its sunday 9:15 am in my country and waiting for the update

 

and its abou 1:15 in nyc,so i think they release the update at the morning in eastern time

What update?

you know i wish you could DOWN the checkout server when this is happening cos i just wasted my hard earned on the J41 at 1am..then wasted an hour

trying to get to activate..THEN wasted 30 mins writing a post to forums..THEN get a kind reply from a forum member that it seems to be common knowledge

to everyone EXCEPT me that the product i just paid for i CANT use...

...my complaint is that this issue should have suspended SALES!!! i dont walk into a store.buy a product then they hand it over...i go home

and it dont work then call then up and they say its not expected to work until at least monday but we didnt feel like telling you

that when we took you money as you might have purchased a competitors product....

 

rant over

 

yes im a PMDG fan this WAS my 4th major purchase with them...over $200 so far

..keep making great products but PLEASE dont sell them when they are known NOT to work!!

RG

they(pmdg staffs) promissed an update for this sunday(almost today )

it 3:08 am here..its Sunday now!

fired up the 737 for a manual flight..well the AP wont activate..

oh sorry thats a bad word right now@!

you know i wish you could DOWN the checkout server when this is happening cos i just wasted my hard earned on the J41 at 1am..then wasted an hour

trying to get to activate..THEN wasted 30 mins writing a post to forums..THEN get a kind reply from a forum member that it seems to be common knowledge

to everyone EXCEPT me that the product i just paid for i CANT use...

...my complaint is that this issue should have suspended SALES!!! i dont walk into a store.buy a product then they hand it over...i go home

and it dont work then call then up and they say its not expected to work until at least monday but we didnt feel like telling you

that when we took you money as you might have purchased a competitors product....

 

rant over

 

yes im a PMDG fan this WAS my 4th major purchase with them...over $200 so far

..keep making great products but PLEASE dont sell them when they are known NOT to work!!

RG

 

We're upset over this too, believe me. The thing is we've been told multiple times by the techs at this server location that that issue was resolved but it's clearly not - we initially thought this was going to be something that was resolved quickly. It is actually working for some people too, I can see the activations as they happen and it's not completely down - part of this issue likely happening along certain internet router paths to the server and there's really nothing we can do about it. I'd say give it a try every few hours or something - you may get through.

 

Pulling the sales server down is easier said than done too - we'd basically be giving people a 404 error page or a browser timeout when they clicked on the store. It's also not technically all activations having issues, it's the J41 and NGX system - the 747 and MD-11 will still activate right now because they use an older system that's on a different server.

 

That said, this post has been here since Thursday evening and we've had a notice up on the support page's feed too about it. We're definitely not trying to hide that there's an issue right now.

 

it 3:08 am here..its Sunday now!

fired up the 737 for a manual flight..well the AP wont activate..

oh sorry thats a bad word right now@!

 

Just to be absolutely clear here, what's going on with the servers has absolutely nothing at all to do with problems happening to already installed and activated products.

thanks PMDG! i was being tongue in cheek regarding the 737 AP..was my fault in my haste to get airborne i realised that the 2nd IRS had not fully aligned...so i patiently aligned it on arrival...

..i just wanted to rant but no anger involved just frustration i promise!

..i have to say im thoroughly impressed not only by the products i own of yours but

especially now by the exceptional customer service you have given by replying to my post politely and respectably. My night is no longer ruined

..this support WELL late into the night has srengthened my already high opinion

of your company.

Good luck getting back to normal it will be worth the wait im sure.

PS so will the 777 NOT be ready for launch next weekend either?

:0

Sloppy

Gents-

 

Another update just to follow up on what Ryan has already told you:

 

We are now on our third router failure at the NOC where the "ailing" server resides.  We have a brand new server that is located with all of our other servers, so we made the decision to start moving affected services over to this new machine rather than waiting around for the NOC that owns the "ailing" server to figure out what on earth is going on over there.

 

Now- the good news is that Technical Support is now operating from the new location and running exceptionally well.

 

License activation is up and down.  As communication fades in and out on this older machine we are seeing data loss of anywhere from 30-90% at times with no obvious solution pending.

 

We need input from our license control provider in order to move that service over to the new location- so that will not likely take place until Monday afternoon.  Until then we are doing everything we can to keep the existing machine in communication, but it is a difficult task since we do not own the hardware upstream of that server- and thus we cannot go make the fix ourselves.

 

I apologize for the problems- but the good news is that we are in the process of bringing in redundant handling for all of these services- so a single hardware failure should not have this impact in the future...

 

Growing pains, to be sure- but we will all get through it!

 

 

Humor, sarcasm and teasing go along way to mitigate what is no doubt an extremely frustrating situation. Ive worked in IT, and things like this drive you nuts. So I appreciate whats going on. And sometimes you just have to laugh at the situation, yourself and others. I laugh at myself all the time. 

 

What should be entirely commended is the communication of updates regarding the issue. Not many companies will keep you informed this often with that kind of detail. And before people start comparing, this is entirely different from a 777 update or lack thereof as this completely disrupts operations and a project release unknown to the public becomes 2nd priority. Until this is rectified and very stable, Im pretty sure there is no way they would release the 777 now even if it was scheduled this weekend. 

 

Hope you get it sorted out in due time Ryan and Robert. And I didnt say this because I have a MD11 ticket. haha. Just appreciate the information. Thanks

they(pmdg staffs) promissed an update for this sunday(almost today )

 

I can't remember seeing this promise anywhere...

Time to change service providers I would say...

 

Also props for eliminating single point of failure in your system... too bad you did not make it last week.

Like Russel, I purchased a Jetstream 41 and was looking forward to learning all about it. It was my first PMDG product but knew that they have a great reputation at my club in  the UK (SWFSG).

Imagine my frustration at not being able to license the product especially as I did not buy it direct from PMDG. There was no indication of the problem on the PMDG website as far as I could see, but there were so many broken links on the support! page that I was beginning to think you had gone bust.

I really think it unacceptable that I had to root around in desperation in order to find out what was going on, not very professional.

 

My second point is that the entry box requests a product Activation Code; I don’t seem to have one or much in the way of guidance to regisration.

I have a Registration Key of the form: JS41A-****-****-****-****-**CD pasted inside the CD case;

I also have the following on the invoice:

CD-ROM B********Y : 40***********0

(** P-1-******** **) NB the first two and last two asterisks and parentheses are as shown on invoice.

 

Question: which, if any, of these are the code you require?

The software was ordered from Amazon.co.uk: Order ID: 204-9451470-7933153

 

Sorry if this sounds somewhat testy but it is the sheer frustration of not knowing what you are doing wrong!

Alan Wright

 Im pretty sure there is no way they would release the 777 now even if it was scheduled this weekend. 

 

Good example why giving release dates or even estimates are bad  ^_^

OK, appreciate the info and honest details from PMDG but I have to say this. I used to run shopping cart and it takes less than a minute to turn store OFF and leave message for customers.

If the location of store means you cannot log onto it then neither can customers buy,

Personally yes I would prefer an error 401 message at 1am than pay for a product that still wont activate and there is now definite fix time for the reason PMDG admit their data center may

not be sharing the whole picture (that's a polite euphemism)

. Which means it could be days or a week. Going just now to PMDG web site home page is completely devoid of any hint of a problem. This is unacceptable, Im sorry. Much as I love your products and will continue to buy and use them at the VERY least there should be a front page warning (which can be also displayed easily on top/bottom of all other pages) stating clearly in red that you

are suffering server outages and have disabled the cart system temporarily out of respect for customers (especially new ones) IF you can disable it..if you cant them a recommendation should be put up that customers do NOT use the cart as products can not be activated at the moment. I don't believe this will lose customers but instead gain trust and respect, most sim products of this detail

are purchased by level headed mature (whatever the age) people who wont race elsewhere to by another product. Excitement of customers waiting for a product to be available (777) is considerably more valuable than frustration of customers waiting for a product they have paid for (with no refund allowed) to start working!

PS

just checked PMDG site again and noticed there is a 404 error on the support page but not the shopping cart

 

http://www.precisionmanuals.com/productcart/pages/support.html

 

404 - File or directory not found.

The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

I don't know why that page you're referencing is missing - that doesn't have anything to do with the outage at all actually (that page is on the webserver, which has never been down through this whole thing). The support site has been working since last night when it was moved (in fact it's far faster than it ever was before now).

 

I'm not going to get into a lengthy debate with you over how easy or not easy it is to shut down our sales. I've been told it's not something that is simple to do with this particular ecommerce system (which is heavily modified vs. the basic thing the maker of it sells). As I mentioned earlier too - a still significant portion of our sales are 747s and MD-11s and those are activating fine - it doesn't make sense to me that we'd cut those people out because J41 and NGX purchases are having issues.

 

I'm aware that it sucks - I would probably be upset myself, but honestly you will have it tomorrow. It is not going to take a week - we have already left/fired the datacenter/server provider that was causing the problems. What we are waiting on is the licensing system provider company who we need to authorize the new server's location. They don't work weekends. (unlike us I might add - I was up answering tickets until almost 4AM last night and Paul and I have been doing it all day today)

Thanks Ryan I didnt know it was only some activations that were failing. I was an IT consultant myself back in England and agreed most customers/internal house users expect the support department to somehow not have lives of their own outside "normal" work hours. Thanks again for the update.

I don't know why that page you're referencing is missing - that doesn't have anything to do with the outage at all actually (that page is on the webserver, which has never been down through this whole thing). The support site has been working since last night when it was moved (in fact it's far faster than it ever was before now).

 

I'm not going to get into a lengthy debate with you over how easy or not easy it is to shut down our sales. I've been told it's not something that is simple to do with this particular ecommerce system (which is heavily modified vs. the basic thing the maker of it sells). As I mentioned earlier too - a still significant portion of our sales are 747s and MD-11s and those are activating fine - it doesn't make sense to me that we'd cut those people out because J41 and NGX purchases are having issues.

 

I'm aware that it sucks - I would probably be upset myself, but honestly you will have it tomorrow. It is not going to take a week - we have already left/fired the datacenter/server provider that was causing the problems. What we are waiting on is the licensing system provider company who we need to authorize the new server's location. They don't work weekends. (unlike us I might add - I was up answering tickets until almost 4AM last night and Paul and I have been doing it all day today)

So y'all back in business?

 

 

 

ps: I thinked a certain pigeon crapped on the window of your 777 back in phoenix ha! :rolleyes: