Case 16677144 - Duo won't boot, support tale of woe!!
I am not sure if I am writing this post for help, sympathy or something in between....
About 6 weeks ago i upgraded my Readynas Squeezebox software to v7.1, after which the ReadyNAS failed to boot, giving me the usual flashing blue lights of death. I tried all the usual, disks out, firmware reload, TFTP recovery and so on, before finally despairing and calling support, who opened case number 16677144.
I bore with the through the initial 2 hour call during which they asked me to repeat everything I have tried (after, of course, putting me on hold interminably whilst they "checked" something) before finally asking me to leave the NAS in "telnet" mode for 3rd level support.
After waiting for ages for anything to happen (with no access to my LAN, as evidenced by my router log) I got a call a couple of days ago saying that they had logged on (I could see no evidence) and removed some plugins and that I should reboot and see if it worked, letting them know the status.
It didn't work, same flashing lights. So I reset the router to telnet mode and emailed them.
Last night I got a voicemail asking if I needed help I should call the hotline, as if this was the first time they had heard of this issue.
I am at my wits end with frustration. I do not want to have to reset the device to factory, I already had to do that once last year and lost a pile of data.
Can anyone help, point me in the right direction, or buy me a beer and tell me it will all be ok in the end?
Update on this. I was asked by 2nd line support to remove my second disk and perform an OS Reinstall. I have done this and it has made no difference.
Does anyone here have any views on what my best next steps are? 2nd line support are worse than useless, they take days and days to get back to me, tell me that 3rd line support have accessed my NAS and that I need to do X or Y, when I can quite clearly see from my router logs that nobody has accessed it and all I get asked to do are things I did weeks ago before I bothered to contact them.
I am on the point of throwing this piece of crap into the bin and buying a proper NAS. This is the second time in 18 months that this has happened, the first time I gave up on 2nd/3rd line and reset to factory, losing all my data. I am getting to the stage where this seems to be my only alternative a second time.
Do not do a factory default if you have data at risk. Edit your first post and append your case number to the end. That will attract the attention of one of the Jedi.
Obviously something went wrong with the Sqeezebox update. In the future, never ever update anything without a current and complete backup. I don't even update RAIDiator without a current and complete backup.
Re: Case 16677144 - Duo won't boot, support tale of woe!!
Thanks for the reply, done.
Rest assured I will not do a factory reset unless there are no other options. As I said, if I do have to it will be the last action I ever perform on any device starting with the word "ReadyNAS" ever again.
Things went from bad to worse last night. After having taken disk2 out and performed the OS Reinstall, all of a sudden nothing changed, the light still flashed blue and RAIDar reported everything was fine, along with two green lights indicating both disks were present, which I suspect is not what is supposed to happen.
So I put the NAS in Telnet mode and emailed Support with the information, letting Marty know that it is now in Telnet mode with one disk out.
A few minutes later I get an email back asking me to reboot the NAS as normal and whilst it is running insert the second disk, let it sync and then see if I can access frontview and the shares.
So I did. Device boots (minus disk2), shows both disks as being present, blue light flashing. I insert disk 2 and RAIDar doesn't change, it shows no indication whatsoever that a disk has been inserted.
Thought I would leave it for the day whilst at work and see what happens when I get home this evening. I have zero confidence that anything will have changed however.
Is everyone happy with what Netgear call "support"? It looks like amateur trial and error to me. Seems Netgear think they need people to answer a phone so they put some guys in the Phillippines in a room, give them a set of "procedures" to follow, invent a mythical team call "3rd line support" to whom "2nd line support" can say they are escalating, and then hope we go away or give up. They have told me nothing whatsoever that I could not have learned on here. This has been going on for 5 weeks now.
Note: in 4 weeks "3rd line" have never accessed my NAS, as evidenced by my router log, despite 2nd line constantly telling me that they have.
Re: Case 16677144 - Duo won't boot, support tale of woe!!
Before I head home for another evening of banging my head against a wall I have a question.
What will happen if I remove both disks, put a new disk in and do a factory reset with the new disk in there? Will I then be able to put the two "old" disk back in, or will that just result in the same problem recurring?
Just trying to find a creative way around my problem without losing all my data and all my (remaining) hair....
Re: Case 16677144 - Duo won't boot, support tale of woe!!
Hello,
I looked up your support case and see they attempted to reach you on Oct 9, but were unable to contact you. Please call us and reference your case number for further assistance, there are steps in the case for you to take.
Re: Case 16677144 - Duo won't boot, support tale of woe!!
Yeah, they call at 11pm or other ungodly hours. I travel a lot, they woke me up in Paris one night. I have told them that calling me is not the best way to contact me and to use email.
I have taken all the steps they have asked me to take, the last one was two different instructions in the space of 10 minutes, documented above. I have tried taking disk 2 out and booting the device, then putting the disk back in, it made no difference. That is the last set of instructions I have.
The device is now in telnet mode waiting for you, again.
Please Mr "Support Resources", I would appreciate a resolution to this case, one way or the other. We will both be a lot happier once we are out of one another's lives.
Re: Case 16677144 - Duo won't boot, support tale of woe!!
...and on it goes. Another two days now my ReadyNAS has been sitting there, fans blaring, blue light flashing in Telnet mode waiting for some mythical "3rd level" engineer to extract the digit and actually do something about my case.
This is the last correspondence:
Date: 12 October 2011 00:00:49 GMT+01:00 To: <nieldm@me.com> Subject: Re: 16677144_Readynas fonrtview access
Hi Marc,
thanks for the reply
currently this case is escalated to our L3 engineer they will work on it just leave the NAS on telnet mode i have check I was to reach by a telnet
thanks,
By whose standards is this sort of "support" acceptable? This case was logged close on 6 weeks ago with me having gone through all the steps detailed on this forum before calling "support", how difficult can it be?
Case 16677144 - Duo won't boot, support tale of woe!!
Just an update. This is ongoing, no change at all. Every few days I get an email asking me to try something, it never works, I set the NAS back to telnet mode and on we go. We have tried disks in, disks out, "please leave a USB drive plugged in" and several other things. Last attempt resulted in "corrupt root". As I type I am setting it back to telnet mode for yet noted few ads of waiting.
I repeat, is this normal? Is this what you all go through every time there is a problem? This has being going on for 2 1/2 months now.
How can I talk to someone from Netgear and not these clowns they contract with for " support"?
