How often do you contact tech support?
Posted by CutacBash@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 77 comments
Hey! I work as a junior system engineer in Eastern Europe. We maintain 20+ physical servers and use some Oracle and RedHat products. In my team me and my colleagues usually try to figure out by ourselves and we contact customer support team pretty rare, max 2 times in a month. It seems to me almost all sysadmins ignore tech support of product. Or it mostly depends on qualifications?
I_cut_the_brakes@reddit
Accounting insdustry makes some of the worst software I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with. Usually at lesat once a week for me.
goingslowfast@reddit
Most of our contracts when I was in MSP land specifically said, “We don’t support or touch Sage” for a reason.
I_cut_the_brakes@reddit
I'm internal, send help!
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Never heard about that. You mean different ERPs?
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
My colleague told me things about Bitrix... Bad things mostly
I_cut_the_brakes@reddit
No, sadly this is all stuff designed for public accountants, think Thomson Reuters, Wolters-Kluwer, etc.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Their products are on-premise? If their support is paid, low quality of their products could be intentional...
I_cut_the_brakes@reddit
Some Saas, some on-prem. I think the the low quality is due to incompetence rather than maliciousness, but wouldn't surprise me either way.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
I googled Thomson Reuters, it's a vast enterprise! They cannot hire good devs and just make a good, robust product? Or they just have monopoly??
I_cut_the_brakes@reddit
That is the million dollar question haha! Pretty damn close to a monopoly, those two software companies produce the main products use by all accouting firms. There are some others like Intuit, but they don't have as large of a market share.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Remembered me Java Web Applet (!!!!!) based vKVM in IPMI interface on HP blade servers. It's late 2010s, just update your interface, make HTML5! No, you have to use such outdated technology. That Applet was developed by Avocent. Have you heard about that? Me - no. I googled that and the only thing I found that is a SWE company from Alabama. Well, completely stale thing
DeebsTundra@reddit
Depends on how janky the product is, or how much effort I feel like expending in that particular problem. I'd guess on average probably 2-5 times a year
krattalak@reddit
If it takes me more than 30 minutes to ID an issue I punt it to support. No reason to waste time troubleshooting when support is paid for. Move on, and when they provide a solution, document it in the ticket or a KB so the next time it happens, you'll have a reference later.
Generico300@reddit
Why even wait 30 minutes? Support is paid for.
goingslowfast@reddit
Support isn’t PSG. Some vendors will help with out of scope tickets, lots won’t. So taking some time to determine whether to call support is not a bad idea.
krattalak@reddit
Providing a reasonable answer to what seems like bait:
I'm paid to do a job. I'm paid to know all. If I'm wasting a day or more troubleshooting an issue that I don't have a solution for and not accomplishing anything else productive, I'm hardly returning any value. I've worked with people that refuse to call support, spending multiple days on an issue and still didn't fix it, and at the end of the day, don't seem to see the issue with that. It sets them back, it sets the team back.
On the other hand, most problems can at least be identified within a 30 minute time frame. Once a solution is identified, it might take hours/days to fix it, but that's 100% on me to do.
goingslowfast@reddit
This is heavily vendor dependent there are some where it might take 45 minutes of people time to just get to someone who might be able to help
sybrwookie@reddit
The word "when" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence
Thats-Not-Rice@reddit
I can't remember the last time I had a ticket with Microsoft result in more than my just giving up and abandoning the ticket after a few weeks of them dicking around providing asinine non-answers.
Pre-Broadcom I had plenty of luck with VMware support, though I haven't had a need to call them since that mess happened. Beyond that the only other tickets I've logged were for RMAs.
yamsyamsya@reddit
at least force their support to tell you that there is no solution. like if one of our techs can show us where the vendor support is saying that, it makes a huge difference in what the VIPs think when they hear the news.
sybrwookie@reddit
You mean, "we're working on it, please provide another set of logs"?
Due_Peak_6428@reddit
I find vendors also can be helpful. Very rare I encounter a team that don't do anything.
krattalak@reddit
By and large, all the vendors I work with have been able to provide answers. Some better than others of course, and I'm not against engaging professional services either. I maintain active relationships with several groups/vendors/vars I can buy hours from ad hoc.
I did have one software company recently provide a less than reasonable answer, I engaged my professional services group I use for that product, at no cost to me, they spent some time asking questions, said "yep, it's fucked", and called that vendors Sr Management for me. The next day I was on a zoom call with 3 engineers for 2 hours, took a bunch of PCaps and such, an a week later a product architect responded to me with the solution. It was kind of dumb, really since it was a 'default' behavior, and none of their support engineers understood that, but there was also zero information about the issue in google or anywhere else. I'm personally shocked no one else had this problem before, since it seemed rather basic on the face of it.
So, maintain those professional contacts. :)
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
> to ID an issue
To find the similar issue in the KB and troubleshoot it, you mean?
krattalak@reddit
Digging in the KBs I think is a given. Google-fu and Vendor KBs (which usually requires a paid support contract) being next on the list. But also the usual things like digging in logs, change history (how many issues are self-inflicted?), etc. We have a pretty tightly regimented CM process, so I usually start there and work my way up through local KBs, then logs, then google-fu.
Regular-Nebula6386@reddit
Once in a blue moon. I haven’t dealt with Oracle as much but I have contacted RedHat and honestly they are hardcore. They usually fix the issue or point to the reason why things are happening. Microsoft is different kettle of fish. Unless prod is broken, we try our best not to call them. Even when we had to call them, it takes sometime to get the ticket escalated to the experts. Eventually they find the reason or blame another product. In our tech stack the product that tend to act up the most is Citrix. I really wish we didn’t have it and we will probably get rid of it by next year.
Vegetable_Mud_5245@reddit
ChatGPT answer:
Shale gas is technically present but not really developed • The province does have significant shale gas reserves (especially in the Fredericton–Moncton sub-basin and other parts of the Maritimes Basin). • However, unlike Alberta or the U.S. shale regions, these resources have not been commercially developed at scale. • That’s largely because of moratoriums on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), introduced in 2014 due to environmental and social concerns (water use, contamination risks, Indigenous rights, and community opposition).
⸻
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Even if NB did develop its gas, “resource wealth” doesn’t always translate to broad prosperity: • Resource prices are volatile (the “boom-and-bust” cycle). • Royalties and taxes depend heavily on global demand. • Provinces like Alberta are wealthy partly because of decades of infrastructure buildup and proximity to major markets — something NB hasn’t replicated.
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✅ Bottom line: New Brunswick may sit on a sizable gas resource base, but moratoriums, market competition, lack of infrastructure, and community opposition mean the reserves remain mostly untapped. Until those conditions change, NB won’t see Alberta-style resource wealth.
illicITparameters@reddit
If one of my people can’t sort it out in an hour or two, I tell them to contact support. No sense wasting more time.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
So, sometimes it's really quicker to resolve the issue with support?
cknipe@reddit
Oh for sure. Sometimes you figure it out while you're still waiting for support to engage, or while you're going back and forth with uploading logs and configs and all that. That said if you have even the slightest suspicion you might NEED support you get the case open asap. The longer it's been open the easier it is to escalate if neither your people nor first level support are getting anywhere.
TheBros35@reddit
It depends on the product too. For our old on premise phone system, it was very complex underneath and we couldn’t really ever solve system issues. We would always contact support.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
We use virtualization and it sometimes can be quite complicated to troubleshoot with our only efforts. We also use RHEL, Databases, ERPs...
illicITparameters@reddit
Sometimes quicker, but also sometimes a better use of resources.
If it's a P3 issue that isn't impacting people's ability to do their jobs, I'd rather they not spend a ton of time troubleshooting it if there's other things on their plates (which is pretty much always). It just isn't a good use of time.
If it's a P1/user-impacting P2, I want them to open a support ticket while they are still troubleshooting because I want all available resources at our disposal to work on it to find a solution.
Confident_Guide_3866@reddit
Unless it’s a saas application, we essentially never contact support, and don’t maintain any support contracts
newboofgootin@reddit
Basically yeah. Unless firmware/software updates are locked behind a support contract, we let it lapse.
Support is useless these days.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
We use on-premise software not SaaS
rootkode@reddit
You don’t have to be like this guy. Live life and contact support if you have a support contract (sometimes they help even if you don’t)
Snowmobile2004@reddit
most companies running on-prem software are large enough to have in-house techs fix/solve issues. We never contact support from microsoft, vmware, redhat, etc at my org, lots of in house staff that can fix the issue. We only contact MS if they need to fix something on their end, like whitelist an IP or something.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
We use on-premise software not SaaS
Dal90@reddit
1 to 4 times a year normally...if its to the point I'm calling support it is either:
a) A really funky problem that some support manager in Singapore calls me at 10pm on Friday (here in the US) to ask me if this one obscure check box several screens deep is checked which is checked by default...it was, I unchecked it, problem immediately cleared up, in ten minutes we've fixed an issue that had knocked around support for a week;
b) I get a "Yep, we interpreted the RFC differently from another vendor, we'll even concede we interpreted it wrong which is causing the occasional blip between devices. Won't fix.
c) I've done something totally simple wrong and I spend two days with a tech support guy until we both come the conclusion almost simultaneously what I fat fingered and we had both been overlooking the same simple, obvious thing for days.
Tuesday though...first time in some thirty years in corporate IT I opened two vendor tickets on the same day o_O
Very difficult problem to tease out why and where it is going wrong, can't be reproduced but happens hundreds of times an hour (it is a very busy system), and probably multiple small problems are actually adding up to a big one. Need vendor A to confirm what they see between them and us, need vendor B to tell me if something I saw in the packet captures is actually a real issue or not and if an issue if there are settings to adjust.
On Reddit right now because my brain is physically hurting from the log diving I was doing this afternoon correlating Dynatrace logs capturing the transaction from the client machines perspective against CDN logs against our web application filters...and they all used different time zones and formats :/
Generico300@reddit
I try to avoid calling support. It rarely ever works out smoothly. In the last 10 years I've had to call maybe 2 or 3 times. If you choose products with good documentation that are robust and well understood then you shouldn't need support very often. If you need support frequently, then either you need to skill up or the product is trash and you should look for a replacement.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Or it could be a lazy engineer who rather rely on support guy than have responsibility on his own decisions haha
Generico300@reddit
No shortage of that in this industry.
kidmock@reddit
Depends. If I hired you to be an expert, I expect you to become an expert.
Reaching out to support to report an issue is fine.
But if you think your duty ends there, I will fire your ass.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
It's ok to ask support for some help but not ok just to copy-paste support's answers?
kidmock@reddit
Again depends. Did you reach the same conclusion? Did support phrase it better than you? Did you learn? Or are you just regurgitating support garbage?
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Well, I think me and guys from my team are better than RedHat/Oracle/etc support at least because we can change disks of plug in or off cables but they not
kidmock@reddit
It's been my experience, vendor support personnel are normally bottom barrel techs who don't know shit. But every once and a while, you'll get surprised.
It can be frustrating to explain a RFC to some of these folks. Some of whom think because you are calling them, you're the one that doesn't know anything
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Oh, now I know why do some HRs just ghost you if you have tech support experience...
Ihaveasmallwang@reddit
Do you have a support contract with the vendor? Might as well use it if it is taking too much of your time to figure out on your own. No point in stressing yourself out too much if you already pay for the support. That’s literally why you pay them.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Yes, we have but engineers from my team have an opinion that it's faster to resolve the issue by itself than rely on support. But if there is an uncommon issue, engineers contact support team of course
Pub1ius@reddit
I haven't contacted external support in quite some time. I'd say once every 2-3 years maybe. It has to be a pretty dire situation if we're unable to figure it out internally.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Quite contrasting opinion especially seeing others. Had RedHat worse KB, we would contact their support way often...
PhilSocal@reddit
Qualifications get you so far, and probably just get you into the interview. I’m in a team of 7 level 3 admins (we just do server enterprise support, 8 VMware clusters of 12+hosts each, no end user) and contact support 2-3 times a year (VMware). Most of the time we solve the issue before support gets back to us. We only have support as a “cover your ass” thing.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
> probably just get you into the interview
I don't get it tbh
> cover your ass
You're able to resolve issues with your efforts but you have contracts on support just not to get screwed up if you suddenly can't figure out by yourself?
I_cut_the_brakes@reddit
the call: Hi Me, it's Me.
Sekhen@reddit
I am the support. If I can't fix it I will have to see what Wendell has to say about it.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Who is the Wendell? Nice flair btw
Sekhen@reddit
The guy with hair: https://www.youtube.com/live/MqtOpjxM7Vc?si=pvTNZVUCS6MZ_N0V He knows just about everything worth knowing.
joedotdog@reddit
Am I paid to do the thing? If yes, then I do not. Am I not paid to do the thing? I don't care how trivial, the person that is being paid to do the thing does the thing.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Interesting. I've also heard an opinion it's better to contact tech support and let them do the job because if something will get screwed up it will be support engineer's only fault
joedotdog@reddit
Yes, there is a lot to be said for allowing a shifting of liability.
Delegation when appropriate is a valuable skill set.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Ok, but if I will contact support team to resolve any issue, why am I needed?
joedotdog@reddit
You do your job, that you're paid to do.
For example: Let's say I'm a sysadmin at a company. A division in this company buys software and engages in a annual support contract. When their are issues with that software, if I can't glance at it and resolve it in a few moments, it's simply not worth my time, the people I would support's time, etc. Contacting the people that are being paid to support that software for that group of people is the correct action.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
So, my job is to maintain the whole IT system but not to know how to resolve uncommon issue? Nice insight haha. And who knows how much such insights am I going to see in the future...
SoylentAquaMarine@reddit
If I am paying for support on something, then I call tech support every single time I have the slightest question or concern. If you do not call them and you are paying for it, then you are wasting money by paying for it, and wasting time by figuring it out yourself.
CutacBash@reddit (OP)
Well, I've been told by senior engineers that they have such vast experience so they will resolve problem even before tech support get the ticket
elldee50@reddit
We have a piece of mission critical software that is just garbage and I have to contact their support 3-5 times a week to resolve issues that my team can't as administrators.
It's frustrating.
gravelordservant4u@reddit
EMR?
Exhausted-linchpin@reddit
Haha that’s a good guess. I’ve been contracted one day a week by a client to work on a specific EMR (we are small MSP). Finally after two years I’m able to only contact their support about twice a month bc I’ve learned most of their bullshit. Now it’s just when they change stuff or put out a bad update that needs a damn Chrome hotfix, since it runs its app on top of Chrome.
I did get a lot better at understanding Indians. Can I put that on my resume you think?
anonymousITCoward@reddit
This is the case for us.. We troubleshoot and do what we can, but most times we just kick it to vendor support, A stipulation for this sort of software is that the client needs to have current vendor support.
Lukage@reddit
Almost every day. It'll depend on the environment size, complexity, number of vendors, quality of vendors, etc.
I don't think you'll get a lot of useful replies here.
Ivy1974@reddit
Depends on the issue. When I supported dentist offices most of the time then I contacted them a lot.
cheetah1cj@reddit
We do both at my company. We will contact support while continuing to troubleshoot. Especially for high priority issues. This helps speed up troubleshooting. Otherwise, we have spent hours troubleshooting something only to determine it needs the vendor's support, and then we have to wait a few more hours for a response.
How quickly we involve support depends on the vendor's support and our confidence that it is outside of our control. If it is something that we cannot control but has critical impact we will often do some investigation to determine if it is the vendor's side, and then open a ticket while implementing a workaround. Also, depending on what the vendor will want from us we usually try to get that first. Some are happy to help from the start, some want specific evidence, some want to know that we've tried xyz first.
lynxss1@reddit
Weekly to daily. I maintain some unique high dollar systems for example one cluster I'm trying to fix currently is built on top of hardware that was only sold to 2 customers in the world, my customer and one in Europe. When we run into a problem you aren't going to find the answer on Google.
My customer pays in the 7 figures for support per year. When paying that much you tend to use it whenever possible. When I run into an issue I havent seen before, I briefly look at other support tickets and if I dont find a signature match automatic ticket with as much info as possible and get an engineer on the phone.
Jeff-J777@reddit
We are a small team and have support for things. Most of our SAAS applications have support, mainly since we don't have access to a "back end" interface.
If I can't figure it out in a day or two for some of our on-prem stuff and if we have support i'll contact support. All our warehouse barcode guns are under a support contract.
But we don't have any in-house 100% experts in anything, so we need that additional support.
I would say our ERP support gets heavily used. Our support plan for our backup software was a savior during our ransomware.
SpotlessCheetah@reddit
I have a small team where I am the only systems/network person. If I can't figure it out then I go to support. Since I have to know too many products, I have no choice and I'm a pretty skilled person it's just not possible to gain depth in every area.
But because of this, I have everything on support contracts.