Actinic Complaints - Post your problems and issues

[MASTERforge]

I decided to create a forum thread for complaints. After having many problems, and posting complaints in various threads, I thought it would be better to group the complaints and allow others to add theirs.

I think this is fair as actinic will have a chance to address the complaints in this thread. It will also give them an excellent opportunity to fix the problems and improve their service.

If you are considering buying actinic products it may be in your best interests to read these posts first.

[wjcampbe]

Sorry Liegh, I disagree with your approach.

One thread with multiple problems will get so messy it will do nothing for anybody. How can anyone respond to a problem if there are twenty more non-related posts between the original posting of the problem and their answer.

One problem, one thread - we can tackle and hopefully resolve the problem - leaving one problem - one thread - one solution.

Complaints need to go to Actinic Customer Services, leaving this forum to serve its intended purpose - peer support.

[MASTERforge]

I had chosen actinic catalog because I wanted an off-the-shelf ecommerce package that I could run and install myself. This was to cut the costs of web designers as I am a small start-up business who relies on the internet for sales.

I was using which is a free software package that can be customised by adding contributions. After building the store for months, I had added so many contributions that it had become unstable. It was clear I needed a better package.

I understood that actinic catalog was for retailers on a budget who needed to go online.

After purchasing it I knew that it would be quite a haul to get things the way I want so I got reading the 'getting started guid'. I quickly realised that the guide only touches on a few topics and in no way is it a manual. I also noticed many simple spelling mistakes and wrong words. This led me to think that the book was rushed into production without proper proof reading. By the way there are no published books on actinic. So they have a monopoly on information hence £250 annual telephone support.

Because the 'getting started guide' is not a manual I had to run through the help guides. These are similar in depth to the guide. I had to read on the forum, through the posts to get even the simplest of things done.

It was only after a while that I was informed by a forum member that I had a 30 day telephone support. My letter informing me about this support arrived 7 days before its end. This leads me to conclude that either actinic are incompetent with their purchase systems or they deliberatly withold the information to reduce telephone congestion and increase the chance of telephone subscriptions.

I have found the telephone support to be very limited. I suspect through poor training and I would never pay £250 a year for it. The members on the forum have been my biggest help and I thank them all.

I have also used the actinic email system to complain. I think that my email dissapeared down the same blackhole that has my questions on support.

From what I understand the software is full of bugs too. The problem being that you only get updated versions with bug fixes if you have the £250 subscription. The software is neither simple nor intuitive making the simplest of changes a headache.

The software has a potential to be amazing but bad support and programming let it down. Perhaps someone like adobe can buy the company and make it more feasable.

[Mike Hughes]

The problem being that you only get updated versions with bug fixes if you have the £250 subscription. The software is neither simple nor intuitive making the simplest of changes a headache.

Not true. Your licence for V8 includes all V8 upgrades. Bug fix versions and V8 upgrades. The only thing you need to pay for (or use actinic cover) is for major release upgrades such as V9 etc.

Mike

[Darren B]

I am interested in your comments,

Having been a user since V5 i have seen some great improvements, you however have unfortunately come in at a point when the whole actinic package basically got a re-write.

I also agree that it was probably rushed abit and not all the "I" & "T" 's got dotted and crossed.

But i could buy V8 add products and launch a site without encountering one bug. However should i wish to customise it then i need to do some hard graft to get it right and make sure that i do not remove an imported piece of code that screws the layouts up and generates message.

Telephone support, not the best i agree but better than alot of other companies.

ADOBE - if adobe brought actinic i would never touch it. I can not believe you actually made those comments, If any software has more bugs than MS it would be adobe. My system does nothing but crash with adobe software so i certainly can not agree with you. And where is the great informative guide for photoshop and illustrator and all the others??? that you ask about.

I am in agreement with Bill. If you have a problem - POST IT
Darren

[MASTERforge]

Free updates is a bit more reassuring. I was under the impression they were only offered to subscription members.

The purpose of the thread is to group complaints not to resolve technical issues. Part of the reason for starting the thread is that complaints sent to actinic are in my experience ignored. The thread gives users and potential buyers better information than posts on technical issues.

I understand that there are people posting on here with vested interests in actinics success. I also wish them success, thats why I would like to see their products and services improved.

[Owen Drumm]

Maybe you should have a look at the Advanced Users Guide. You will find that as a guide to using Actinic it is pretty comprehensive. In fact whilst I would agree that there are more bugs than usual in version 8, it still "does what it says on the tin" in that it creates an extremly easy to use store for the customer and a very easy to use package for the store owner.

A lot of the problems that people find with version 8 are the new layout structure. I do feel however that once you get the hang of things 8 will be much much better than previous versions.

My advice to those not up to scratch with html and other stuff would be to stick with one of the many themes that come with 8 until they become fairly proficient. After all the main thing is to get your products out where people can see them.

I rarely use telephone support but still find that the money I pay for my Developer subscription is well worth while. If like me you have ever had to phone a Bulldog with a query about your broadband and been left hanging on for over an hour and spent time sending countless emails without a response then you will realise that you have a great product and service with Actinic.

(I take it after all that brown nosing I will get a substantial discount on my next order Actinic? )

[outdooraction]

quote "I have found the telephone support to be very limited. I suspect through poor training and I would never pay £250 a year for it. The members on the forum have been my biggest help and I thank them all.

I have also used the actinic email system to complain. I think that my email dissapeared down the same blackhole that has my questions on support."

I have to really disagree here, i have nothing but full priase for the telephone support team. The £250 a year is well spent. I have had a few problems but all are sorted with no problem, i had a mega crash this weekend, but Support has been imense and i had it all working within 24 hours. [only comlaint is that sometimes you can be on hold but no more than 15min]

and i have always had a reply using the email, so im a bit unsure about you comments.

[BeerHunter]

The members on the forum have been my biggest help and I thank them all.

Big thumbs up from me on this comment. The people on this forum rock! Big thanks from me on that one!