Banned again..

[zmak 331]

One thing that has blown me away is the amount of people asking for the previous library link. Would have been dozens asking for it so they could do a manual reinstall of orbx and be back flying but here is what happened

 

A kind poster put up a link to the previous library and myself and a few got it..before it was removed by Orbx and in the mean time all library requests have been denied.  Why?  and we are going back a few weeks when this happened

[LAdamson 240]

Noel isn't the only person contributing to this thread. If you aren't interested in what he has to say here, then you don't need to keep checking! He seems to have been poorly treated by ORBx (particularly in this instance), so I don't see a problem with him criticising them over here. They have no power over AVSIM, as has clearly been demonstrated by this unofficial forum remaining active after repeated requests to shut it down.

Yes, I have been no longer interested for days. Gets as boring, as many other forums, when the thread just treads along day after day, while everyone gets their gripes written. 

[Jimm 437]

One thing that has blown me away is the amount of people asking for the previous library link. Would have been dozens asking for it so they could do a manual reinstall of orbx and be back flying but here is what happened

 

A kind poster put up a link to the previous library and myself and a few got it..before it was removed by Orbx and in the mean time all library requests have been denied.  Why?  and we are going back a few weeks when this happened

There appears to be a huge push by ORBX to move their users forward.  The migration was just the beginning.  New products, like OpenLC NA will rely on the migration.  The new FTX Central v3 will be released soon, which relies on the migration as well, plus it will integrate the ORBX shopping feature (or whatever they call it).  Bottom line, ORBX wants to avoid fragmentation of their products functionality so making it easier for people to rollback isn't moving forward.

 

For the record, I am impartial right now.  I look forward to the new stuff, but at the same time, I am apprehensive in that I expect bugs, so I am in no hurry.

[birdguy 3,957]

I am operating under the assumption that Orbx staff reads what's here Jay.  That's the point.  There is no way I can get to them directly.

 

And to any staff Orbx staff member I would ask, "Where's the consistency?"  I would like to know what I said  on the 'I'm Done' thread that prompted JV to ban me for a month to, in his words, 'cool my heels'.  What was it?  Tell me so I'll know next time.

 

This helter skelter banning is ridiculous,  One person posted here (or was it n the BushBusters forum) that he had a picture he posted removed because 'it didn't show Orbx scenery'.  Yet another person posted three pictures of his wedding which showed no Orbx scenery at all.  Indeed, I posted several examples of my bird photography on several consecutive weeks and they were not removed.

 

Where's the consistency Orbx Staff?  How do we know what seemingly harmless word or sentence is going to catch JV in a bad mood and get us banned and lose even the support we are supposed to be entitled to for products we purchased??

 

Noel

[hhbrbg 142]

This thread is a good example for freedom of speech. Thank you avsim!

 

Kind regards

Tom

[Afterburner 374]

One thing that has blown me away is the amount of people asking for the previous library link. Would have been dozens asking for it so they could do a manual reinstall of orbx and be back flying but here is what happened

 

A kind poster put up a link to the previous library and myself and a few got it..before it was removed by Orbx and in the mean time all library requests have been denied.  Why?  and we are going back a few weeks when this happened

 

Gosh, I am really glad that I downloaded the previous library link and reinstalled my ORBX scenery before the link was removed (I didn't even know that). That way, I could enjoy flying and didn't have to worry about blurries, texture morphing or incorrect texture tiles...  Someone who has been negatively affected by the migration must be quite frustrated waiting for 1.5 months without being able to simply revert to an earlier version while the problem is being fixed. Even though I found a way out of this mess temporarily, it is disappointing how this issue was handled. First there was a sense coming from JV that the user was to blame for "inflaming the problem", and then when it was acknowledged that there were more than just 10 people affected, these users were not given the opportunity to download an earlier version of the libraries. One thing is for sure: When the new libraries and the new diagnostic tool will be released soon, I will wait for user feedback before jumping on the bandwagon.

[pmb 5,138]

I still have to get how ORBX could fail a big way with the unified lookup migration. From my experience over years, ORBX has a very careful and sophisticated testing cycle, probably more careful than some other flightsim businesses. Moreover, I'd expect them to have this tested even more thoroughly as (i) it's the basis for a number of important future products, (ii) a number of loopholes could be expected to come up.

 

Despite, including the dark figure, they obviously didn't hit the mark. My only explanation is: Their testing machines are set up according to certain guidelines (which actually many makers require from their testers and e.g. LM definitely does) which setup prevented the issues a lot of users (including me) are having.

 

Someone to provide a better idea?

 

Kind regards, Michael

[vc10man 732]

Noel isn't the only person contributing to this thread. If you aren't interested in what he has to say here, then you don't need to keep checking! He seems to have been poorly treated by ORBx (particularly in this instance), so I don't see a problem with him criticising them over here. They have no power over AVSIM, as has clearly been demonstrated by this unofficial forum remaining active after repeated requests to shut it down.

Well stated,Christopher.

[Jimm 437]

I still have to get how ORBX could fail a big way with the unified lookup migration. From my experience over years, ORBX has a very careful and sophisticated testing cycle, probably more careful than some other flightsim businesses. Moreover, I'd expect them to have this tested even more thoroughly as (i) it's the basis for a number of important future products, (ii) a number of loopholes could be expected to come up.

 

Despite, including the dark figure, they obviously didn't hit the mark. My only explanation is: Their testing machines are set up according to certain guidelines (which actually many makers require from their testers and e.g. LM definitely does) which setup prevented the issues a lot of users (including me) are having.

 

Someone to provide a better idea?

 

Kind regards, Michael

Yeah, it would have been nice to get some hardware specs from the ORBX testing team, along with settings and any tweaks used.  That way we all have a base to work from.  Maybe I'm way off, but that sort of information would seem to be pretty handy, especially for those of us who incurred issues.

 

Admitting failure from the business end would look bad for business, not to mention their shareholders would get nervous.  Seeing is believing, so whatever plans ORBX has, I have to take with a grain of salt right now, no matter how great it looks on the screen.  I look forward to seeing what they have planned, and the recent beta shots of OpenLC NA are a good example, but if they can't nail down this migration issue, then everything will snowball.  As much as I would love to add more great ORBX scenery to my sim, I'll have to approach with cautious steps.

[Claude Troncy 4]

My only explanation is: Their testing machines are set up according to certain guidelines (which actually many makers require from their testers and e.g. LM definitely does) which setup prevented the issues a lot of users (including me) are having.

I have a standard PC (4790K 4.7ghz, 780GTX) dedicated to P3D, with only ORBX products and OPUSFSI installed, and since 1.5 month with the fatal migration it is a blurry festival.

 

 

 

ORBX has a very careful and sophisticated testing cycle,

I supposed that too, I am not so sure now.

 

It is very difficult to have information of what's going on, and the fact that they did not even imagine a rollback procedure is also incompréhensible.

 

it looks like a beginner's mistake. 

Cheers

Claude

[SpiritFlyer 987]

Friends and fellow flyers,

 

Never thought this thread would still be growing!

 

Yes, there are real concerns exasperated by such a lengthy period of relative silence by ORBX. In the absence of positive feedback and information some have made statements that are increasingly provocative and incendiary, bordering on libelous. It may feel good to get even for pent-up rejection and alienation, but I can't help but think that all this anger is not very helpful.

 

Everyone that invested heavily in ORBX products have a lot to lose if we hurt the brand. Computer code and human conduct can make or break each other. That is obvious to the thousands reading threads like this. I have confidence that solutions will be found and hard lessons learned by all sides, in regard to software, customer relations and what is needed to move forward soon.

 

Sure hope so!

 

Kind regards,

[Jimm 437]

Friends and fellow flyers,

 

Never thought this thread would still be growing!

 

Yes, there are real concerns exasperated by such a lengthy period of relative silence by ORBX. In the absence of positive feedback and information some have made statements that are increasingly provocative and incendiary, bordering on libelous. It may feel good to get even for pent-up rejection and alienation, but I can't help but think that all this anger is not very helpful.

 

Everyone that invested heavily in ORBX products have a lot to lose if we hurt the brand. Computer code and human conduct can make or break each other. That is obvious to the thousands reading threads like this. I have confidence that solutions will be found and hard lessons learned by all sides, in regard to software, customer relations and what is needed to move forward soon.

 

Sure hope so!

 

Kind regards,

That's all well and fine my friend but consider this, ORBX secured a contract with DTG, which is great for them and even if we are on the verge of "hurting the brand", I seriously doubt it'll make a dent in their overall profits.  Regardless of their stance or ours on how a forum should be run, their products will still fly off the virtual shelves, they still make content and people will still buy it.

 

Customer service will ALWAYS be an issue, with anything we buy.  As it goes, some will say they never have a problem with Brand X, while others would wish Brand X to die a slow and painful death.

 

I can appreciate your zen way of thinking here but I think some folks need to have their mad.

[Gartro 18]

By way of supplement to Stephen’s first paragraph in his post #131, this is the seventh most viewed thread in the sub-forum in the past six months.

 

Luckily for me, I am able to look at all of this without a view which might otherwise have been a jaundiced one if I too had suffered from the migration/May libs problem.

 

At the time, I had not used my flight sim for 2-3 weeks and during that period the problem became apparent from forum posts. I immediately turned off my FTX Central Updates facility, avoided migration and the new libs, installed the few Orbx airports I had bought in then recent weeks but had not already installed and followed that by running the March libs (accessing them from my Internet Download Manager historical downloads). Since then, I have had no Orbx-related problems when frequently using the sim. Thus, I have had a somewhat similar experience as did Afterburner (post # 126) and Zoran. I am satisfied with what I have so far but will be very cautious before I take any next step along the path contemplated by Orbx.

 

I really feel for those who have suffered from the recent process, especially as it is a position I could have easily found myself in if I had been making frequent use of my flight sim at the time and had not been forewarned by the woes of others.

 

There are two aspects of the current saga.

 

One is the technical one – what caused the problem, how to fix it and how to enable the many affected to easily recover to the position they and Orbx had intended that they be in after the migration/libs exercise. I don’t doubt that, for multiple reasons, Orbx would be doing its best to resolve the problem (and would have plenty of incentive to do so).

 

The other is of a relationship nature. I doubt that the initial Orbx reaction was what commercial crisis management consultants would advocate. I suspect that Orbx has suffered a significant public relations dent because of what has happened. I believe Orbx needs to do what is necessary to improve the relationship. Fox example, there seems to be a disconnect in the kingdom because in the first line on the Orbx Support Page, Orbx professes: “Our philosophy at Orbx is ‘the customer is king’”, yet in Rule 23 of its Forum Rules (quoted by Jim in post #111) it says that “This is not a democracy…” and, indeed, a reading of those Rules as a whole leaves you with the impression that the customer members are far from “king” but are more akin to subjects with no rights. Perhaps, having regard to Thesaurus antonyms for “democracy”, with hindsight it may not have been the best choice of a word for use in the sentence in that context.

 

 

Gary

[harrry 322]

I understand Orbyx wants to change towards a central control of the instalations on peoples computers.  This has advantagages and disadvantages to the user.  I  consider that they can do this for producs going forward but currently owned purchases have been obtained under the old conditions.   That is their contract with the customer. The ability to install and effectively use these (with rollbacks if needed) should continue to be provided for all current products.

[birdguy 3,957]

We seem to be Orbx's serfs Gary.

 

Now let me tell you of a recent experience I had with customer service the way it's supposed to work.

 

In April I took the train out to California.  But there is no convenient public transportation from Roswell to Albuquerque where I had to board the train so I reserved a rental car from Enterprise a month in advance and the quoted price was something like 130.00 for the one way trip.   They e-mailed me a confirmed reservation.

 

I went to the Enterprise location and even thought they had cars on the lot they said they had no car for me.  The counter clerk said he did not want to let one go for a one-way trip to Albuquerque even though I showed him the confirmed reservation.

 

I had to go to Hertz and pay well over 300.00 to rent a car at the last minute so I could get to Albuquerque in time to catch my train.

 

When I got back I sent a letter explaining what happened to the CEO of Enterprise Holdings and enclosed the receipt from Hertz,and the confirmed reservation they sent me.

 

I got a telephone call apologizing for what happened from the new manager of the Roswell location and they mailed me a check for over 200.00 to cover the difference between what I would have paid Enterprise and what I had to pay Hertz at the last minute.

 

Now that's customer service!  And who will I continue to rent cars from in the future?  Enterprise of course.  They screwed up but they made good on it in a very timely fashion.

 

Noel