Adobe Remote Support has left my PC as a chunk of metal...

[adeles36869453]

My wife has been experiencing issues launching Adobe Premier Pro ever since she updated it a few weeks ago.  I began troubleshooting the issue then but because of my limited time it has dragged out and she has been unable to use a program that we pay monthly for.

Background on the PC:  I built it from scratch 1 year ago. Windows 7 Pro, 64-bit, Intel I5, Geforce 1060 6BG, complete with 4k monitor.  All hardware installed by me, all software installed & maintained by me.

I followed various threads on this forum and eventually was able to get Premier Pro (PP) to launch. For a total of 4 days before the issue popped back up.  That's when my wife, trying to help, got on screen sharing with Adobe support while I was away at the office. I asked that she not do it because I was afraid of what might happen....and my worst fears came true.

After 5 hours I come home and find that my PC has been completely wiped of any custom settings. My graphics card drivers are not only not being utilized, but are uninstalled. The only reason the madness stopped is because he managed to uninstall, or disable, or remove ALL NETWORK DRIVERS OR ADAPTERS!!!  I am currently hardwired to my network but cannot get on the internet due to this. (I'm on a work computer now...) Thank goodness this happened or who knows what damage he would have continued to cause.

He did not even create a system restore point!  I can't even go back!!!  Basically, I am left with my expensive custom PC that has been reduced to an operating system, mouse, & keyboard. And I have been left to rebuild the software myself.

I am floored that any repetitiveness of Adobe would do this to an unsuspecting customer. I am not your average customer and happen to be knowledgeable on the computer.  But their average client probably isn't and if I wasn't in the picture my wife would have had to pay an IT company to come out and repair the PC. Even if Adobe offered to remote in and set it back up...  That would require someone to come repair the drivers on this PC to a point where it can connect to the internet again!! (Not that I will ever allow Adobe to touch a PC of mine ever again)

To make matters worse, I call tech support (admittedly I was hot to the point of steam coming out of my ears at the thought of the hours it was going to take me to even begin to get this computer functioning again) and I get a fellow from India that barely speaks English. After loudly explaining the situation (being sure he know that I was not upset with HIM, but that I was livid with Adobe) he asked for my login information.  After 2-3 attemps at spelling and saying my login information I gave up and told him I would need to call back once I cooled off. He couldn't understand me or figure out what I was saying even after spelling it out. Ah!!

I don't even know what I am looking for here by posting this.  Funny thing is...  The program opens now!  But... the default graphics card on the motherboard isn't beefy enough to even run the program so it freaks out...but the other issue that was causing it to fail to boot is seemingly..."resolved"  HAHA!

So... Where do I send the bill for the hours its going to take me just to get a functioning PC back?  Who do I need to talk to to get a refund of my monthly fees for a program that doesn't work?

I have posted some screen shots (actually, pictures from my phone because... No network on the PC to share photos!!) of the state that my PC was left in.

Resolution skewed, and.... A COMPLETELY NEW USER PROFILE?!?!?!?! Who gave you permission to do that?!?

Computer Resolution messed up, now my view settings look like Windows 95. Notice no network driver running in the lower right hand corner.

No Network adapters period. (no, computer is not in safe mode)

1060 Graphics card not even listed.  Driver not on PC anymore period.

Surely he created a restore point before changing SO MANY THINGS on a completely custom machine?!  Surely!! 

Oh wait...  that's broken too....

ADOBE, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE ME DO WITH THIS CHUNK OF METAL YOUR TECH LEFT ME WITH?!  So far this has cost me 4 hours. Which I normally bill out my time at about $175/hour.  Not to mention 4 weeks of lost work and productivity from the program not working. My wife and I both work on this PC and now I am unable to work this weekend which is going to cost me hundreds of dollars in lost productivity.  So I ask again...  What would you have me do?!?

So far, I put this problem at around $2000-$4000 cost to my wife and I combined.

The frustrating thing is: I get that updates sometimes break programs.  And I was working through the issues of the program not booting correctly and would not have made a stink about it other than it being mildly frustrating.  But now we have taken collosal leaps backwards and your tech has cost me thousands of dollars because for some reason they thought it was a good idea to uninstall the very drivers that allow adobe to function at all (explain that one.... ha!).

So I ask again, What would you have me do now?!

Very Frustrated, dwindling supporter of Adobe,

Ian Shaw

[Peru Bob]

Did you create a clone or a system image when it was working properly?

[adeles36869453]

I had some, but had not done one recently. So technically yes, I could go back weeks and weeks and lose even more data. My wife started this process while I was at work. So I was unable to do anything prior to starting this.  But my point is that this Adobe dude didn't do crap to ensure that what he was doing was reversible.  Now its up to me to figure out what he was doing for 5 hours and how we got to this state.

[Geno Pass]

I suggest you move to Win10 now. It was probably a good idea to move to Win10 a year ago even.

[adeles36869453]

I am specifically on windows 7. That should not cause the original problem or be any reason for Adobe to do what they did. Great idea, but fairly irrelevant.

[chrisw44157881]

he might have removed too many drivers, but if it were me, just get the drivers back. that should fix the distorted graphics, missing wifi,

chipset driver for stability. media framework for runtimes, etc. then do an adobe cleaner on all the adobe products and start fresh.

and oh, yea, check your services.msc and see if any services are unable to load, like system restore. and check if you are in safe mode. then run sfx /scannow and check for missing windows files. then update windows with windows update. that should fix a lot of damaged system files as a byproduct.

[SiLi]

I just had a very bad experience with the adobe support aswell and found this post while searching if anyone else has had some bad experience. Well the last assistant I got connected to fourwarded it to a senior , who is going to call me tomorrow. But basically I asked for help because the update didn't work for 2 of my adobe apps. For 5 hours they tried to fix the problem, disabled the firewall, deleted files, uninstalled my antivirus, changed up some settings via cmd... and at the end he wasn't even going to re-enable the firewall if I didn't ask for it. Also, he didn't create a system restore point, DID A WINDOWS FEATURE UPDATE (last time I did a feature update all of my apps stopped working and I had to downgrade again...). And now the problem is even worse than before. My CC doesn't even recognize my apps anymore... I am very disappointed.

[chrisw44157881]

i don't know who went on your computer, but adobe doesn't go around disabling firewalls, that's how you get viruses. you simply assign an application access as an exception, not disable it completely. you should always have a system restore point. you may want to get your computer checked out for malware. To do this correctly, (if I worked for adobe) there's a free cleaup utility that cleans the cloud files.

[SiLi]

That's the scary thing, it really was 2 different "genuine" adobe assistants!
I contacted adobe via chat. I am a part time programmer, I know the firewall shouldn't be disabled. When he asked if he could uninstall the antivirus I told him we could just quit the application, but he wrote it had to be uninstalled...

Basically he was just following some of the troubleshooting guides on the Adobe CC user guide site:



I also know that you should always create a system restore point before any big changes. I don't have malware.

I found the source of the problem, by deleting every adobe directory and I found out that 2 adobe xml folders got corrupted, so I had to run the disk cleanup. I reinstalled everything from scratch again and it looks like it's working.

Only exception is that the defective icon shows up on some apps in the taskbar, when pinning the app. Unpinned it works perfectly. Thank god so much of the settings are being synced through the cloud nowadays, otherwise I'd be scerewed. However, when monthly paying that much for software, I expect a solid assistance based on a wisely constructed troubleshooting script (and maybe a little bit of common sense). And not just screwing around and trying stuff you can find through a simple google search.
When looking back, the solution was always there in the initial error code "...FATAL: Failed in writting uninstall xml at path..." (which btw. contains a spelling error - @adobe).

TL;DR - When having errors while installing apps through the creative cloud app, first check your drives on errors. Read the error message.

[Media Editor]

Always use the Premiere User Forum.  Do not trust Adobe Support.  Most of the problems can be solved on the Forum.

[ROCKTOPUS]

What they are doing is criminal. They just destroyed my beautiful Surface Studio yesterday, and they intend on "resolving" it by doing the exact same things they did yesterday via remote access. Such as UNINSTALLING ALL ADOBE PROGRAMS BY DRAGGING THEM TO TO RECYCLE BIN AND LEAVING THEM IN THERE.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Rocktopus,

Very sorry about that. Were these techs from Premiere Pro or another app? Do you have a case number or a name of an agent so I can track down this case? Please send me a private message.

Thanks,
Kevin

[brewcitywi]

I sympathize, relate and validate all those who have gone through situations like yours. Your experiences are real,  you're not crazy, and it's not just you. To spare you the boredom of the rest of my post, I'll start with the ending!

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The End

If you have to use Adobe support, especially Chat support, I have two pieces of advice:

1. Always decline Adobe's request to remote in to your computer from the outside. I'm assuring you, letting Adobe Chat tech support remote into your machine will make your life so much worse than it might appear now. It has never worked for our company. It's an almost guaranteed disaster, you have no idea of the heart-wrenching mess you're about to create for yourself.

2. If the solution Adobe Chat support suggests is "extreme" in proportion to your problem, don't do it. You have to use your judgement! But, if the solution to, "I want to see my fonts look larger inside the Character pallet," is met with, "Uninstall Adobe Creative Cloud," or, "Can you disable your companys' firewall?" your day/week is about to go downhill fast.

I have to constantly ask myself, "Is the problem I want to solve important enough to risk my current workflow?" Because, if the problem is minor, or something that just "bugs" me (i.e. "this should work"), you might be better off waiting for the next update. It's sometimes hard to imagine what your life would look like if, in your quest to fix a minor issue, you make things much, much worse.

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The Boring Parts

Adobe Chat Support, or support outside U.S., has a predictable method of solving issues. The biggest horrifying risk is...they attempt to solve minor issues with very extreme solutions. For example, on one of our iMacs, the Libraries pallet in Photoshop and Illustrator show an error message, even though I can see my Libraries in the CC app, and online. So, I haven't lost anything, they're just not loading inside the actual pallet inside Photoshop and Illustrator. 

I contacted support through the chat feature. Within minutes, I was told to uninstall Creative Cloud, and remove all apps which didn't show active Libraries. Then, clear web cache and remove all computer Preferences. Then remove all 3rd party plug-in filters (you know...the ones which take hours to properly put in place). Then, disable maleware software and our company's firewall and move my computer to a different wi-fi hub. The tech actually implied that I should connect to wi-fi outside in the street, or at a neighboring business or restaurant. He said he had to first rule out any external possibilities.

Then, he wanted my permission to remote in to my computer from the outside. He told me that he would go into Activity Monitor, kill any remnant of Adobe programs which were still running, along with going into all Adobe "root" folders and removing all core kernels that remained. These root folders are all over the place, and way way way deep into the folder hierarchy. Also, there are folders which don't natively show up on your computer, where you have to search in the network using ~ symbols, if you know what I mean. Sometimes Adobe renames these files as .old, or they might put them in the Trash but not empty it, sometimes simply move the files to the Desktop.  They never tell you what to do if you get disconnected, or tell you how to put those kernels back when they're "done." When they are "done," you have files and extensions all over the place, and you're scared to death to empty the Trash. And, your problem isn't solved.

Then, without warning, the tech abruptly said that it was the end of their shift, and the entire thread switched to a brand new tech. agent, who had absolutely no idea where we left off. After reading the case ID, the first thing he asked was, "Do I have your permission to log into your computer remotely?"

In some cases, they make you start a new User profile on an iMac and re-start with preferences off, in order to see if the problem still occurs on a new User account with barely any items which could "interfere" with Adobe software. If you do that, they never bring you back to your original User account, and they don't remove the new User account when they're done, or tell you how to do it. If anything works inside the new User account, they tell you that it's not an Adobe issue, contact other sources which could solve the issue.

Luckily, I didn't let him remote in, and secretly, I didn't do what he asked previously. After the chat, I re-started my computer, and the Libraries pallet loaded like normal. Wow. Don't you think, "Close your apps and re-start your iMac" would be the first thing to try? And, I thought, "Why did I just go onto Adobe chat support again?"

This has happened to our company at least twenty times in the past five years. We have an iMac that's only one year old. It had been "battered" by Adobe tech support so badly, that we use it as a print server. Yes, even after completely wiping the machine and starting over and bringing the computer to the Apple Genius Bar (before covid). No one could figure it out, and this machine works at literally 25% of its original speed. We constantly see the dreaded Apple "ball of death" spinning for a full minute before we can move a vector black square one inch to the left inside Adobe Illustrator. And it spins for another minute after we move it.

We had an encounter which was particularly "funny." To solve the issue, I was told to click the "light bulb" icon in the upper right corner of the screen. The "light bulb" is inside Adobe Illustrator and resides in the upper right corner of the window of the file you're working on. However, I was looking at the upper right corner of my computer screen, not the app. When I said that I couldn't see the "light bulb," the tech instructed me to quit the app, quit and uninstall Creative Cloud, remove and rename the Preferences, uninstall Adobe Illustrator, download Adobe Illustrator from a different place (from a link he provided).

I was like, "What?"

Then, I said, "Oh, you mean the 'light bulb' on the Adobe Illustrator screen?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "Oh, I see it now."

And he responds, "Ok, click that."

Wow. It's like someone punches someone in the face, right in front of you. A minute later, sits down on the sofa and says, "Hey, can you pass the chips?" Umm...do you remember...like, uh...just a few minutes ago...when...you, like...punched that guy in the face?

I have made Adobe support chat mistakes more than once. I contacted Adobe tech because all my fonts weren't loading inside the Character pallet of Adobe Illustrator. I ended up in a spot where Illustrator wouldn't launch at all. And, I mean, it wouldn't launch. I did everything imaginable to launch Illustrator (remove fonts, remove plug-ins and extensions, un-install and re-install everything in sight). I had let Adobe tech remote in from the outside numerous times. I couldn't use my machine for 10 working days. I literally had a dream one night about replacing a Preferences file (one which Adobe had renamed over a week ago). I came into work, tried it, and Illustrator launched like normal.  

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Moral of the Story

Don't use Adobe chat support if your issue is very minor, or just bugs you. Try boring solutions first (restart the app, restart your computer). Ask yourself, "Did I add or load something on my machine in the past few days which could have caused this?" Search support forums to find quick, professional, non-destructive solutions. If none of that works, ask yourself if you can live with this issue for a little while. If not, try to wait the extra time necessary to schedule a support callback from a U.S.-based Adobe Support technician. And, please, no remoting in!

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[cw251]

Today i accidentally downloaded a plugin to my Adobe After Effects which won't let me even log into the program and i decided to go to customer service to help fix the problem and it took me about 1 hour to even get to the adobe helper and during the whole process, he was very sassy and said this to me- "If i dont take access to your PC how do i fix AE?" and to see someone else control your laptop entirely is super scary and they can do what ever they want. 

He was sassy and would take a VERY long time to reply and would have a thought bubble and not even send anything. He kept insisting to take the remote acess control and when i kept saying no, he insisted thats how the problem would be fixed. When ever i would say cant we do this another way or could you tell me how to fix it? And no response to those. Im glad i saw these reviews before. Thanks everyone. 

[Breanne Evans]

Same here. I kept asking what they would even look for if they were remote and to tell me what to do. I got a few suggestions but they kept insisting I let them remote access. My spidey senses told me not to let them do it. Glad I found this thread backing up my decision.