Getting ghosted by support

Hardware Librem 5
147

Making a death threat, via a telecommunications medium or via some other mechanism, is likely to be a criminal offence. (Hence why JCS mentions the possibility of referring the matter to law enforcement.) Of course that will depend on your jurisdiction. I can tell you for a fact that making a death threat via a telecommunications medium is a crime in my country. In fact the legislated threshold is much lower than “making a death threat”.

My overall point was the following sequence of events.

  1. A range of people are making the support team’s life hell - to the point that it degrades their ability to do their job.
  2. The response in this forum (the post following JCS’s) was that Purism should go out of business!

Hence my conclusion that that would be letting the criminals win.

I won’t be able to identify any specific customer as a shill (nor for that matter identify which customers have allegedly committed criminal offences), just pointing out that there is a level of behaviour that is below the threshold of criminality but which would still serve to degrade the support team’s ability to do their job.

Did you actually read points 5 and 6 from JCS’s post? Surely these aren’t things that you would defend?

1 Like
148

I see. Without that explanation I think your statement was too loose.

It is in the US too. FBI jurisdiction (at least if the call originated in the US … but probably generally too). It’s absolutely something that should be reported.

What behavior was displayed that could be classified as “shills” for the “mainstream duopoly”? I didn’t see any people who covertly worked for the “mainstream duopoly”. i.e. Why do you think that people who displayed outrageous behavior toward Purism Support necessarily work for the “mainstream duopoly”??? I ask because more than a few people on this forum have called me a shill for Google/Android. The word “shill” seems to be thrown around here without much understanding (or a common understanding) of the word.

I did read those points, among others. But I didn’t see you connect your comment to those points until now. And I still don’t see a connection to “shills for the mainstream duopoly”.

In regard to whether I would defend those activities: Of course not. That said, I certainly would feel free to ask people who work for Purism why they would choose to work for a company that doesn’t honor client refund requests. For example, on reddit I asked that of dos/sebdos. He answered and I accepted his answer even though I would like to imagine that I would have taken a different path.

1 Like
149

Actually, in a support context, which is what this topic is about, I’m not so sure that I would accept that as reasonable.

In a support context, I would look at it the other way round. We all know that the decisions on these issues are being made by senior management, not by the support person. So it is not fair to badger the support person about it.

reddit is a whole different issue. If someone chooses to participate in reddit then they get what reddit moderators allow, and if reddit becomes too much of a cesspit then someone is free to choose not to participate in reddit.

1 Like
150

It’s difficult to say as there are numerous variables at play here; this is something I’d like to revisit later once I have more information to share and better awareness of what financial information may be made public record.

In my opinion, Todd is fully aware of the refund queue, wants to do right with everybody, and is actively planning and juggling resources to do so.

1 Like
151

Thanks.

In that case, do you have any insight into Todd’s response to Joe Johnson’s refund as discussed on the StartEngine forum??? Todd gave him a refund and indicated that his case was “the exception to the rule” when it seems to be the typical case for anyone with such an order date.

1 Like
152

Just opinions:
“not getting a sales pitch”? Have you read the ads lately? more like snake-oil sales pitch.
Don’t get me wrong. I want Puri L5 to succeed I want to see L5 earn a top spot somewhere on the top 5

statcounter.com has published the market shares of various operating systems (desktop, mobile devices) here. Android accounts for 41.64% in December 2023, while Windows runs on 29.25% of systems. Apple can be satisfied with 17.71% for iOS and 6.57% for macOS. Linux has 1.54% market share.

IMO, it’s possible and only possible IF the phone could do most of the same things ‘they’ do as well as ‘they’ do (except for their foray into things like Google Docs, or Windows Edge) - just a phone that performs as well as, if not better than the others.
The day may come, but not soon enough.

~s

2 Likes
153

Hello everybody, I’ve been using the L5 as my main and only mobile device for approximately two years. I had an hardware problem (sd card not working) which got fixed with an RMA, and it stopped working again after a few days. I did not want to delete all my data again and wait for another fix, so I kept it broken. Everything else went well hardware-side (except bad gps reception and slightly faulty usb-c connection which makes the use of external displays really difficult, as a slight move of the device caused video problems and charging problems in general, but I kept using it every day). However, the 18th of March the modem stopped working. I’m not sure it’s a faulty modem as I suspected a faulty hardware kill switch, so I asked the support. When I turn off the HKS (or turn the modem ON) the dmesg shows error like:

[30953.093983] usb 1-1-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[30953.969893] usb 1-1-port2: Cannot enable. Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[30953.976731] usb 1-1-port2: attempt power cycle

So before ordering a 50€ modem + shipment + taxes I thought it was better to ask support for a repair center in Europe. I’d better pay for a checkup of my phone than just blindly try to replace the modem.
Joao replied that

I’m afraid we have no support in the EU at the moment

He asked for the kernel log and to remove usbguard, which did not hel, the 27th of March.

I did not have any reply from him since, despite a couple of more mail sent by me (the last one on the 6th of July). My doubt of the modem being the (only) culprit increased as one day the modem started working out of nowhere, with the HKS in a mid-position (neither fully ON nor fully OFF), but I could not replicate it since.

Do any of you knows how to proceed? I’ve not been using my L5 in the last months as not being able to use the modem it’s quite useless (I use it with an hotspot sometimes for messaging on telegram), and I’d really like to restart using it. In the meantime I also broke the glass (so I’d need to replace it), but before investing and giving other money to purism I’d like support to support me on this.

Thanks!

Edit:
I’d also add that, looking at the schematics, I guess that there are other two components which if broken could explain the modem not working

image
image714×320 18.1 KB

image

My guess is either one of the two AP2281-1FMG, causing not enough current to be delivered to the modem, or the RB751G-40 Schottky, which if I’m not mistaken, if is broken (always closed) can cause mid-level voltages on the AP2281-1FMG enable pin.

3 Likes
154

@JCS

Contact Purism support via email again.

155

In June a German company repaired successful my L5 (display swap). The details and contact information are here: Contact to a German L5 repair point.
You could contact them with the technical details. Maybe they’re willing to help you, ofc on your own risk.

2 Likes
156

Thanks, I wrote them again linking this post. If this does not goes well I’ll contact the german company @guru linked below, thanks!

1 Like
157

I received my L5 later than you, in late spring of 2023, and I bought a Liberty Phone in fall 2023 for more RAM.

On both my devices I have used SD cards and never had a problem. But I read on the forums that there’s something loose in the L5 that damages SIMs and SD cards as they enter and exit the device unless the device is completely powered off when you remove and insert the SD/SIM tray.

Out of curiosity is it possible you were doing something similar with your tray, thus having some user error cause your problem?

I also have had support not reply sometimes and reply others, but once someone pinged JCS and got JCS on the case, they replied back again. I’m not sure exactly how that works.

1 Like
158

Mentions within the Getting ghosted by support thread are generally escalated. Outside of that thread, mentions are unreliable.

4 Likes
159

I never moved the tray with the device on, as the manual (don’t remember if it was printed or online) clearly stated that you should never move the tray when the phone is on, and so I never did. Don’t know if after powering it off I should have waited more than what I did (e.g., to let capacitors discharge), but I accepted that my uSD card would not work and I was ok with it. But I really need the modem.

1 Like
160

Joao no longer works for Purism and his incoming emails are being redirected to the support@ alias, which then triggers creation of a support ticket if the message is not in response to an existing ticket.

I think I’ve noticed your question in the ticket queue, but there is a significant (1-2 week) support ticket backlog that Purism is actively addressing while onboarding new support staff, composing new documentation to answer FAQs, and dedicating existing staff to manage during this transition. No one is being ignored - we’re just trying to catch up.

7 Likes
161

Ok thanks, I’ll wait another couple of weeks then, thanks!

2 Likes
162

This message makes me sad. He was my contact in support@ since I owned my L5s (‘s’ means plural) and always very responsive.

8 Likes
163

Yes, I agree. I was sad to hear he left as well. He posted this news on Mastodon last month, I believe.

3 Likes
164

If someone has a valid email addr of João, please contact me with PM. Thanks

1 Like
165

You could try PMing him here in the forum or at Mastodon, too.

(Actually, his Mastodon/LibremOne account doesn’t accept private messages, but you should be able to contact him there if the account is still active.)

1 Like
166

Just a FYI
Outgoing João Azevedo passed my Ticket off to João Fonseca but Adam is looking after it :face_with_spiral_eyes:

Communication with the Joãos’ has been great, and though Adams’ prognosis is not very promising, there’s still hope. Text with Pic is all I ask now.

Not ghosted.

~s

1 Like