Capture One Support
I messaged Capture One with a significant issue that was impeding me from using the software (and delivering client work on a deadline). After waiting several days I got this response
"Unfortunately, we cannot comment when this bug will be fixed, but rest assured that it has been reported and will be looked into."
To re-iterate. The issue is that the latest version of Capture One is completely unusable.
That sounded familiar, so I searched my gmail for the phrase.
In the small handful of times I've ever reached out to Capture One this is ALWAYS the response.
To be fair, my earlier requests were more along the lines of small bugs. However, in this case it's a critical bug preventing me from using the software.
Just wanted to comment here in case anyone else is in the forums considering purchasing the software and wants to know what kind of customer support to expect.
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Well, everyone here will have made his own experience with customer support and yeah, I'm sure there's room for improvement. But, your warning comes too late, I'm sure the majority here are already customers and are looking for constructive exchange and help with problems.
"To re-iterate. The issue is that the latest version of Capture One is completely unusable."
What does that mean? Are you looking for help here, then please describe in more detail why C1 is unusable or do you just want to get rid of your anger? This does not serve anybody here!
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I did have to contact CO support in the past and it
NEVER was a bad experience at all. Only one issue
is still pending and a temporary solution was found.1 -
Thanks @Okular.
I actually posted about the issue in a different thread. There were some very useful thoughts from the community here, though not a solve.
You probably are right that for those who are already reading this, it is probably too late. I did, however, think it wouldn't hurt to share my experience... In case some potential buyer is curious about Capture One's customer support, this would provide some insight for them.
To me saying "you're right, this is definitely an issue. We may or may not solve it, and if we do, we have no idea when we'll solve it" is not really an acceptable response for a software that I depend on professionally.
@nikon Shooter, thanks for your note. So glad to hear that you had a better experience than I did!
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I must bring a correction here.
I've been using Co since v. 7 and to get v. 12, I had to do with
an individual who stubbornly did not want to correct a mistake
I made ordering the new version had to pay the full price for
the new version.
Luckily, when v. 13 came out, I was credited by an other servi-
ce person and could have it for no extra charge.0 -
@nikonshooter.
Hmmm, sounds like it might be luck of the draw on who at C1 reads your ticket. In any case, glad to hear it worked out in your case!
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I have, in the past, had a few difficulties with the app. I felt
I was courteously and well taken care of in all cases and
solutions were found quickly.
I had only two incidents:1. the hard headed person who did not go for the correction
2. v. 13.1.1 crashes by batch rename. I had to uninstall CO
most completely and start over. No solution was found so I
reverted to v. 13.1.0 -
Regarding the time it takes for support to respond to requests, there's quite a lot of room for improvement to put it mildly. And as for bugs/malfunctions, I've run into one, which I reported six months ago. Not a word about when to expect a fix. And no workaround other than using Lightroom instead of Capture One.
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I have a growing list of bugs and issues which are unsolved. every time I have contacted c1 over the years I got the feeling beside them being professinal friendly that they are not really interested in what I had to report or couldn't help anyway. for an experienced user contacting support is in fact a total waste of time. what I would like to see is a honest list of known bugs and problems this would be helpful for every user but especially for professionals because it would save wasted time to find causes or work arounds but this is asked to much for a secretive company like c1 where the public perception is more important than customer.
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I agree. A list of known bugs and other issues would be very useful.
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Writing as someone who has in the past both advised about setting up and run support desks I can tell you that even in a highly controlled small community in a very specific industry having lists of known problems floating about randomly is absolutely NOT a good idea.
There are many reasons why but the main ones are that they are usually misunderstood, misinterpreted and result in a lot of very unnecessary work just communicating about a problem rather than getting on and resolving them.
That was even in a highly controlled development situation a long time before "agile development" and ever more complex systems arrived on the scene.
If one was the size of, say, Adobe one might feel that such things could be turned into well managed PR. So how do Adobe deal with their list of possible bugs and wishes?
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Here's an example of openly listed known issues from a company whose products, software and hardware, are used professionally by many. I see no reason why such issues should be kept secret.
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@Thomas this is not the only company and we all know that this would be beneficial for us user which seems not in the interest of some here.
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Thomas,
That link is a page from 2017. It's 2 years old. It's not a company I have heard of before but no matter.
I searched the site for "Known Issues" (on the basis that and I could not readily find a menu item that seemed to be relevant through the "Support" link) and got 71 links returned. Most of them, having scrolled through 3 pages) were between 4 and 17 years old. One I noticed was just three years old. Your link is 2 years old.
Are we to assume that that company has no outstanding known issues and none have been reported for 2 years?
Or are they meticulously keeping track of and updating each and every one and removing the references when fixes are available? If so the list would seem to suggest that they have live known issues many of which are over 10 years old.
Obviously, based on my previous comments, I am not criticising the company. Attempting to maintain, usefully document and curate an active and relevant list of all possible issues that a client base might have was an enormous and expensive overhead even back in the days when hardware and software systems within limited business environments with relatively low customer numbers where well controlled (i.e. had limited variations and one could further constrain those by limiting the range of supported options) and involved not so many clients and users all of whom were working in a professional environment and could generally be expected to have appropriate skills and knowledge in-house.
In the modern era working the systems and software combinations have become a lot more complex and "agile" development has led to forced reliance on third party developments over which one has probably no influence whatsoever in most cases. They change weekly, perhaps even daily in some periods - like beta testing new OS releases and all of the knock-on changes that will induce from other places.
Add to that a product that is available for people of exceedingly widely disparate technical knowledge and skills - many of whom will have no interest at all in the technical aspects and just want something that "works" (whatever that may mean to them) and you end up with an extremely difficult and time consuming task if you want to avoid simply fanning the flames of misunderstanding and confusion.
That is difficult enough in a closed shop behind closed doors.
In the open world of the internet if offers potential for complete disaster at a PR level.
So, how do the experts within millions or even billions of "users" deal with it?
What do Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, SAP, IBM (are they still in the game?), Cisco, Huawei, Samsung and so on offer their users? They surely have the cash flow and (in some cases) the customer type mix that would suggest a communication approach that covers the least to the most knowledgable would be advantageous to their reputations. Presumably they have the expertise to deal with the issues in a timely fashion as well.
So how do they approach this support need for an audience with widely differing levels of technical appreciation?
And are they successful in their support endeavours?
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@SFA – UAD is a well-known company in audio/music production. They have a forum too with more info as well as quick and friendly support, in no way secretive. Capture One could learn something.
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@ SFA
..seems you true hobby is to find arguments against every user viewpoints, suggestion or complain which is not in line with c1 policy.
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@SFA
"What do Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, SAP, IBM (are they still in the game?), Cisco, Huawei, Samsung and so on offer their users?"
I only have experience with Apple and Adobe, but in my experience they have customer support people who understand the technology and work with you to fix it.
That's a BIG difference from "Unfortunately, we cannot comment when this bug will be fixed, but rest assured that it has been reported and will be looked into."
Indeed, if that's how Capture One does service, they could probably save money by just having a bot immediately respond to all emails with that phrase....
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JLewis,
For consumer software?
For application issues that require recoding in some way are you saying you can get personal attention form a technical assistant that fixes your problem before the solution becomes generally available to the rest of the world?
If so I'm surprised and delighted.
If you have a local problem that is maybe to do with "the technology" you are using - system faisl to start and a number of other things that are not responding to any normal suggestions I think you would find that C1 also make people available to work with you on the diagnosis and, hopefully, they will find a solution for you.
If it's a known problem you will get the result you first mentioned in your original post.
I suspect, in recent times, it may be proving somewhat challenging to provide free full on personal support to everyone and anyone, The new Community pages appear to be an attempt to provide self help information that will probably address 80 or 90% of questions - especially with so many repetitive questions being asked. If I was implementing such a system= that would be the target I would think of as likely attainable.
Microsoft seem to target something similar. I'm not sure that they offer any sort of end user support in the absence of some "certification" (usually paid for and requiring regular updates to keep up with changes) for Professionals. If they do it would be good to know.
I get regular (daily) updates about "Important Changes" to "Office 365" for a business account where I am administrator. Fortunately none of it usually matters to me. If it did attempting to understand what it is telling me would probably require extensive and costly training. And still not guarantee no problems. Indeed they seem to go out ot their way to constantly change stuff just to create needs to re-license in order to stand still.
And paid for Technical support.
That's their business model. It works for them. The masses have few options.
With C1 I guess you could opt for the Enterprise version (Previously known as "Studio" iirc) and tap in to an improved level of business support when you find you have an urgent and critical business need.
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@SFA – I must say that I find the idea that you need to pay extra to get support for a product that doesn't work as it's supposed to pretty unreasonable. Capture One isn't among the cheapest photo editing programs, so it's not surprising that users expect a decent level of support, which, as this thread shows, isn't what they're getting. There have been more or less constant complaints about support since I started using Capture One at the end of last year. Despite the advantages of Capture One, I'm beginning to regret that I attempted to make the switch from Lightroom, considering the broken/crippled functions (keystone primarily) and the unbelievably sluggish support.
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Thomas,
You are making assumptions about the nature of the problems suggested in the first post and then assuming that the OP's later comment, to which I was replying, also relates that sort of problem. I suspect it doesn't - or at least if it does the two companies mentioned are not very likely to fix a "bug" for a single user outside of a release by cutting new code.
There may be other situations where a change can be effected by resetting certain types of files or changing drivers and so one. And if the problem is of that sort then certainly there may be support people who can work with users to resolve or work around issues.
In some situations where investigation is required and especially if the problem has been reported several times and as yet no common cause have been identified, working with a user can be extremely useful. But if it's a known problem with a possible future fix schedule and no alternatives for work arounds what else is there to say?
One way or another people will pay for having that facility from a commercial supplier. It may be embedded in the price or it may be funded from a different revenue stream. But one way or another someone has to pay or the service disappears. And the software too.
Introducing systems like Zendesk is usually a decision driven by a desire to offer 24/2 self help service that is as comprehnsive as possible as well as responsive to some degree to changes in products and user demography as a "front line" of support.
There are two fundamental problems with the concept of "free" support.
Firstly there is not way it can be entirely free.
Secondly and in general, anything that is free is assumed to be a "right" and at the same time has no real value.
Even if not "free" no support system I have ever used has been perfect and, from my experience, there is no way to set up an affordable system that clients will accept as perfect. If may be possible to set up a totally unaffordable system that some clients may think of as perfect most of the time. In such cases, in a business environment, one massages the opinions of the decision maker in such a way that they ignore any criticisms from their worksforce. Do some can work for extended periods but be very costly. It's unlike to apply to the majority of C1 users looking at this forum.
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@SFA – Software support is a standard, not something you should have to pay extra for. As a long-time user of audio software from many different companies, I've had great deal of contact with support departments, and they've rarely been as sluggish as Capture One's.
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@SFA
"For application issues that require recoding in some way are you saying you can get personal attention form a technical assistant that fixes your problem before the solution becomes generally available to the rest of the world?"
"recoding" was not my issue. But the short answer is yes... when I've faced issues that were similar in scope and technical need, I've been able to get on a phone call or chat with a company like Adobe or Apple, and they will work with me to walk through the solution. In my mind that is just standard service.
"I suspect, in recent times, it may be proving somewhat challenging to provide free full on personal support to everyone and anyone"
Perhaps that's the issue. Kudos to companies like Adobe and Apple to continue to support their software (another standout IMHO in this area is Black Magic with Davinci Resolve)
It sounds like we both agree that Capture One basically does not offer any meaningful support to their customers (apparently purchasing the "Enterprise" version. is a workaround). Our disagreement is whether a company owes it to their customers to troubleshoot when their software doesn't work. On this point, we've met an impasse.
In any case, for the very rare pre-purchase customer who comes across this thread, hopefully a bit of understanding of what you can expect from Capture One's tech department, when compared to some of their competitors, will be a helpful element in your decision.
@Thomas Kyhn
"Software support is a standard, not something you should have to pay extra for."
I wholeheartedly agree. Definitely disappointed to find that Capture One doesn't agree with either of us on this.
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the best support a company can offers is no need for support at all by listening to the needs of their user and only release software when it is ready and fully tested and not when the investors want to see money. but both seems impossible for c1 . c20 was an early beta with known bugs when released and today there are still issues. osx 10.15.6 was released a month ago but still no official support and year after year like a weird annual ritual they stage a totally retarded os update drama, blaming user and apple instead for doing their job. i don't now any other software company with this disgraceful behaviour. now with a new processors coming to the mac I fear they will totally mess up when even regular OS X updates are already to much for them to handle properly and in time.
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Another thing is lens support, which is far from up to date.
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....not only lens support, the quality of their profiles needs to be improved too.
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My experiences with support ranges from excellent (for a serious bug in a past version, I even got a debug version to come by the issue) to so-so for lesser issues, and everything in between, from a customer perspective.
Having worked in the software industry for ages, I agree with SFA. Someone has to pay the bill, the wages of the employees, etc.
That's a fact, and if you are a professional (e.g. photographer) you also expect payment for your service and output. If other companies earn enough to satisfy their shareholders AND to offer top-notch support then they do this either by having enormous number of licensees, or very high license or subscription prices, or get paid extra for their SLAs (well defined services level agreements) with individual clients.
The level of service I get from C1 is more or less within my expectation and correlates with the level of price I pay, more or less.
btw, C1 also has a known issues list, everybody can see this in the release notes. It is not a ticket system available to the public. Which company has this? You have to double the helpdesk staff if you offer a real public ticket system just to maintain, articulate and communicate such a system, and it is not wise from a company point of view, and the value for customers is very limited actually.
Another thing: A company can ONLY promise to fix an issue if it exactly knows the root cause for it, and this almost always includes that developers and sometimes product management seriously had analysed an issue, which is not always possbile even if you try to reproduce an issue which often you cannot. So, generic support answers are the almost always the correct way, if you want to be serious.
Disclaimer: I am not related to C1. However I participate sometimes in the beta test phase, which btw. is a good thing C1 offers to us, andwe users should participate once in while at least. Microsoft is doing the same thing btw. And neither am I a fan-boy, I am a fan of many aspects of C1, but I am not a boy at all :-) I am also a fan of some aspects of other image software. I believe I have a subjective but half-way realistic view onto the world though.
Cheers.
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"A company can ONLY promise to fix an issue if it exactly knows the root cause for it, and this almost always includes that developers and sometimes product management seriously had analysed an issue, which is not always possbile even if you try to reproduce an issue which often you cannot. So, generic support answers are the almost always the correct way, if you want to be serious."
The keystone issue is reproducible and consistently so; and considering how long it's been an issue, there's no way that the cause is unknown. Yet support offers nothing but generic replies.
And in this case I don't imagine that paid support would make much difference, other than perhaps the generic replies being sent out a little quicker.
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You're right, paid support does usually not cover influencing the priority of which bug to fix.
The keystone issue thread is an interesting one. Did I get it right that C1 actually acknowleged it is a bug?
It is a perfect example though for my points. It is a bug which is publicly discussed (in this thread). If it was acknowledged with a high priority then I believe it got deprioritized in favor of other development work which C1 thought is more important.
Can you imagine how much splish and splash and bash we would have about priority decisions and changes of C1 if a prioritized list of bugs and enhancements, software, lens profiles and cameras would be have publicly available? Then I would probably leave this forum for good...:-)
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Yes, they acknowledged that the keystone function isn't working as it's supposed to.
What I would appreciate rather than the generic replies was a confirmation that they were actually working on fixing it. I wouldn't expect to be informed of their priorities, but the replies I've received when inquiring about this could just as well be taken to mean that they aren't doing anything about it.
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I agree, it would be great, at least at first sight, but if dozens or more similar requests / bug tickets for the presumably same issue or similar feature requests are reported, issue finally is being looked into, do you have an idea how much effort and error-prone it is to pick all these, and really only these, without any doubt, so that a status can be updated? Keystone tool issue aside (seems pretty obvious and unambiguously), for other reported issues, misunderstandings will be very likely and may even lead to more frustration for some users. Imagine you think "they aren't doing anything about it" just to find out later that it is not exactly what you expect). A streamlined well-defined process, even if it not the best in all cases, is overall better than a case by case decision, as you would expect a perfect status for all your cases then.
Anyway, I expressed my opinion sufficiently, I think I have nothing of value to add.
Cheers
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...one point is perceived support but with c1 you think you hit a wall of ignorance even with simple requests. one example: in the past I preferred to build proof galleries for my clients with c1 but now most agencies are using 5k iMacs so i asked if they could allow to make the tumbs larger because they are to small for this high res screens and are actually smaller than the value displayed. should be an easy task, right ? but the feedback i got was the developers see no need for a change. ok go f... y........ I do it with WP now. I understand they care more about amateur needs than professional photographers but this level of ignorance is unbelievable.
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