Reply from Crazy Domains

Story: I'm So Annoyed I Could SpitTotal Replies: 7
Author Content
Shaun_sYra

Nov 11, 2008
10:22 PM EDT
Hi Tracyanne,

As the CTO for Crazydomains, I can respond with authority on this issue.

1: There is nothing we don't offer support on as far as client side software goes. The type of support we can offer on various software packages will differ depending on their popularity. For example, you can expect great step-by-step (read: hand holding) support for all things Microsoft. Fact is, these are the most popular. If you use something a little more obscure, one of our tech support staff may be able to find screenshots or something and guide you through. (Ie, Apple Mail). If you use something that none of our staff have heard of before (Evolution), all you can expect is some generic support, such as the basic settings. If you are using something like this, you should be capable of finding the configuration wizard and interpreting its instructions on what settings to put where.

2: The issue that you had was nothing that we had to 'fix'. You requested to enable hosting on your previously parked domain, adailypenguin.com. This required a change to your DNS, specifically, where it was delegated to. Domain registries can take some time to update these records, and there is nothing that can be done.Additionally, your ISP's DNS server will cache records that you (or any of their other customers lookup). The TTLs on your records may be as long as 24 hours, so if your ISP has cached one of these records prior to the changes occurring, this can add further delays to the changes required.

3: Our support tech informed you that you'd need to wait a few hours and it should hopefully start working for you. He also mentioned that if it didn't work, it may be a setting in your client, and if you wanted to, you could call back for more help.

Hopefully this clears up all your issues. Failing that, please get in touch with me via the helpdesk. Ask to be forwarded to Shaun in the Engineering department.

Further posts to forums will be ignored; its not the most productive or effective way to resolve your problems.

Cheers! -Shaun
tracyanne

Nov 11, 2008
10:58 PM EDT
Quoting:: There is nothing we don't offer support on as far as client side software goes. ......


That is not what the help deskperson said to me. He first of all wanted me to open Outlook. I told him I don't use Outlook. When I told him I use Evolution, he told me you don't support it, and that he was not familiar with it, so he couldn't help me. He then asked me if i had Mozilla Thunderbird, which I obligingly installed.

When we got the same results in Thunder bird he told me the problem was at my end.

There is and was no problem at my end.

Quoting:2: The issue that you had was nothing that we had to 'fix'. You requested to enable hosting on your previously parked domain, adailypenguin.com. This required a change to your DNS, specifically, where it was delegated to. Domain registries can take some time to update these records, and there is nothing that can be done........


What you fail to mention is that you were requested to enable 2 domains, feral-penguin.com.au and adailypenguin.com. feral-penguin.com.au was available within minutes. What specifically is different about adailypenguin.com that it took over 48 hours to become available?

Quoting:3: Our support tech informed you that you'd need to wait a few hours and it should hopefully start working for you. He also mentioned that if it didn't work, it may be a setting in your client, and if you wanted to, you could call back for more help.


There were no setting changes required on my client end to access feral-penguin.com.au which was commissioned within minutes of adailypenguin.com (or so I am lead to believe).

He did not say that I could get back if I needed additional help, he asked me if I could do the tests from a Windows computer, and that he could not help me with my current setup. He suggested that if I was willing to use Windows and Outlook he could help me.

Quoting:Hopefully this clears up all your issues. Failing that, please get in touch with me via the helpdesk. Ask to be forwarded to Shaun in the Engineering department.


Not really, but it does increase my respect for you, as you were at least willing to respond in public.
tracyanne

Nov 12, 2008
1:16 AM EDT
While we're all concentrating on whether or not CrazyDomains supports this or that email client. I should point out I did not call the help desk to get help setting up my email client. So what email client I had was, or should have been, irrelevant. I called them to find out why one domain was problematic, while the other was not.

It was the help desk person who treated the issues as a problem with my email client, everything I did was to get us past that point to where we could deal with the real problem. In the end rather than refer this to a more senior technical person, he settled for telling me it was a problem with my set up.

penguinist

Nov 12, 2008
3:01 PM EDT
Shaun,

First, I would like to commend you for making a public response to the issue of support for your Linux users. This speaks to your character, openness, and customer concern.

You should probably know that many of us who use and love Linux have encountered resistance when dealing with technical support at our ISPs, and perhaps our collective experience is spilling over to you. Maybe both sides of the phone could take time to step back and look at the other's point of view.

You say: "There is nothing we don't offer support on as far as client side software goes." You said this well, because the number ONE thing that will be guaranteed to make a Linux user cringe is to hear "we only support windows". Most of the Linux users I know are highly competent technically, and are almost undoubtedly not expecting support on their Linux OS. They are on the phone to resolve a network issue.

In tracyanne's case, the technician chose to take a troubleshooting path with a highly qualified software professional that was appropriate for an unskilled windows user, but inefficient (and frustrating) in tracyanne's case.

In reading through the scenario, I'm seeing that a different troubleshooting path could have yielded results in a couple minutes and would have avoided the mutual frustration. (and saved your company time/money)

- Open a terminal nslookup adailypenguin.com ns131.syra.net.au nslookup adailypenguin.com

The first command verifies that dns is set up at the ISPs end, and the second command checks to see if it has propagated to tracyanne's DNS. By the way, this works on windows too.

If the first test passes, then drill down a level and look at email specifically:

dig @ns131.syra.net.au adailypenguin.com mx dig adailypenguin.com mx

Do you see how simple and elegant such troubleshooting can be. Now compare that with a long and tedious trial and error runthrough of email client setup parameters.
tracyanne

Nov 12, 2008
4:49 PM EDT
@penguinist, I'm a dumb idiot, that would have answered my question immediately, and if I had a better understanding of the commands, I might even have thought to do that.
tracyanne

Nov 13, 2008
12:32 AM EDT
I tried to phone Shaun as he requested, but his voice was so muffled I could hardly hear him, after attempting to begin a conversation with him I gave up, as he seemed unable to provide a clear line, or speak up.
gus3

Nov 13, 2008
2:23 AM EDT
@tracyanne: Did you give it only one attempt? The connection might have been a bad one ("always check the physical layer first"). Another call may prove more audible.
tracyanne

Nov 13, 2008
5:02 AM EDT
It was my lunch break, I only get a finite amount of time, so yes.

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