Comments on: Why I Want to Bust a MadCap in Adobe's Ass

By: Help authoring news and Product Reviews | TechTotal Technical Writing, Instructional Designing - ID Training Blog

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:20:58 +0000

[...] Why I Want to Bust a MadCap in Adobe’s Ass [...]

By: Anothertechwriter

Anothertechwriter — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:04:03 +0000

This blog was so funny I sent the link to my coworkers. What is it with Adobe and serial numbers? I never did get FrameMaker 8 to work with the generated serial number, Adobe support simply refused to talk to me, and the box still sits in my desk as I continue to use 7.1 a year and a half later. My company is currently evaluating Flare, and we can't wait to make the switch.

By: Colin Scott

Colin Scott — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:01:03 +0000

Trade in FrameMaker/Robohelp for Flare?!!! Don't do it. Keep the products that are stable and consistent, and work!!

By: MrNoPrintz

MrNoPrintz — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 12:47:32 +0000

I'm glad to see there's so many others who are beginning to loathe Adobe as much as I do….

I got all of 4 days use out of purchasing Dreamweaver CS4 before having this issue… it's been almost a week of going back and fourth with Customer service, only to get get promises of "will have a solution to you in 3-4 hours…"

yeah right…

No future for Adobe and I after this bought I'm afraid…

By: BigR

BigR — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:49:05 +0000

I agree, Adobe tech support, is terrible, still waiting for a call back.

By: Outsourced

Outsourced — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:38:56 +0000

As a former representative of Adobe Tech, I can empathize with you on this one. Were you receiving the 'Licensing for this product has stopped working' error? If so, you might try looking up kb402003 on our website; I find that for serial number issues, removing the cache.db and the tsf.data files can end up really helping, along with running the CS3 Clean Script. Then again, I don't know what hoops they had you jumping through already. Yikes.

Just be aware that if you move the cache.db, you won't be able to install trials on that system.

I wish you the best of luck. I used to have a lot of faith in Adobe, but not so much any more. I hate watching other places and people screw over what used to be my customers.

By: Lorraine Kupka

Lorraine Kupka — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:31:33 +0000

Last year I had a saga much like yours with the Tech Comm Suite. Couldn't install it, was bounced back and forth between Tech Support and Customer Service. Lost count of the number of uninstalls and re-installs they had me do. After a few weeks of trying to install it and many lost hours of work, I returned the Tech Comm Suite and bought 2 of the products separately. That seems to have worked. I was able to install both. But I've since switched to Flare because I had heard that their customer service was better. It is. It's been worth the switch!
Good luck!

By: cam

cam — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:31:09 +0000

Whoo boy, thanks for writing this. I stumbled upon it while Googling various combinatinos of "Adobe Tech Support Sucks."

I just bought Tech Comm Suite and, remembering the easy breezy beautiful days of inserting CD, closing door, clicking and installing…well, thought I was in for the same thing.

Hardee har. It's on two CDs and the second one (Captivate, the one, of course, I really need) won't take the serial number. Silly me for calling Tech Support just to see if they could help. Help, they cannot, but they sure can read a script and have me install/uninstall assorted Adobe products with a "clean script" for over 10 hours and then tell me my "admin profile" must be corrupt. Magic, I tell you…admin profiles just "poof" go corrupt.

Sad to see you're at the point of switching products. I used to have a lot of respect for Adobe, but no more. Pathetic.

Thanks for blogging so at least I have something to do while "Adam" "researches" this problem…

By: chw

chw — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:54:32 +0000

You might be able to trade in an old robohelp license for a copy of Flare.

A few months ago, I persuaded my doc team manager to trade in a couple of old RoboHelp licenses for Flare 3.1 under a $400 trade-in deal (which might still be available). Since then, our help-generation process has been trouble free and we are single-sourcing OLH from Framemaker and Word with no problems. Ramp-up was a breeze. We hope to dump Robohelp completely, as soon as we work through the content.

By: mkanderson

mkanderson — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:50:41 +0000

Agreed. And as a FrameMaker user, I've been underwhelmed at the releases since version 7. Adobe does not understand the tech comm and its future.

By: CMPete

CMPete — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:39:24 +0000

Support was the reason our small company moved from RH to Flare last fall. Even with training included, the price was the same.

Flink has it right: Flare is responsive and growing. Who knows what will happen with RH, now that Adobe has it's hands on it. So far, nothing Adobe has done with RH has been useful to me…

By: mkanderson

mkanderson — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:46:00 +0000

Oh I know. I'm actually working on getting Flare. More this week on how that's going. I'm so done with Adobe.

By: flink

flink — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:57:04 +0000

I'm a long time Framer user, too. I fondly remember those halycon days when you could call Frame Technology for support and, heavens above, get actual support from someone who uses the product!!

IMHO, Adobe is the ending point for good software. Once they buy something really decent, it is doomed to eventual loss of market share to any and all comers.

Flare kicks ass. I'm really sad you can't score a copy.

By: prashanth

prashanth — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:53:17 +0000

no comment

By: Technically Speaking » A shout out to MadCap Support

Technically Speaking » A shout out to MadCap Support — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:13:07 +0000

[...] any case, when I see a blog entry like this, I have to be even more greatful for the fantastic people in MadCap's support department. In [...]