Ryan Munnis [Cakewalk]
@ Alex,
 
PLENTY of people get responses. Your perception is based off the minority. I also think you're being a bit unfair considering cases 5779, 6384, 6386, 6713, 6359 , 11684, all were from you, have multiple emails back and forth, and were mostly fielded by myself. I did just find your unanswered ticket however regarding a forum thread you were asking us to jump into.
 
Can I politely ask you to not try to spread the perception that people can't get help from us directly, that we can't implement a proper ticketing system, and that we can't find talent? We help countless people every day, have a very advanced ticketing system, bug reporting system, crash analysis system, etc. Honestly, it's a bit morally defeating considering how much of ourselves we put into this community and supporting our products.

Hi Ryan
 
I feel your response is a little out of order sorry.
 
I am entirely aware of the difference between QA and support.
I don't know if you read this correctly, I have only logged an issue with support once.
 
Cakewalk problem report form is NOT support as you and I well know, I never expected it to be so. I would never expect a response, however as I'm sure you are aware communication via this form is flakey at best. That is not my complaint however.
 
I have logged a ton of bugs however via your cakewalk problem report form, and I have spent a lot of time compiling bugs. If I was worried about that I would be moaning about it every day, in fact I do the opposite and tell people that Sonar is a fully functional OS that works great, and to wait for X3E etc. I am still of that opinion.
 
I would also hope you would be happy that I have spent the time compiling and making sure a lot of the issues reported in these forums are understandable and reproducible.
 
I don't think there's anything unduly harsh about what I have written (nothing of what I wrote is incorrect), in the forums I spend most my time to ask people to be patient as I totally understand how hard and long it takes in software development.
 
Again I have only logged an issue once on your support form, and only once expected support. The rest was for your QA dept to process. Being an X1/X2/X3 customer and being treated like this on the very first support call I think is a little disturbing.
 
I am of the perception (right or wrong) that there is an issue with support via this form, I apologise if I am in error:
http://www.cakewalk.com/support/contact/TechnicalSupport.aspx
 
However I apologise for tagging along a Cakewalk problem reporter issue, that was in error, I should have said not to expect support.
 
However I was specific I said:
 
"Sadly my perception is that with emailing support thought the support form, you are unlikely to get any response (esp from what I've seen in these forums)."
 
That in my eyes is different to the problem reporter, but yes I can understand how that could get muddled in your eyes, I was just shocked with your reaction.
 
Thanks...

Hi Alex,
 
Each case number I referenced were from filling out the Technical Support form and/or by emailing our support email address directly. None of those cases went through QAs hands. Granted, some of these tickets are pretty old, but they were through that system.
 
To be clear, I was just trying to clarify that there is nothing wrong with the form and that we DO in fact reply to cases. I think your perception is wrong. I'm not trying to be rude about it, but the reality is that we're helping quite a lot of people via email support.
 
For the same reason I would not advise a customer "don't go to our forums, the people there are not helpful", I would hope our forum community would not tell others to not work with us. We definitely can and will help. We do it all the time.
 
Sorry if I came across wrong. I wasn't trying to. I just want customers to know that we do provide email support and, yes, they should expect replies.

I edited my previous post (sorry) whilst you were typing. I would suggest reading my post again.
 
To add your problem report form clearly states that we should not expect a response. My bone was NOT with your problem report form.
 
Thanks...

Ryan Munnis [Cakewalk]
We do generate a ticket, we just don't let customers log in to our system. The fact that you didn't get the return case number is a bug. I just tested it and it didn't send the case number, which it should. I'll get that fixed quickly.
 
FYI, we don't reply to Fault Reports. This is stated in the fault report itself. I've discussed this a few times, but the Fault Report itself provides an explanation for what happens next. The following text is pulled directly from the Fault Report status page:
 
---
Thank You for Submitting Your Fault Report!
We appreciate you taking the time to send us your Fault Report. We're sorry you have run into a crash. Using this information we will work our hardest to make improvements and provide our customers with the best products possible.
 
What happens next?
When you submitted the report details, a .dmp file generated at the time of the crash was also sent to us behind the scenes. This file will be run through an automated debugging system that will analyze whether or not the crash was related to something faulting in your Cakewalk program or whether or not it was from a third-party plug-in, utility or hardware device.
 
Using this information we can then isolate stability issues with aspects of the Cakewalk program as well as notify third-party companies of compatibility issues.
 
PLEASE NOTE:
This is an automated system that is used for isolating and resolving stability issues. Should our developers require additional information, they will update the report with any questions and contact you via the provided email address. Please understand that you may not receive a reply unless further information is needed or the issue is resolved.
 
Also, please note that this form is NOT for Technical Support and is not reviewed by our Technical Support staff. Should you require Technical Support, however, we encourage you to contact our team so they can assist you directly.
 
Thank you once again for your support, and thank you for choosing Cakewalk!
---
 
I hope that helps to explain why you didn't get responses to those.
 
So really we have one ticket opened on 1/28. Sadly, we're still backed up a bit and in those cases sometimes calling in is just easier. I'm sorry for the delay. I'll ask someone to look into your case today.
 
 
 
@ Alex,
 
PLENTY of people get responses. Your perception is based off the minority. I also think you're being a bit unfair considering cases 5779, 6384, 6386, 6713, 6359 , 11684, all were from you, have multiple emails back and forth, and were mostly fielded by myself. I did just find your unanswered ticket however regarding a forum thread you were asking us to jump into.
 
Can I politely ask you to not try to spread the perception that people can't get help from us directly, that we can't implement a proper ticketing system, and that we can't find talent? We help countless people every day, have a very advanced ticketing system, bug reporting system, crash analysis system, etc. Honestly, it's a bit morally defeating considering how much of ourselves we put into this community and supporting our products.

Thanks for the clarification. Should I open up new support requests for my 2 issues? Is there a way for me to see the ticket number (so that I could reference it in another communication) online someplace? The emails I have are totally generic and give no information. This was what was in the ticket I submitted 6 days ago (I was mistaken on the timeframe in my original email).
 

Hello Brian Anderson,

Thank you for contacting Cakewalk Technical Support. We have received your question and will reply as soon as possible.

Thank you for choosing Cakewalk!

Best Regards,
Cakewalk Technical Support
[link=tel:617-423-9021]617-423-9021[/link]
http://www.cakewalk.com

Note: This is an automated message. A Technical Support Representative will reply to you as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience in the meantime.

Anyway I think points have been made. I'm sorry I was just shocked, this was my first support call so I was weirded out.

I and others actually work quite hard here and we are not on Cakes payroll. I appreciate Cake didn't ask for it. As you know I've been compiling test cases for you guys to process. That's something that has been saving you resources, and, as I'm sure you are aware, is extremely time consuming to do and get right. It's not like I've been on your back every day logging support calls..

Time for a beer..

CakeAlexS
I edited my previous post (sorry) whilst you were typing. I would suggest reading my post again.
 
To add your problem report form clearly states that we should not expect a response. My bone was NOT with your problem report form.
 
Thanks...

Sorry, yeah I think we were both trying to clarify our points simultaneously. Alex, I'm sorry if I came across wrong.
 
I am trying to be clear however since it seems you're a bit confused about the systems we have in place. I can tell by reading your posts above and how they tell a different story then what actually happened. My involvement is simply to clear it up since, no offense, but you seem to be speaking from the position that you're in the know of what's happening behind the scenes but seem to be a bit confused yourself. This is resulting in what I believe to be misleading others (as well as yourself actually). I'm not trying to point fault at you. I'm just trying to let you know that you're quite a bit off with your perception and analysis regarding emailing technical support. I'm not trying to argue, I'm trying to clear things up.
 
You've contacted us via a variety of manners (I've seen a lot of the work you've been doing via the Problem Report as well). Many of your emails and cases have been sent directly to Technical Support. You've dealt with us a lot and have received email replies from technical support and customer service, multiple times, whether or not you realized that's who they were coming from.
 
We do have a ticketing solution and it is and has been working. The only bug (that I just resolved) was that on one of the forms it wasn't returning the case number to the customer on the initial submission when the case was first created. The cases still went into the system. I'm just trying to clear up for you that there is a system and that the overflow of customers that make it onto the forum is an extremely small percentage.
 
I hope to also communicate that I DO appreciate all of your involvement with other people on the forum and all of the information you've been sending us. I can tell that you're extremely dedicated to both SONAR, this community, as well as helping Cakewalk to continue to make great products. Please don't misunderstand my attempt to let everyone here know that we do in fact have a very functional support department who can and will help. That's all it is. I'm sorry if it came across as anything but.

jeebustrain
 
 
Thanks for the clarification. Should I open up new support requests for my 2 issues? Is there a way for me to see the ticket number (so that I could reference it in another communication) online someplace? The emails I have are totally generic and give no information. This was what was in the ticket I submitted 6 days ago (I was mistaken on the timeframe in my original email).
 

Your forum account email address is different from the one I think you contacted us with. Can you shoot me a private message with the one you used to contact us? There shouldn't be any need to send again.

Whoa Alex c'mon, slow doooooooown. We know you are the king on bug reports, but you have to admit what you're asking is un real ( and yes, you are possibly a gourou etc) oh by the way - yes i did reset then rescan....... Sorry could'nt resist........ Etc etc etc

I get the impression your "bone" is they (the Bakers) don't reply directly to you ....... But then why should they ?

But give them a break

No doubt you'll want the last word, this i am sure, and believe it or not i really do appreciate the advice you give sometimes ..... Well
...... Most of the time, except when you do the automatic rescan thingy which is now robotic !

Carry on, whatever,

J

Ryan from what I see the problem report form is QA and tech support is tech support right or wrong so in my eyes I've only logged one support call whether you wear many hats or not (whatever process happens in your back office shouldn't matter to me here). Well only one issue where I was expecting information/something back (I didn't use the form that said I shouldn't expect anything back). With test cases as you know it's either yes we can repro or no we can't.

Away from the issue I logged with support using an entirely different form (which I regarded as non urgent, but nevertheless asking for help), my perception is I haven't been dealing much with cakewalk at all, I've just been logging bugs and reading where it has been accepted as 'reproducable' or not (computer says yes, computer says no). and that's exactly what I expect (BTW it seems impossible to clarify things with "QA" after test cases get withdrawn).

I think maybe I've PMd maybe two or three times about forums issues. I didn't get a response (maybe one?) but then I didn't expect one. I appreciate you are all busy.
 
However when it comes to support, i.e.. help via the support form, you do need to improve your IT and processes here. If I log a support issue I would hope to be able to track the issue on the web, otherwise when it gets lost it just goes to /dev/null. Besides (as you know) email is an extremely unreliable method of communication when you are dealing with a lot of people.
 
Anyway I'm not expecting you to stroke me as some sort of important guy (I'm not), I'm not even expecting a round of applause (when you're into bugs you get kicked everywhere by everyone, it's by design as you know), I'm expecting an answer to my one and only support call.

Anyway don't worry about it sorry, wires have clearly been crossed, it was just interesting to see the perception from the other end...

Cheers...

I've recently been chasing down a bug in Sonar, and had to do it via email, as I live in England, and Tech Support have always replied.

It can be frustrating waiting for your email to be read, then replied to, and realising that you need to supply further information and start the process again. Cakewalk have always responded, though, and been courteous and helpful.

On a recent issue concerning an ARA bug, the Tech Support guy has been personally going to talk to QA and the developers to make sure the issue is being resolved. Other members of Cake's staff have also chimed in.