Cakewalk support: sell em snake oil

I've been a cakewalk user for over a decade and have gone through several upgrades but the declining lack of support is changing my mind and making me consider switching my DAW. I'm going to post my experience with cw support in an effort to see if I'm the only one that's going through this or if there are others out there who feel the same way. My initial email was a request for help in solving an issue which I had researched here on the forum and was told that cw did not wish to post the resolution to this problem due to unregistered users being able to access the information. I thought that a bit strange but since I've been a registered user since around 2000 I thought that there would be no problem. My initial email; "I'm getting the unhandled exception error in cronus.dll when creating a v vocal clip which I hear is common in the forums and was advised to contact tech support for the solution as the cw staff has opted not to fix the problem or post the fix in the forums. I'm a registered owner of Sonar producer 6.2.1" The response; Hello Karl, "We unfortunately do not have a fix for that as of right now. Have you considered upgrading yours system to a more current version of SONAR? > My response; "Subject: RE: (Case xx786) Product Information Support >Why would I upgrade if you don't have a fix?" and; "SONAR 6 is currently out-dated software. We have not worked on that software for 5 versions now. A more current and updated system/software combination will most likely fix the problems that you are experiencing." and finally; "So you are saying that your older defective product that was not worth fixing could possibly be fixed, (not a guarantee) and that I should take the risk? Wow, this is some real snake oil that you are selling. I will enjoy posting your response on the forums so all cakewalk customers can see how much cw customer support has decayed. I have been a cakewalk customer for over a decade and it looks like its time to change my DAW." When a cakewalk rep posts to contact cw support directly and then all we get as a solution is for them to ask for more money and the problem MIGHT get solved, well that's a shoddy way to do business. I imagine that CW will remove this thread because quite frankly it just makes the organization look terrible. Please CW, dignify yourself with a proper response and proper support so that we can have faith in you again. I have been a customer for far too long to be treated this way.

I understand the need to keep bringing in revenue but either they have resolved the issue or they haven't. Either way, the polite thing to do would be to tell me if they have so I could make my decision to upgrade and keep riding their money treadmill or make an informed decision to switch platforms. You saying that they have abandoned support and this forum for older versions speaks legions about how they view their customers. Also, what is to prevent them from steepening the curve and refusing to support versions just prior to their latest release in order to increase revenue? There is way too much competition in the DAW market to put up with this mentality.

I,too,had this bump in the road with VV working in another studio using 6. We did end up re-installing and the problem disappeared. I know how hard it is to come up with the money to keep up with the technology. That is one of the reasons I was so glad to make the switch to VSTi than keep shelling out thousands of dollars everytime Korg, Yamaha, or Roland, etc. rolled out another "new and improved" keyboard. The upgrades, while maybe being out of reach financially now, are much more cost effective than re-spending 3 or 4 or 5 thousand dollars every 2 or 3 years to keep up with hardware. It would be in your best interest to at least upgrade to X1 because they changed the whole ballgame as far as Cakewalk DAW products are concerned. I'm not saying that upgrading will fix your vv problem. All I'm saying is I know from experience working in studios all over, when you get too far behind in versions it is going to be hard to take your work to another studio that is using a current version. So many problems raise their heads that it can be a game stopper for you. I would rather pay 150 dollars to upgrade than to spend what I would have to in hardware. OTOH, I have not had near the problems that a lot of the folks on here have had even with X1. That makes it easy for me to have this opinion. Not being judgemental, just an observation. Any version from 6 on up is more than enough to get a good product out.

What the OP is describing could be applied to all software in general. Think about it: it is the only class of for-profit products that is allowed to be sold with known defects that the vendor is not obligated to fix. 

Imagine buying a car with a critical design flaw and having the dealer tell you your only option is to buy a new one! And, of course, in the process you'll simply be exchanging a set of problems you know about for a new set of problems you haven't yet discovered. 
 
But this is true of all software, not just SONAR. It will be equally true for any other DAW you might switch to. Do you think Presonus is adding fixes to S1 version 1? Nope.

I've been a registered user of Cakewalk s/w since v4.0 MIDI sequencer for DOS. I usually bought every other upgrade up to S8.53P (so, yeah, I know what to expect if I ever need support....). When I used to frequent this forum, the subject of "fix vs upgrade" would heat up as each new version was announced. I don't know if they are worse than anyone else but Cakewalk is certainly as guilty as any company of the practice of abandoning users who have un-addressed issues with a version that loses currency. 

Most large s/w companies announce when a product goes out of support and it's usually something like 5 years after losing currency (I was an IBM employee for over 23 years and I still deal with IBM support regularly). Until then, users can expect either patches for documented bugs or free upgrades. Unfortunately, it's not economically feasible for a small s/w company (even if they are a part of Roland now)  to provide that kind of support. Yeah, there should probably be a "consumer warning label" on anything you buy from a company like Cakewalk stating that fact but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

 

Thanks all for your input on this. I know that they've had this issue for awhile and I really just wanted an honest answer from support on wether they had resolved it but your feedback is appreciated.