Tag Archives: support

Oracle support EOL for Java LTS versions

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The current end of life support dates are interesting. I extracted some dates from the official support table to make it easier to see this.

VersionGeneral AvailabilityPRemiereExtended
77/117/197/22
83/143/2210/30
119/189/239/26
179/219/269/29

First of all, extended support for Java 7 is less than a year away. You aren’t still on Java 7, right? 🙂

Second, premiere support for Java 11 ends later than Java 8. However, extended support for Java 8 ends way later. This is interesting. I guess Oracle recognizes it is harder to move off Java 8 than other versions?

time warner cable – different person, different problem?

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I haven’t a problem that was maddening when dealing with Time Warner since 2010. It’s that time again.

Background

My cable/DVR box has been slowing getting worsening problems for a while:

  1. freezing periodically for a few seconds
  2. saying there was 0% recorded (a reboot solved that, but it happened about once a month)
  3. turning off and not recording with a reboot. then after the reboot would start recording the middle of a show as if it were a long standing agreement

As I had shows I wanted to watch on the DVR, I chose to live with the first two problems. The third one is core functionality of a DVR so had to deal with it and get a different DVR.

Saturday

I went to the Time Warner store. I returned the Scientific American box and was given a “new” Samsung box. And by “new” I mean a box that someone else returned, they presumably tested and then gave to me. Here’s what happened:

  1. I plugged in the box and it told me to call Time Warner to activate. I haven’t had to do that when trading boxes in the past, but ok. That’s reasonable. They activated the box and had me restart the box. I appeared to have TV.
  2. I went to “Free Primetime On Demand” and got a message to call Time Warner. The rep says she needs to check if it is on my plan. It is FREE primetime on demand. I’m pretty sure it is on everyone’s plan. (This is the station for network tv after it airs. Which I wanted to watch because my DVR wasn’t working last week when I tried to record them.) She eventually gets back to me and agrees I should have it. Guess what the solution was? Reboot the box. I imagine she did something at her end as well.
  3. A little later in the day, I found that cable stations would freeze after a few seconds of play. Network stations (over the air equivalents) played just fine. When I called time warner she “runs a signal test” and tells me the problem is with the box and they can send a tech. If the problem is with the box, I can go to the store and trade boxes again. I don’t need to wait for a tech. When I complain I don’t want to wait for a tech, she tells me it won’t come until Tuesday if they mail a box. I don’t want them to mail the box. I then tried rebooting again.
  4. Provisioning – H/E error – We never got to the bottom of this one although it sounds like an issue with the box. (I also had noCP, but that was when I had the box plugged in wrong.) The tech “ran a signal test.” The tech claimed the provisioning error was because it was a used box and it was downloading updates. At 6:30pm, the rep says she will call me back at 8:30pm to follow up.
  5. She calls at just before 11pm. That’s late to be calling someone. What if I had children who were sleeping? At 11pm, she “ran a signal test” and told me the problem was with the box.

Sunday

Back to the Time Warner store. The rep lives near me and asked if there was construction nearby. There was. He then runs a signal test and tells me there is a problem with the signal. As I spoke to several people who did that the previous day who “ran a signal test”, I was suspicious. He shows me a red screen. However, the cable box was in my hand rather than plugged in at home so still suspicious. He tells me that they need to send a tech to check/fix the signal. Sigh. I give up. Fine. I’ll arrange to be home for a tech to come.

Monday

I had an appointment for between 3 and 4pm. That gave me time to work for half a day in the office and telecommute the rest of the day. I got home around 2pm. I have two messages on my cell phone voicemail and one on my home phone. Two messages say that if I don’t pick up, my appointment will be cancelled. The last says my appointment is confirmed and the tech will call before coming up. Weird.

Since I had time, I decided to go buy lunch. I get back at 2:15pm. At 2:21pm, the tech arrives. That’s not between 3 and 4. What if I wasn’t home? Would I have missed my appointment?

The tech said the problem was the box. (No kidding, this was apparent on Saturday.) He installed a new box. A brand new box.  This time a Cisco one. Which requires over 40 minutes of software downloads before it starts. Which their tech had to be here for. So he got paid to watch videos on my couch for almost an hour. This isn’t his fault. The tech did a great job. He was helpful and polite. Just not necessary. I am perfectly capable of plugging in a box and waiting for an hour.

 

time warner’s cutomer service

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I’ve had the “pleasure” of dealing with Time Warner customer support two or three times in the last month.  (One time the queue was too long and I gave up.)

The one thing I liked

Time Warner lets you contact customer service via online chat rather than sitting on the phone.  It still takes forever, but at least one can do something else during that time.  The first time I was #41.  The second time I was #37 (and decided not to wait.)  Today I was #15.  The pace crawled today compared to the first time.   Now that we’ve gotten the good stuff out of the way, let’s go through what happened.

Contact #1

Saturday September 18th I contacted customer service to make sure they knew the cable was out in my building.  This was about a day and a half after a tornado hit my area.  Both Verizon DSL/Time Warner Cable were out in my building and DSL had just come back.  (luckily power was not affected.)  Now I figured someone else had already reported the cable being out, but was just checking in case.

Result: The rep said he would credit my account for the inconvenience.  That’s nice, but I have to complaint to get a credit?  They know the whole building didn’t have cable.  It should be automatic.  I’m a bit peeved you have to complain to get a credit.

Contact #1.5

My DVR was ok so I watched some recorded shows.  On Monday, I thought “surely it will have been fixed by now” and decided to reboot the cable box.  After all, it helps with computers.  After rebooting, my cable box couldn’t tell what time it was, what was on the DVR or that I was even a customer.  Not good.  I tried to contact customer service to ask about this, but the queue was too long and I gave up.

The high tech notification system

I found out the cable was back Tuesday when I threw out the garbage and noticed the super of our building put a sign on the elevator saying the cable was back.  Thank you!  I had tried when I got home and the cable was still out.  I wasn’t going to try again that night.

Contact #2

I got my bill e-mailed and no credit.  Sigh.  I thought we went through this on September 18th.  The rep I chatted with this time (Pablo) says there will be a credit of $19.42 on next month’s bill.  If  it isn’t done then, I’m giving up the time and calling on the telephone to speak to the supervisor.  That would be time to ask for *another* inconvenience credit for the time I’ve wasted with their lousy support.

False promises

The chat form asks if you want to be e-mailed a transcript.  I clicked yes and never received anything.  Why offer it if you aren’t going to send one?

And finally

And finally, I’d like to commend Con Edison,Verizon and the city/parks/etc for their prompt work in fixing things, removing trees/debris and overall making the area.

Pattern.MULTILINE