Feel free to rant at me all you like. I get a lot during my day job at times. [Might have something to do with working for a law enforcement agency] At any rate. Over the past 25 or so years of being a customer of Norton/Symantec [it was Norton for many years before it became Symantec] they have always been very good at many things and seem to avoid association with others. Communications during a crisis is perhaps the most difficult thing to get right. Outages, rolling or global or just regional make it even more difficult to announce.
Whenever I think that they should have done it better, faster I get hit by my own failings so I am trying, as I get older, to be a bit more tolerant and let the experts do their thing without me hanging over their shoulder wanting to know what they are doing and how soon they will be finished.
The external drive as a backup destination works. I used it, taking the backups to the bank each morning, at a job which couldn't survive a crash that lasted as long as it would take to reenter all of the data manually from paper records. More than once I had to get a backup out of the bank and restore information. At least once a month to prove to the boss that it was working and worth the cost of the bank box
They will get it fixed and all will be well but I don't think there's anybody that wants to say just when that will be. They are trying and at times it seems that they are very trying
Another thing that I feel could be improved greatly is meaningfull error messages. Let's assume I am the only customer facing this problem, why not give me a "could not reach backup servers" error message or something like that to give me a good idea of why it isn't working. Now all we get is a "something went wrong" and a few error codes which doesn't seem to mean anything even to the support personel staffing the chatrooms, even less to us customers.
Sorry but I just feel Symantec is doing everything backwards here, and as far from what I feel is the standard in the industry (give meaningfull error messages, inform customers about know problems).
Try to remember, though, that you're only seeing one particular form of user experience--and if it were a good one, you likely would never have come to these forums. For more than two decades, my Norton products have done exactly what they said they would. I've almost never seen a Norton error message, and on those rare occasions when I have, it was clear, understandable, and helpful--so I suspect these bizarre numbers, when you see them, are just the only thing that can be determined automatically; the actual cause and description could, technically, be any number of things that might result in that code.
From there, it takes a human being with some diagnostic skills...or, perhaps, cloudsourcing the front end of support as Norton has done. 90% of the times I've helped someone with one of those cryptic codes, simply typing it into the search box pulls up a good explanation of the range of possibilities; maybe about half the time it actually pulls up a solution that I can just cite. If the user has the skills to do all that themselves, they have ready access to all the information they can use; if not, that's what we're here for--and, I might add, an army of volunteers who have used Norton products for decades, distributed around the world, can answer faster and in many cases in more detail than the finite number of front-line staffers Symantec can maintain, who can generally only accumulate so much experience before they move up or move on.
Again, Symantec is the industry standard--and they could not have remained so for all this time by "doing everything backwards." It is far more likely--as in this case--that there are details involved that are transparent to you that explain why this type of rare experience has to be such a pain. And more than likely, it will all be set right soon.
No offence, but being a software developer for the last 25 years, I wouldn't even claim that my own programs worked without problems for the last decades. Having been a customer before of Norton a few years ago, I wouldn't claim that this goes for Norton/Symantec either. On the other hand, I wouldn't say that about any other software I've used either. Also as a software developer, I find it impossible to beleive that it wouldn't be possible to provide some more detailed error messages than this.
Industry standard, again, no offence, but I think there are a few companies that would object to having Symantec claim the title as being the industry standard for the software industry. In some areas though they are probably the leading provider, even more reason then to live up the the expectations as such.
I must say I am confused about about the reactions here, I am paying full price for a service that is very important to me, and hasn't been working for the last couple of weeks despite me having put many hours into it, and you almost seem to be offended by me being frustrated about this? In my book, it should be Symantec appologizing for the problems, telling us when they would be fixed, and offer some kind of compensation for it. What am I missing here?
Clearly, I can only report what I've experienced, on my own systems and on those I've been responsible for--and that is exactly as I've described it.
I can't blame you at all for being frustrated--as I've said all along. I'd be frustrated too. But I don't believe you're being reasonable to blame or denigrate Symantec for it in the way that you have been--after all, by your own admission, not even your own programs always work without error--and to back that up, I've provided you with what you've been missing at each step along the way. You don't seem inclined to change your mind, though--which is, of course, your absolute right. But I am indeed a bit offended by your continuing to do so, on a forum provided and paid for by the company you're badmouthing, on which you're receiving exactly the information you're wishing for, to the extent that it can currently be provided.
Believe what you will, and act as you must. Like my colleagues before me, I am moving on to other threads.
Another thing that I feel could be improved greatly is meaningfull error messages. Let's assume I am the only customer facing this problem, why not give me a "could not reach backup servers" error message or something like that to give me a good idea of why it isn't working. Now all we get is a "something went wrong" and a few error codes which doesn't seem to mean anything even to the support personel staffing the chatrooms, even less to us customers.
Sorry but I just feel Symantec is doing everything backwards here, and as far from what I feel is the standard in the industry (give meaningfull error messages, inform customers about know problems).
Hi,
I'm all for the best possible error messages. Can you help me design a way to give you the cause of the problem when the server isn't online or there are internal errors due to a disk or component failure? These usually cause random errors which make it seem like you are chasing a shadow.
I've tried to do this before when I had a network to run and it took more time and resources to try to provide error messages than it finally took to repair the problem. For scheduled maintenance I was able to do a small redirect to a message that said "The server is off line for maintenance. Please try back after 0200 EST."
I know I can't do better so I don't try to second guess them on what 'they should have done'.
Clearly, I can only report what I've experienced, on my own systems and on those I've been responsible for--and that is exactly as I've described it.
I can't blame you at all for being frustrated--as I've said all along. I'd be frustrated too. But I don't believe you're being reasonable to blame or denigrate Symantec for it in the way that you have been--after all, by your own admission, not even your own programs always work without error--and to back that up, I've provided you with what you've been missing at each step along the way. You don't seem inclined to change your mind, though--which is, of course, your absolute right. But I am indeed a bit offended by your continuing to do so, on a forum provided and paid for by the company you're badmouthing, on which you're receiving exactly the information you're wishing for, to the extent that it can currently be provided.
Believe what you will, and act as you must. Like my colleagues before me, I am moving on to other threads.
Are you kidding me? Symantec software/service does not work and you don't want me to blame the vendor? When my own software does not work as expected, I find nothing strange with my clients being frustraded and disappointed by this, and I of course appologize for the the problems and try to correct them as quickly as possible.
What have you been providing for "what you've been missing each step along the way"? What I have mainly asked for is a fix to the problems so I can use the services I pay for, I've also asked for information regarding what the problems actually are, and what I can see, I've received neither. I'm not badmouthing anything, I am reporting about the problems I experience and the lack of solutions for it and information regarding it. Isn't that the whole idea of a support forum? Or is this forums just for people praising Symantec or their products?
From what I see in other posts in this and other threads, I am far from the only one having problems with the backup service.
Another thing that I feel could be improved greatly is meaningfull error messages. Let's assume I am the only customer facing this problem, why not give me a "could not reach backup servers" error message or something like that to give me a good idea of why it isn't working. Now all we get is a "something went wrong" and a few error codes which doesn't seem to mean anything even to the support personel staffing the chatrooms, even less to us customers.
Sorry but I just feel Symantec is doing everything backwards here, and as far from what I feel is the standard in the industry (give meaningfull error messages, inform customers about know problems).
Hi,
I'm all for the best possible error messages. Can you help me design a way to give you the cause of the problem when the server isn't online or there are internal errors due to a disk or component failure? These usually cause random errors which make it seem like you are chasing a shadow.
I've tried to do this before when I had a network to run and it took more time and resources to try to provide error messages than it finally took to repair the problem. For scheduled maintenance I was able to do a small redirect to a message that said "The server is off line for maintenance. Please try back after 0200 EST."
I know I can't do better so I don't try to second guess them on what 'they should have done'.
Well, I don't know the inner functionality of Nortons product, but I assume it's running on top of the operating system and using functions in it for handling of network and disk stuff. If so, I'm guessing that exceptions will have been thrown which would be a start at least. Having your own custom error messages as the ones you mention is of course even better, but I know myself it can be quite a pain to maintain those across different products/languages.
I tried to look myself in the log files but they seem to be in an unreadable format, and the option to export the og file as TXT-files seems not to exist any more.
Some good news, the last 2 backup attempts have been successful. Let's hope it's not a temporary thing and that the engineers responsible at Norton has managed to find a solution to the problems.
Some good news, the last 2 backup attempts have been successful. Let's hope it's not a temporary thing and that the engineers responsible at Norton has managed to find a solution to the problems.
Hi,
Problems are being solved but they are not all solved at this point in time.
