Fibaro support service quality

[pos 22]

I had a support case that Fibaro answered after 2 weeks. We scheduled a team viewer session and Fibaro got credentials for a connection. I sat and waited like a fool and no one connected. Then I sent a mail asking what happened. After three days I still have no reply to the e-mail.

 

If I log a case and they answer slowly, that I can live with. But sitting like a fool and waiting for a scheduled session makes me wonder if I should use something else than Fibaro. I do not know Poland well. But if this is accepted in Poland, maybe Fibaro should stay on their local market as other countries have other meanings of what customer service and support is.

 

Just want to know if this happens to others as well.

 

Peo

[KristianO 15]

Is there a support? I thought the shut down that apartment. 

[tinman 1,025]

of course there is support, but it is free of charge manufacturer support, so as usual it can sometimes takes longer than one would like to get.

 

In emergency situation, you can always give us a call / PM me, but our support is of course not for free.

[JamieSonegoAus 6]

They charge enough for their units to cover the costs of running a half decent helpdesk

 

[Sankotronic 2,093]

I agree with @tinman,

 

free support just can't be fast enough to accommodate everyone. Besides it is difficult to filter all cases and help first those in real need because that also takes time.

 

[pos 22]

On 6/20/2017 at 9:56 AM, tinman said:

of course there is support, but it is free of charge manufacturer support, so as usual it can sometimes takes longer than one would like to get.

 

In emergency situation, you can always give us a call / PM me, but our support is of course not for free.

 

@tinman

If you cannot fix bugs in Fibaro firmware it is unfortunately no help for me

 

Regards

Peo

[tinman 1,025]

1 minute ago, pos said:

 

@tinman

If you cannot fix bugs in Fibaro firmware it is unfortunately no help for me

 

Regards

Peo

 

from your first posting in this topic it was for me just a support case, not a bug / debugging case (bugzilla.fibaro.com is better place to post bugs, to use support will not necessarily speed-up something). 

[pos 22]

1 hour ago, Sankotronic said:

I agree with @tinman,

 

free support just can't be fast enough to accommodate everyone. Besides it is difficult to filter all cases and help first those in real need because that also takes time.

 

 

@Sankotronic

Support regarding stuff you don’t understand is one thing. That would probably go under the free help support…. In that case I agree.

 

But logging cases where it is for sure a bug and you will get no answer at all (or after a month or two). That is bad. That also means the bug probably won't be fixed in the next or any release (if they don’t read the cases but just don’t care to reply).

 

I agree it takes time to filter out people who just needs help with the ones logging a bug. But then Fibaro have the wrong setup. They should probably have one separate e-mail for pure bug reporting. Could be a form where you have to fill in stuff in a certain order a dedicated people working on it. And I know you are not happy either. I have read your posts. I am too looking for something else…. The reason I look for something else is the total lack of documentation and the absence of Fibaro staff handling bug reports. The reason for using Fibaro HC2 in the first place was to have a product that would get you up and running quickly with programming in LUA for complex additions. As I turns out I can code everything myself in Linux instead of spending time talking ot a wall. Then I can at least switch kernel or libs myself if there is a bug.

 

With Fibaro you are just stuck if you find a bug.

 

PS

Now I have a scheduled session with Fibaro again later this week for bug track. Let's see if they handle it well...

 

 

/Peo

13 minutes ago, tinman said:

 

from your first posting in this topic it was for me just a support case, not a bug / debugging case (bugzilla.fibaro.com is better place to post bugs, to use support will not necessarily speed-up something). 

 

@tinman

Sorry for that. I contacted support, yes. But it is a bug case.

 

This time it was this I logged (I got a support ticket number back).... I also posted it in the forum here:

Please login or register to see this link.

(what do you think?)

 

Well.... I did not actually know they had a Bugzilla. New news to me... I though their support e-mail was the only channel.

 

I have a developer account at Fibaro. I cannot remember I have seen any references to their bugzilla there or in any other forum. But I have a scheduled time with Fibaro now. But I think they actually don't need to have session with me. This is 100% reproducible.

 

Peo

Edited June 26, 2017 by pos

[jakub.jezek 350]

For some mine cases, quality of Fibaro support is great.

 

Also as Fibaro partner i'm using dedicated channel. I cannot tell you what channel is it. So i'm mostly getting answer before customers, that send mail to Fibaro support. So, if you have reproduce-able problem, i'm suggest to send it to Fibaro partner in you country, if it offers technical support, with a details for reproduction (not everybody is prophet) and details about your HC (SN, version, ...)

 

And sometimes there are ticket systems issue (not Fibaro one, those what customers using).

If i'm contacting Fibaro, then answering they answer generates 2 tickets on Fibaro side. When i'm closing tickets on my side, then it generate 4 tickets. So when they go through that generated "s**t" (sorry for using swear words), then they need to connect that tickets and close them.

 

We use Freshdesk, and for a contact with customer it is awsome, but for contacting other companies that using another ticket system, then it is like ping pong.

[tinman 1,025]

2 hours ago, pos said:

Well.... I did not actually know they had a Bugzilla. New news to me... I though their support e-mail was the only channel.

 

as @jakub.jezek said, there are not only the public known support channels (email, phone, bugzilla, kb, manuals) but for us distributors as well dedicated channels to provide help to customers, and believe me or not, but they really care about customers satisfaction.

[Sankotronic 2,093]

Hi @pos,

 

Yes, I'm upset with how Fibaro development team deal with bugs and that I have to adapt my LUA code after every firmware update to somehow avoid this bugs and make HC2 still function properly! I never really ask for their support simply because they can help me only by finally change the way how to deal with bugs in software! 

 

I have my HC2 now for more than a year and half (oh God how time flies!) and despite many problems and bugs I never had to do system recovery. Simple backup restore always did a trick. And I did have my share of problems: devices disappearing, devices not configured (initialisation error), HC2 freezing, false flood alarms, VD main loops stop running, scenes stopping with strange errors, devices not excluded properly or devices not included properly, 503, etc.

 

But not all problems comes from bugs in software and there are many cases where problems are caused by users not understanding the basics of the wireless systems and good programming practice. HC2 is definitely not plug-and-play system and Fibaro advertisement that it is is just a empty wish. There is documentation available but that documentation only covers some basic stuff and even that not entirely because it is not updated together with firmware updates. For more advanced HA on Fibaro there is nothing but this Forum and members that are willing to share their knowledge and experience.

 

What also bothers me that Fibaro don't take this forum and members seriously. One administrator with enough knowledge could do miracles here, but instead they are mostly just moving posts around. It is too bad that @A.Socha and @T.Konopka are not here more often because their help is valuable and respectful and can reduce pressure on Fibaro support greatly in my opinion!

 

So, after 4.130 release I was upset and disappointed because some of the old bugs are still not resolved and some new are introduced. After upgrading to 4.130 i had to rewrite some of my code to make it work under new firmware bugs. Biggest disappointment was finding out that variable panel is unable to keep table values and destroys them with trivial clicking on Save button in variable panel. LUA just likes tables and has good support for them, but on HC2 is crippled due to that problem. I believe that I already have solution for that too but now I have to rewrite all my VD's again. So, it just bothers me that instead of making HA I have to spend lots of time on finding workarounds for bugs that shouldn't even be in stable releases at least.

 

And sorry for this OT, but I don't have any experience with Fibaro support since until now I really didn't needed them to solve my problems with HC2. As I wrote, I only need Fibaro development team to roll up sleeves and finally deal with at least some of the nasty bugs in the system and to update documentation to reflect latest features.

 

[pos 22]

35 minutes ago, Sankotronic said:

Hi @pos,

 

Yes, I'm upset with how Fibaro development team deal with bugs and that I have to adapt my LUA code after every firmware update to somehow avoid this bugs and make HC2 still function properly! I never really ask for their support simply because they can help me only by finally change the way how to deal with bugs in software! 

 

I have my HC2 now for more than a year and half (oh God how time flies!) and despite many problems and bugs I never had to do system recovery. Simple backup restore always did a trick. And I did have my share of problems: devices disappearing, devices not configured (initialisation error), HC2 freezing, false flood alarms, VD main loops stop running, scenes stopping with strange errors, devices not excluded properly or devices not included properly, 503, etc.

 

But not all problems comes from bugs in software and there are many cases where problems are caused by users not understanding the basics of the wireless systems and good programming practice. HC2 is definitely not plug-and-play system and Fibaro advertisement that it is is just a empty wish. There is documentation available but that documentation only covers some basic stuff and even that not entirely because it is not updated together with firmware updates. For more advanced HA on Fibaro there is nothing but this Forum and members that are willing to share their knowledge and experience.

 

What also bothers me that Fibaro don't take this forum and members seriously. One administrator with enough knowledge could do miracles here, but instead they are mostly just moving posts around. It is too bad that @A.Socha and @T.Konopka are not here more often because their help is valuable and respectful and can reduce pressure on Fibaro support greatly in my opinion!

 

So, after 4.130 release I was upset and disappointed because some of the old bugs are still not resolved and some new are introduced. After upgrading to 4.130 i had to rewrite some of my code to make it work under new firmware bugs. Biggest disappointment was finding out that variable panel is unable to keep table values and destroys them with trivial clicking on Save button in variable panel. LUA just likes tables and has good support for them, but on HC2 is crippled due to that problem. I believe that I already have solution for that too but now I have to rewrite all my VD's again. So, it just bothers me that instead of making HA I have to spend lots of time on finding workarounds for bugs that shouldn't even be in stable releases at least.

 

And sorry for this OT, but I don't have any experience with Fibaro support since until now I really didn't needed them to solve my problems with HC2. As I wrote, I only need Fibaro development team to roll up sleeves and finally deal with at least some of the nasty bugs in the system and to update documentation to reflect latest features.

 

 

I agree on it all. And I too have the basic requirement that they should take the bugs seriously. Support, yes.. But fix nasty bugs are more important.

 

PS

Can you please describe the bug you see with tables stored in variables? Asking as I will compare and see if anything is similar to my logged problem with tables. Maybe you have a thread you can refer to, so this thread is not changed to something else.

 

Peo

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[T.Konopka 8]

Hello guys!

 

Thank you for this discussion. It is very informative for me and my team.

When it comes to the Support, I can only apologize for such situation that happened to @pos - this should not occur. I can assure you that the Support team is working hard to address all the issues. Filtering them is not very hard, but... it is extremely time-consuming. Moreover, we are still being flooded with questions since the introduction of FibaroID. We are doing our best.

@Sankotronic, I am back, no need to be worried anymore

[Sankotronic 2,093]

 

6 minutes ago, T.Konopka said:

@Sankotronic, I am back, no need to be worried anymore

 

@T.Konopka,

 

I'm really happy that you are back with us here on forum. Sky is getting clear now  

[pos 22]

@T.Konopka

 

I just want to say it is a big plus that you commented here and tell us that you actually read this, even though it is not just positive feedback. It is also a good thing of you to show that you do care of the issues. Being quiet is bad...

 

Thanks

 

Peo

[petergebruers 1,261]

28 minutes ago, T.Konopka said:

Hello guys!

 

Thank you for this discussion. It is very informative for me and my team.

When it comes to the Support, I can only apologize for such situation that happened to @pos - this should not occur. I can assure you that the Support team is working hard to address all the issues. Filtering them is not very hard, but... it is extremely time-consuming. Moreover, we are still being flooded with questions since the introduction of FibaroID. We are doing our best.

@Sankotronic, I am back, no need to be worried anymore

 

Welcome back!

[Bodyart 229]

Hi @T.Konopka,

 

Welcom back again.

[TRicky 84]

Great to see you back again @T.Konopka!

[Escooby 4]

T konopka

Welkom back