This long shot isn't for lazy.
Smart people will get info, how to create tickets and how to be durable.
Finally, it is not about hating, because in the last part there is a consideration - how to do it better.
When we imagine that the number of current Syno NASes may be at the level of 6M (Syno has not published data since 2018).
When the ratio of NAS beginners is at the level of 80% (main Syno target), because Pareto principle and data from Shodan, we talk about 4.8M users who need constant help.
They often end up somewhere on portals like the official Syno community or in Synoforum.com (advanced level). However, many end up in official support through Synology.com.
So you can imagine how the 1st level support must be set up, for what kind of questions. Yes, no one is born as an expert. However, the problem is when an experienced user needs to provide 2nd level support. If he passes through the filter of the mentioned 1st level, then his hair can turn completely grey.
The best rule of the ticket is that it is taken in order. Which, of course, is ok. No severity ID. It's free of charge service.
The problem, however, is that an experienced user who has submitted a ticket and subsequently tests the scenarios and tries to provide ongoing information to the ticket is penalized.
Why?
Because someone handy at Synology support has set up to receive tickets so that if something is added to the ticket content, such ticket is sent to the last position and can wait again to get the turn.
Imagine what happens to such a ticket if you add new findings twice or more.
You probably already understand why I tried to be calm in the begining.
Then it is better to open several tickets for the same issue, to play the same game with the stup.d Syno habit, vs. to be precise to keep all info in a single thread - they can group the tickets.
Synology support is terrible. I mean the European part. Don't have experiences from the rest of the world.
If you already get to the consultation, you will be approached by someone who is unfortunately ready for answers from the largest segment of users - newbies. This will probably mean that the time of processing your ticket will be delayed again. When someone at Synology Support finally understands that an experienced user with an additional dose of paranoia will in no way provide Root access for the SSH of their NAS, they will finally send it to the 2nd level support.
Pls. don't send the debug.dat file to Synology:
It's really funny when Syno asks from your DSM debug log or Drive debug log. Because it contains really sensitive information about everything in your NAS, including user names, FDQN, IP addresses, folder structures, User IDs, .... no one knows where it will be stored and who can see all the files.
Just aks from what exact files they need from this bunch. Open the files in some better editor like Notepad++ and try to find mentioned "jewelry", replace the values by something more secure and prepare for Syno a written "dictionary" about the replaced data.
In addition, the support requester learns that Synology has few people to support, and the number of tickets is rising.
So with a dose of patience, such user gets to the point where they finally provide him with a time slot. Someone from Taiwan can connect to his computer via TeamViewer and use his collection of tools for comprehensive NAS management. In principle, an ordinary Putty is enough. However, someone also has something more serious.
Conclusion:
This is due to the fact that Synology offers Free Service. It also corresponds to the quality.
Support for 6M users.
When I compare it with the support from Wix, which I use for suitable purposes, you have a call back from the support within a few hours, and the problem was solved that day. I don't mean a trivial issue like a forgotten password. And Wix operates services for up to 200M users. Just for comparison with Syno attitude.
How to do it better:
this month, I've been communicating my thoughts somewhere on how this could work better. Reason - people like blames, but they don't have an idea, how to do it better.
When something is for free, resp. in the cost of the box purchased it can’t work entirely.
A simplified consideration:
when from 6M active NAS users just 5% = 300k will be willing to contribute 5 EUR monthly subscription
it will be 18M EUR revenue for the advanced support channel (direct 2nd level)
when just 10% of them yearly will ask for the support = 30k tickets issued
it means 136 tickets per working day (220 WD/y)
when 50% of them will have the same topic (ofc it will be more % value) = 68 tickets daily ... it means 68 critical errors in DSM or Syno packages DAILY discovered! What a buggy environment.
and 80% of them was resolved in the near past, it will remain = 14 tickets daily for resolving x 220days = 3,080 critical tickets annually
5 days for single ticket resolving = 5d x 14tickets = 70 people in team
when the team of 70 2nd level engineers + 4 coordinators will spend 15M EUR yearly in total staff cost+related OPEX = 202,703.00 EUR/head (all the related costs include offices rentals, ...),
they will get 18M (reve) - 15M (cost) = 3M EUR yearly for tuning of such services, to the best ever level.
It will cover >3k heavy issues yearly. With proper knowledge base maintenance, it’s really useful for power users.
However, at a time when the world is full of average people, this will not be provided by Syno. Because they need more time for new sh.ts discovering ...
What about you?
Smart people will get info, how to create tickets and how to be durable.
Finally, it is not about hating, because in the last part there is a consideration - how to do it better.
When we imagine that the number of current Syno NASes may be at the level of 6M (Syno has not published data since 2018).
When the ratio of NAS beginners is at the level of 80% (main Syno target), because Pareto principle and data from Shodan, we talk about 4.8M users who need constant help.
They often end up somewhere on portals like the official Syno community or in Synoforum.com (advanced level). However, many end up in official support through Synology.com.
So you can imagine how the 1st level support must be set up, for what kind of questions. Yes, no one is born as an expert. However, the problem is when an experienced user needs to provide 2nd level support. If he passes through the filter of the mentioned 1st level, then his hair can turn completely grey.
The best rule of the ticket is that it is taken in order. Which, of course, is ok. No severity ID. It's free of charge service.
The problem, however, is that an experienced user who has submitted a ticket and subsequently tests the scenarios and tries to provide ongoing information to the ticket is penalized.
Why?
Because someone handy at Synology support has set up to receive tickets so that if something is added to the ticket content, such ticket is sent to the last position and can wait again to get the turn.
Imagine what happens to such a ticket if you add new findings twice or more.
You probably already understand why I tried to be calm in the begining.
Then it is better to open several tickets for the same issue, to play the same game with the stup.d Syno habit, vs. to be precise to keep all info in a single thread - they can group the tickets.
Synology support is terrible. I mean the European part. Don't have experiences from the rest of the world.
If you already get to the consultation, you will be approached by someone who is unfortunately ready for answers from the largest segment of users - newbies. This will probably mean that the time of processing your ticket will be delayed again. When someone at Synology Support finally understands that an experienced user with an additional dose of paranoia will in no way provide Root access for the SSH of their NAS, they will finally send it to the 2nd level support.
Pls. don't send the debug.dat file to Synology:
It's really funny when Syno asks from your DSM debug log or Drive debug log. Because it contains really sensitive information about everything in your NAS, including user names, FDQN, IP addresses, folder structures, User IDs, .... no one knows where it will be stored and who can see all the files.
Just aks from what exact files they need from this bunch. Open the files in some better editor like Notepad++ and try to find mentioned "jewelry", replace the values by something more secure and prepare for Syno a written "dictionary" about the replaced data.
In addition, the support requester learns that Synology has few people to support, and the number of tickets is rising.
So with a dose of patience, such user gets to the point where they finally provide him with a time slot. Someone from Taiwan can connect to his computer via TeamViewer and use his collection of tools for comprehensive NAS management. In principle, an ordinary Putty is enough. However, someone also has something more serious.
Conclusion:
This is due to the fact that Synology offers Free Service. It also corresponds to the quality.
Support for 6M users.
When I compare it with the support from Wix, which I use for suitable purposes, you have a call back from the support within a few hours, and the problem was solved that day. I don't mean a trivial issue like a forgotten password. And Wix operates services for up to 200M users. Just for comparison with Syno attitude.
How to do it better:
this month, I've been communicating my thoughts somewhere on how this could work better. Reason - people like blames, but they don't have an idea, how to do it better.
When something is for free, resp. in the cost of the box purchased it can’t work entirely.
A simplified consideration:
when from 6M active NAS users just 5% = 300k will be willing to contribute 5 EUR monthly subscription
it will be 18M EUR revenue for the advanced support channel (direct 2nd level)
when just 10% of them yearly will ask for the support = 30k tickets issued
it means 136 tickets per working day (220 WD/y)
when 50% of them will have the same topic (ofc it will be more % value) = 68 tickets daily ... it means 68 critical errors in DSM or Syno packages DAILY discovered! What a buggy environment.
and 80% of them was resolved in the near past, it will remain = 14 tickets daily for resolving x 220days = 3,080 critical tickets annually
5 days for single ticket resolving = 5d x 14tickets = 70 people in team
when the team of 70 2nd level engineers + 4 coordinators will spend 15M EUR yearly in total staff cost+related OPEX = 202,703.00 EUR/head (all the related costs include offices rentals, ...),
they will get 18M (reve) - 15M (cost) = 3M EUR yearly for tuning of such services, to the best ever level.
It will cover >3k heavy issues yearly. With proper knowledge base maintenance, it’s really useful for power users.
However, at a time when the world is full of average people, this will not be provided by Syno. Because they need more time for new sh.ts discovering ...
What about you?