Adobe Support

[Mike Farley]

I have just spent a fruitless couple of hours trying to install Photoshop CS6 onto the laptop I use for presentatiions in preparation for a talk I am giving tonight. The initial install from the setup disk went OK, but I got a "remote server not responding" message when I tried to get the latest updates. So I called Adobe support and had a rather frustrating conversation with someone who insisted that everything was OK at Adobe's end. He told me that I needed to de-install my Silver Efex Pro 2 plugin and CS6, then re-install CS6, when he insisted everything would be OK. It wasn't.

When I tried phoning Adobe back, after again going through the what seems like 10 million or so automated prompts to get what to the part of Adobe I wanted, I hung up after a quarter of an hour when I did not get a response, only hold music. I tried logging in online to update the support ticket Adobe sent me and guess what, that is not responding either. Spot a familiar pattern?

By going to the Creative Cloud model, Adobe primarily became a service company. In my experience when it is not possible to connect to a remote server, the problem is usually there, rather than at the user's end and this is what I told the support guy. Adobe really needs to do much better than this lamentable example of poor customer service.

[Mike Farley]

UPDATE

I have now resolved the problem of CS6 failing to get online updates. My laptop was on a wireless connection and despite everything else managing to access the Internet, CS6 could not. It all worked fine when I switched to a cable link.

That does not excuse the software issue which caused the glitch, nor Adobe failing to answer the phone, the non availability of the online system, the torturous automated telephone menu system and the erroneous advice given by telephone suport. Uninstalling and reinstalling software is frequently lazy problem solving in my experience and rarely works. When I did manage to access the online fault reporting I left an update and it will be interesting to see how long it takes Adobe to respond. 17 hours and counting so far.

[davidc]

Sounds like a clear case of PEBKAC

[Mike Farley]

Sounds like a clear case of PEBKAC

A rather unfair response, I feel. It turns out that this is a known problem and the Microsoft Virtual WIFI miniport adapter has to be disabled. I found this short video on YouTube if anyone is having similar issues. The question is why does Adobe's support team seem to be unaware of this? It is not a setting which most users will know about and is exactly where I would expect Adobe to have the requisite knowledge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tRewtGT83M

I will take back my comment about the software glitch, but will substitute the apparent lack of knowledge on the part of the support team. I would also query how Adobe allowed this situation to arise in the first place. Did it not test updates via WiFi with Windows default settings? Everything else still stands. This is a company that still has some considerable way to go in its transition to being a service provider.

[davidc]

Sorry, that was supposed to be in jest
I only ever update over wifi and had never seen or heard of the problem until you mentioned it.

[Mike Farley]

Sorry, that was supposed to be in jest
I only ever update over wifi and had never seen or heard of the problem until you mentioned it.

No worries. It's very difficult to convey that type of humour via the medium of a keyboard.

This seems to be a CS6 only problem, when Adobe changed the registration process so that owners had to create an account rather than merely activating/deactivating the product, with an account being optional. An anti-piracy measure, no doubt, although one which any self respecting pirate would be able to bypass. Earlier versions of CS and CC all update via WiFi without any issues, which is why I initially thought that the Adobe registration server was down when I commenced problem resolution. I have come across this now as I had only previously installed CS6 on a machine with a wired connection to my ADSL modem/router and my laptops were running previous versions of CS.

Apologies for the delayed response. It's been a hectic couple of days and I have only just seen your reply.