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Symantec support

MC
Not applicable
For those IT pros out there who are smart enough to read support messageboards before purchasing a product, lets take a minute to discuss the kind of support you'll receive from Symantec.
 
We purchased BackupExec a while back, and due to IT transitions did not install it for a few months.  When we finally went to install the program, we had some issues.  We contacted support and were told that Symantec does not provide installation support.  Yes, read that again.  In attempting to use their product for the first time after purchase, we were told that we could not get installation support without paying for it.
 
Ok, whatever.  We spent hours on our own and solved the problem.  We also decided that it might be a good time to upgrade to 11d since it was available.  We installed the software and had some issues with the remote agents.
 
Thinking perhaps we had reached the wrong tech on the wrong day, we decided to give Symantec the benefit of the doubt and contacted support again.  We were told that Symantec does not support the product during the evaluation period.
 
I'm sorry, what?
 
I have several years of experience in managing corporate IT, and in all my experience I have never come across a company marketing what purport's to be a high-end corporate product and have such a lack of support.  This is not support for hardware changes post-installation or support for a product that's been deprecated for years - Symantec is actually refusing to help people install their program to evaluate it.  The tech's suggestion?  I should purchase the full product.  So Symantec's position seems to be that yes, our product doesn't appear to be working with your system but no, we won't help you figure it out.  So buy our product without trying it!
 
Are you kidding me?
 
I'm replacing BackupExec as our disaster recovery solution.  I refuse to buy Symantec products even for home use from this point forward.  I'm discouraging everyone I talk to from purchasing Symantec products.  I'd love to hear other people's take on this, specifically a Symantec rep.
 
Or maybe I have to purchase the product for my message board posts to be visible...


Message Edited by MC on 01-17-2008 07:20 AM
8 REPLIES 8

Steve_Pasq
Level 3
I have been searching for posts like this because I am so furious with Symantec support right now and this was the most recent post I found. I can't agree more. Symantec support is absolutely useless. I find most of my solutions on this board or other tech forums out on the net. I have two cases open right now and it's like a second job just to get someone to call me back. I'll follow up with the tech's last e-mail when I first get in and he won't call me back until I am getting ready to walk out the door at the end of the day. And when I do get through to him he ask for more logs! LOGS! The funny thing is they never find anythig in the logs. I don't know why they jsut don't ask for them first. I have an exchange server that hasn't been backed up in a week and I can't get anyone to get back to me. It's rediculous. Most of the time when I talk to a tech about a case he seems very disinterested and just doing the old  "poke and hope" with his suggestions and troubleshooting . It's probably because he is reading through a script while he talks to me. Every time I open I case I know exactly what's going to happen. Every case is always attacked in the same manner. They don't know their own product. I used Backup Exec when it was a veritas product and I never had issues with support. Since then I have been with a company that used CommVault. We recently moved over to Symantec because CV is too complicated for our needs. I kind of wish I stayed with it because BE has been a total disaster. Once I finally got 11d working like a charm 12 comes out. I tested it and everything seemed to be fine but of course soon as I move it into production I have all sorts of issues. I have been on 12 for about a week and have opened 3 cases on it. None of which were resolved in a timely fashion. Symantec's support is absolutely horrible. I am sitting here at 4pm still waiting for someone to get back to me about either of my cases. Oh and Symantec, get rid of your queued call back option because no one calls you back!! I am totally frustrated with this product and their support. If anyone reading this is thinking about moving over to the symantec line of disaster recovery products and values good support you want to consider another option. One last word of advise...stay away from Continuous Protection Server for exchage. It is a lousey product and will give you more headaches than it's worth.    

shaferbus
Level 2
You're not kidding!
Your post got me wondering, so I started paging through this particular board to see when the last time was that an actual SYMANTEC tech actually answered a question here. Got all the way to page 5!
That's over TWO WEEKS worth of user issues that apparently Symantec couldn't or wouldn't solve.
 
Probably they are all trying to fix all of the bugs in V12???
 
Like other users, I bought BE because I had past experience with the VERITAS product. Don't be confused! Symantec is either not interested or incapable of supporting BackupExec! The particular issue I'm dealing with has been "under investigation" for a year now!
 
Now I've got to try to convince my board to invest yet more money in a non-Symantec solution :(
 
If I though anyone from Symantec read this forum, I'd point out that we're voting with our feet...

relhok
Level 3
Partner
I too am having problems with Symantec Technical Support - or lack of it.
If I have a problem with Microsoft I can get support there, if I have problems with Symantecs competitors I can also get support BUT not from Symantec.
I used BackUp Exec for many years but can no longer recommend a product to my customers that has virtually no support!
 
Go on - convince me otherwise Symantec!!!!

steveschack
Not applicable
Just curious - what alternatives are you considering?  I'm just trying to back up two Windows 2003 Servers and Backup Exec 11d seems to be way more trouble than it's worth.  It was working fine for quite a few months, but stopped right after the daylight savings time change early last month.  Haven't had a successful backup since then. Test jobs work, backups fail.  Something about not being able to mount media.  I don't want to throw more good time in after bad with this product.  Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Lively
Level 5
In the past 8 months I have had to call Symantec support about 4 times, and have never had an issue with them.  Now right before I took over backups, the guy before me was dealing with an issue with support.  The tech he dealt with gave him some strange troubleshooting steps to go through and we had to undo those to get the product working again.
 
A lot of people coming to this forum do not understand something, it is a PEER support forum.  It is nice to have Symantec people post from time to tim, because they do not have someone specifically assigned to post here.  If you want to speak to Symantec about every little issue you have, get a support contract and call them. 
 
edit:  steve, one of my media servers had jobs fail after the DST change but a reboot resolved it.


Message Edited by Lively on 04-11-2008 04:33 AM

Steve_Pasq
Level 3
Lively,
 
I don't think people here are complaining about support on the forum. I know I'm not. I have a support contract with Symantec and it's the biggest waste of money. I get more answers on this forum from other users than I do from their support staff. That's what this complaint is about.

Lively
Level 5
To cut from shaferbus
 
"
You're not kidding!
Your post got me wondering, so I started paging through this particular board to see when the last time was that an actual SYMANTEC tech actually answered a question here. Got all the way to page 5!
That's over TWO WEEKS worth of user issues that apparently Symantec couldn't or wouldn't solve."
 
You can even glance at a couple threads in the past few pages and see people bumping their own threads asking Symantec for help.  so some people are mentioning Symantec's lack of presence here.
 
It is true that 95% of the issues people ask about can be answered by others here/searching on your own.  One of the issues I called into Symantec was something i could not find online.  Besides that it was mainly calling them for confirmations of things.

ra2833
Level 2
wow. wow. wow....
 
i just took over an IT dept. which utilizes Backup Exec 10d, 11 and 12 something.  i now understand why since inception of Backup Exec. it has yet to backup any of the data on those 3 seperate servers.  Backup Exec came bundled with the servers.
 
i too called Symantec for support, and.....
 
wow,