{mrfl, mrfl} Sony Tech Support!

[sraun]

I've got a Sony Clie PEG-SL10. I'm reasonably happy with it - it's not Sony's fault that it's what I ended up having to buy. I had an ... unpleasant experience with CompUSA (see the write-up here - the mild version is I'm now a violently anti-CompUSA person).

Late last week I bought a 128MB Memory Stick to put in it - I wanted to grab a big chunk of my e-book library and carry it around. Yesterday I discovered that the 40-some MB of data I'd copied to it was useless - I was getting a "Protect Folder - Current folder is access inhibit." error when I tried to copy data from it to the Clie's main memory.

Which reminds me - WHY don't on-line support resources have all the error messages the product can produce, along with an explanation and solution(s) in their databases?

I'd specified in my error report to Sony that this was:

1. My data - nothing encrypted or copy-protected


2. not data for any of their software


3. Copied to the Clie using their MSExport / MSImport software pair


4. Their MSGate software generated the error

I asked three questions:

1. Why did it do this?


2. What can I do to fix it?


3. What can I do to prevent it happening in the future?

This is the only part of their e-mail reply that touched on my situation:

Some directories in MSGate are Read Only making it impossible to copy files or create folders in them. Changing to the Default Directory, (MSFiles), or one of the other MS directories, allows files to be copied normally by MSGate.

The e-mail reply went on to list several standard directories used by their applications, and provided basic instructions on using the MSExport, MSImport, and MSGate utilities.

I ALREADY KNEW EVERYTHING IN THEIR REPLY! And the problem I was complaining about should have made it obvious that I knew how to use the three utilities - why send me the basic use instructions?

I hate it when Tech Support doesn't think.

Comments

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

I'll admit to being used to that (Tech Support not thinking).

I'll also admit to being guilty of that, back when I was in Tech Support.

The key thing I try to remember is that, for every person who's done their homework before calling Tech Support, the Tech Support people get to deal with hundreds to thousands of callers who haven't.

It's very easy to get into the habit of shipping out the usual answer before devoting any time or energy to thinking about the actual question asked...

[sraun]

I'm in Tech Support right now - if I had been the tech support on this, and one of my internal customers brought my/their e-mail and their/my reply to my boss, I would have gotten my hands quite thoroughly slapped!

It illustrates something that I really hate - there seems to be a significant amount of intellectual laziness in the general public. In general, there seem to be a lot of people out there who won't (or maybe can't) think things through. I don't know what could be done about it.

I am still amazed at one - someone very high up in the company called to open a problem ticket, because every time he tried to call one specific fax number in NY, he got a standard busy signal. No problem with any other fax numbers - he'd even tried some other numbers in the same exchange in NY.

And he wanted US to fix this?

[daedala.livejournal.com]

I just sent an email to Microsoft, asking them to please confirm/deny rumors of free 216 exams?

They wrote back saying that the free 210 and 215 exams were over.

That was very silly.

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

You know that a local MNSTF member works at that CompUSA store?

[sraun]

To quote my CompUSA Complaint Page:

Tuesday, October 22, 2002, 3:45PM
With the intercession of the salesman who sold me the device (a friend of mine), ...

Yeah, I know - him interceding with his manager was one of the two bright spots in the whole thing - the other was that 'no questions asked' really was.

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Guess #1: The software writers didn't bother to document them.

Guess #2: Nobody thinks they're important.

[sraun]

I have on at least one occassion seen the error message 'No one should ever get this error.'

When reported, the programmer knew exactly where it was when it blew up. Since I could reproduce it, he could fix it.

It was a shareware product - if it hadn't been, I doubt that I ever would have been able to get it fixed. I might have been able to get a workaround.

Microsoft doesn't even provide reasonable document for the error messages their language compilers add it! If you get one of the "Error XXXX" messages during program execution, it nearly takes an act of ghu for the programmer to find out what's happening!

Disclaimer: this last paragraph was known good about three years ago. I have no reason to believe it hasn't changed.

So, is "access inhibit" fixable? I've been all over the web looking ....

[(Anonymous)]

i'll come back and register; I've got my first Sony Clie, my first memory stick, and my first (within 23 hours) Access inhibit error.

And so far all I find is people complaining they have seen it and no answers anywhere.

Time to warm up the telnet and try a newgroup, I guess.

But I'll check back in hopes someone knows the answer here.

Re: So, is "access inhibit" fixable? I've been all over the web looking ....

[sraun]

If you've got a card-reader, open the card in Windows Explorer or some such. The directory will have some extra attributes - I think it was Read-Only, but should be obvious - just remove them, then you can write to it.

I find it annoying that the MSGate program creates directories it can't write to.