I wrote not long ago about some terrible customer service from Fujitsu regarding a recently acquired S1500 M scanner. I got the scanner replaced finally from the Apple online store here in France, and it turns out the replacement has exactly the same problem.
I’ve narrowed it down to color scans: the scanner can automatically detect color and black and white, and scan accordingly. Since most of the scans I did the first time around were black and white, it only showed up occasionally, but I’m seeing exactly the same thing now: the colored lines you see below.
Fujitsu’s technical support told me this was a hardware problem; so what’s odd is getting two units with exactly the same problem. This suggests that there’s a whole series of bad scanners out there, and I’m not really tempted to get another only to have the same problem.
I’ll contact Apple soon – after I’ve finished scanning my accounting files, in black and white – and see what they want to do. But I’m disappointed that this scanner, which has gotten excellent reviews, has a repeatable problem like this.
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I haven’t been doing well with tech hardware this year. I think I’ve had to return more devices that failed on installation this year than any year before. The last one was just last week, and it looks like I’ve got another one now: a new AirPort Express Wi-Fi device.
This should be simple to set up. In fact, when you plug it in, and open the AirPort Utility, it looks like it’s only going to take one click to do so. I want the device to extend my network, so my Wi-Fi is better at the far end of my house from where my AirPort Extreme is located. But no luck. When I tried, I saw this dialog, informing me of an “unexpected error” (as if any errors are “expected”:
I tried resetting the AirPort Express to factory settings, a half-dozen times, in fact, but no dice. So this goes back to Amazon for an exchange. I’ve also got a new AirPort Extreme, which I was in no hurry to set up, but which I think I’ll try today, just in case.
This is getting tiring. I’ve spent way too much time trying to get faulty devices to work this year. Last year it was an iMac and a Mac mini, and this year it’s been small devices that have been DOA. Quality control seems to be slipping among many companies, Apple included.
Update: Interestingly, I set up the new AirPort Extreme, and tried setting up the AirPort Express extending its network; it works fine. So is there an incompatibility between the new AirPort Express and the older AirPort Extreme (it’s an 802.11n model, a couple of years old)? If so, there certainly shouldn’t be.
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We’re all used to bad customer service; too much so, in fact, that we’ve come to accept it as the norm. So when customer service is good, it can be surprising; when it’s really good, it can put a smile on my face.
But sometimes, what seems like good customer service may actually be the contrary. Here’s a tale about a recent experience I had with what seemed to be good customer service, but turned out to be crappy.
I recently decided to try to go paperless. I have to keep ten years of accounting documents, which is a couple of big boxes worth, and I’m planning a move in the coming months; it seemed like a good time to scan all those documents and shred them.
Using information from two books – my fellow Take Control author Joe Kissel’s Take Control of your Paperless Office and David Sparks’ Paperless – I decided to acquire a Fujitsu S1500M scanner. This is a wonderful device, which has a paper-feed, scans both sides of paper you place in it, OCRs it and creates searchable PDFs. I got this last Wednesday, and started using it on Thursday, scanning hundreds of pages of invoices and bank statements. At the end of the day, some of the pages had colored vertical lines on them; nothing too serious, but annoying.
Friday morning, I started scanning more, and the vertical lines showed up after about 30 pages, and were increasingly visible. I called Fujitsu’s tech support number, and spoke with a very helpful woman who asked me to send samples of the bad scans. She got back to me quickly, said that it was a hardware problem, and that Fujitsu would replace the scanner; the next day! This was a good thing, because I had been planning to scan all weekend, and get this project out of the way before Christmas.
Well, the next day came, and no scanner arrived. Monday came, and still nothing. Tuesday was Christmas, and Wednesday there was nothing either. I tried calling Fujitsu a few times on Wednesday, and there was no answer; only a message in German. (I’m in France, and their support center is in Germany.) I sent an email, and got no reply (whereas the week before, I got replies in less than a half hour.) Thursday morning – today – I tried calling again, and there was still no answer.
I had bought this scanner from Apple’s online store*, and I called them and explained what happened. They immediately set up a replacement, though, unfortunately, it may take a week for it to come. But the person was very helpful and understanding, and I frankly feel a lot more comfortable working with the Apple Store than with a vendor directly; they have a lot more interest in keeping customers happy (especially since I buy most of my Apple products from them directly).
So what happened? What seemed to be top-notch customer service was just pretend? Did they really intend to send me the scanner the next day? I did get an email from DHL confirming that it was sent, but with no tracking number, I have no idea when it was sent, or when the delivery was scheduled. The fact that Fujitsu’s tech support team seems to be on vacation for the holidays is inadmissible; I don’t expect them to work on Christmas day, of course, but taking a week off – if that’s indeed the case – seems to suggest they only care about their customers when it’s convenient for them.
I like the scanner; it’s very efficient, and it’s going to save me a lot of time. And I’m sure the problem I have is not a common one. But I’ll think twice before buying anything else from Fujitsu, because of what they put me through.
* I would have bought the scanner from Amazon, and gotten next-day delivery, but it’s about €30 more expensive there. I guess I should have paid more, because Amazon is very efficient regarding returns and replacements.
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I’m on a few e-mail mailing lists, and I’ve noticed that Mail, in OS X 10.8, has been doing something odd. Generally, if you have multiple e-mail accounts, when you reply to a message, your reply uses the same account the message was sent to. But I’ve been finding that Mail does not correctly choose the account, and have seen a number of messages bouncing because the selected account is not a member of the mailing lists.
There is a setting in Mail’s Composing preferences where you choose which account to use for new messages, but this shouldn’t affect replies.
I have seen, however, that this is the case, both with mailing lists, and with other e-mails I’ve received. Mail seems to want to apply that account to replies as well as new messages, which is clearly wrong.
So, it looks like you may need to check twice for every single e-mail you send, if you have multiple accounts, and if it’s important to send or not send certain messages with certain accounts. You can do this by looking at the From popup menu when you’re sending or replying to an e-mail. But this is a very serious annoyance, and I hope this gets fixed.
It seems that I’m not alone; there are a few threads on Apple’s support forums (including this one) where other people are reporting the same issue.
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This hasn’t been my week. I got this video freeze problem with my new Mac mini, and decided that reinstalling Lion would be the best way to determine whether it’s an OS problem or a hardware problem. I have the option to return the computer for an exchange in the first two weeks, so I figured I’d try this. But little did I know just how much of a pain it was.
Since you don’t get a DVD with new Macs, the only way you can reinstall Lion is via the Mac App Store, or the Recovery Partition. Of course, I thought I was smart, when Lion first came out, by putting it on a USB stick, so I could use this for any reinstallation I may need. Alas, when I tried to launch the installer, I was told that it would not work on my Mac mini; presumably the firmware requires something later than 10.7.0.
So, booting from a clone of my startup volume, I launched the App Store and went to download the “update,” which is shown in my Purchases list. That took about two hours, but, when it was completed, the installer was nowhere to be found. When I went back to the App Store application, Lion was listed as “Installed,” so I couldn’t re-download it. Same thing on my MacBook Air, of course, so I was stuck.
So I booted the Mac mini by pressing the Command and R keys, to launch the Recovery Partition. Apparently, mine was borked, so I had to wait a half hour for the computer to download whatever it needed to get to the next step. Then, I launched the installation, and it is now downloading all of Lion; for another, it seems, more than 3 hours. And, when I’ve finished that, I still won’t have an installer, and will have to get one somewhere else, so if I have problems, I don’t have to go through this whole process again.
Frankly, I hadn’t realized how stupid this process is. I can understand the interest of selling Lion through the Mac App Store, but not even providing a boot disc with a new Mac means that any time you have a problem, you have hours of download time. And, since the installer self-destructs after installation, you’ll have to do the same thing if you need another copy of it. (Though the next time there’s a Lion update, I’ll first download a full installer before downloading the update via Software Update.)
I have a fairly fast Internet connection – I get around 650 KBps downloads. But imagine someone with a slower connection, for whom the download will take 6 hours, 8 hours, or even more. Assuming you need to reinstall Lion on a work computer, you’ve lost a day’s work.
Apple conveniently sells a USB stick with an installer, but even if I had one of those, it wouldn’t boot my Mac mini, unless it has the latest version of Lion. And if there’s a future firmware update, it’s possible the $49 USB stick won’t boot either.
I’m appalled by the short-sightedness of this process. Sure, they save on DVDs, but the hassle it causes to users is astounding. I hadn’t realized just how complicated this process was, and, again, having copied the installer to a USB stick, I thought I was safe. How wrong I was.
Update: a developer friend pointed out that you can re-download the installer from the Mac App Store. You need to go to your Purchased list, hold down the Option key, and click on the name of the item. That will take you to its page, where you will see an Install button. You can then click that to download the installer again. I’m doing so now, and will save this one in case of future problems. Thanks Thomas for pointing this out.
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I recently posted an article about Lion video freezes occurring with my new Mac mini. There were clear error messages, showing that this is related to the previous Lion video freeze problem I experienced.
Since then, I’ve a couple of other freezes, unrelated to video. And looking at the logs at the time they occurred, it looks as though iTunes is the guilty party, and, in particular, the usbmuxd process, which is a daemon used for communicating with iPods and iOS devices. My guess is that, with Wi-Fi updating, these devices remain “mounted,” as far as iTunes is concerned, and that, at times, iTunes looks for them and can’t find them.
I had a freeze this morning, but my music was still playing in iTunes, so I connected to the Mac mini via ssh. I was able to perform a number of operations, showing that, while the computer was frozen on a GUI level, this was not the case at the lower level. After about seven minutes, the Mac mini “unfroze,” and everything went back to normal.
At the time of the freeze, a number of messages were written to console logs:
11/22/11 11:42:15.758 AM com.apple.usbmuxd: _SendAttachNotification (thread 0x1012ea960): sending attach for device 5c:59:48:92:eb:ae@fe80::5e59:48ff:fe92:ebae._apple-mobdev._tcp.local.: _GetAddrInfoReplyReceivedCallback matched.
11/22/11 11:42:15.989 AM usbmuxd: _AMDeviceConnectByAddressAndPort (thread 0x102f81000): IPv4
11/22/11 11:42:16.482 AM ath: _AMDDeviceAttachedCallbackv3 (thread 0x101acd960): Device ‘AMDevice 0x102b73fe0 {UDID = XXX, device ID = 86, FullServiceName = 5c:59:48:92:eb:ae@fe80::5e59:48ff:fe92:ebae._apple-mobdev._tcp.local.}’ attached.
11/22/11 11:42:16.482 AM ath: _AMDDeviceAttachedCallbackv3 (thread 0x101acd960): Device ‘AMDevice 0x102e1d840 {UDID = XXX, device ID = 86, FullServiceName = 5c:59:48:92:eb:ae@fe80::5e59:48ff:fe92:ebae._apple-mobdev._tcp.local.}’ attached.
11/22/11 11:42:16.482 AM iTunes: _AMDDeviceAttachedCallbackv3 (thread 0x11f92f000): Device ‘AMDevice 0x7fcfa64775a0 {UDID = XXX, device ID = 86, FullServiceName = 5c:59:48:92:eb:ae@fe80::5e59:48ff:fe92:ebae._apple-mobdev._tcp.local.}’ attached.
11/22/11 11:42:18.028 AM AppleMobileDeviceHelper: _AMDDeviceDetached (thread 0x19c32c0): Device ‘AMDevice 0x8df3bf0 {UDID = XXX, device ID = 85, FullServiceName = a4:67:06:45:79:cd@fe80::a667:6ff:fe45:79cd._apple-mobdev._tcp.local.}’ detached.
11/22/11 11:42:18.230 AM AppleMobileDeviceHelper: _AMDDeviceAttachedCallbackv3 (thread 0x19c32c0): Device ‘AMDevice 0xbc62dc0 {UDID = XXX, device ID = 86, FullServiceName = 5c:59:48:92:eb:ae@fe80::5e59:48ff:fe92:ebae._apple-mobdev._tcp.local.}’ attached.
11/22/11 11:42:44.522 AM com.apple.usbmuxd: _SendDetachNotification (thread 0x1012ea960): sending detach for device 5c:59:48:92:eb:ae@fe80::5e59:48ff:fe92:ebae._apple-mobdev._tcp.local.: _BrowseReplyReceivedCallback got bonjour removal.
11/22/11 11:42:44.522 AM ath: _AMDDeviceDetached (thread 0x101acd960): Device ‘AMDevice 0x102e1d840 {UDID = XXX, device ID = 86, FullServiceName = 5c:59:48:92:eb:ae@fe80::5e59:48ff:fe92:ebae._apple-mobdev._tcp.local.}’ detached.
11/22/11 11:42:44.522 AM iTunes: _AMDDeviceDetached (thread 0x11f92f000): Device ‘AMDevice 0x7fcfa64775a0 {UDID = XXX, device ID = 86, FullServiceName = 5c:59:48:92:eb:ae@fe80::5e59:48ff:fe92:ebae._apple-mobdev._tcp.local.}’ detached.
11/22/11 11:42:44.522 AM iTunes: _NotificationSocketReadCallbackGCD (thread 0x10dd71960): Unexpected connection closure…
Note that I have replaced my device’s UDID by “XXX.” The device in question is my iPod touch; it’s the same UDID that shows up in every message.
So, is iTunes Wi-Fi syncing causing freezes? Anyone else seeing this?
Update: I’ve had about one freeze per day, and the last few freezes show GPU debug info in the Console logs, as described in this post, so I think it’s safe to rule out iTunes as the guilty party.
Update 2: It turns out that there is something wrong with the video card – since I get GPU debug logs in Console – but also, perhaps, a problem with the SSD. Apple is exchanging the Mac mini for a new one, and I should have the replacement in a week. In the mean time, it freezes several times a day…
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I recently replaced my iMac with a new Mac mini, and I had forgotten how annoying the video freeze problems under Lion had been. Today, trying to view a Flash video on a news site, I had a freeze, exactly like what I had with the iMac and Mac OS X 10.7. The Lion updates had resolved the issue with the iMac, but the errors I see with the Mac mini are exactly the same type. Console logs show the following:
11/20/11 1:34:40.000 PM kernel: ** GPU Debug Info Start **
11/20/11 1:34:40.000 PM kernel: 0x00006741
11/20/11 1:34:40.000 PM kernel: 0x0000008f
11/20/11 1:34:40.000 PM kernel: 0x00000001
11/20/11 1:34:40.000 PM kernel: 0x00000018
11/20/11 1:34:40.000 PM kernel: 0x0000a880
11/20/11 1:34:40.000 PM kernel: 0x00000001
11/20/11 1:34:40.000 PM kernel: 0x00000001
11/20/11 1:34:40.000 PM kernel: 0x00006741
[etc.]
(It’s worth noting that the above messages are almost exactly the same as what I saw on the iMac.)
OK, this is enough. I’m starting to get very frustrated, not only because of this problem, but also because of Apple’s letting me down regarding another problem with the iMac. I’ve very seriously considering doing as some of my friends and colleagues have done and downgrading to Snow Leopard…
Update: It turns out that there is something wrong with the video card – since I get the GPU debug logs in Console, as well as the occasional video artefact – but also, perhaps, a problem with the SSD. Apple is exchanging the Mac mini for a new one, and I should have the replacement in a week. In the mean time, it freezes several times a day…
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As you can imagine, I have lots of Apple products. To give just a quick rundown, in my home-office at the moment are two iMacs, two MacBook Airs, an iPad, an iPod touch, an iPod classic, and sundry other devices (Magic Trackpad, wireless keyboard, external DVD drive, dock, etc.) Since I live in the country, far from any Apple repair center, I buy AppleCare contracts for all my Macs. However, I don’t buy them for the iPods and iPads, and never have.
Apple’s support has always been excellent, though they were not able to resolve a recent problem, and this disturbs me. But I’m writing now about a problem with iTunes and my iOS devices, and the fact that Apple effectively offers no support.
Before iCloud was introduced, I had a MobileMe family pack; this gave me five accounts, one for myself, one for my wife, one for my son, and an additional one I used for an e-mail address and iDisk for this blog. Since I changed to iCloud, I had to drop that latter address, and created a contact address on my own server, mcelhearn.com. However, even though I deleted that address in Mail, it still shows up in the iTunes Info tab, under the Sync Mail Accounts section. Now, it’s no big deal that I can’t remove it, but at the same time, a new account I created for a client doesn’t show up in that section.
So I first called AppleCare. They couldn’t help; they said that I should contact Apple’s Express Lane service for MobileMe support. They couldn’t help, and said I should contact iTunes support. I did so, and got a particularly clueless woman on the phone who actually told me that I have to email iTunes support to have them remove the email accounts. She clearly didn’t understand what the problem was – I made it very clear, using small words, that this is account information on my Mac, and has nothing to do with anything that iTunes controls.
I’ve actually become increasingly disappointed with Apple’s support in the past couple of years. While they’re good with hardware problems – in most cases, not in the problem I linked to above – their support for services is increasingly poor. I know that Apple has to support a lot of people using services such as iTunes, and now iCloud, but if they don’t have efficient support for these services, people will get annoyed. (To be fair, iTunes’ e-mail support for purchase problems has always been efficient, if not particularly fast.)
In any case, I have no answer to this problem. I’m guessing there’s a file to delete somewhere, but I haven’t been able to find out which one. Any ideas? Feel free to post in the comments.
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