Tech Support Polices

Robert,
Thank you for sharing your feedback on the support policy! I hope, that we'll build more flexible support options in the future. Currently we provide support according to the following policies:
We do actually investigate most of the issues only within first 30-days, however we have support options that are available all the time: our Knowledge base: kb.acronis.com and Forum, where you can start topic and receive help from other users and some of our experts. Moreover, all Recovery related issues we investigate for all our Customers with current and previous versions even outside of 30-days period. One more thing: if you purchase PPI (pay per incident) to investigate the problem and it turns out to be known issue, we provide you with a full refund of this purchase.

I'd also suggest sending a feedback from the product. These feedbacks are automatically registered in our system and we can see statistics on particular issues: http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/#35393.html

Thank you,

Excuseme, but for a product that has upgrades at a cost and for users that keep current, pay for call is complete bullshit.  I do not expect live hand holding, but live chat or Vendor Tech Support that actively participates in the forums would be very helpful.  I have sent feedback about my concerns over Acronis 2016, and they were never answered.   And Knowledge Base "articles" have too broad a reach to be specifically helpful.

Hello Robert,

There will be changes in technical support policy when Acronis True Image 2017 comes out of Beta this August-September. They are not final yet, but I hope that they will address raised concerns.

As for the issue with Acronis True Image 2016, could you please submit feedback from within the product one more time? At this point we do not have any registered message sent from within the product associated with your current Acronis account. Maybe you indicated a different email address when submitting the form.

Regards,

Slava

1) Undeterminable time waiting for the Calculating Space Requried message.  I understand that Acronis is scanning the HD to determine what files have changed since the last incremental backup or seeing how much space is required, but it should not take hours.

2) Full backup of 2 Tb drive estimate of 1 day 12 hours to complete.  It should not take that long to backup a 2 Tb drive that is 75% full across a gigibit network to a netword attatched NAS

3) Constant "lost connection" error messages even after the connection is verified in the setup process.  Often in the middle of an image.  

4) Constant "cannot find file" error messages when attempting to restart backup.

5) Badly redesigned menus on main screen vs previous releases.  Backup is complicated, users should have more options. 

6) Complete lack of any attention by Acronic Tech Support to comments made in this User Forum.  I used to use Norton Ghost, and could reach Tech Support via chat WITHOUT PAYING $20 FOR THE CONTACT.   That is totally unaccecptable.

Robert, coming to the thread with interest so am just looking to gather some information on your setup and offer assistance.  Not here to debate so if you're not interested, that's fine, but here's the information I can offer you to start.

For #1, #2 #3 and #4

A) Calculating time can be the result of VSS not working correctly on the local system.  You could try disabling VSS for the backup and letting it revert to the Acronis SNAPAPI backup method as was the default in 2014 and earlier and see if it helps.  https://forum.acronis.com/forum/45832#comment-346558

B) If the source drive has any bad sectors/blocks, it may have trouble reading them and getting hung up.  You may want to run chkdsk /f /r on the source drive.  Be prepared to allow this to run for quite some time if it's a large drive.

C) Backup speed to a NAS will only go as fast as the original drive READ, plus the source drive Write, plus the available bandwidth and reliability of the network connection.  That said

    i. Are you using a wired or wireless connection from your NAS?

I ask because wireless connections can be susceptible to interference, dropouts, etc, much more than a wired connection.  If the connecttion is dropping during a long scan or backup/write, it probably doesn't pick up where it left off.  A wired connection should be more stable, but then it also depends on the PC NIC, switch, router and NAS NIC and the connection speed your getting.  Perhaps put on a steady ping to the NAS during the backup and log it to a text file to see if there is a long delay at times or lost packets.  Example:       ping -t routerIP > C:\users\yourusername\desktop\pingnastest.txt

     ii. What model NAS do you have?

Some of the low-end home NAS like the WD Mycloud use bare minimum memory and CPU and get overwhelmed with large file transfers.  There are several forums of unhappy mycloud  users due to how it scans every new file because of the background twonky service which can make using it almost unusable.  I have a 4TB single hard drive version and so far, backups are OK, but I'm only backing up about 55GB on a full backup and takes about 15 minutes.  Everything is wired with CAT6E, gigabit ports and pings are steady and fast.  I also get good results with running large file transfer tests using LANSPEEDtest free.  If using wireless, or have a bad connection, or the NAS is running out of resrouces for a long scan and write, it may become unresponsive or locked up.  I had this happen to me when I robocopied about 2TB of data to my WD Mycloud on 2 different occassions.

for #5.  I share some of your opinion, but there are positive and negatives to the redesign from 2014.  The menus don't bother me, it's the lack of some of the previous features like a log viewer that I'd like changed.  You are not alone here though, but preferences and requests vary considerably.  Acronis is working from Google Analytics on what the majority of customers seem to be wanting and catering to the majority of user preferences.  They'll never be able to satisfy 100% of feature requests (consider the 80/20 rulte), but the more items are logged with the feedback tool in the application, the more likely we'll see these types of changes.  Did you submit feedback through the app and not just here in the uesr forum?

for #6. Also agree to an extent.  I feel Acronis would be better served by a different support model, but that may come at a higher price point too.  Curious to see what the support model and pricing will be in 2017 when it's released.  That said, the current support model is not hidden and something that buyer should be aware of when placing an order - if not satisifed one could request a full refund in those 30 days as well.  If you have a subscription product, full support is included for the validity of the subscription period.  If you have a perpetual license, 30 day support is what it comes with.  However, things like RESTORE issues, licesning, account issues, are always covered.  If you do pay for a an incident, and the problem is an Acronis application issue, you will get a refund, but if it's something with your local system, network, etc. then you have to eat the cost so that's why they have you pay up front (at least with the current model).  

http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/faq.html#q2

and

https://kb.acronis.com/node/49269 

All my connections for drives to be backed up are hardwired gigabit ethernet.  

The NAS drives I use are Netgear DUOs with NAS rated Seagate matched drives.  Firemare is always kept updated.  

I sumbitted feedback several times and was did not recieve a response until I went on a rant here.

I was maintaining that Acronis, up until the 2016 release, was a stable "forget about it and run" product that you never had to worry about.  It just worked.

Regarding support, I was not asking for free and unlimited, I understand why that would be a problem.  That being said, I have had countless hardware and software products whre there is factory representation on user forums.  The responsible approach would be to assign someone in Tech Support to monitor forums and topics without haveing to rely on MVP "Volunteers."  Customers are customers, and I do not care who Acronic thinks they are, if customer issues are ignored they will not succeed in the marketplace.

I'd like to add, as well as start a new issue on this, that my 30 Day for support expired yesterday. I needed to follow up with support as I bought a 3 computer license - WHY THE SAME 30 DAYS FOR A 3 PACK? - but anyway. I upgraded one machine from True Image 2014 to True Image 2016 and I updated another machine from True Image 2013 to True Image 2016 and I installed one machine fresh. My intent, besides having generic back-ups:

1. Perform Back-ups of my Window 7 Machines

2. Perform restores of my Window 7 Machines as a proof and test to make sure I could revert

3. Upgrade to Windows 10

4. Back-up Windows 10

5. At some point test the Windows 10 Restores (But not after what I went through)

The three machines, an HP Desktop, an HP Laptop and a home made machine bought from parts at Microcenter.

On every single machine - ALL THREE - Each being backed up to a different external hard drive, each restoration failed.

I got a window anywhere from what I perceived the bar to be 60% to 95% completed saying "Recovery Failed"

The log always said the Recovery File was Corrupt.

I restored two machines with the restoration files that were failed as "corrupt" eventually, by trying multiple times basically. One machine I restored by using an older back-up file. Also one file was validated after I realized the feature was there and still failed multiple times before I restored.

The main issue is that when doing a restore, Acronis deletes the contents of the hard drive, then restores. If you fail, you are left with an unbootable dead computer which is what happened every time.

I had completed my Windows 10 upgrade on two of the machines at least two weeks before the Microsoft deadline. 

The final one, the laptop, I attempted the Thursday before last Friday's, July 29th deadline. When it failed I was basically up all night working on it which is what I had to do with the other two. 

I eventually got it restored and upgraded to Windows 10. I had a chat session for some help. The tech recycled an earlier ticket number which I didn't realize. I wanted each item documented separately.

Besides that, I wanted to follow-up with Tech Support to understand why this was so troublesome & how this could happen three times using different drives. I believe True Image is a derivative of the old, original Symantec Ghost which I used to use all the time in a corporate environment.

I also wanted to get some better advice to making a Windows CE rescue USB device as I had an issue making mine (any help on that would be appreciated) 

Regardless I was busy this week, had no time to follow-up and when I did a little while ago, it told me my 30 day support expired yesterday which I didn't realize. Thought I had a little more time.

I will probably pay $20 as I wanted to escalate these issues and have Acronis do a post mortem with me. What I went through trying to do these restores was inexcuable.

Any similar experiences, suggestions on restores or continuing a dialogue post 30 Days with support. And any help with the PE Disk would be appreciated. Thank you.