Upgrade
I gave you €111.75 three months ago and now you ask me even more money (including the "generous" 20% discount) ? NO WAY !
I bought C1 20 because of its astonishing image quality , but after 3 month of daily use I'm very disappointed.
The system is incredibly buggy and unstable :
*it freezes very often regardless what you're doing , you've to kill the process and restart again losing all the job
*you're painting/erasing and suddenly nothing happens , the cursor moves but no action is taken anymore,again you've to kill and restart
*keywords randomly disappear or refuses to erase (the day after they are back again).(You sure that old dear sqlite, btw I love it, is ok for a heavy duty program like this , why not give us the chance to switch to a recent Sql Server Express edition ?)
*you draw a gradient and 1 in 5 don't get the handle to rotate it
and on and on...
So , no I wont become a loyal customer until you'll release patches for C1 20 proving that you're able to deliver the stable and reliable platform I've paid for. Than, maybe I'll upgrade.
In the meanwhile I'm reading articles about DxO and new LR features...
Sorry for my english,I'm Italian
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Diego,
This is primarily a User to User forum. If you wish to address Capture One directly see the link I have included below.
Meanwhile ...
I run an old Windows system with Windows 7.
The only time I have ever had the sort of problems you describe are when everything I am running - especially a lot of tabs in Firefox at the same time as 2 or three open C1 sessions - means I have used a lot of memory OR when my disk drives are below the level of available storage required to work with the system RAM. Or, ,sometimes, the connection to my NAS it I happen to be working from it.
If you are experiencing all of those things you listed very regularly I would suggest that there is something to investigate within your setup - maybe old temporary work files badly indexed or some other mismatch - that is likely to be the primary cause of your problems.
The log files may provide some clues. Use the Submit a request option that can be found on pages throughout the support system and this forum to obtain personal technical Support from the C1 support team.
I hope this helps.
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Dear Mr SFA, I don't want to open a discussion with you because I hate this useless social debates , so just a quick answer and then I quit.
My post is a "User to User" stuff because I'm exchanging my opinion with all the many others who like me don't agree with this marketing policy, the technical issues are only to demonstrate why I'm disappointed and I'm not just arguing with no clues in hand.
BTW. Thank you for recalling me a long time ago episode:
Many years ago , as a young software developer the very first thing my new Boss told me was :
"NEVER EVER told a client that on your rig everything is ok, it's the quickest and surest way to loose a client !". I'm sure C1 developers have heard something like that too !
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Permanently deleted userMy post is a "User to User" stuff
No, it's a pointless whine, targeted at the wrong people.
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Diego
I am having almost the same problem with keywords. They disappear. With "reload metadata" I do get them back but they may disappear again. I have contacted support (I had / have two more issues), they asked me some questions which I answered but after that nothing, I quess they are busy.
Other than that I find C1 a wonderful program and hope that with C1 21 all the problems are solved.
I am holding on to a positive mindset. I like it better:)
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Hi Väinö,
I see your point , but basically you're saying : I bought a car , it doesn't steer (or brake or whatever) and I hope that buying the new model coming soon everything will be ok.
I agree , C1 has astonishing image quality and great tools, and I bought it after a very few days of trial leaving LR , but I'm afraid that QA (Quality Assurance) in Capture One is a little lazy !
But maybe they will surprise us with some new stability patches for 20 before releasing C 21.
Anyway, my post was about marketing policy and customer loyalty, it wasn't my intention to open a debate on technical issues and I'm sorry if this is what it looks like :-)
I wish you my best
Diego
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SFA,
a friend of mine most proficient in English than me , told me that my answer to your post sounds a little harsh. If so please accept my apologies, it wasn't intended.
I really appreciate the time and effort you put in your elaborate answer, writing in a non native language can often create this misunderstandings, they call it "lost in translation" :-)
my best
Diego
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Hi Diego,
I think your English is very proficient indeed. My original post was more 'bare' than I would normally write - partly to keep it short and partly, as I recall, because it was the middle of the night or I had something else I had to get on and do.
I have some stories about occasional misinterpretation of intent by people speaking English as a second or third language and speaking or writing it very well indeed but sometimes using one or two words that are not incorrect but have a specific understanding that is not what they intended once interpreted in normal communication.
I'm sure the same thing can happen in reverse.
One particular case involved a business system development and implementation for several country operations of a large multinational company. It was mainly run out of Sweden.
The Swedes were great to work with although the Finns were more decisive about the things they really needed to be developed to suit their operation. At the end of a week of presenting functionality and discussing how best to use it and what could be used to cover some their wishes and then discuss how they wanted to deal with requirements for things that were not readily available in the existing software we would have a meeting to discuss and generate an agreed list of enhancements to be considered form a development point if view and then costed.
So for every meeting they would get to the this item on the agenda and start of by saying "Our demands are ...."
"Demands" , in English english are things that Terrorists and similar people make and usually come with an underlying implication of a threat of some sort. To our people, me included when the project started, this seemed a strangely combative approach after all the good progress made in previous days leading up to the planning meetings. These people spoke great English (mostly) so why this strange change of relationship?
It was two years or so before a chance conversation during a social gathering with them provided some insight.
At school they had all learned foreign languages, starting with French. And of course French has the verb "demander" with the general understanding of that, when translated to English according to English education, would be "to ask" or request. A very polite non-threatening word, usually.
Discussing similar matters with the French part of the project would have been more easily understood - partly because there was more French and much less English and the contexts of words were different and required more effort to ensure understanding.
No one thought that one word would stand out to be misunderstood in Sweden by British people because the Swedes had learned French before English when they were at school.
I fully understand you observation about what one should and should not say to a client - sometimes even when it clearly needs to be said by someone!
But as a fellow user - one fortunate enough not to have the persistent problems you seem to experience but who has seen at least some of them from time to time - it seems reasonable to suggest that things are not like that for everyone.
Although that statement alone cannot help you as it stands, it might at least give hope that solutions can be found. However, relying on some magic in the next release could lead to disappointment if the sources of the current anomalies lie, unidentified, closer to home.
For example, back in Version 7 days (it may have been version 6) I created a session of about 3000 to 4000 image that would regularly crash about every 10th image. Extremely annoying I cold not work out what was wrong so decided I just had to live with it until some sort of useful evidence turned up.
About half way through the images I concluded the pattern fo failures seemed to be data related. No other sessions crashed. There was nothing different about that session compared to others. Then, near the end of the shoot in chronological order, I spotted a damaged thumbnail for one image. I tried the recreate it and got the same result. I deleted the image (and so, of course, its edit information 1 created a new, perfect thumbnail for it. After which there were no more crashes.
Based on information I had gathered before that point (but not understood a the time) I think a file fragment of the edit instruction file (.cos) has been created with a "bad" serial number and was then selected as content for edit instructions for other images - presenting wrong, unexpected, data types to processes and causing them to crash.
That was my theory. The file fragment had been deleted as part of the "fix" so there was no easy way to test the theory. The problem has not occurred again.
I would not have any expectation of a support person, working remotely, finding that problem.
When something like that happens in a session (a session used in the classic way of using a session) the problem would always have limited effect, even if never found. At some point work on the session would probably finish and then the problem would not appear.
If the same sort of thing happened in a catalogue that was having images added over an extended period it would likely be a problem that would recur repeatedly. Any apparent correction would happen only by chance. Vendor Technical Support may be powerless to help no matter how much they would wish to solve the problem with you.
So your old boss was not wrong ... but also not right for all situations.
Of course no boss would introduce that concept to a new recruit yet to gain customer facing experience...!
As for marketing policy ... suffice it to say that C1 has developed considerably over time and used different order processing methods and partners, created a wider range of purchase options and made activation management easier as time has passed. There have always been complaints mainly because, as the saying goes, "You cannot keep all of the people happy all of the time."
This is even true of a product is offered at no charge. In fact it is often more true when something is free because to most people it has no value. It is something easily discarded - we can always pick up another one.
For example, purely as an observation about human psychology, this year's C1 offer is earlier, more informative and more "polished" than last years when all sort of things went "not according to plan" - or so I assume and hope!).
Yet I get the feeling that there is more negative feeling now than there was last year and mostly about nothing of significance when one reduces the upgrade offer to its basic components.
There a no threats, "demands", and no coercion involved. It's a regular event with a known history. It's very similar to many other software release offers I have seen. The cost saving is nice but not really a critically large amount to be concerned about. If one is into Styles 5 free styles may be nice to have. Available immediately.
There are always likely to be deeper discussions about marketing theories and how to keep customers and keep them happy.
Personally I think it is clear that the major consumer markets, in terms of things on which we need to spend and where the number of suppliers is limited, now expect that customers will frequently come and go. They cannot control it and have adopted their systems (and level of service) to that expectation.
More specialised products, like RAW convertors and Photo editors may not have reached that point yet - there are certain market dominations to consider and a relatively small potential market compared to things like energy, insurance and so on.
Many of own (or use) more than one product even if only used rarely. I'm beginning to think that "brand loyalty" - across everything - may become a old, abandoned concept. It's possible that has already happened even before the current virus pandemic effects have taken their toll on businesses.
Picking a marketing strategy for guaranteed success by attempting to make everyone happy would be, let's assume, "very difficult". Maybe even "demanding".
From a user perspective I think I would tun your former boss's observation around.
If we would like a long term relationship with a particular supplier we should probably support them in various ways including buy the product(s) they offer when possible and avoid telling the rest of the world about issues using totally negative language.
Of course if one does not care about a long life for a product with active development over that lifetime, then sure, pull the thing apart if one has the time and energy to do so (and a replacement product that one can honestly claim is at least as good ready and waiting to take its place) then anything is fair game.
But, in my opinion, the reason has to be more than whether or not a Marketing offer to existing users is fair or unfair (as many seem to claim) or, in your specific case based on you first post, the problems of a long list of recurring problems that I don't see and I suspect that most, though not all, other users do not see either.
So they should be solvable even without an update. Or maybe in the case of your Keywords example, they should become understandable, possibly solvable depending on the reason it happens.
If none of the problems can be resolved then sure, it's time to be annoyed and disappointed.
But if everyone had those problems over a long term this forum would be empty - no users would stay with the product.
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Hi SFA
I took my time to read your answer in a calm moment...
Yes the meaning of words can change from country to country (in Italy you can tell a barman "I WANT a coffee", it doesn't sound so rude and imperative as in English) and often this creates embarrassing situations.
As for my technical issues I'm surprised I'm the only one experiencing them , because I've got a very decent rig (Asus ROG,latest Win 10 , 32G RAM,Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 4GB RAM,SSD 512GB , mechanical 1T) and I've never experienced freezes with any of the other heavy duty programs I use, but yes you're right , the forum would be full of angry people if this was a general problem!
I'll take your advise to check the logs frequently and see what they tell.
On the other hand,I don't change my opinion about C1 marketing strategy , I strongly think that in times like the ones we are experiencing, loyal customers should be the first priority for any company and their insurance for the future (Boss told us "remember, they pay our checks"), but of course I respect your point of view that, maybe, is more on par with current times and mentality.
my best
Diego
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Hi Diego,
Good points.
I think the problems with systems may not be the hardware but rather something that may not go quite right at some point and leave a bad settings file or some uncleaned temporary file, etc. lying around in a system creating problems from time to time.
It then does not matter how good the system or the software in it may be - problems can recur.
As for hardware specs, my system is old and lower spec. than yours, except for my second drive being an internal 1Gb SSD but running on an available sata 2 port so, in theory, half speed.
The disks are quite full which is not optimal. Not at all optimal.
But it still performs well. I have no idea why it had not so far ground to a halt unless I really abuse the amoutn of free disc space available.
I think there are some much stronger influences to be attributed to the specs and quality of the internal non-headline components. Things that allow the various bits of the system to work well talking to each other for example. They could be more important a strong and balanced performance than "star" components which I suspect are often pushed in marketing and reviews based on their theoretical specifications rather than real world performance.
I have no idea why this notebook seems to be just as good today as when I bought it and added extra memory and the second SSD. I was not expecting it. Nothing before had really been satisfactory over such a long period. It had outlived 2 batteries, two power supplies (the second being a non-oem item) and one screen hinge. It has been dropped several times without serious damage. I really do use it on the lap and it gets a fairly hard tome from that. But still it survives.
I suspect that this particular model has extremely competent internal components to match its robust design.
Would its modern day equivalent off such strong value? I have no idea. Maybe not. Things never stay constant for long.
As for the marketing matters, I agree based on historic theory but wonder if the modern world is changing more rapidly than we might think.
Oddly this year's upgrade offer is earlier than used to be the case, clearer to understand, better prepared in terms of process (compared to last year) offers a decent discount for those that want to make use of it, adds in some immediately available "freebies" and offers a longer than traditional "grace period for recent buyers" , etc., etc.,. Mostly directed at existing users. Yet it still attracts a tsunami of apparent discontent on the forums. Strange.
Perhaps it is a sign of the strange time in which we seem to be living?
Sorry the previous post was so long. Made up for the first one being a bit terse perhaps? Probably the first one was a better format even if the content was not as clear and concise as I had originally intended.
Anyway, thank for reading that rather long message. This one too, I suppose. If you got this far!
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