Where is tech support?

[Coffee]

Sean posted just a couple days ago...

I assume 'snarlydwarf' is an SD employee. In that case it's good. At least SD folks haven't just cashed in their stock options and quit Logitech. There's still a chance that I can get my SBs to work.

[snarlydwarf]

I assume 'snarlydwarf' is an SD employee. In that case it's good. At least SD folks haven't just cashed in their stock options and quit Logitech. There's still a chance that I can get my SBs to work.

You would assume wrong.

I just have no life and hang out here.

(and for clarification: "Here" meaning the forum. I have never even talked to Sean/Dean/Dan/Richard/Etc on the phone. I did talk to someone in Sales a loong time ago when I was dumb and typo'd my visa number on the order page, though... that's the only other-than-http contact I have ever had with any Slim employee.)

[Coffee]

Have you tried a wired connection? wireless conditions change all of
the time.

Have you tried new batteries? yes, they ship new, but you never know
when some batteries just won't like even a short time on the shelf.

Have you tried factory reset (press and hold add during power up until
the logo is done)

Of course, you probably don't want to have to ask your mother to do
all of that, especially as you need to redo all of the settings after
a reset.

-k

I haven't tried any of that. At this point having to redo all the settings is a MINOR concern. I'll ask my mother (actually my sister, who at least can follow the English instructions) to do the factory reset trick (I wasn't aware of that possibility). If that can get the SB to become unfrozen, it'll be a significant step forward.

I don't think batteries have anything to do with the disconnection problems. I wasn't even touching the remote when the connection is dropped. I spent a lot of time just sitting there and watching the SD VU meter stop for no reason. Sometimes it will reboot itself, again without me touching the remote.

I'll try a wired connection tonight when I get off work.

[Pale Blue Ego]

I have been running my SB right next to my wireless router just to make sure I have 100% signal strength. I run a PC with XP and I intend to run SS on it to source my FLAC files. But for now I turned all that off in order to test my mother's configuration, which most often has to work without a PC and connecting to SN via a LinkSys wireless router, using some sort of DSL (I don't know who the ISP is).

I didn't even bother connecting anything to the SB's outputs. I just watch the display to see if the connection is still active. I run Ping (as suggested by a forum member) on my PC to make sure my internet connection is ok. I even run WMP tuned to the same RTHK station on the PC.

With this setup, I get disconnected from RTHK at random intervals. Sometimes a connection can last up to an hour, but sometimes it's disconnected in only a few minutes. There was nothing wrong other than an occasionally missed reply from the ping. WMP never gets disconnected, even though occasionally it pauses and needs to re-buffer.

It sounds like you're using SqueezeNetwork for RTHK. That involves another internet hop, which may be introducing delays. Also, WMP may use a larger buffer than the SB3 and therefore may recover from temporary outages better.

If you run a local Slimserver, then you can connect directly to the RTHK stream rather than hopping first to SqueezeNetwork, then to RTHK. True, the SqueezeNetwork method SHOULD work, but you're introducing another variable which neither you nor Slim has complete control over (the big, bad internet).

You should try running SS on your XP and connecting through that. That way, you can also test out how it works with your FLACs.

IMO, buying the Squeezebox mainly for SqueezeNetwork is somewhat risky. SqueezeNetwork is an added-value feature and not generally the main purpose of Squeezebox. You can get almost all the functionality of SqueezeNetwork (and better reliability) by running SS locally. I do understand this may not be the ideal setup for your Mom. Still, I think if we can unfreeze her SB3 she should be okay.

[kdf]

Quoting Coffee <Coffee.2ieqxn1165431301 (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com>:


> Actually the ticket was generated by an auto-email answering robot. So
> the fact that I received a ticket doesn't mean any real person is
> actually there. However, I sure hope the delay is simply due to work
> overload.

ah ok. Different type of ticket. My apologies. I was aware of an
understaffed problem not that long ago. Understandably, the
announcement and subsequent marketing of the Logitech boyout is
generating a lot of inquiries. SD is a surprisingly small group. The
second problem with email is that if the triage is what is falling
behind, there is no way to get the priority determined (only have to
look at bugzilla to see that people will tend to overestimate severity
if they select it themselves)

Being in Vancouver, have you tried calling? Business hours are the
same and LD rates aren't that bad from here (I'm in Richmond, myself).
They do actually have real SD employees to answer. If they aren't,
then that would at least confirm that they are overloaded. Hopefully
that is temporary.

-kdf

[Coffee]

It sounds like you're using SqueezeNetwork for RTHK. That involves another internet hop, which may be introducing delays. Also, WMP may use a larger buffer than the SB3 and therefore may recover from temporary outages better.

If you run a local Slimserver, then you can connect directly to the RTHK stream rather than hopping first to SqueezeNetwork, then to RTHK. True, the SqueezeNetwork method SHOULD work, but you're introducing another variable which neither you nor Slim has complete control over (the big, bad internet).

You should try running SS on your XP and connecting through that. That way, you can also test out how it works with your FLACs.

IMO, buying the Squeezebox mainly for SqueezeNetwork is somewhat risky. SqueezeNetwork is an added-value feature and not generally the main purpose of Squeezebox. You can get almost all the functionality of SqueezeNetwork (and better reliability) by running SS locally. I do understand this may not be the ideal setup for your Mom. Still, I think if we can unfreeze her SB3 she should be okay.

According to postings in the SN forum, users have had better luck when connecting through SS. As you said, such a setup is far from ideal for my Mom, since it requires the PC to be up all the time. I have tried that once with my own SB. It seems to last much longer so I left the room for I don't know how long. But when I went back, the connection was broken. I'll try again tonight, with a wired connection.

[Coffee]

Quoting Coffee <Coffee.2ieqxn1165431301 (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com>:

ah ok. Different type of ticket. My apologies. I was aware of an
understaffed problem not that long ago. Understandably, the
announcement and subsequent marketing of the Logitech boyout is
generating a lot of inquiries. SD is a surprisingly small group. The
second problem with email is that if the triage is what is falling
behind, there is no way to get the priority determined (only have to
look at bugzilla to see that people will tend to overestimate severity
if they select it themselves)

Being in Vancouver, have you tried calling? Business hours are the
same and LD rates aren't that bad from here (I'm in Richmond, myself).
They do actually have real SD employees to answer. If they aren't,
then that would at least confirm that they are overloaded. Hopefully
that is temporary.

-kdf

I asked my sister to call SD. It is not hard for non-techies like my sister to report the problem, since none of the buttons do anything anymore! She did call and all she got was an answering machine. If all else fails, she's prepared to take some time off work and actually go to SD with the dead SB. Since she's not the one trying to use the SB, she's understandly not happy about the problems I created for her!

Maybe she'll find out WTF is happening at SD, as another forum member was musing about...

[Pale Blue Ego]

If she's in Mountain View, taking the SB to Slim might be the quickest solution. I would have her try the factory reset first, though.

[kevin]

Actually the ticket was generated by an auto-email answering robot. So the fact that I received a ticket doesn't mean any real person is actually there. However, I sure hope the delay is simply due to work overload.

There are real people here... Earlier this week we were very inundated, though. If you PM me your ticket number or e-mail it to kevin at slimdevices dot com, I will make sure it's seen ASAP.

[Coffee]

There are real people here... Earlier this week we were very inundated, though. If you PM me your ticket number or e-mail it to kevin at slimdevices dot com, I will make sure it's seen ASAP.

Excellent! In fact, I was just going to post a message here because I just got a response from Daniel at SD. There are people at tech support! There is now hope! Of course the original question I posed to tech support has now worsened, with my mother's SB completely frozen. I'll try the factory reset first. Then I'll (try to) get back to Daniel to resolve the dropped connection issue. I guess I'm optimistic that the bad SB can be revived.