Support Desk - replies bump me to bottom of queue!

[infinite]

Hi guys

I thought I read somewhere in these forums recently that if you replied to a support ticket you would NOT be bumped to the bottom of the queue.

I've had an issue that's been running for nearly 8 hours now (since initially submitting my ticket KJJ-2605634) and I have had one response.

I updated the ticket a couple of times with more info that would be useful to the admins.... and hadn't heard anything in about 4 hours. So....

I contacted Live Chat to check on the status as this is affecting 3 of my dedicated servers (appears to be a perl automatic upgrade which is causing the issue) and they told me that each time I reply, I am moved to the bottom of the queue again! I was under the impression that this issue was rectified ages ago and you were able to reply to provide further info and wouldn't be disadvantaged.

Anyhow... this is causing some serious issues to my clients and I needed to "vent" and also let you know that (in my humble opinion) this system is far from satisfactory if someone is bumped just for providing additional information which may help you guys get the issue resolved quicker.

I look forward to someone shedding some light on this for me. Is it actually correct that we still get put at the back of the queue if we reply to a ticket?

Regards,

Aaron

[whatrevolution]

I also thought that this policy had been removed or reversed. I strongly oppose it. When I file a support ticket, I continue to investigate my problem, but additions to the ticket do not indicate that the problem is solved, and my continued attention does not relieve support of their responsibility.

My additional postings should not bump the ticket, of course. The ticket queue should be completely unaffected by further interaction with the ticket.

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by infinite

Is it actually correct that we still get put at the back of the queue if we reply to a ticket?

Yes, it is correct. They posted the opposite of this at one point a few weeks/months ago, but reversed what they said shortly after.

[infinite]

Thanks for the clarification slapshotw

Having said this, I have to say that that's a TERRIBLE system.
Why make me wait over 10 hours to even get this looked into just because I've added some extra information to a ticket.

What's worse - in situations such as these (keep in mind I have 3 dedicated servers that current cannot run .cgi scripts due to what appears to have been an automatic cpanel perl update last night), we are left with no idea as to where we a) sit in the queue, or b) if our ticket is being worked on currently.

There HAS to be a better system than that. I can't even give my clients a timeframe on when the issue is likely to be rectified because if I reply and ask, I am at the bottom of the queue again.

I've been pretty happy with HG up until now but I gotta say with all this spare time on my hands today waiting for this issue to be fixed, I've been looking at my options of hosting elsewhere - and that doesn't come easy when I've been with HG for over 3 years with multiple dedicated servers.

Aaron

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by infinite

I've been looking at my options of hosting elsewhere

I'm not sure that would help. All the hosts I've used in the past have had the same ticket setup.

By the way-- I haven't (yet!) experienced that perl glitch, and I can't find any reports of it on the cPanel forums. Are you sure that was the cause?

[infinite]

Hey slapshotw

I can't be certain that that's the cause but it is what I suspected and what the 1 admin who has responded in the past 10 hours indicated would be a likely cause.

Either that or someone has hacked into three of my servers on the same night a caused the issue.

I dunno but I guess I need to wait and see what the admins come up with as I don't want to go "tinkering" myself on this one. Besides, I don't want to go trying to fix it if they are already working on it as it could make the issue worse - another reason for better communication on what is going on. :-)

Best regards,

Aaron

[infinite]

Just a quick update...

After 12 hours since my original ticket I have STILL only had one reply
and have no idea if/when the issue will be fixed.

I spend well over $1000 a month on servers and considering three are
suffering from the same issue, I would have thought it should have been
fixed by now - or at least I should be informed as to where things stand.

I must say - this is NOT what I have come to expect from HG.

It's now late over here and I gotta get to bed... which means possibly
even MORE DELAYS as I probably won't be here to reply should the
admins need any further info ...

Aaron

[whatrevolution]

This is not good.

I count at least one two three less important threads which have been posted in by Gators since this thread went up; and I simply stopped there. I'm expecting an, "oh so sorry, anything else we can do?" and a moderator edit of the subject to "[resolved]", and all that soon, though. At least that would be something... as cynical as it may be.

By the way, please note that there is an active, unresolved ticket, which I am not pleased about. In mentioning forum activity, I mean to show that such activity should have been on this man's ticket. Though, I'd like to see more official replies to these suggestions threads, too... I can definately understand them being (supposedly) too busy for that.

[GatorEricS]

Unfortunately, this is an issue on our ticket system. We thought we had it resolved when we switched from Kayako to the current system. Unfortunately, our "solution" seemed to cause a significant number of other issues, such as tickets getting stuck at the top of the queue, and newer tickets having to wait hours and hours while tickets that have already had multiple staff replies get handled first, as they kept popping back to the top of the queue. Unfortunately, the only way around this was going back to the "old method," at least until we can get the issue resolved in our codebase.

Our programmers are very much aware of this issue, and when I last checked, one of them told me that he gets reminded at least four times a week by various admins that we really want a fix to this. I'm sorry you're experiencing this issue. I have to tell someone why their staff reply was delayed at least twice a day, and it - for lack of a better term - sucks. I promise, we are working on it.

I did check your ticket, and there is recent activity. One of our upper tier administrators has responded to your ticket, and is currently working on it.

[infinite]

After nearly 24 hours, I've had one further reply and the issue is STILL not fixed! This is crazy. :-(

Aaron

[whatrevolution]

Originally Posted by GatorEricS

I did check your ticket, and there is recent activity. One of our upper tier administrators has responded to your ticket, and is currently working on it.

Originally Posted by infinite

After nearly 24 hours, I've had one further reply and the issue is STILL not fixed! This is crazy. :-(

So, the "recent activity" was not a visible response to the ticket, but some indication on the HG side that someone had, perhaps, attached internal notes to the ticket or something?

No status update from the "upper tier administrator", which Infinite could see, even after this thread?

[infinite]

An update ...

Last night (about 14 hours ago) I received an update saying

The issue is with the socket module being disabled for non-prileged users. I am removing this restriction and rebuilding perl on all your servers now. Please allow me an hour to have this done and all 4 servers you provided before after which you can recheck.

This was about 9pm my time and I wanted to get to bed early since it had been a LONG and HECTIC day... But I got back up at 11pm - no change. Still the same errors. Got back up at 3am - no change. And no further instructions. So I just figured it must be taking longer than expected and didn't want to bump myself to the base of the queue again by responding and asking.

PLUS I thought they would TEST the provided URLs to ensure they worked at their end which obviously they wouldn't!

When I woke this morning - at the crack of dawn for me (6am - 6 1/2 hours ago from now) as I can't rest easy with all this going on - the same issue. Nothing had changed.

So I contacted LIVE CHAT first thing to try to get it sorted.

After trying to convince them that the issue WAS a server issue (they tried telling me it was a script issue but I said it was MULTIPLE .cgi scripts) they said they would get an admin to have a look. To be fair - this was the best LIVE CHAT I have experienced as usually you are just told that "the admins will look into it shortly"

I have had a reply this morning about 3 hours ago. They told me that the issue was fixed (But they only quoted one of the three domains I provided as examples). Didn't tell me HOW it was fixed.

I found that it wasn't rectified on the other two servers.

So I IMMEDIATELY posted back via the Ticket System that there were still two other servers affected. They are giving the EXACT same error on .cgi scripts.

No reply as yet. :-(

In the meantime I have gone and purchased 3 new servers elsewhere.
They have already been setup. They provide 2 - 4 hour setups and mine was around 2 hours.

I STILL WANT THIS ISSUE FIXED because I still have the job of transferring all accounts etc and I'd like to know a) what caused it? and b) why it's taken so long to get answers?

I HATE doing this but this time it's just beyond a joke guys!

Aaron

[infinite]

Now another 3 hours and 15 mins passes by and I get a response:

Which other 2 domains are you having issues with? Please provide the script path so we can work with you to fix this issue.

This information was already included in the ticket! If it were just a couple of domains, I wouldn't be so worried.. these are two entire servers of accounts still without .cgi.

So I post it all again ... and again... I wait.

Aaron

[whatrevolution]

Originally Posted by infinite

This information was already included in the ticket!

No kidding, right? That has happened to me multiple times. It is what caused me to recently say, in another thread, ..."they are alergic to reading, and prefer clicking submit buttons", because it's true.

Get it together, guys, and stop judging your tech support employees by response volume; or you'll only have dumb customers left... won't that be fun?

[infinite]

Yeah - it doesn't take two minutes to scroll through the ticket and check the domains (examples) that I provided. It's just lazy NOT to do so.

Obviously someone KNOWS what the issue is.... they've already fixed it on one server so surely it can't be too hard to fix the other servers which are having EXACTLY the same error message.

Seems that everything is GREAT UNTIL SOMETHING GOES WRONG...

When I first started with HG years ago, support was almost instant. Nowadays it seems it takes days to get an issue dealt with. Not good.

Aaron

[GatorPatrick]

First off let me apologize for our tech that asked you for further information when it was already supplied in the ticket as there is no excuse to that. I went ahead and resolved the issue on both servers.

As per our response time lately it has been much better at around an hour. Since we began our php5/sql5 migrations last week however we've been getting an abnormally higher ticket volume. This is partly to blame for our slower response time and is temporary. We are still seeking more qualified administrators however and hopefully soon we should have the response times back down under an hour.

Thanks for bearing with us.

[infinite]

Thanks Patrick for your response and for addressing the issue where others most definitely "dropped the ball"

Just for the benefit of those following this thread...

Another update...

Ok - this one appears to be sorted now HOWEVER DESPITE ASKING on several occasions I STILL do not know exactly what caused it.

All three servers are now working fine but I have no idea why I have had to wait SOOOOO long to get a resolve.

Surely it would be better for a client to know the cause and how it may have happened so that if there was any possibility of avoiding this in the future, it could be?

Anyhow... unfortunately nearly 36 hours gave me enough time to make the decision to ultimately leave HG after a number of years and tens of thousands of dollars spent. I HAD to do something for my clients so as mentioned in an earlier post, I went out and purchased three new dedicated servers elsewhere and they are all ready for me to copy accounts to. I am very sad that it has come to this since I have been here (and actively promoted you guys - see my affiliate account) BUT I can't leave my client's business' to chance and certainly can't be bothered having to repeat myself and then (to add insult to injury) wait at the bottom of a very long queue to have my issues addressed again.

Things like these should be ESCALATED and given priority especially when it is well over 24 hours for a fix. A person in my position should be placed in some sort of PRIORITY QUEUE and when they reply their reply should be reviewed by the next available admin. It's crazy to have to sit at the base of a long queue again.

Anyhow.... good luck guys but this episode unfortunately will be the final straw for me.

Regards,

Aaron

[GatorPatrick]

That's unfortunate. We wish you the best of luck with your new servers.

[whatrevolution]

Originally Posted by slapshotw

I'm not sure that would help. All the hosts I've used in the past have had the same ticket setup.

While I don't doubt that is true, when I tell my tech support friends about it, they react simply, "wtf?"