Is there some place on the Norton Users Discussion Forum where users can report potential bugs that can't be resolved in the support forum?
The Norton Forum announcements have a post here by Tony Weiss with instructions for reporting false positives, but I can't see a similar post with instructions for reporting potential bugs for users who can't find an answer in the forum.
I can understand why Symantec would prefer that users first try to resolve their problems in the support forum, but I've seen several instances where threads were shut down prematurely (at least in my opinion) just because a regular contributor reported that they couldn't reproduce the problem on their own computer or didn't know of anyone else in the forum with a similar problem. I remember how intimidating it was for me the first time I posted in the NIS forum about a bug (many, many eons ago ) and got shot down by someone with with over 3000 posts who later turned out to be wrong.
Is there any alternative for someone who feels they found a legitimate bug, short of contacting Norton Customer Support? After posting in the NIS/NAV forum for several years, I can't help but feel that resources for fixing bugs in the current "stable" version are sometime lacking once Symantec releases a beta version of their product for testing.
-------- Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * NIS 2011 v. 18.6.0.29 * NU 14.5.0.120 * IE 9.0 * Firefox 5.0 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
Is there some place on the Norton Users Discussion Forum where users can report potential bugs that can't be resolved in the support forum?
The Norton Forum announcements have a post here by Tony Weiss with instructions for reporting false positives, but I can't see a similar post with instructions for reporting potential bugs for users who can't find an answer in the forum.
I can understand why Symantec would prefer that users first try to resolve their problems in the support forum, but I've seen several instances where threads were shut down prematurely (at least in my opinion) just because a regular contributor reported that they couldn't reproduce the problem on their own computer or didn't know of anyone else in the forum with a similar problem. I remember how intimidating it was for me the first time I posted in the NIS forum about a bug (many, many eons ago ) and got shot down by someone with with over 3000 posts who later turned out to be wrong.
Is there any alternative for someone who feels they found a legitimate bug, short of contacting Norton Customer Support? After posting in the NIS/NAV forum for several years, I can't help but feel that resources for fixing bugs in the current "stable" version are sometime lacking once Symantec releases a beta version of their product for testing.
-------- Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * NIS 2011 v. 18.6.0.29 * NU 14.5.0.120 * IE 9.0 * Firefox 5.0 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
You make some very good points but I can see some problems developing. One issue would be the users' understanding of the difference between an actual program malfunction and a software conflict specific to their systems. A lot of users would post all problems on a forum board called Bug Reporting. There is the same problem with Forum Feedback. There was even a problem posted on Forum Clubhouse.
If the problem is reported on the forum that is for the product used at least Symantec employees will see it. We have often seen Symantec staffers that have knowledge of the particular area involved ask for more details.
Of course, just as often, we have not seen a response. Rather than a special forum board, I would rather see a consistent response from Symantec acknowledging the problem.
Rather than having a separate board for bug posting, I was thinking more along the lines of some other forums I post in (e.g., Piriform) where there are 2 subforums for each product that are separated off from the general forum discussions:
Bug Reporting
Suggestions for New Features / Improvements
I kind of like this structure because it tends to separate general "how to" questions in the general forum discussion from the more serious "this isn't working properly" questions. The system is far from perfect - I'm sure less than 1% of the posts in the Bug Reporting subforum would turn out to be real software bugs for the product - but genuine bugs might be escalated faster if expert contributors and company employees were spending more time in the Bug Reporting subforum dealing with problems that couldn't be answered by the average user.
Can you see this type of structure working in the NIS/NAV forum, for example, where users could post possible bugs in a subforum without having to submit a fomal bug report to Symantec, or does this sound like it would it be too much extra work for moderators?
I'm not convinced myself that this is a workable solution, but the current system we have for fixing legitimate bugs just seems too slow and cumbersome.
-------- Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * NIS 2011 v. 18.6.0.29 * NU 14.5.0.120 * IE 9.0 * Firefox 5.0 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
I notice a couple of differences in the Piriform forum compared to this one:
1. The Piriform forum is a much more "specific purpose" forum than this one and is set up for suggestions and bugs. Symantec, I suspect anyway, to answer very simple user questions that would free up support time for more difficult problems.
2. Because of the nature of the Piriform products the general user knowledge level is higher so the forum layout is targeted toward that demographic. Each product has its own bugs and suggestions. This forum is also divided by product, but includes far more issues as a result of licencing, and covers a much wider demographic of user knowledge.
3. There isn't the sheer volume on the Piriform forum which makes it easier to maintain. I notice that there are a lot more unanswered threads on their forum.
In looking at the forum suggestion board, I would think that would make an excellent place to put bug reports, or suggestions on how to fix them. It seems to be headed in that direction to some extent.
I wouldn't want to seen another forum board that looks as much a mess as the Forum Feedback.
Thanks to everyone for your excellent feedback. You've given me lots to think about, so I'll have to ruminate about this a bit more before I pursue this topic with the forum moderators and Symantec employees.
And cheers for all the tech support you've provided in the past. Your help is greatly appreciated.
-------- Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 * NIS 2011 v. 18.6.0.29 * NU 14.5.0.120 * IE 9.0 * Firefox 5.0 HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
Is there any alternative for someone who feels they found a legitimate bug, short of contacting Norton Customer Support? After posting in the NIS/NAV forum for several years, I can't help but feel that resources for fixing bugs in the current "stable" version are sometime lacking once Symantec releases a beta version of their product for testing.
I think the main thing to keep in mind here is that these products have a rather short lifespan. They need to evolve fairly quickly if they are to provide continuous, effective protection against malware. Having a beta test underway for the next version of your product can actually be advantageous, as described a little later below.
As others have mentioned above, the best place to post your potential bug is in the forum for your product. This ensures that other users can test and confirm the issue that you have raised.
To illustrate with a real world example:
A NIS 2011 issue regarding a discrepancy between a link's Site Safety breakout and the associated Safe Web Full Report was originally posted and confirmed here:
The issue was acknowledged by the Norton development team and has now been resolved in the NIS 2012 beta product.
The point here is that if a bug has been identified, then the public beta testing phase presents an opportunity to see if it has been resolved in the new version or if the issue needs to be raised as a defect to be addressed before the beta testing ends. Obviously, all beta issues get prioritized based on importance so there are no guarantees that it will get resolved. The opportunity still stands, nevertheless.
In terms of tracking threads that report potential bugs, the 'Tag' feature of the forum can be used here. For example, the original thread above has been tagged 'BUG_2011_NIS'. If you perform a search using that string, that thread will be the only result returned. Anyway, I'm sure you can see the potential here.
) and got shot down by someone with with over 3000 posts who later turned out to be wrong.