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Re: NETGEAR USB Control Center utility for MAC OS X El Capitan
Dear Elaine,
it is virtually impossible to contact Customer Support. The issue is now so long in the tooth that the support offered has lapsed and short of purchasing further efforts from your support team or telephoning there seems to be no option to access this Beta file. You mention PM ing you personally, I find no easy way to do this either. My case number (expired) is "25847477". Perhaps you could arrange for this to be reactivated and a Beta file access to be arranged.
Re: NETGEAR USB Control Center utility for MAC OS X El Capitan
Elaine
This is not the time to be resorting to irrelevant internal formal procedures. It does not sound as though you are providing a response to attempt to limit exceptional damage to the reputation of the company.
What is needed now (apart from a class-action suit) is for you to reply to this forum giving a link to an accessible website giving download access to the beta-test version. This software should install seamlessly on the latest Mac OS and solve the problem which has persisted for too many years now (note that the title of this thread relates to El Capitan!). It would be acceptable if you were to warn all those who download it that it is a beta-test version and not guaranteed to work – but at least we would not have to jump through further hoops before being disappointed.
Re: NETGEAR USB Control Center utility for MAC OS X El Capitan
Could not agree more with MX. This has fast become a textbook case in problem management and how not to do it. For a company that is supposed to be one of the leaders of the pack, Netgear is in the dog pound on this one. You offer work arounds that don't work, offer up a beta that is broken, your right hand doesn't know what the left is doing, and you've got ham-handed technical support staff that try to sell those of us who have been waiting for a solution additional technical support.
Re: NETGEAR USB Control Center utility for MAC OS X El Capitan
I thought I might give some more feedback on my experience with this issue.
I got this response from April in support (to my feedback on their .rar file beta solution, as reported in my earlier post of 2 weeks ago).
"According to the engineers, we did not have any other users report similar issue for other users we provided the 2.35.rar file attached to issue 13873 and they used the installer file to install the software successfully. They think for this particular case it could have just been a case that you might have overlooked the files in the 2.35.rar directory."
I replied:
Hello April, Thank you for your response.
I would remind the "engineers" of a common saying from psychologists that "De Nile (sic) is more than a river in Egypt".
The presentation of a .rar file is bad enough (as it is not native to Macs and requires a program to be obtained in order to extract it). They should have used zip which is native to Macs.
The .dmg file (which is the only one that shows when the .rar file is extracted) should have performed the install (as it did with previous versions)! It failed to do so and produced no error messages.
I had to figure out a way to find the lower level files (by "Open the installer" and then "Show package contents"). Then I executed the installer exe from the package contents (which was eventually successful). First I was asked to close the USB Control Center (which did not appear to be open, so I opened it from the package contents and then used Quit from the menu bar) the installer then ran and requested a system restart. It appears that the .dmg file did do something, but had failed.
For the "engineers" to suggest that " it could have just been a case that you might have overlooked the files in the 2.35.rar directory" looks like they expect Customers to go through the rigmarole that I went through. Interestingly, there appear to have been no responses to requests in the Netgear Community for anyone who has successfully installed this beta.
Anyway, I am done with this for now. My printing and scanning is continuing to work successfully.
I called support to get the ticket number and it was a disaster. The first person kept telling me that I needed to call my cable company to fix the issue. After she was about to end the call on me I escalated to a manager who said that the software did not exist and to keep watching the forums for a future fix.
I became ever more despondent and my printer was living on my coffee table to my wife's increasing ire. There is an option to buy a print server, which is pretty expensive to get the same functionality and many of them seemed like they might not work. The option I was planning on going down was buying a new router.
However I got a call from support and they set me up with the beta drivers. Some notes because the call was not 100% bump free:
1) The installer did not work. You need to allow applications to be installed from anywhere. However, Mac Sierra has removed this option. I had to type this in at the command line to get it back
sudo spctl --master-disable
2) Once you have the software up you click connect on your printer. It asks you to install a driver. You then have to click connect a 2nd time.
My printer is now working from the USB with Mac Sierra.
Re: NETGEAR USB Control Center utility for MAC OS X El Capitan
@ElaineMwas able to help me out and sent me the beta software. Even after I had a long correspondence with Mary Jean on my support ticket. She refused to raise my support request to Level 2 and kept insisting on having the serial number of the product. I know it was out of warranty and she tried to get me to buy some Premium support package. Very frustrating. Thank goodness for @ElaineM at least!
For all those not wanting to bother with all the back and forth and frustration, I did some deeper Googling and found this online, which should expedite the fix for most of you posting here.
Re: NETGEAR USB Control Center utility for MAC OS X El Capitan
It (mostly) worked for me, but then wasn't what I needed in the end. I had to have a computer connected via Ethernet to enable or activate the printer via the USB port suing the beta software. On my newer MacBook without an ethernet port this made it impossible to "see" the printer or bring anything up on USB Control Center (everything was grayed out). Ideally this software should be part of the router control panel, or be able to be run from there. That way the attached printer would be online to whatever machine needs it. No need to integrate a whole CUPS server or anything, but just creating an IP or suitable type of printer connection for those attached to the USB port in the router would be ideal.
Re: NETGEAR USB Control Center utility for MAC OS X El Capitan
I have given up on the NETGEAR router and got one that is fit for purpose and does what it should.
As mentioned by others, this is a perfect example of how not to deal with a problem To provide a non-working solution initially and then more than a year later to provide a beta test version of the software that clearly has not been trialled ssufficiently and expect the user to work out the problems the company should have discovered is totally unacceptable and very unprofessional.
Good luck to the rest of you battling with the intractable and unhelpful NETGEAR support system as well as the software itself.
