5.1.4 Issues Since the Upgrade

Remote Support and Access
1

Since upgrading to 5.1.4 I have encountered several incidents whereby I cannot get a connection to an obviously online and responding client. I’ve tried forcing a restart of the service, which ends up taking the device offline permanently.
What works is redeploying the remote via “mass deployment”. This is kind of a pain. I know how to do it but the other 4 or 5 technicians don’t, and they just assume simplehelp doesn’t work and revert to VNC. This is fine except I want to remove VNC eventually, and I’ll never sell everyone on that until simplehelp is reliable.
Also, at login, when simplehelp prompts for the 2fa via the remote authenticator app, it would be great if the focus defaulted to the box where you type in the code. Currently the box pops up with focus and immediately loses focus, which means you have to reach for your mouse and click on the box to be able to type in the code. Easy enough but exhausting after you’ve had to close and reopen the client 99 times so far trying to figiure out why you can’t connect to come of the clients.
Also, you have to close and reopen simplehelp sometimes while running the “mass deployment” option. For an unknown reason, sometimes the entire “access” TAB blanks during deployment and you cannot get it back without closing the tech app and reopening it. Very annoying.

FINALLY
I have entered a support request on the 20th and again on the 27th and have yet to hear back from anyone. What can I do to get a more timely response?

I can help troubleshoot and work through bugs. I have done software development and I can usually describe problems and the conditions surrounding them fairly well. I can troubleshoot reasonably well after 25 years in IT. If there were only a channel of communication, I think I could help with finding and submitting bug reports.

I love the product when it works. It is quite a good tool. But when it doesn’t work, I feel like there’s no one on your end willing to help.

-Chris McKown (as Clay Briscoe)
Covercraft Industries

2

Chris,

Can you let us know if you double checked the antivirus solution or firewall at the gateway?
Can it be that something is blocking any communication at the client level?
I’m saying this because I’m running the same version and using all the features but never had that issue, however I had previously experienced similar issues due to several antivirus solutions where I had to exclude the programdata simplehelp folder and under the user profile too. I understand the frustration but lets us share some data so we can try to find the culprit.

John

3

Thanks for the feedback.
I’ll try excluding it from the AV. All our communication is able to happen either inside the private network or through the internet. Both are enabled. When I’m having the issues other computers at the same site are able to communicate fine. I don’t think it’s a networking issue. Once I exclude the folder for the AV I’ll do some more testing.

4

Thanks for your reply. I hope we can quickly find the culprit.

John