions, and I would ask them if any other users have reported this issue.
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I would just add some thoughts here, Tom:
1) I agree this request is over the top maybe. At my stage of life, sure, fine, whatever. I probably have time to do something like this and a fun little adventure feeling useful for the day would be good for me. In that case, there's no harm in the ask and maybe gets them to a better place. I'm likely in the minority of users in this regard, though.
2) After just a few hours/days/weeks of use, literally every computer -> and CERTAINLY every Windows computer <- is different. Your specific issue may be caused by some random change made by an AV package, some other software, something specific to your hardware/software mix. In that case, they may never be able to duplicate it.
3) What's the harm in them asking? "Nope. Sorry. Happy to send logs or whatever or answer specific questions but, beyond that, I have work to do."
4) What Walter said.
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JF, Walter,
Good points. I wrote back asking how to reproduce an intermittent error on an empty catalogue - no response so far.
Brian, one of these "what's the problem" responses are probably inevitable in every forum. If you put up nonsensical demands without without even looking at what you got so far, you just come across as lazy support which wants to get rid of the work, hoping the customer will give up and decide it's easier to live with the issue (or go back to a tool with better support) than disturbing you.
Regards
Thomas
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At one time I worked on a team investigating customer issues like this (different kind of product).
One of the key questions is always “Is it related to user account Settings” - except that there are a bzillion user account settings. Best way to check that is create a new account - hence this standard question.
But if you can’t do it is fair to say no.
But the real question we always asked of ourselves is “Why are we debugging our software on our customers computers?” I think this a fair question for Capture One. Many of us are using Capture One PRO as an essential part of our business, why is our equipment a testbed for debugging your product?Our team took software quality very seriously - every added or changed function (and every bug fix) that was delivered came with test code that would determine if it was working correct. Over every weekend all accumulated test code would be run on captive systems, and developers either had to fix bugs quickly or their new feature would be removed.
And then we still had a beta cycle where the software would be run on a live customer system.
There was also a bug monitoring system that tracked where bugs were created, how often and where they were found so that we could adjust our work to create fewer bugs, and find bugs earlier.
I think this where Capture One is slipping - software quality is expensive, but poor software quality is even more expensive.0 -
Tom, was it a demand? "Do these things or we can't/won't help you"? <<--Demand.
Or was it a request? "Can you do x, y, and/or z and send is more info?" <<--Request.
If the former, you are correct. If the latter, again, what's the harm? If you have time, send the info. If you don't say so and move along. I suspect you've burned enough time here to have done one or more of these things and sent the info along and, thus, likely being closer to a resolution so /shrug/? I sometimes think we've gotten so comfortable in our outrage quilt that it feels good to slip it on and show it to the world.
Y'all want to get all bent out of shape about qa and your perception there's bad or, worse, incompetent qa here. Y'all really need to put thought into the permutations to be tested against. Every machine with every video card with every firmware with every os version alone is a HUGE number of permutations to test. Add in the insane things Windows especially allows various softwares to do and now you're looking at AV and other software interactions. You mentioned that's a work computer? Is remote device management running on it? Well there's a whole new can of worms if true.
Nothing can be tested 100%. You shoot for statistically reliable to some threshold then you do let your outlier users take it on the chin. Bill Gates and Windows inaugurated that era. Sad but true.
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