ReadyNAS 102 upgrade to 6.4.0

Cant say anything else than i totaly agree with you, I spend 2 hours with support yesterday regarding the firmware update and they want me to pay 107 EUR to get thier help (I have a valid Warranty untill Oktober 2016) just becouse i where frustrated and pushed upgrade in the popup window and updateded to 6.4.0. My NAS Setup is all standard working well and i only used it for Plex and Transmission so i thought that a upgrade shouldnt be a problem..... but i was soo wrong.....they screwed me and big time. Netgear seams to think as long as the fans on the NAS are working and the LED panel on there is no warrenty issue and its my fuault I installed a standard update. Starting to think they did this on purpose just to make me pay for support.

I'm so frustrated! I have loved netgear products before this, I have extenders, rauters, modem NAS and more but I will never again buy a netgear product from them after this session since you have to have both warrenty and pay for support to make standard firmware update.

I can save you the time with support by attaching my discussion, sorry for the long post but im frustrated. One funny thing is i asked three times for them to send me the chat log after and they promissed to do as you can see bellow but in the end i had to make a new support ticket just to get this conversation... i didnt get it becouse of technical error???? (more NETGEAR errors??? do they have any working system) LOL...

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Thank you for choosing NETGEAR.
Romano: My name is Romano with Expert ID 46489. How may I assist you today?

conny andersson: Hi! We have a readynas 104 and have recently updated the firmware to 6.4.0
conny andersson: We are experiencing problems getting error messages

Romano: What kind of error messages?
conny andersson: when we select the menutab "folder-luns" we get a message share_failed
conny andersson: XXXXXX0005 failed DB Query for user .sql....

Romano: Yes. For us to find the cause of this error, we need to further troubleshoot the NAS so that we can find a way ti fix it.

conny andersson: ok

Romano: Since the NAS is already beyond the 90 days of free support entitlement, I will be providing you with your support options.

conny andersson: Ok

Romano: You may look for troubleshooting steps on our support site (support.netgear.com) or on our forums (community.netgear.com) to fix this issue but that would take awhile. But if you need immediate assistance, I highly recommend for you to take advantage of the one of the OnCall Contracts for that would allow me to escalate this case to the Next Level of Support to further assist you with the troubleshooting

conny andersson: But as far as our understanding, theres no problem with the disks, which makes it a hardware/firmware problem? And if we cant fix it, shouldnt it be replaced or something? The warranty for this is valid?

Romano: There is no problem with the disks, what we have found so far is it has something to the with the software of the NAS. Further troubleshooting needs to be done on it for us to find the cause.
Romano: The Hardware of the NAS is still in good condition since you are able to access it via the Windows Explorer.
Romano: For us to assist you in troubleshooting the NAS, we highly recommend for you to take advantage of our OnCall Contracts.

conny andersson: What is the oncall contract then? As we have only performed a standard upgrade then it should be a warranty issue.

Romano: The OnCall Contracts are:

OnCall Contract for 1 Year: EUR 107
OnCall Contract for 3 years: EUR 125
OnCall Contract for 5 years: EUR 226

conny andersson: From what we understand from what we have read online, this is a wellknown issue with the upgrade and we expect netgear to work out the standard problems with an issue before launching it
conny andersson: Or quickly respond with a solution to the upgrade
conny andersson: Ide rather pay for a new non-netgear product then pay extra for support for a standard update from netgear that cant be reverser.

Romano: The issue that we encountered with the NAS regarding the update was with the NAS that is unable to boot up normally after the update.
Romano: What we have found so far was there is something on the software of the NAS and further troubleshooting needs to be done on it.

conny andersson: yes, and how can that not be a nas-issue??? And warranty related?

Romano: Since the NAS was able to boot up normally and you are able to access the shares via the Windows Explorer. You were even able to do the OS Reinstall on the NAS via access the Boot Menu.
Romano: That only means that the Hardware of the NAS is working.
Romano: Troubleshooting on the software perspective needs to be done on the NAS for us to find a fix for this situation.
Romano: Currently, the support that we can provide is limited since the NAS is already beyond the 90 days of free support entitlement.

conny andersson: yes, but the situation is caused by nas upgrade! Why should i pay 107 extra euros for something you have provoked though a update that doesnt work?
conny andersson: You might aswell do it on purpose for extra payment
conny andersson: Its nothing personal towards you Romano, but netgear cant send out a defect upgrade to customers and not take responsibility of solving issues related to it

Romano: I do apologize for the inconvenience but since the NAS was able to boot up normally, that only means that the firmware was successfully updated on the NAS.

conny andersson: Our error message doesnt state the same

Romano: But for us to further isolate the problem, further troubleshooting needs to be done on it.
Romano: There are a lot of factors that may cause this kind of error.
Romano: And further troubleshooting needs to be done on it.

conny andersson: If further troubleshooting is needed due to defect upgrade thats fine, but you cant expect us to pay extra for a minimum year of support due to a upgrade issue. It doesnt matter how many factors that may have caused it since it has worked perfectly before the upgrade and the upgrade caused it to defect. This only means the upgrade was bugged
conny andersson: What the bug did is not for us to understand since its in the standard upgrade
conny andersson: We want a netgear to take responsibility for their mistake in this

Romano: I do apologize for the inconvenience and I do know where you're coming from but we are unable walk you through the whole troubleshooting itself since the NAS is already beyond the 90 days of free support entitlement.
Romano: Then again, this is not the only option you have.
Romano: You may access our forums and look for related articles to assist you with this situation.

conny andersson: we've already tried looking on the forum and no answeres are given there.

Romano: You may start a thread on the forums. The forum administrator usually responds to new threads to assist you with it.

conny andersson: If you can give me a direct link to a forum with the answer fine, we'll try it but its not our responsibility to find out what bugs netgear upgrades include. Its not like we're able to edit the os files, then of ourse i would understand this. But aslong as its standard use of storage then ofcourse it is your problem that your upgrade distroyed the firmware. We have not edited any os files or similar

Romano: I do apologize for the inconvenience, but we are currently limited on doing a hardware check on the NAS since it is already beyond the 90 days of free support entitlement. Once we have isolated that the hardware is working and the problem is on the software, we can no longer walk you through the troubleshooting itself not unless the NAS has an existing OnCall Contract.

conny andersson: What we've seen from the forum they respond very rarely and are very unhelpful as we need this to be fixed now. From what your telling us now, you will loose us aas clients as you are unwilling to resolve a issue you caused, which is very unfortunate as we have been very satisfied with the nas. Is there anything you can do to help us?

Romano: I do apologize for the inconvenience and I do know where you're coming from but we can only provide assistance if the problem that you are experiencing is included in the known issues from the recent update.

Romano: But since your situation is of a different issue, the support that we can provide is limited.

conny andersson: so u mean if more ppl complain about the same issue your able to help, but just bevause we're first you want us to pay for it?

Romano: Since the last firmware update, if there are issues that come up, we collate these case and forward them to our Engineering department to test and confirm these issues. But they did not get this kind of issue on their tests.

conny andersson: well, if you help us and fix this problem through troubleshooting, and find anf prove that its our fault that this is not working ( os files we have changed to provoke this above standard usage or done anything above standard usage to the os) we can pay the extra support.

Romano: I do apologize but I cannot escalate the case to our higher tiers without any existing OnCall Contracts attached on the record of your NAS.

conny andersson: Can you send us this chat session please?

Romano: It will be sent to your Email address once it is done and you also have an option to print it on your Chat window.

conny andersson: If we pay the support now, and you cant prove it is our fault, can we get a refund then?

Romano: You may opt for a refund once the troubleshooting is done and it is isolated that the firmware caused it but then again, what you are paying for is the support. You may discuss it with the higher tier support that will handle the case.

conny andersson: Well, this doesnt sound convincing to us. We have a product with a valid warranty. You dont want to take responsibility for your defect upgrades, and not for helping to solve issues related to the problem you caused. You have lost one future customer today and our respect and our high thoughts of you as market leader. We will not be recommending you further. Please send us this chat history so we can post it in your foum and ask for assistance with the problem you caused.
conny andersson: Thank you for your time Romano, it not your fault, but please forward our complaint.

Romano: I do apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you and I do know where you're coming from. As much as I want to assist you, my hands are tied with the support that we can provide since it is already beyond the 90 days of free support entitlement and you're record also shows that you have also used up the one time grace support. The warranty that your NAS is currently entitled to is for the hardware and we can provide on a replacement if it was isolated as a hardware issue.

conny andersson: We shouldnt have, asthis was hardware related, as you should see in your files, and we got a replacement for this. But since your not willing to help us at all, just send us the chat please.

Romano: Yes. It will be automatically sent to your Email once the chat session has ended. You also have an option to print it on your chat window.
Romano: For now, Would there be anything else that I may be able to assist you with today?

conny andersson: No, just make sure to send the whole conversation and forward our dissatisfaction and complaint

Romano: Yes I will. I won't be taking much of your time for now. Once again, My name is Romano and thank you for choosing Netgear. You have a good one. Goodbye.