BobF
All true, Craig.  I think the most frustrating cases I've witnessed here are when someone doesn't yet know whether or not the problem is in SONAR or Windows/driver/VST, etc. AND they get the silent treatment.
 
In a huge number of cases the users don't help themselves either.  When problems are submitted with zero details, demanding a phone call because they've been a customer for xx years and other problems are submitted with detailed steps leading to the errors, which do you suppose gets looked at first?

Well, when a company is called Cakewalk, there is a perception things are supposed to be easy.
I have posted a topic about this, the #1 problem in regards to support is this: Cakewalk is like the Programming Language PHP, which started as a way to program personal pages. Like PHP, Cakewalk heavily appealed to the project and hobbyist musicians and until recently, did not appeal to the big brokers.

Historically, most tech business start from hobbies, if the people are not smart to quickly move over, it can cause a stigma, which I will say has affected how people perceived Cakewalk.

My point is, when you have this kind of platform, then yes, people expect to get things working without reading anything or taking the time to learn something.

Sonar is easy to use in contrast to Logic and Cubase or DP. However, just because something is easy doesn't mean it's not professional but sometimes this creates a perception.

RME for example makes interfaces that are not very user friendly, and you know what? RME don't care if you find their stuff difficult to use, for that company it's about expectation. Just like BMW, they do not make energy efficient cars, it's not their area of focus.

Cakewalk has set a precedence which is a double edge sword, if something is perceived as easy, then nobody will take the time to try to learn it.

What do you think, when you hear, "Cakewalk?"

two words: late capitalism

This discussion is making me long for the days of Digital Portastudios.  They may have been limited, but they just worked.

Our future - replacing people with robots:
 
As artificial intelligence allows machines to talk more and more like humans, companies are increasingly turning to robots to answer calls from their customers.

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170706-could-robots-put-an-end-to-maddening-customer-service-calls
 
 

It's surely no coincidence that the deterioration in Cakewalk support has coincided with the introduction of rolling monthly updates, which introduce new features (and new bugs) nearly every month. Isn't reducing the frequency of new feature updates a place to start to try and reduce the volume of error reports? This might also allow some movement of resources from development to support to try and get on top of the backlog. (I know the developers won't like this idea!)
 
 

rjeynes
It's surely no coincidence that the deterioration in Cakewalk support has coincided with the introduction of rolling monthly updates, which introduce new features (and new bugs) nearly every month.

It also fixes bugs every month, where we used to have to wait months for a fix.

chuckebaby

rjeynes
It's surely no coincidence that the deterioration in Cakewalk support has coincided with the introduction of rolling monthly updates, which introduce new features (and new bugs) nearly every month.

It also fixes bugs every month, where we used to have to wait months for a fix.

True, but most of the quick fixes are for issues that were introduced during an update. The long term stuff that people complain about, the issues that have been around for years, seem to never go away. I don't know how many there are because there's no accurate tracking and reporting system for customers. 

Anderton
I really think paid support beyond 90 days is the answer.
 

• It would discourage people from adding to support's workload for questions they could get answered in seconds by searching the documentation of visiting the forum.
• It wouldn't add to the price of the program. This matters because people who don't need support wouldn't have to subsidize those who do (or think they do).
• Not having free support is no longer considered out of the ordinary.
• The money paid for support could finance a) adding more support people, and b) solving issues that cause support problems. 

This is outrageous.
Let's see: I have problems with an app. I contact support.
It turns out this is a bug or a fault in the authorisation process that shows after 1 year.
I am supposed to pay for a solution?
Talk about turning the world on its head.
Nonsense.

I can't remember if I ever called CW for support, and I can figure out detours or Windows nonsense. What's infuriating is the number of times Sonar manages to crash the system with a driver/plugin problem. And don't give me that "update your drivers" crap because they ARE up to date and Reaper never has the issues I get with Sonar. Two days ago I solo'd a track in Sonar and played it, and the UI froze - all of it, the space bar, the menus, everything. It simply would not stop or respond. No Windows program should ever do this stuff. These kinds of stupid thing happen too often, and all you can do is start again. In these cases it's not clear that support could do anything anyway if they don't get the crash dump or can't reproduce the problem. 

ampfixer
 
I don't know how many there are because there's no accurate tracking and reporting system for customers.
 

 
The problem reports forum ?
 

ampfixer

The long term stuff that people complain about, the issues that have been around for years, seem to never go away.  
 

 
 
Do you have any examples of those "bugs for years" your referring too ?
Im only asking because I dont.
The delete hole was the one I remember and that was fixed with ripple editing.
Im trying not to sound like a fan boy here but im also trying to keep it real with legit complaints.
Do you really think going back to a yearly cycle is a better way to go ? (receiving Sonar once a year) ?
 
Every month sonar releases an Early release. that ER is given to users who want to participate and then any reported bugs (that are reported on the problem report forum or here) are fixed on the "Live release" which is typically a week later.
Im not sure what else cakewalk could do to please people. Especially given that they have a great roll back system.