Hello Matthieu,

I moved your post out of the community conversations group as that one isn't going to get seen.  Your best bet is to use the Translation Productivity community as this relates to the products you are referring to and provides a better opportunity for you to engage with us and other users.

I don't really like trying to paper over anywhere you have problems and generalising them too much, so I think I need to comment on your specific issues so we can address them, or try to anyway.

Unknown said:

First of all I am tired of paying for a software that does not work properly. A few months ago, I posted about a problem I encountered with Trados. The situation has improved but the problem is not solved and I keep getting the error messages. As I pointed out in my original thread, it is the only piece of software that is so buggy. Even the installation of the program cannot run without an error on a clean Windows 10 Anniversary install. I had to manually install some components because the install package was corrupted.

Basically the only answer back then I got was "there must be some incompatibility with your setup". Well, again, every single program installs and runs just fine whatever the environment, except SDL Trados.

I do recall that thread, and a lot of people in that thread tried to help find the source of the issue because this is not something that seems to be a common problem with Studio.  However, I do accept what you are saying and maybe the only way we can get to the bottom of this problem for you is by arranging for an engineer to work with you when this happening so we can try and find out where the clash is.  Unfortunately it's often not as simple as saying that other software works so this should too.  We may be using components that your other software do not, and these components might be clashing with something you have on your machine that most users do not.  I really don't know... but clearly this can be a difficult thing to get to the bottom of.

But please let me know if you are willing to allow us to engage an engineer with you to try and sort this out.  I think this is going to be the only way forward.

Unknown said:

Secondly I am tired of the overall SDL policy and lack of respect for its users. I opted for "no communication" at all in my SDL account settings, and yet, I keep getting spammed with adverts for SDL Trados 2017. Over the last two weeks, I received four e-mails about Studio 2017.

I think the best thing to do here is if you can drop me an email with the most appropriate address for you and I'll make sure that all the places we hold details for you are correctly setup to not send you any emails.  Sometimes we have multiple addresses for users and this can cause us to send mails out when they are no longer wanted.  Apologies now for this but if you drop me an email I'm sure we can put a stop to this.  Please use pfilkin@sdl.com

Unknown said:

I eventually tried to learn more about Studio 2017 and that's where the real fun started. You are getting spammed over a software you can't even see: there is no actual screenshot of the new software (at least when I last checked), only the usual marketing BS. I ended up on this official SDL blog article:

http://blog.translationzone.com/fr/sdl-trados-studio-2017-transformation-translation/

At the time, there was a comment from a woman named Marie if I recall well. She said she was interested but disappointed because there was no actual information nor picture about the product. As you can see, her comment was simply deleted! I tried to post a comment as well, and it was never published. I guess it never passed "moderation". Nice example of censorship…

I can see where you are coming from Matthieu, although I don't think you are entirely fair.  The typical process we go through when releasing a new product is to first start sharing teasers that never do provide a lot of technical information and then as we get closer to the release we start to share more and more.  In fact we have been running roadshows all over the world for the last month where we do provide a lot of details explaining and showing the software.  We also run a Beta which you could join if you wish... many people from this community have asked and we have added them.

I don't really know what to say about your comment on censorship.  Certainly we don't censor anything in this community as you can see!  If we have problems then we need to address them, and we are very willing to address them.

Unknown said:

Then there's the multiplication of SDL websites. Most of them are poorly designed and have their share of problems. Let's just take the SDL Community as an example: have the designers ever heard of security? I mean this is only website I know where you can log out, hit the Previous button and navigate in the user account you just logged out from. (I am using the latest version of Firefox and this bug still exists).

We have implemented a single sign on solution between many of the SDL sites to try and make it easier so users don't have to login again and again just to go to a different part of the SDL web network.  But you are 100% correct in that logging out of one should mean logging out of them all.  I do imagine we'll get a few complaints when we resolve this but from a security perspective you are correct.  I will raise this with the teams responsible for this.

Unknown said:

Finally, how come I no longer can deactivate my Studio licenses online? It was very convenient to skip from the desktop PC to the laptop PC in case you needed it. Now, you have to deactivate it in advance on one PC to be able to activate it on another one. Needless to say that if you forget to do so, you simply cannot work. So I paid for a feature I cannot use anymore, great. And the only explanation I see for this change is that it makes SDL sell more licenses as it has become very inconvenient to transfer licenses from one PC to another.

The only reason for this is a technical one.  I can assure you that it's painful for us too as we have to spend time manually dealing with something that can be done by the user in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2014.  The problem is related to the change in licensing as we moved to SafeNet when we went to 2015.  This move resolved many problems that probably won't affect you at all, but they do affect users of network solutions, so from that perspective the move was a good one.  But for users who need to reset their activation code because they forgot to return the licence, or moved computers and forgot or were unable to return it, it's a pain.

The process you say you didn't have to do is actually the correct process that has always been in place, ever since the old Trados days.  This has not changed.  You always had to deactivate the licence to move it between computers.  You have obviously taken advantage of the self service mechanism we put in place sometime around Studio 2011 I think, and this allowed you to force return the licence so it would become available again.  This is the last resort and it is not, and has never been the correct way to manage licences.  You should always deactivate and activate to avoid any problems at all if you wish to change between computers.

We would like to implement this for 2015 too... and Studio 2017 for that matter.  But we cannot and this is just a technical restriction at the moment.  So the solution is to use http://support.xl8.one and the licensing team will reset it for you.  They are very fast and generally do this within an hour or two.

Regards

Paul

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your reply. You think I am generalizing my problems and I believe your answers are biased, whether you realize it or not. I am not attacking you personally, nor saying that everyone at SDL is bad. But there are too many problems with SDL and Studio more specifically. I am also going to answer point by point.

"please let me know if you are willing to allow us to engage an engineer with you to try and sort this out"

Indeed a lot of people tried to help regarding the technical problem I encountered. But what I expected was a response from SDL, not a workaround. Once again, all other software suites run just fine with any environment. That is a fact. I am not going to spend more money to hire an engineer for an unfinished/buggy program. So I was just pointing that out, I am no longer expecting any progress regarding this matter.

"Sometimes we have multiple addresses for user"

I have always used the same email address for SDL. And even if that were the case, how convenient it is for SDL! The company can keep spamming its users "because of a technical problem"…

"In fact we have been running roadshows all over the world for the last month where we do provide a lot of details explaining and showing the software.  We also run a Beta which you could join if you wish"

Not a single email I received mentioned a beta… Once again we receive the information we do not want, and cannot see the information we actually want. Plus I think viewing a Youtube video or reading a well documented brochure is easier and much faster than attending to a roadshow… but that is my opinion.

"I don't really know what to say about your comment on censorship.  Certainly we don't censor anything in this community as you can see!"

That is why I posted here. Because I know messages are not subject to moderation, unlike on the SDL blog. But the fact is that a comment was deleted (by the post's author or by the comment's author, I'll never know), but mine never passed moderation. I don't have any problem posting comments elsewhere…

"You always had to deactivate the licence to move it between computers.  You have obviously taken advantage of the self service mechanism we put in place sometime around Studio 2011 I think, and this allowed you to force return the licence so it would become available again."

Maybe so, but the fact is that when I purchased the program, that feature was available, and it no longer is. How would you react if you bought something and feature went missing later?

I really don't expect any solution for those problems, I just wanted to point them out. I understand it annoys you when I write such a post, but I am also annoyed by everything I mentioned. It's not like I am making things up…

Regards,

Matthieu

Hello Paul,

In the original thread, you wrote:

"… taking someone off productive work to investigate this one-off problem is going to come with a cost to someone.
So how about this. I'll see if I can arrange it and if the problem is with our software there will be no cost, but if your problem is the result of something on your machine then we bill you for the time expended?"

That's why I thought you were expecting me to pay. That being said, the problem now occurs quite rarely and sending someone to wait for it to happen again would be a waste of time, for both sides. I just wanted to state that the problem remains and is part of an accumulation (you can add the corrupted installation package for instance)…

The same applies for spams, as such, it is nothing serious, but it is the accumulation of problems that bother me.

Anyway, thank you for your time and I hope you are not too angry with me, I know I am not the easiest user… ^^

Hello Paul,

In the original thread, you wrote:

"… taking someone off productive work to investigate this one-off problem is going to come with a cost to someone.
So how about this. I'll see if I can arrange it and if the problem is with our software there will be no cost, but if your problem is the result of something on your machine then we bill you for the time expended?"

That's why I thought you were expecting me to pay. That being said, the problem now occurs quite rarely and sending someone to wait for it to happen again would be a waste of time, for both sides. I just wanted to state that the problem remains and is part of an accumulation (you can add the corrupted installation package for instance)…

The same applies for spams, as such, it is nothing serious, but it is the accumulation of problems that bother me.

Anyway, thank you for your time and I hope you are not too angry with me, I know I am not the easiest user… ^^