[jaredmorgs]

I have only recently joined the software updates forum, and the number of posts I've read about users like you wanting to formally report bugs is growing by the day.

Like you, I'm also frustrated that there doesn't seem to be a transparent way for us to log bugs and enhancement requests through a bug tracking system. 

I think our cries for bug fixes and feature enhancements go largely unheard in this part of the forum.

So here is my request:

Dear Nokia

As your customers, we really want to help you improve the software updates we receive for our handsets.

At the moment, there is no clearly publicized method for individual users to report bugs against a product or software revision number.  There is also no way for your customers to formally suggest enhancements for firmware updates.

Your customers are starting to get frustrated with the few methods they have to air their grievances about issues they encounter on a daily basis.  This will ultimately affect customer satisfaction, and result in customer attrition to other platforms.

Now that Symbian has been open-sourced (with the N900), it makes sense to follow the model that countless open-source software companies use.  Return the power to the people, Nokia.  Let them help you directly improve your software by feeding information back to you directly.

If a public-facing bug tracking system currently exists, please actively promote it on your support pages, and in this forum as a sticky.  If one doesn't exist, please implement one as soon as commercially possible.

We would like to be able to log both bugs and Requests For Enhancements (RFEs) for the firmware you release for each phone model. We would like public access to the bugs currently raised, so that we can search for known issues, and add our feedback.  

Thank you

Your loyal Nokia Customers.

So, there's no real way to vote on this unfortunately.  I guess all we can do is that if you feel like my post should be taken seriously, then reply to the post and comment about it.  That will hopefully get the post to stay at the top of the list, and get it noticed by the forum moderators.

Thanks for reading

Jared 

[grschinon]

This forum is populated primarily by other users of Nokia products like yourself, not by Nokia staff.

If you want to get a message to Nokia themselves, use the "Contact us" link in the navigation bar at the top of every forum page.

[lordlarry_it]

---

grschinon wrote:
This forum is populated primarily by other users of Nokia products like yourself, not by Nokia staff.

If you want to get a message to Nokia themselves, use the "Contact us" link in the navigation bar at the top of every forum page.

---

Hello,

this is true, but there is Nokia staff too and a specific section where hints & tips are welcome by Nokia. Please support this topic, mine one and all the other where users ask for a bug tracking system. It is important to give power to our voices & asks, thank you. This is my topic I opened on yesterday:

/discussions/board/message?board.id=feedback&thread.id=2769

[rdcinhou]

My vote....and a correction:

Now that Symbian has been open-sourced (with the N900), it makes sense to follow the model that countless open-source software companies use.

The N900 is not Symbian...it uses the Maemo variant of Linux.  It is the next generation of the platform of Nokia Internet  Tablet series which began with the 7710, N800 and N810.  It is not truly "open-source" either as the internal "core" is still Nokia proprietary, but because it is Linux you still can get to a command prompt and run programs that are compliant with that OS.

While I agree that Nokia should publish a list of known bugs (it would certainly keep down the number of posts in this forum if we knew that a bug was already acknowledged), Nokia probably would never do that because it would lend support to the various legal actions which many have alleged to have begun (search for "fit for purpose").

This board is primarily a user-to-user support forum where we can share our observations, results of experimentation and developments.

On my N97 (RM-507 with v20 firmware)...there are still problems ("bugs") with:

1. Occassional WSODs (white screen of death) which require battery removal and USB port manipulation to clear (an inconvenient workaround, but much less trouble than the hard reset which many suggest).

2. Occassional episodes of overheating--still don't have enough data on this one, but it can scare you if you happen to have it in your pocket when the N97 goes into a high power consumption mode.

3. Ringtone "haunting"...the Nokia ringtone will sometime happen despite the unit being configured to use another ringtone.

4. Touchscreen going inoperative for short (~10 seconds) to long periods of time.

Now these are just the "bugs" with the unit itself, each individual application (Messaging, Web, Maps, Calendar, etc.) has its own problems...some are bad (Maps failure to navigate--voice nav stops, computational distance errors, etc.), some are just lack-of-expected features (lack of memory, kinetic scrolling throughout, etc) and some are inconveniences (Messaging resetting the auto-retrieve feature if it can't connect each and every time and you have to reconfigure it again).

Meanwhile, the *BEST* that we N97 owners can hope for is that the next version of the Symbian OS will be available for the N97 platform.  I personally don't think this will ever happen due to the severe lack of system RAM in the N97.

[jjegan]

Problem with bug reports is that Nokia will have to trawl through millions of posts where the bug is not a bug but lack of user knowledge . Repeated time after time as most users dont even use the search feature  on this forum .

 jje

[number_one]

Every1 reports bugs on the forum, the nokia employees say they read all the threads on the forum so hopefully they are taking notes of the bugs, espeacialy the n97 wsod which makes a £400 phone completey useable.

Message Edited by number_one on 27-Jan-2010 10:36 PM

[jaredmorgs]

lordlarry_it, I can't open your post to view your plea for a bug tracking system.

Can you repost the link with the full URL.  

The link you posted just redirects to the forum front page.

Cheers

Jared 

[jaredmorgs]

rdcinhou

Thanks for your vote, and thanks for clarifying the OS used in the N900.  I obviously took "open-source" to be more true to models employed by fedora, ubuntu, etc.  

The GPL (if Maemo is governed by this licence type) would be an interesting read...

This board is primarily a user-to-user support forum where we can share our observations, results of experimentation and developments.

At it's heart, perhaps it is.  The way I see users interacting with this forum is that they use it like an unstructured bug reporting tool.  They list issues (albeit sometimes the same issues with a slightly different forum title ) and talk about what they like and don't like about their product and the features on their device.  

That is totally a bug scenario, and RFE scenario, which is more suited to a bug reporting tool.  I do conceed that if legal action is being rumored, we probably won't see a public facing bug reporting tool.  

Your solution of posting a known bug list would be really helpful.  Stickies at the top of the forum would be an easy way for the admins to communicate to the users.  

Also, as a compromise, perhaps Nokia staffers could reply to the messages and say that the issue has been logged in their internal system.  At least that way, we would know if the issue was noted.

You see what I'm getting at here; timely acknowledgement by Nokia is what is missing here.

Thanks for your response

Jared 

[jaredmorgs]

jjegan

Your duplicate bug point is valid.  

I also agree that there are a lot of issue duplications in the forum.  I think the reason why this could be is the search functionality is not that great.  You have to really know what you're looking for to get accurate results. 

The thing is that if the same usability issues are being reported by users constantly, a pattern would emerge if they were logged in a bug tracking system.  

This could quite possibly help Nokia design better, more intuitive interfaces in the future.  It will also definitely allow them to improve the brief user documentation included in the retail packs, and the full user guide versions on the website. 

So while there would be an administration overhead on some of the tickets, there are advantages as well.

Cheers

Jared 

[jaredmorgs]

number_one

I guess the question I'm asking here is if the forum is the "best place" to raise bugs.  

Sure, it gets the issues out in the open, but it's disorganized and prone to duplication because everyone has a different way of thinking.  Because we think differently, our topic subjects sometime don't reflect what the real issue is.

Keyword searching is therefore sometimes tricky. 

I'm really glad that you're all weighing into this discussion.  I think it is important to show that there has to be a smarter way customers can interact with the company. 

Thanks again

Jared 

p.s. I'm sorry to hear about your N97.  I really hope the N97 users get what they need to make their phones work more reliably.  

[jaredmorgs]

---

grschinon wrote:
This forum is populated primarily by other users of Nokia products like yourself, not by Nokia staff.

If you want to get a message to Nokia themselves, use the "Contact us" link in the navigation bar at the top of every forum page.

---

 

OK, so the contact us link takes me to a generic support page containing a number of links to different common tasks.

The only mention of Personalised Support, is on this page: http://europe.nokia.com/support/faq   where it suggests the following advice for "How else can I get support regarding firmware updates for my Nokia phone?"

"To receive personal assistance from Nokia Customer Care, please call or email your local Nokia Care contact center. See www.europe.nokia.com/contactus for details"

That is the only mention of "getting a message to Nokia", and I had to dig deep to find it.  What customer would probably do is head to the forum and start ranting.

Sure, this is probably a website design issue, but there has to be a better way for customers to communicate with an Organization.

As an aside, for those people who use Ovi Suite (whether web-based on PC client) you have an option to contact nokia directly from within your client.  

I'm awaiting a response from them about the screen gesture bug I have on my phone.  If I get a result with that, I'll suggest that everyone here who has a problem with their phone software raise a bug with Nokia Support directly.  I'm sure a large volume of individual responses will cause Nokia to take notice pretty quickly. 

It's certainly something to consider.  Let's hope it doesn't come to that though  

[lordlarry_it]

@Jared

Thanks, I read all your posts and I agree with all of them. Kudos+++!!!

As I told before, I hope that discussions like this could raise up a flag to Nokia. Thanks for your precious reply in my discussion too!

@All: Thanks for your valuable replies. I invite all the users that read these and my similar discussion

to intervene and give weight to the same, also write to the Nokia via other channels of contact.

[vandelay]

(@ Larry: your post is on the Forum feedback-section and that's only visible to Contributors and up - so let's concentrate on this public thread.

@Jared: Nokia offers free email support to all customers in most countries where it operates. However, as there is no pan-European or global contact center, all contacts are routed by country. So if you're on the Nokia Europe site and go to Contact Us, you need to choose a country from the "Call or email Nokia Care" box on the page.)

I can safely say that there's no need for everyone to jump on this thread just to say that what you're suggesting is a good idea. (If you just want to give your support to a post, giving kudos is a good way.)  I also think it is, and I think this has also been discussed previously on this forum.

At the moment, there are two official ways to report bugs to Nokia:

1) Take your device to an official Nokia Care point for inspecton. They have the tools and the processes to inform Nokia about any issues. If the device is taken in for repair, it can be thoroughly analyzed and that helps in identifying any problems.

2) Email Nokia Care in your country. Fill in as much information as possible about your device (and computer, if that's related to the issue). They should also be able to send that forward to the right channels.

Posting any issues on this forum will not go unnoticed (read more about how Nokia employees follow and participate on this forum from the News and Announcements-section), but at the moment I would not consider this forum to be an official place to report bugs to Nokia. But it certainly doesn't hurt to post them here. Especially when new software is out for any device, the first reactions and feedback is followed very closely. We in the Discussions team also pick up some issues and make sure that the relevant people get to see them.

I am pretty sure that the way forward to what you are suggesting could be achieved by developing these existing channels. I will be following this thread closely and will take any suggested ideas and feedback forward.

[fais123]

Hi all, 

From my experience, emailing Nokia Care is never a good option. I am from India, and I contacted Nokia several times by email, to know when the update will get released for my product code (0575590, Nokia 5800 XM; FW v40 is out since 13th Jan, but still not for this product code).

They are always forwarding that ready-made answer (Thank you for contacting... we have forwarded your mail to concerned dept... do u know you can update the software yourself.. etc.). Asked in different tones but they are cool like ice. They never give an up-to-point reply but the same old pointless reply every time. 

I don't know what to do. I may get my phone updated from Nokia Care point but that is not practical for me. Waiting will not be a problem if they can tell a date.

Thanks, 

Fais. 

[vandelay]

Fais123, that's a different case and not directly related to the topic at hand.

In general, Nokia does not announce release dates for new software versions or product codes. There are some exceptions but that's the current general policy. So Nokia Care in India is not able to give you a date as that information is simply not available. I am still sure they forward queries like these to the relevant Nokia team.

To learn more about these policies and reasons as to why some product codes take longer than others, please see the Sw Update FAQ:

http://europe.nokia.com/support/download-software/device-software-update/faq

[lordlarry_it]

@Vandelay: Thanks Vandelay, your quick response calms me ang get me feel better that Nokia is close to its Customers.

 I regret that we must come to create some discussion like this and at the same time I would renew our invitation to create an open and structured bug tracking system.

In fact, despite your commendable calmed, there remain some unresolved critical points in the mechanism for reporting bugs to Nokia:

1. No buyer is able to know if Nokia is already working on a particular bug and from personal experience, even if contact support (which, as in my case does not always respond, however shortly)
2. It's very inconvenient or even impossible, for those who has got children and a job, go to a nokia center for found bugs, especially if there is no guarantee that they are resolved immediately. Besides, how could there be, if the firmware that solves them probably has not been yet released? 
3. Under the above point, many users are often discouraged from reporting bugs, especially minor ones, because there is always the hope that Nokia has already noticed them and it's solving them. Unfortunately it is not always so and it shows my experience on other Nokia terminals, which are no longer supported since years and which have kept some annoying bugs ever resolved.

Thank you courtesy, availability and rapid response. I hope that our invitation is extended to Nokia Engineering and Q&A Vertex and, and that this great company realizes that times have changed, that customers are increasingly demanding and are informed and that there are already good examples of public tracking bug that work...and the results are excellent and unique in their kind.

Sincerely,

L

Message Edited by lordlarry_it on 28-Jan-2010 09:21 PM

[jaredmorgs]

---

vandelay wrote:

(@ Larry: your post is on the Forum feedback-section and that's only visible to Contributors and up - so let's concentrate on this public thread.

@Jared: Nokia offers free email support to all customers in most countries where it operates. However, as there is no pan-European or global contact center, all contacts are routed by country. So if you're on the Nokia Europe site and go to Contact Us, you need to choose a country from the "Call or email Nokia Care" box on the page.)

I can safely say that there's no need for everyone to jump on this thread just to say that what you're suggesting is a good idea. (If you just want to give your support to a post, giving kudos is a good way.)  I also think it is, and I think this has also been discussed previously on this forum.

---

Vandelay, thanks so much for weighing in here and responding to this thread.  I'm pleased that you believe the idea of a public bug tracking system is a good idea.  Can you recall the end result of previous discussions about this issue?  

Could you also act on our behalf and bring this up again as an issue?

---

vandelay wrote:

At the moment, there are two official ways to report bugs to Nokia:

1) Take your device to an official Nokia Care point for inspecton. They have the tools and the processes to inform Nokia about any issues. If the device is taken in for repair, it can be thoroughly analyzed and that helps in identifying any problems.

2) Email Nokia Care in your country. Fill in as much information as possible about your device (and computer, if that's related to the issue). They should also be able to send that forward to the right channels.

---

Good to know that if you contact customer support, your issue will be logged formally.  Unfortunately that doesn't help other users know that a specific issue has been acknowledged by Nokia.  Do you think it would be possible for each issue to be acknowledged by Nokia so users know Nokia are aware of it.

I guess it comes down to educating forum users how Nokia interacts on the forum.  Would it be acceptable to create a sticky topic that explains how Nokia representatives interact with customers? 

---

Posting any issues on this forum will not go unnoticed (read more about how Nokia employees follow and participate on this forum from the News and Announcements-section), but at the moment I would not consider this forum to be an official place to report bugs to Nokia. But it certainly doesn't hurt to post them here. Especially when new software is out for any device, the first reactions and feedback is followed very closely. We in the Discussions team also pick up some issues and make sure that the relevant people get to see them.

I am pretty sure that the way forward to what you are suggesting could be achieved by developing these existing channels. I will be following this thread closely and will take any suggested ideas and feedback forward.

---

That's fantastic news vandelay.  Thanks again for your responses here.  

In summary:

1. For issues you encounter with your device, make sure you log a case with Nokia Care in your region.  You can do this via the Contact Us page, or through the contact option in OVI Suite.
2. Share your experiences on the forum with bug issues, but make sure you share them with Nokia formally as well.
3. When you get a response from Nokia Care, share it in the topic you created so others know the issue has been noted.

Nokia does monitor the forums when a new software version has been released for a model. 

To assist Nokia with following the new issues, or suggestions you may have for your device, could I please suggest following a more logical way of reporting issues.

1. Entitle your new topic with a meaningful, and concise title.  An accurate topic title helps others scroll through the forum looking for like issues.  Consider including your model number, and firmware version in the Topic Title.
2. Keep emotion out of your posts.  While ranting might make you feel better, it tends to turn people away from your post.  Facts are far more powerful.
3. Provide detailed information about the problem you experienced.  Think how you would describe the issue to a friend who doesn't have your model, so they would understand.
4. Provide a way of replicating the issue, so that someone else can try and repeat the problem.  Step by step instructions help others to recreate the conditions that caused your issue.

Following these suggestions when you post a problem will make the job of analyzing the issue much easier.  Not just for Nokia, but for other forum users.

[rider5512]

@Vandelay

Whilst I agree and accept a lot of what you say there are issues with emailing Nokia through the contact us link.

I am a reasonably happy nokia user and have an N97 with only minor issues having seemed to have escaped a lot of more seroius issues that users have listed on these forums.

However on the couple of occasions that I have emailed Nokia support I have been dissappointed with bland, generic responses and found myself wondering whether or not I've contacted support or a P.R. department. I also note that there are many instances throughout these forums from a multitude of users who have experienced similar responses.

I would like to have some confidence that when having contacted support that the guys take my query/problem seriously and will try to respond in a useful manner.

It's case like this that cause many people to start and respond to these types of discussion.

[shyam0610]

Its always good & better to troubleshoot ur self, googling is the best way. All you need is little knowledge & know how.. then u can make ur phone work d way u need..

[lordlarry_it]

---

shyam0610 wrote:
Its always good & better to troubleshoot ur self, googling is the best way. All you need is little knowledge & know how.. then u can make ur phone work d way u need..

---

It is for this reason too that forums are plenty of hacks & mods (sorry for these bad words)...most of them only exist to make up some deficiencies or bugs still/never resolved. This because often a manufacturer choice (for obvious competitivity & costs reasons), to move develop to newest handset and leave the older at their destiny...I believe that a proactive intervention, which establishes a dialogue and involve the manufacturer in relation to certain issues, may be useful to everyone. So, why give up your search on the network or "googling", even for problems that can not be solved (typically bugs)? Why wait the train of develop of a handset has gone?

I'll give you an example, my 5800 with the latest firmware has lost calendar with the new contact bar ... look around, did not seem a choice widely shared by the users ... yet been taken...consequently, there is already who is moving the forums to try to modify and implement this important lost functionality...why do not ask to Nokia? Pheraps because there is not an official, open reporting system...so, I think we're here for this too, even to combat this bad phenomenon.

If Nokia acquire more streamlined and efficient user requests, we would all be happier and products even more valuable and competitive.

I trust Nokia and I am sure we will arrive a compromise.

The existence of this forum shows great willingness, trustworthiness and professionalism, worthy of a major manufacturer in the world that always stands, like Nokia.

Best Regards,

L