Hi Everybody, I'm not here to complain, I'm just wondering if anyone else has been less than happy with eon support. I sent them a message 2 weeks ago and have not received any kind of response or acknowledgement from them yet. I asked them a simple yes or no question and I thought they would have answered me by now. I also Instant Messaged e-on here at renderosity in hopes he might answer me in case I got nothing from support. That was a week ago, and I realize he maybe just hasn't been visiting here lately so biggy there. This is not the first time I've felt like I've been blown off by eon support. I am a registered owner of Vue 4. They did contact me originally when I first registered and once about a question I had, so my email address is not an issue I dont think. I've always been polite to them and I also check the faq's so I'm not asking them stuff that I could find out myself. The only reason I can think of as to why I feel I'm being ignored is that I didn't buy Vue 4 from them. I bought it on ebay believe it or not. I am the first registerd owner so I dont think they think I pirated it or something like that. I just get the feeling that they are treating me like a second class citizen because I didn't buy it from them. It's a strange idea I know but I dont know what else to think. I just hope that when I buy the Vue 5 upgrade from them that they actually respond to my questions. What do you all think, am I in left field thinking this or do you think I'm being ignored? I cant believe they would do that cause it certainly isn't good business to blow off your customers.

Hi droyd, Don't worry, it's not because you did not buy Vue 4 from E-on. I bought mine from the website (the 36th copy ;) ), and I have yet to hear back from Steve concerning a bug report I submitted a month or so ago. If you are reporting a bug, then you can be rest assured that Steve has taken note of it, even if he is snowed under with e-mails and unable to reply. E-on also recognise the value of the community, and realise that many people, including employees, are willing to help through forums such as this one. The community could probably answer 99% of the questions that get asked anyway LOL! Have faith ;) Martin http://www.the3dscene.com

Hi droyd, what is this question to be answered by Yes or No ? Maybe we can do it. Also (this is for evereybody) don't forget to register your Vue 4 copy at e-on''s site. That's important. E-on's people are very occupied at this moment. Working hard on a new patch and also for their brand new Mac version (sure a patch also). If your question can be answered by one of the communities, they have no hurry to write to you. Wat's it ? :-)Guitta

I'd have to say it's happened to me, too. about a third of the emails I've sent to them have gone unanswered, but some have been answered within a few hours. They're just very busy, really. Although I do think that they should at least try reply within a day or 2, even if all they say is, "thank you, we're looking into it and will have an answer soon. meanwhile, why not visit ***.com and see if you can find something there." But generally, they're good about it. During the last patch creation for the PC version, Steve Bell was here for several hours straight for a couple days, addressing the issues we were having it with a few of us, which is something you'll never see from alot of software companies. They do care, but they are very busy. I would submit a follow-up after a day or two if it was something I was really concerned about. You can always play dumb and pretend your email sent out multiple copies on it's own "Hmmmm, now how did THAT happen?"... ;)

Funny, I received a reply from them today. It took them a several weeks to reply. I was letting know about a bug. I suspect that they are very busy working Vue 4.05 and Vue 5.0.

Ok, Sounds like I'm not alone here. I agree with MikeJ that it would be nice if they just give you a quick reply to let you know they're looking into your question. That's all I really wanted anyway. This is the exact question I asked : Hi, I recently had to reinstall Vue 4 after a clean install of windows. Should I only install the 4.03 update or do I need to install the 4.01 update as well. I have the soleil/ sun naming problem and the render to disk crash problem. end of message^ I did come here and sort of asked the same question and got some decent answers. Thanks again to those that responded. I sent them this question for 2 reasons. I wanted to get the answer from the horses mouth since I'm just overly paranoid about installing patches that I may not need (4.01) and I also wanted to see if they would respond since they didn't the last time I asked a question. I know that I would probably find out what I needed to do by just installing the updates and seeing what happened. I was just hoping they'd tell me in a day or so, so I didn't have to install uneeded updates. Am I too paranoid....probably!

Howdy all,

Here is an informal FYI for handling support with e-on.

I cannot speak for Steve as he is based in another office, but I do know he visits the list here. Except when I am on the road (like MW Expo in San Francisco earlier this month, and MW Expo Tokyo in March), I pop by here every other day or so. Several key people from HQ were in San Francisco for MacWorld, so that slowed down responses quite a bit.

Orio over on the Yahoo! list compiled a very nice bug list (thanks Orio!), which is now in the hands of e-on's president. If your problem is already on that list, then don't worry about submitting it again - we know about it and its getting prioritised. There are always going to be some that we cannot fix, but we make an effort on all that show up in our software itself. The most frustrating (for you and for us) are the ones that pop up because of screwy implementations of OpenGL support, either at the OS level or in video drivers. Vue 4 has to sit on top of whatever we get from the hardware guys.

Guitta is right, if you have a question which is a "yes" or "no" we can under normal circumstances take care of that immediately -- but if it is a useability item, we do rely on the communities. In fact, I strongly recommend it AS A USER OF ANY PRODUCT! The Vue 4 user base is going to give it to you straight, one way or another. Its the same with any computer product.

Dont call the toll free number for support. All they know there is how to take orders, so the best they can do is send along your message or refer you to our reseller number. If you need a response, please include an email address. Both the toll free team and the reseller team reports (up the chain of command) to me, so if there is an email address associated with your message, I can get most critical issues (like a defective CD, wrong credit card charges, etc) taken care of immediately. But there has to be an email address with it so I can get it escalated to the right department or respond to a problem directly.

Best regards,

Lynn Fredricks
e-on software US Business Unit

Hiya Lynn! Going to Japan again, eh? (it must be nice!) Well, have a good one. Any chance you could take some pictures of the Tokyo MacWorld Expo and post them here? ********************* Anyhow, to answer your question, droyd, the most recent patch, the 4.03, from the E-on website is fully self-contained, and you don't need any updates previously-installed to make it work. Now, on their website in the Vue 4 download section, there are in fact 2 versions of the 4.03 update, The Incremental Update, and the Full Update. The Full Update is what you want. They did it that way because it's a large download (5.8 MB). The Incremental Update requires that Vue already be at 4.02, so if you go from 4.00, you will want to use the Full Upddate link. And, as Lynn says, you will always have a good chance of getting info here, and more quickly. Obviously, we can't speak for E-on regarding alot of things, but we definitely know our Vue. :) And, we know alot about patches, too, LOL!

See Droyd... a nice message from e-on. But without an answer to your question !!!

so here is the answer : use the 4.03 FULL UPDATE, it includes all the previous updates. This an official e-on answer : It's clearly written in their website.

go to this link at e-onsoftware's website :
http://www.e-onsoftware.com/Download/Vue4Updates.php

You will read :

"Vue d'Esprit 4 Updates
Update to Version 4.03 (Windows only)
This update is available as an incremental update from v4.02b, or as a full update from any previous version"

then in the restricted download area, select the following file :

v4.03 Full Update (update from any previous version) - Vue4.03FullUpdate.exe 5.8 MB

I think it's quite clear and straighforward.

Eric

Thanks Lynn for taking the time to respond here. Thanks also to Audity for setting me straight. I guess I didn't understand about the 4.03 full update containing all the previous updates. I just went to eon and read it again and I guess that "Update from any previous version" means just that! I kind of assumed it did but you all know what happens when we assume... Thanks everybody for responding, I always appreciate it!

No problem! And yes, Mike, I almost always attend the Japanese events. Ill try to take some snaps at the show. A funny story -- last year I ran into Steve Cooper of Curious Labs in Tokyo as he was being run out of a department store (located near the convention center)! Apparently he snapped some pictures of a very nice display in a Japanese department store (I think in their fish section). Some uniformed security guys wanted to divest him of his film since pictures arent allowed in the store (to keep out competitors I think). He did managed to escape with film intact, though wanting to vacate the shopping center as soon as possible! I was kind of disappointed that he didnt get the chance to fight his way out, tossing security guys into the cold sushi display and live octopus bins :-( Best regards, Lynn Fredricks e-on software US Business Unit

LOL!