What's up with support?

[saasideas]

I posted a support ticket which was very clear. Their response wasn't useful at all and didn't seem like it acknowledged the information i posted in the ticket. So when I added even more clarification and re-iterated my original ticket for them and requested support they've ignored me for days now. Their not even acknowledging if I will receive any more support or not, just ignoring me. 48 hours+ seems like a long time, especially if it keeps dragging on....

 

The impression I have is that they just respond to new tickets (whether helpful or not) and that's it....I guess since the ticket isn't marked as open they've done their job?

 

Any thoughts, experiences, etc.? Since their code is obfuscated and their licensing so strict I kind of need to rely on support....is their support this bad or am I an isolated incident?

 

Their billing software seems good, but I need to integrate it into my site so I need support for auto auth

[AssociatedVOIP]

Are you replying to the ticket from your WHMCS software?

If so, that's a mistake because they are also using the same software and your replies will not be imported.

 

You must log in to their ticket system to post replies if you are using an email address associated with your WHMCS software.

[saasideas]

What do you mean my WHMCS software? You can do that....?

 

I'm logging into http://www.whmcs.com, creating and responding to tickets on their system...I actually created a new ticket for the same issue just to see what would happen and they merged both tickets...and continued ignoring me lol. I'm currently in development mode on my localhost, not really using my whmcs system for much now.

 

I need to solve auto auth not working, but they're not supporting me with it. It logs in, than when I switch pages i'm logged back out again.

 

It's too bad. It's strictly licensed software you pay for AND it's obfuscated so I can't figure it out/reverse engineer it. Days keep passing and I lose more and more faith in support. They literally just skimmed my ticket, provided a lazy response, and have ignored me for days since I replied with more information and even more clarification so they understand.

[Infopro]

Could you please provide me with the ticket number?

 

 

Thanks!

[saasideas]

Ticket number #145281 from my WHMCS client area.

[saasideas]

Might as well add ticket #827667, I have a feeling I won't receive support for that one either.

[saasideas]

10+ days for my original support ticket #145281 and it's obvious they're not going to support me and help me resolve the issue. Now what? What do I do when they refuse to support a product I purchased from them?

[Infopro]

10+ days for my original support ticket #145281 and it's obvious they're not going to support me and help me resolve the issue. Now what? What do I do when they refuse to support a product I purchased from them?

 

I've had a look at your ticket asking about using some sort of bridge login system for Joomla. You might want to bring your questions to the forums here. (not in this thread, start a new one) And see if the community can assist you with your custom setup that you wrote.

 

Attacking the team at WHMCS is not helping you get this sorted though. Not here, or in the tickets you've posted.

 

This is not normal support IMHO, you're trying to do something custom and want WHMCS to help you do that, like its a supported effort. I don't think it is.

[saasideas]

Agreed, however my first ticket is a prime example of receiving zero support and being completely ignored. This has paved the way for my rudeness in the tickets because the level of support is seriously lacking. At this point I'm just messing around because it's obvious they can't/won't do anything and just ignoring me is their way of saying "no support for this matter".

 

I mean with an API I don't really know of an example of where it wouldn't be a customization...I'm using a third party app to access their API yes, but it's their API and code and it doesn't work because of session based issues. Since I can't even look at the code (it's ioncubed) or get supported with it I am just sol.

 

Which is too bad, there's a lot of good things about WHMCs but the bad things just keep stacking up and one of them is definitely how they corner you into using the ioncubed software which someone like me can't even modify/fix to work the way I need it....or how it should work in the first place.

 

Or at least pieces of it don't have to be ioncubed like their login code especially if it's localized in one script. What does it matter if I change it anyways, I can support myself if they just let me.

[Infopro]

Agreed, however my first ticket is a prime example of receiving zero support and being completely ignored. This has paved the way for my rudeness in the tickets because the level of support is seriously lacking. At this point I'm just messing around because it's obvious they can't/won't do anything and just ignoring me is their way of saying "no support for this matter".

 

Ticket #827667 is awaiting a reply from you as it reads to me.

 

I mean with an API I don't really know of an example of where it wouldn't be a customization...I'm using a third party app to access their API yes, but it's their API and code and it doesn't work because of session based issues. Since I can't even look at the code (it's ioncubed) or get supported with it I am just sol.

 

Which is too bad, there's a lot of good things about WHMCs but the bad things just keep stacking up and one of them is definitely how they corner you into using the ioncubed software which someone like me can't even modify/fix to work the way I need it....or how it should work in the first place.

 

To be clear, there's a lot of things about WHMCS you like, but things you're still working out how to make happen, don't work, yet, so it's WHMCS's fault?

 

WHMCS should not work with some unknown bridge to a Joomla CMS, "in the first place" as you state. How could it? But I bet someone else has tried it, possibly even succeeded and posted on these forums about it.

 

WHMCS support should not be answering tickets assisting you with doing something custom that may or may not work. They can't help you with your custom script, its out of the scope of support I would think.

 

 

Or at least pieces of it don't have to be ioncubed like their login code especially if it's localized in one script. What does it matter if I change it anyways, I can support myself if they just let me.

 

I'd only be guessing of course, but there surely must be at least one other thread on this exact topic, on these forums. Replace the word session with anything you like and take a look around.

site:forum.whmcs.com sessions issue - Google search of pubic accessible forums

 

 

For the the record, I do not think you're being rude here, or in your tickets. I don't think WHMCS support is being rude, or ignoring you, either though. If there is something WHMCS is sold as doing, out of the box, but does not do properly, thats one thing. If its something you'd like it to do, but can't figure out how to, yet, on your own, thats something else all together, I think.

[Daniel]

Just thought I'd add that I've had to submit a couple of tickets this last week and they were replied to within a minute! Things have improved a lot recently and I hope they keep it up

[saasideas]

For the record their entire login system/auto auth/api is compromised by session collision. If you use "remember me" which probably incorporates cookies than I think it's partially resolved (but isn't supported via auto auth). That's the problem, providing a better way to handle sessions like database would probably be ideal.

 

So by that token the only way I can handle logins is externally, I can't do it through WHMCS and must turn everything login related off to integrate both my systems....easy to figure out the more I troubleshoot and play around because you can't begin using another system in WHMCs and innitializing sessions and etc. So you have to disable any trace of the third party system in WHMCS and use the 3rd party system + auto auth to integrate whmcs. This sucks because it would be nice incorporating a dynamic system into WHMCS so when I change my third party app I just load it into WHMCS and display menus, modules, etc. instead of hard coding everything in HTML.

 

If I could have just looked at their code it would have been obvious right away, but I can't. Nor do they support API usage when it doesn't work because I'm accessing it using a third party app.

 

Mostly their good with support and WHMCS has a lot of pros, does a lot of things, and etc.

 

It's frustrating because every time I go to do something it doesn't do I realize WHMCS is missing features, so I go to use their API and I realize it's lacking, and I go to use their hooks and I realize they're lacking....Than their support just says "nope" or in my one or two cases ignored me because it was out of the box type of issue/situation.

 

Sometimes they're not of course, which is a good thing. It's just very different than what I'm used to. I use Joomla which is well designed, robust, easily extendable, open source, and you can always make it work by extending it (maybe a hack or two here and there if really necessary in core code) and I'm good...and it's free. With WHMCS it's the complete opposite and since it's ioncubed and paid for it's just not what I expected when I keep running into all these issues. Even Joomla sofware that's paid for is usually open source but the support is usually in a league of it's own compared to WHMCs as well.

 

My main issue is if I can't do it it's frustrating, no support sucks, and not being able to look at or touch the code isn't great either. I just have to shell money and keep piling on the feature requests. But like i said, it's primarily because I'm from the Joomla camp and the only reason I'm here is because they don't have this type of billing system and I don't want to shell out another 100-200$ for the integrator someone made.

[disgruntled]

If you have custom work you need doing there are hundreds if not thousands of developers that are working around whmcs, find one and have them look into your issue, ofcourse your going to need to pay for this but lets face it, if you dont have the skills to fix your car, you take it to a garage, how is this any different? take the job to the people that know what they are doing.

 

As far as the encryption of the coding, this is one i have debated many times before and at one time i believed it would be better to be open source, but there are pros and cons to it.

 

Encrypted, nobody gets to mess with the code and change the direction is heading, that means you get the same developers working on the code who know how it works and know its direction.

 

Unencrypted, anybody can apply fixes and such, but then you also see the scope for changes that may not be cross compatible with the next version, this means you have to fresh install on every upgrade or get stuck with line that may or may not get updated/upgraded.

 

In my very humble opionion, i feel it is better to have one tried and tested production line rather than have one line here one line there and another 100 there and here.

 

Look at oscommerce, its open source has a great backing of developers that work on "modules" but version control is all but non existent and once you start applying modules that quite often require extensive edits to the base code you soon run into the realm of being stuck into one release with no upgrade option.