Defective product

Report · Sep 16, 2008

We bought the Technical Communication Suite directly from Adobe. After installing it (2 weeks after receiving the DVD), the serial number on the box is not recognized. Called Adobe. Sat on hold for a while, listening to annoying fake music. Talked to a woman in India who couldn't hear me clearly, so I had to shout the serial number a few times. She said the number looked OK, and transferred me to Tech Support. Sat on hold, listening to the same annoying music and wondering why Tech Support is not one of the options when you call Adobe.

Eventually got to talk to a man in India. Read the number too fast; had to do it over. What's my customer ID #? I don't know. I'm looking at the invoice, and there are a bunch of numbers, but nothing called a customer ID number, so we had to set up an account. Soon Chet, or Vince, or whatever nom de plume he was using tells me he has a solution for me.

There's a "known problem" with the version of the Suite they sent us. I have to uninstall the Suite, download the trial version from the Website, install that, then activate it with my serial number.

Obviously, the software on the DVD is too buggy to even install. Why did they ship it? Does Adobe have no QA? Having identified a problem, why did they not send a working DVD to all the customers who'd received the bad one? Why did they not make a phone call, or send a letter, telling customers about the defective DVD? Are customer relations such a low priority at Adobe that they can't be bothered to even warn people who'd given them over a thousand dollars that installing from the the DVD was going to waste a half of their day with zero benefit? Here I am in the middle of an uninstall that seems every bit as slow as the interminable installation was. Next, I get to download the software from the Adobe Website. Who knows how long that will take.

This has been a complete waste of my day. If things go really well from here, maybe I'll get some work done sometime tomorrow. That's the best case, and even if it happens, it's still not going to make me happy with Adobe. This is inexcusable.

Report · Sep 17, 2008

Hello again. I did uninstall the Suite, which took another hour. Then I downloaded the trial version, which took the rest of yesterday, and some large part of last night.

Of course, it won't install at all. "Windows cannot open this file."

Now I'm on hold again, waiting to speak to a supervisor. Today's Indian tech support guy - I'll call him Ernie - said the trial version was corrupt, probably because my company has a firewall. Is that unusual, having a firewall? When he started to tell me I should download it again with the firewall turned off, I told him I wanted to talk to a supervisor.

Ernie just came back on to say they are sending a new disk. That is, of course, what they should have done when they identified the problem in the first place.

Bad Adobe.

Report · Sep 19, 2008

You are not alone, perruptor. We also experienced the same problems with our DVD. Thankfully, our IT department dealt with it, so I was shielded from this mess. We also loaded the TCS on a virtual server for testing. I've been working on a project on and off for 3 weeks and have yet to feel comfortable enough with the product to give IT the green light to load it on our work machines. It's glaringly apparent that QA was not a high priority during the development of this product, which surprises me since previous experiences with Adobe products were usually very positive.

Report · Sep 22, 2008

I know the Free World is waiting with bated breath to find out if the replacement DVD worked as it should. The DVD that Ernie said would be FedExxed to me "overnight." Sadly, the Free World and I will have to keep waiting, because Adobe Tech Support has an upgraded definition of "overnight." When the disk did not arrive two days after that promise, I called again.

Here I will spice this up with the information that every conversation with Adobe, after the first one, has begun with confusion about our Customer ID number. Ernie said the one that I gave him was missing a digit, and it should have four sixes in a row, instead of three. Friday's Indian representative, James, wouldn't accept Ernie's version, and insisted there were only three sixes, as I had it originally. Fortunately, the case number seems immune to whatever the hell they do to Customer ID numbers.

Anyway, James did some sleuthing, and said, in his most reassuring and positive tones, that yes, a replacement DVD had been prioritized for express shipment to me. How long? "Three to five business days." Today was three business days (plus two human days) - no disk.

I have reinstalled Frame 7 and the old version of Acrobat that I was using before, and after fixing all the glitches that caused, am able to do work (except no Help, of course). Every once in a while, I glance over at the $1000 coaster Adobe thought was good enough for the likes of me. Stand by, World.

Report · Sep 23, 2008

Success at last! Well, at least I got a disc that installs the Suite, and things appear to work. We'll see if it actually integrates Frame and Robo.

BTW, the "express shipment" turned out to be FedEx Ground.