BOFH: But I did log in to the portal, Dave BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns At some point in every successful IT vendor's lifecycle, their infrastructure gets so vast and monolithic that navigating their support network is pretty much impossible for everyone but the vendor's people themselves – and sometimes not even them. "So you see," I tell the Boss, "I log …
We're in the process of decommissioning a lot of HPE gear. The abomination that is their "support" center was one of the minor reasons for switching server/storage vendors.
Unfortunately, we're also still tied to IBM for the near future. And I can only assume that HPE took lessons from them.
OH GOD, we just bought in december 2017 a crap load of HPE OfficeConnect switches and some ProLiant servers... but even if we have multiple volume licenses for Server 2016 bought directly from MS and we provided them with the license info, HPE REFUSED to even send us a single damned install disk with drivers for the servers and the stupid "HPE Intelligent Provisioning" wizard built in the bios was malfunctioning with the standard MS installers (we download the ISO for Server 2016 directly from Microsoft VLSC).
HPE's "Intelligent Provisioning" was causing this dreadful message to appear when trying to install Server 2016:
"Windows Setup could not install one or more boot-critical drivers. To install Windows, make sure that the drivers are valid, and restart the installation."
NO SHIT SHERLOCK... the drivers were built into the damn BIOS and installed by the installer wizard provided by HPE, how much more "valid" do you want to get?
Intel servers FTW - we've got a couple with good track records.
At first we were wary, but times were tough, so we took the leap.
The downside is that most Intel kit is not built to last forever, whilst HPE (and others) are built to last, but the upside of this is that you are able to afford a new Intel server every two (or three) years, whereas with HPE (and others' kit) you have to grin and bear it until the BOFH slush fund Bossly Unit's CC is full enough to go out and purchase some pretty HPE kit - and have a major hissy fit with driver installation.
So far I never had any issue installing Windoze Server on Intel kit. HPE is another matter though...
Plus, how is that HP and Dell, (who between them probably sell a good proportion of all the web servers in the world), both still have websites which are intolerably slow? Do they not have some spare hardware knocking about?
Don't even get me started on the palava that is trying to burn a copy of the HP firmware update iso onto USB.
Apparently Amazon reckon that if their pages have a 100ms extra lag time, then they lose 1% of global sales
Amazon sells stuff that people WANT, and if they can't get it from Amazon they go elsewhere.
HP and DELL support have something that people NEED, and can't easily get somewhere else (and even though incompetence is widely available anyway, people often prefer the vendor's incompetence over a third party)
"...even though incompetence is widely available anyway, people often prefer the vendor's incompetence over a third party..."
They even prefer paid incompetence over free incompetence. And may even be disturbed is the free incompetence is slightly less so than what has been paid for.
Never had an issue getting it on to USB, the issue I have is that you can enter proxy sever addresses but can't enter credentials, so it's completely useless behind an authenticated proxy.
And the sheer genius of HPE making you have a support contract before you can download it from their website, but leaving it free to download on their FTP site...
And the sheer genius of HPE making you have a support contract before you can download it from their website, but leaving it free to download on their FTP site...
That can't be anything but FTP access left open from when they uploaded the drivers, and no-one knowing how to close it.
The HPE website is one reason why I'm not too upset my company won't give me the time to recertify on HP servers.
If I'm not certified I can't touch the warranty stuff and thus have no reason to ever use the site again.
And it also means I can focus on my actual job which is printer repair.
"Through a sickeningly appropriate coincidence, at the moment I pulled up this comments page, your post had 22 upvotes. There must be a ... catch ... somewhere.
I just upvoted your post, and my upvote was also the 22nd one. Synchronicity is alive and well in the universe's cold, cold heart.
When you can only give one upvote to a post.
I would love it if HP would just delete the entirety of their site and replaced it with the usual brochureware site for the products and a link to a drivers page, where, get this you can enter the serial number and it actually has the drivers for the device you entered. Surely not too hard.
Instead we have this piece of tortuously slow site that runs like a monkey with a leaky sack of jizz which makes me want to kill everyone who was involved in writing it. No jury would every convict either.
I managed to find Oracles hidden registered, paying but not paying customer portals just to get hold of java7 installs for jdk's. However there's a reason I've got more grey hairs though...they really really don't want you to have the installs.
Also for the record there's recycling centres in north Leeds but no landfill.... unless you count Bradford and that's to the south west....
Turn the BOFH stories into a suitable PDF, add a topical cover picture with the title artfully added via your graphical editor of choice, and send it off to a Print-on-demand shop.
When you get it back, add a few bloodstains, a bit of discoloration and damage caused by quicklime, and a few brownish patches like some lumps of soil had fallen on it at some point.
Turn the BOFH stories into a suitable PDF, add a topical cover picture with the title artfully added via your graphical editor of choice, and send it off to a Print-on-demand shop.
Really!! After reading all the BOFH stories over the years, you really want to risk doing Simon out of his rights as author?
Really!! After reading all the BOFH stories over the years, you really want to risk doing Simon out of his rights as author?
As long as you're not printing and selling them, just printing one for yourself, use as described, I think you're fine. Else you should be offering him a suitable cut of the profit in a form of his choosing, no? And if it's to keep your cow-orkers and manglement in a state of sullen obedience I expect him to approve anyway.
Had this the other day on a bit of kit.
Nice piece of paper with the returns policy on it, telling me I had the right to return the device within 21 days if I was unsatisfied, as long as it's sealed and in its original packaging.
Yes, said piece of paper was inside the previously sealed box...
I have no doubt the Boss is aware of that option... But the BOFH has encountered...pragmatic... Bosses in the past. They tend to move on unmolested eventually, quite likely armed with a couple of Ideas of how to deal with ...Things... themselves..
Nothing strokes the ego like an apt student...
Meanwhile .... that remark about pints triggered my LPOE reflex, hence icon
"Also, I'm a bit surprised that the boss gets to lend a hand in the carpet roll and quicklime routine (instead of being the body in the carpet roll)."
It sounds as if the boss who had the accident on the balcony last time wasn't after all the new boss of the previous few episodes.
I thought the boss who had the accident on the balcony was the new boss's boss, or alternatively, the boss of HR - which would have made him indirectly a boss of the BOFH and the boss but not directly of the BOFH and the boss.
I think...
Paris because I just confused myself...
> HP's site is and always has been tortuous
I found it to be very good at one time, I think it was the 90's. Had everything you needed, where you expected it to be, and a working search function & forums. A model for anyone to aspire to.
Then they merged with Compaq.* Or merged it with Compaqs site. Or won an award for the website and let it go to their heads. Something like that.
* My timeline may be hazy. Many real ales through the kidneys since then. Or was that the cause of my drinking?
Well, El Reg got back at HPE with that at the opening of the Hewlett You Inn, by offering the sign in a brobdignagian box stuffed with packing foam.
I wonder what the current state of that joint is, given how HPE are trimming personnel levels to way below any sensible minimum level. It's either closed, or employees are using it[0] as a last resort to make their lives bearable.
[0] in contravention of the 'For Entertaining Customer Use Only' directive slapped on it.
There seems to be a trend among large companies that they see their web servers as a means of keeping customers away from what they want rather than a means of helping them find it. HP has been impossible to penetrate without using Google for as long as I can remember. IBM somehow manages to be worse... it once took one of their own staff several weeks to find out that the files his customer wanted were hidden on an FTP server somewhere in Boulder, Colorado.
not limited to their support site. the driver installation is a page from the same book of self torture.
best just extract the inf and sys files and let windows splat them in itself.
no need for:-
*device* management software
*device* monitoring software
*device* user experience enhancement softare
*device* update software
*vendor* device update management software
*device* reporting software
*vendor* support assist software
honestly. cut all this crap, and cut the download from the gigs clogging up my MPLS, to the 60kB we all know it actually is, and free up the extra 10% server cpu time burnt with all of the "Support Processes" removed from the equation.
its like install one tiny peripheral, and your whole machine's purpose for being becomes just a life support system for that one device's existence and operation. "would anyone like any toast?"
You forgot the update software for the monitoring software that monitors the device update management software.
The other day Task Manager showed me the *update* service for some pissy little utility I downloaded was taking 40Mb of memory. How TF can
LookfForUpdate
If (update exists)
Install upate
else
Do nothing
end if
take 40Mb????????
I just deleted it.
"Hello. You're through to IT Support Support. How may I help you?"
"Err... IT Support Support?"
"Yes, we help you navigate your IT support system"
"So you're not IT Support?"
"Correct. We're not"
"Err.. I think I've dialled the wrong number"
"No hold on there sir, if you have an IT issue then we're the people to talk to"
"But you're not IT support"
"I'll explain. IT support has reached the point where dealing with them has become counter-productive. In many cases, simply standing on your desk and screaming for help with, whatever irks you, would illicit a more useful and immediate fix. We're that knight in shining armour"
"..but you have no knowledge of our systems"
"I beg to differ. Due to outsourcing, the UK has approximately half a million ex IT support workers, currently employed as barristas, litter pickers and dog walkers. Between them they hold the collective knowledge of every byte of software that has ever been written and they have worked for every IT firm you are ever likely to deal with. We are all on 24 hour call, and so we are best placed to fix anything, or tell you how best to get your company's IT support to jump to attention and rain assistance upon you like they really gave damn"
"I see. That's great"
"So...How can I help you?"
"Yes. Well my screen's upside down"
"That's an easy fix sir. Do you have a male colleague working next to you? Perhaps one that is sat there trying to hold back a fit of laughter?"
"Err yes there is. How do you know these things?"
"Years of experience sir. Now I can tell you how to fix this very easily, but I'd rather give you a more permanent fix. Repeat these words loudly enough for the smirking jerk next to you to hear - 'interfering with another users computer is a sackable offence, but we'll overlook it on this occasion if they immediately undo their prank' "
.....
"Hello sir. Did it work?"
"Well yes it bloody well did. They dived over lickety split and did a ctrl-alt-arrow and it's back to normal. Thank you"
"Not a problem sir....One Americano coming up"
"Sorry?"
"My apologies, a customer has just ordered a coffee"
"Are you serious?"
"You've seen Brazil. Well I'm just one of the many Harry Tuttles of the IT world, helping to keep the wheels from falling off of the careering supermarket trolley that your superiors bought into because it was the cheapest"
That sounds like it could either develop as per the above, or turn into a dystopian gig-economy thing where the ones at the top get all the money and the workers are just casual labourers who have to do everything at their own expense that a "proper" company would be responsible for, such as tools, equipment and vehicles required to do their job, and calculating and deducting taxes at source.
Ok, yesterday trying to do some SSL certificate management.
The unamed SSL issuer sends me a link and a username/temp password for their portal
Go to the link, login with the username and temp password, get prompted for old/new/new password.
Type those in, get a 'your session has been terminated, login again'.
Try to login with username/new password. 'invalid'
Try again to login with username/new password. 'invalid'
Maybe I used different capitalization? 'account locked out for 15 minutes'
15 minutes later. Maybe the new password didn't take? username/oldpassword, 'you must change your password now'.
enter old/new/new password. 'your session has expired'
I'm not falling for it this time, login with username/old password.
'you must change your password now'.
enter _really quickly_ old/new/new password.
'you must now set up 3 security questions'
go through that, 'your session has expired'
login again with new password. 'you must now set up 3 security questions'
run through the 3 security questions as quickly as possible. 'you must now give a phone number for 2 factor authentication'
give it my cell number. 'please enter the recieved pin'
Type in the pin. 'your session has expired'
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some joker set the session timeout to about 30 seconds.
I'm currently experience the joy of dealing with a support portal that won't accept one of our device serial numbers. Licensing support can only assist with adding licensing contracts - not devices. Nobody can help you if you can't add a device, because nobody ever imagined that that situation could ever occur. And no, the device wasn't grey-market or used or anything like that.
Obviously, he's talking about Cisco, whom I thought this BOFH was about before I waded into the HPE slugfest here in the comments.
You know it's bad when your account exec for a company has problems with his company's support site...
Definately + MANY on IBM's support offerings: I once spent two weeks plus trying to track down the two or three people who had a clue about their SKLM product (encryption key manager for tape libraries) to see if we still had support on that product; By the time I got an answer, I had found the buried documentation on how to do what I needed to do with it...
I recently had to download the entitlement keys for a firmware update for three IBM Power8 servers.
That's an entitlement key to allow an update of the firmware. Not the firmware itself, but a key to allow me to update the firmware (this is apparently a new system to try to lock customers into IBM support).
Of course, the web site accepted two of the serial numbers , and rejected the serial number of the third system saying it did not exist! So, I raise a hardware call (firmware is regarded as part of the hardware by IBM).
I then spent the next two days, several emails and a couple of phone calls to persuade the hardware support centre that it was not me trying to update the firmware, nor me trying to enrol the key, but actually generating the key that I had the problem with. Once I had convinced them, they said there was nothing they could do, the system was under support and I should be able to get the key, but that process was not something they had any dealings with. Had I tried pressing the button that reported a problem on the entitlement website.
Several more emails, some containing screenshots then got them to admit that I would not be able to see the button, as my email address on the support account showed that I was working for IBM, and only non-IBM end users would be able to see the button. They suggested that I raise a feedback on the website,
A day later, I get a response from the feedback team, who say that they only could provide help on the website, and as I could get to the entitlement page, the website was working properly, and there was nothing they could do about the applications that the website called. Had I tried raising a software call from the Power support pages.
Two days later, I get a response from a rather bemused software team saying that firmware was a hardware support issue, and I would have to raise a hardware support call.......
As I now had three email addresses for all of the teams I had been in contact with, each pointing at one of the others, I wrote a new mail addressed to all three, quoting the last response from each of them.
I ended it up with an appeal that I didn't care which of them sorted this out, but that one of them had to be in a position to solve my problem, and could they discuss it amongst themselves to work out who it would be. I also said that if I didn't get an answer, I would have to tell the end-customer for whom IBM run these systems, that IBM wasn't able to support their own machines to provide the Spectre fixes that IBM had said were needed to protect the machines.
I actually then got a call from a very apologetic 3rd line support rep. from the US, who read me out the key he had generated for the system, and said that I should be able to confirm that I could use the entitlement website the following day to download it. And I could!
I must admit that I breathed a sigh of relief, but I wish that I hadn't had to go round this loop.
Nice that you got your code for the update, eventually, but the fundamental problems that caused that issue needed to be sorted out too. Maybe they did. But the common experience is that if you fight hard enough the companies remove your symptom, but leave the disease intact.
Very similar, I guess to the people who contact a TV consumer programme after being given the runaround by a major company who owe them money, and then they get their refund - you wonder about all the people who don't get their issue publicised.
"But the common experience is that if you fight hard enough the companies remove your symptom, but leave the disease intact."
That's because these operations run despite their systems not because of them. In the background there always people who actually get things done. The challenge is to find them and get a direct number or email.
I once started a job as 2IC of IT at a medium sized company which had just driven into the comms equivalent of a peat bog while following Cisco's product roadmap. My first project was "get those fuckers out of the company".
Thus, I oversaw replacing all the Cisco kit with HP kit...
The CIO thought that went so well that next he wanted me to get rid of Oracle. I took another job rather than deal with that can of worms.
That was as high up the greasy corporate pole as I reached and I have no desire to return to those heights.
Usually I find BOFH amusing but somewhat exaggerated.
Not this one. I have the displeasure of having to deal frequently with a company with a three letter abbreviation and this story is, if anything, an understatement of how truly and utterly awful it is. I cannot describe the waves of depression that sweep over me when realising that I'm going to have to go on their web site. The endless going round in circles, the impossible-to-tell-apart two levels of engagement. The same damn problem every year which buggers up a licence renewal and which can only be fixed by me emailing a specific named person in the US and asking them to pretty-please sort it out yet again.
I once, and I kid you not, had to raise a support request to resolve the fact that I could not raise a support request. Turned out that they had changed their policies and I had to go to a specific level of engagement and tick a box on a specific page to indicate acceptance. No prior indication of this (no emails or calls) and the failure when trying to raise a support request was just for the page to be blank. Took thee days to sort it out and, at one point I got passed by phone from person to person until I ended up back at the original person.
I need a drink.
I actually get the sweats if I ever have to go near the HP/IBM or Citrix support sites. It is litterally one of the most painful processes known to man. You go round and round in circles, and just when you think you've got somewhere, you're either kicked out, asked for information you don't have or lose the will to live.
Dell aren't actually that bad comparatively, but they recently changed their online server configurator tool from one that worked to one that was designed by monkeys. I complained loudly to our account manager (and he said others have too), but nothing's changed.
I also can't believe HPE require you to have a CarePack to download critical ProLiant updates. These are critical for people whove PAID MONEY for your kit. The least you can do is let them have them. I can understand if you want help from their support team (I use the term 'help' losely), but just let me download the damn updates!
HP? This is like every encounter with Cisco's support I've ever had. An endless cycle of broken web forms and meaningless questions and abbreviations and other jargon when all I wanted to check was the support level / expiry of some switches. I got so frustrated once I was told to leave the room for a while, shaking with sweat and anger.
"How about sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide"
Chromic acid made, IIRC, with conc. sulphuric and potassium chromate. Dissolves organic matter more or less instantly. Used to clean microbiological glassware. It was essential to warn new technicians by the disappearing filter-paper trick: dip a circle of filter paper into the acid.
Indeed. The quicklime is to prevent decomposition and scavenging animals.
I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs [sucks teeth theatrically]...
I also hear that the "lifespan" of a body in the desert is about 72 hours. It seems that things that live in deserts don't let protein or water go to waste...
Neither do undersea scavengers like lobsters, crabs and crayfish. Bear that in mind next time you sit down to a seafood dinner.
Strangely enough I was reading the Bones Don't Lie blog on an unrelated topic yesterday. Totally unrelated, honest Officer.
Cross-country murder is a lot harder, and in the US turns it into a Federal crime.
Back at the very tail end of the 20th Century, I had a home DSL line (I knooowwwww!) at my apartment in Boston, with service through an ISP located in California. They resold service from one company (AT&T), installed by a second (Covad), and so FlashCom's #ONEJOB was basically to just collect my monthly payments in return for doing exactly nothing. It should've been TWO jobs, the second being to keep my service active. And therein lies my mistake.
After a few months of relatively trouble-free access to the new-fangled Information Superhighway, some sort of physical calamity befell my line that took it out of service. It's ancient physical copper wiring in an old, old city, these things just happen. Unfortunately, though, getting a company clear across the country to service your telephone line is not the easiest thing. And, I couldn't call AT&T because they wanted nothing to do with me: I wasn't their customer, FlashCom was. So, I waited.
It eventually came to pass that a service tech had been dispatched, and determined that the line was dead. (Gee, thanks.) Furthermore, he determined that it was the last unused pair of copper wires in the trunk, there were no more available, and so they were very sorry, but there was nothing they could do about restoring my service. (Because that line only carried DSL, and no analog telephone service, it wasn't subject to the regulations that would've required them to sort out the problem, no matter what they had to do — even if it meant digging up the street and running an entirely new trunk to our building. This is why regulation is a good thing, folks.)
Now, mind you, it's taken the better part of five weeks to make this determination, with my line down the entire time. Then the other shoe dropped.
Turns out, FlashCom had been continuing to bill me for the entire five weeks that my line was down and I was not, in fact, receiving any of the "service" I was paying them for! Naturally, when I discovered this, I immediately stormed off to their website (yes, it is possible to "storm" to a virtual location, as I learned that day) to cancel my non-service. I mean, after all, they were a modern dot-com company, with a customer account portal and everything!
A customer account portal which promptly crashed every time I attempted to submit the cancellation form.
After trying three times, and now completely livid, I practically broke the buttons off my phone pounding their phone number in, to speak to their billing department in person. This involved subjecting myself to the same four-song hold music loop I had already become intimately familiar with, over the preceding five weeks, but this time I don't think I even heard it.
To make an already-long story slightly less long, the tale ends with me SCREAMING, completely unhinged at what sounded like a tiny 70-year-old woman in their billing department (because screw her, she knew the risks), after she suggested that I log in to their customer portal and cancel the account myself.
Seriously, I was so belligerent she had to hang up on me. And to her credit, when I called back a few minutes later, slightly less rabid, she did finally process my cancellation and release me from the hell that was FlashCom. Which promptly went out of business some time within the next two months.
Even though most agree, that this should be HPE (ex HP) and I did have some interesting clashes with HP support (this is for another time), the best ever happened with Dell.
Dell color printer, magenta and cyan replacement cartridges buth have a fault (a fixed fault line every few cms, probably some problem with the roll in the cartridge due to non recommended storage).
Have you ever tried to log a warranty claim (EU type mandatory 2 years for private customers, non UK.). for a printer cartridge? The web system requires a serial number to check the warranty, but they do not have one. If you try to log it via the printer you get "it is out of warranty, to old". The phone system works the same.
You are in a maze with tiny little redirects all alike.
I resorted to good old snail mail, registered delivery. After that they really did contact me by phone and tried to reject the claim (out of warranty after more than 90 days, even though this does not apply to private customers).
I did politely point out that with the claim reject they had just waived their right to repair and that I did want a refund or replacement now.
And asked for a number from 1 to 4. So that they could choose which lawyer in the family would extract his fee from them as this was a clear case of consumer rights violation.
I got my replacement cartridges with overnight delivery. And an apology from the manager.
Paris, because even she cannot suck that much.
The Mrs was looking at the web site of First Utility to find if they were open over the bank holiday. She used the "chat"facility. And it kept telling her "I'm not trained to answer that". In other words, it was a "bot". Not a human. Even she knew that and she has no IT interest.
I'm currently implementing a system where the software vendor has recently been taken over. Apart from the fact that i's now impossible to see status updates on tickets on the call management system, when they do provide a fix the technical team cannot get the fix to an FTP site/ Portal / document repository or forum. They issue them but don't know where they are published. They now have to email me the objects. Of course being inside a corporate network I can't receive very large files, zipped files or executables. I can see this ending in tears shortly. Don't even let me get started about the degradation in service from Business Objects since the SAP takeover where I now have to speak to a salesman if i want a technical whitepaper, or the monster that MyOracleSupport has become since replacing metalink. Sometimes I long for the old days of ICL where I would receive the known error log on 32 microfiche each month.
This sounds a lot like my Tesco Clubcard customer services experience before they updated their website a few years back.
There was a cookie that was messing up the server if I logged in using the correct page, and I was getting Internal Server Error until I cleared cookies. Clearing the cookies and logging in would land me back the Internal Server Error message.
Logging in via Tesco Direct to view my Clubcard took me via a beta version of the site, and that worked just fine.
Tried explaining this to CS, to get a bug reported. That's all I wanted: report a bug to whoever is working on this in India. I ended up with an inconsistently deleted account instead. Yep, I had Schrodinger's Tesco Clubcard - both registered and not registered at the same time. They fixed this too, and now I had a shiny brand new account, but the problem didn't go away.
I did exasperate the CS representative and had to get passed to somebody else, but I didn't need to drive my car to the woods.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
