coolbass

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.

Bugs can be reported on the problem report forum.
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Problem-Reports-f77.aspx
 
Authorizations are handled by account support, not tech support.  They have always handled my issues promptly.
https://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Email/Activation

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. 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!)

 
I brought up this very subject and I was slammed and hammered for being critical.


In my post I asserted that because Cakewalk was self-compelled to release updates each Month to justify the subscription model, there was a lack of focus on quality of existing feature, so rather than focus of what's working and improve it, they were more focus on getting stuff out by any means.

Again, that was mine opinion and it didn't sit well with others.

I personally, do not know of any other software company releasing updates at this pace. And also; I have to say I feel sorry for the developers behind the scenes. These people must be under tremendous pressure to have stuff ready.
I am sure there are companies but I do not know of one.

Adobe has a subscription model and they do not release monthly updates.

Sonar is a great software and Cakewalk is not a bad company, so focus on what works, release updates but not monthly, maybe every other Month, this way you can focus on the core of your business objectives.

While most of the updates are relevant, I do not need updates to use the Software, unless this was security or performance updates.

I see some of my friends on here persistently asking about updates and monthly releases, do you really need that?

In 2017, Sonar should not be crashing, focus on that. Oh let me see, it does not happen to me so it's nothing to do with the software, that's the other guys problem.

Without looking, I seem to recall that the last coupla updates were primarily fixes without major new features.
 
<begin tangent>
EVERYBODY and there siblings are pushing updates.  I bet I spend 100X more time dealing with updates these days compared to 5, maybe 10 years ago. 
<end tangent>
 

I think the title of this post is enough to incite a bad response from most. Many have had a positive experience, several have had less than stellar experiences.
 
We know that support still exists. Alex has said they are looking into this problem which btw probably isn't expedited by a nasty post. 
 
I have been on both sides of service. Sometimes being a tech and listening to a customer is similar to being asked to poop gold bricks. Rather WE DEMAND you poop gold bricks. We might say, we are doing this and that. We are doing our very best and it isn't good enough. There is a disagreement on what is considered to be reasonable. 
 
Who is the best person to deal with issues? If Cake hires from the outside, they need to train people unfamiliar with the issues. Wouldn't you rather have someone who has used Sonar for the last 15 years on a daily basis dealing with your problem? How about a bunch of people like this? Enter the forum. Don't discount good advice.
 
 What would it cost to man Cake with 20 full time Sonar "experts" to listen to any whim of the customer? Some say the software is already too expensive. Imagine adding that into the cost.
 
Since I'm a tech I tend to side with the techs because I see some of the things demanding customers don't see.
 
When you buy any product you enter into a kind of relationship with it. You use it a lot and expect certain things from it. Yet we still need to be reasonable. Expectations are way too high in many cases. Compare Sonar to any other and you will see nothing different. Cubase has plenty of bugs. Avid has problems. What are they doing? 
 
One thing I would like to see is a very good troubleshooting section. We have all seen those that ask if we plugged it in. I mean something deep. This would weed out the customer complaints for the smaller stuff. Something like a buzz noise in the electronics can be a myriad of potential issues. The customer really does need to own some of this. Making it work well depends of good connections and setup. In many cases Cake is blamed and it isn't Cake at all. Just sayin' 

chuckebaby
Do you have any examples of those "bugs for years" your referring too ?

I can give you two: gain and polarity settings are not recalled with track templates (CWBRN-46618, reported 2/2016); and copy/paste or split-to-clips operations with multiple sets of grouped clips result in all new clips placed into a single group (CWBRN-41961, reported 11/2015). Both of those reports address behavior that cropped up with X3, so they were introduced long before I reported them - I pretty much skipped right from X2 to SPlat, and only checked the above problems in X3 when I did my homework to file the bug reports.
 
FWIW, Cakewalk support never followed up on either of those problem reports, both of which are platform-independent so therefore not a system issue unique to me.
 
I don't have a problem with paid support, but in this case, I'm not even talking about something that could be solved by a customer service rep. When Cakewalk doesn't have the infrastructure to keep up with program issues introduced by new editions of its software, that's a concern, especially with the new monthly paradigm.
 
I get it. Cakewalk is understaffed in this department, and even though the above bugs affect me every day, they're not affecting a large enough portion of its user base to become a priority. But Chuck, don't brush off people who bring up long-standing issues just because those issues haven't affected you.

Starise
I think the title of this post is enough to incite a bad response from most. Many have had a positive experience, several have had less than stellar experiences.
 
We know that support still exists. Alex has said they are looking into this problem which btw probably isn't expedited by a nasty post. 
 
I have been on both sides of service. Sometimes being a tech and listening to a customer is similar to being asked to poop gold bricks. Rather WE DEMAND you poop gold bricks. We might say, we are doing this and that. We are doing our very best and it isn't good enough. There is a disagreement on what is considered to be reasonable. 
 
Who is the best person to deal with issues? If Cake hires from the outside, they need to train people unfamiliar with the issues. Wouldn't you rather have someone who has used Sonar for the last 15 years on a daily basis dealing with your problem? How about a bunch of people like this? Enter the forum. Don't discount good advice.
 
 What would it cost to man Cake with 20 full time Sonar "experts" to listen to any whim of the customer? Some say the software is already too expensive. Imagine adding that into the cost.
 
Since I'm a tech I tend to side with the techs because I see some of the things demanding customers don't see.
 
When you buy any product you enter into a kind of relationship with it. You use it a lot and expect certain things from it. Yet we still need to be reasonable. Expectations are way too high in many cases. Compare Sonar to any other and you will see nothing different. Cubase has plenty of bugs. Avid has problems. What are they doing? 
 
One thing I would like to see is a very good troubleshooting section. We have all seen those that ask if we plugged it in. I mean something deep. This would weed out the customer complaints for the smaller stuff. Something like a buzz noise in the electronics can be a myriad of potential issues. The customer really does need to own some of this. Making it work well depends of good connections and setup. In many cases Cake is blamed and it isn't Cake at all. Just sayin' 

You post is extra loaded and bloated with excuses. 

Maybe it's the language barrier here, but you aren't making any sense now at all.
 
Extra loaded? What do you mean by that comment???? Excuses?? I can maybe see how you think there are excuses. 
I don't see them as such 
 
Reasons are not excuses.

kicksville
 
 I can give you two: gain and polarity settings are not recalled with track templates

 
The gain not being remembered in track template was already fixed months ago, maybe even a year now.
Matter of fact I just checked it 2 mintues ago to confirm.
Polarity ? Im not sure what your referring to. Do you mean phase ? because there is no polarity setting in Sonar.
If you mean phase, you are correct, it is not saved with a template.
 

kicksville
 
 and copy/paste or split-to-clips operations with multiple sets of grouped clips result in all new clips placed into a single group
 

 
Possibly you haven't seen the bug fixes list that are given each month with every update ?
These 2 were also fixed:

• Split Tool didn't always split grouped clips in take lanes
• Split Tool didn't create desired selection groups

 
 
Possibly you are running an older version of Sonar ?
 
I'm all for a better product but is our best example really a phase button not being saved on a track template ?
 

Starise
Maybe it's the language barrier here, but you aren't making any sense now at all.
 
Extra loaded? What do you mean by that comment???? Excuses?? I can maybe see how you think there are excuses. 
I don't see them as such 
 
Reasons are not excuses.

Loaded as in written to solicit a response. You know based on the origination of this Post that the OP is frustrated about the lack of support. So responding without making Cakewalk accountable in some form, even if little, can come across as loaded.

For example: I said in one of my posts that it is not unusual for companies to have bad or no support and the OP experience with CK Support is not isolated to or exclusive to Cakewalk. With that said, I also recommended that Cakewalk have paid support or that they do not make promises or expectations that they cannot keep.

Cakewalk is a company, and sometimes I understand the emotional connection most users have but I have to tell you, I love Yamaha but Yamaha is not my brother or my child, if my $4000 Montage breaks, I am going to not be happy, is that simple.

I am sometimes flabbergasted as to the length people will go to exonerate Cakewalk, no other company gets these breaks.

It's nothing personal, but do not make promise you cannot keep, do not make people feel as though your system is easy when in fact it is not. 

Most of the issues here could be fix by re-working the language on how they advertise products.
 
If you do not have enough support staff then maybe cut on the number of releases or start a Pay Support System. Or better yet, reward users, like Microsoft does with the MVP status so that they are better incline to dive deeper into issues that arises.

Come on Cake, the ideas are all over the place.

I agree with Starise, myself. Being in tech industry.