Worst and most frustrating experience in twenty years of software use

February, 2010 I purchased Photoshop Elements 8. I registered it, got a website dedicated to my screen name, etc. I finally got the time to accumulate all my photos into organizer and organize them. It took me two days. I went in today, the third day, and the software won't open because there's a popup screen from Adobe for me to upgrade to Photoshop Elements 9. The pop-up doesn't have a close button on it. I can't get into the software I've paid for because Adobe wants to sell me more software. After two days of use, I have no intention of sending them more money to use software I already have. So then I called Support and waited on hold for 25 minutes only to be told I need TECH support and am put back on hold for another five minutes. After 1/2 hour total on hold time, they tell me that Adobe Photoshop 8 is a pay-for-support product. YOU ARE KIDDING ME! They want $39 from me to answer the question of why the software they sold me won't open because they are trying to sell me an upgrade and forgot to put a Close button on the pop-up?
The guy says there's an answer on the forum for the problem. Well, I searched the forum. I didn't see an answer. Maybe it's here. I don't know.
So I'm really just trying to scream here and see if anyone at Adobe listens or cares enough to be able to address their failure.
By the way, I was working with the purchasing department on a competition for use of imaging and document management software to satisfy regulatory compliance requirements for the global consulting firm where I work. Probably a multi-million dollar long term deal. Nice that they've blown that over $39 Support fee trying to get a $60 upgrade out of me after two days of using properly purchased, licensed, registered software.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the e-mail with which I registered doesn't show as registered, despite my having a web-site set up for me and despite them being able to find me to try and sell me upgrades, they can't find me when it's time to provide assistance.
This is hands down the worst product support and most frustrating experience of using software I have had in well over twenty years as a software user. Nothing else has even come close - including situations that resulted in lawsuits!
- Derek Zurfluh

Derek,
Off hand I don't remember the remedy for your predicament, there is one, but in the meantime go to the PhotoshopElementsEditor.exe file (or similar, this is PSE9) and hopefully start the software by double clicking on it.
Juergen

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It took forever to get the Adobe Acrobat DC to download, it finally did and I am trying to convert a file from PDF to RTF and it is telling me that I am not connected to the Internet. This is the MOST frustrating product I have ever tried to use!! Why i

I don't want other people to answer this question, I want a an Adobe support person to answer the question.
Why can't we get support?? We paid for a product that is not able to be supported????

Hi Michelle ,
We are extremely sorry that you have had a bad experience with Adobe .
As far as your issue is concerned ,Acrobat generally prompts for internet connection as it is required to activate the product before you could use it comfortably .Once the product is activated or licensed you would be able to use the software offline .
This could be the possible reason you are experiencing this .Please check if you have done so and still facing this .And if you have not ,you need to license/activate your product by typing in your credentials ,i.e Adobe ID and password .
You could also refer the following link to get updated about the activation of your product .
https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/activation-deactivation-products.html#a ctivate-how-to
Regards
Sukrit Dhingra

Trying to contact you people is one of the MOST frustrating experiences I've recently endured. Is there just no escape from the unending loops back to forums?? Is there not a phone number where a customer can speak to an Adobe human being in real time? Is

.....and so here I am...back in the f'ing forums. With a two day shoot later this week my only option is to buy a different app to have tethered shooting as an option. And if that's what I have to do, I'll do it, and Adobe will never see me again (after 22 years of using their products).

KimbermanNC wrote:
I'm not 'in a corner'. I have other resources. I'll handle this upcoming shoot. But I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed that Adobe is so indifferent to the needs of their professional photographer clients and so maddeningly inaccessible when approached for customer service.
So what other D750 tethering resources do you plan to use? This is a user-to-user forum–That information would be very helpful to other Nikon D750 owners who find this post.
I shoot tethered using a LR "watched folder" for auto import. Why would I do that when LR5 supports tethering with all my Canon DSLR cameras?
I use the free Canon EOS Utility, which supports live view mode and ability to change camera and flash settings on my system monitor. Lightroom currently only provides a remote shutter release and visual indication of the camera settings........and nothing else!
You can find similar apps here that support tethering with your Nikon D750:
http://www.tethertools.com/tethering-software/

A most frustrating experience

My son got a five euro music voucher with his ExpressMusic handset and I was the guy he turned to in order to spend the money. I must say I can't recall worse experience in downloading the software and making sense out of it. First, with no explanation the registration button didn't show up in the upper right corner of the PC screen - until I decided to try IE instead of Opera. Once the first track was downloaded, looking at the list in the PC, I tried to drag and drop the track to the phone. Unsuccessfully, of course. Finally we found some help telling that the USB connection should be opened in media/printin more as opposed to the usual PC Suite mode. Finally we got the date moving. The next problem was that the Nokia handset didn't show the tracks when we looked at them in "display all" mode. Finally I found them on the memory card after all. All in all, I doubt I will ever use this service again, life is simply too short.
I recall an old Apple slogan "People should not be asked to do things computers should do"
BTW - this site behaves quite strangely when I use this with Opera browser. Hitting Enter to begin a new paragraph throws the cursor to the top row and trying to break long text into paragraphs by hitting Enter also moves the rest of the text to the beginning... How typical Nokia. Do their top manager actually ever try to use these products and services or is there an army of friendly nerds always sorting the problems out so that they keep wondering why there is so much bad press about Nokia?

1-800-APL-CARE

BT HAVE WITHOUT DOUBT THE WORST AND MOST USELESS ...

So on the last day of April I was made redundant. Luckily I was headhunted by another company and would restart with them in two weeks time.
I IMMEDIATELY contact BT on the 1st May and explained that I would not be able to settle my outstanding bill until the monday AFTER the 1st June. I was pushing my luck a bit i know, but hey ho...
The customer service liar said that it was fine and that as long as the payment was made on the 3rd june (this would be the following monday, and tomorrow as i write this) then all would be fine.
At that point i thought "blimey what a nice bunch these people are". Little did I know......
Halfway through May my service was restricted and I contacted BT immediately and explained. They said they would listen to the call and get back to me...
They did.....
admitted it was their fault and reconnected me assuring me once again that it would be ok to settle the account on the 3rd June.
All was good once again...
Until yesterday (1st June) when I awoke to find the service suspended once again.
So here I was on the phone to them on and off (due to them often disconnecting me and not bothering to call back) for 3 hours. I was told that a manual reconnection had gone through and that it would be working within 24 hours.
I emphasised how important it was that I had internet connection today as I was to chair a conference call for work for a multi-million pound contract and as I had to VPN into our office system to do it it was VITAL it would be working.
PROMISED (laughable) that it would be.
Awoke today.... still no service... contacted BT and was told they could see no manual reconnection yesterday, but they would rush it through and it would DEFINITELY be working within two hours.
TWO HOURS LATER.... still not working.
Rang BT and told them I was SUICIDLE with the hassle this was causing me and threatened to JUMP OFF THE NEAREST TALL BUILDING. I spoke to a chap called "Eddie in the Special Services Dept" He assured me that it wasnt worth ending my life over BTs actions and whilst i totally agree with him, made it clear that it was definitley an option.
He told me as he was in the "special" dept he could make sure that my BB service was restored immediately and even went off to speak with a FEW departments to make sure that my service was working.
"OK Mr *********" he said thats all working now. I explained I was not at home to check but would be home about 8.30pm. He told me to reboot my router when I got home and SWORE TO ME that it would all be working.
ITS **bleep** WELL NOT!!!!!
Therefore... BT you can keep your service. I WILL NOT BE PAYING THE OUTSTANDING BILL AT ALL. I will also be sending an email to Warren Buckley first ting in the morning regarding this and also Mickey Boy Rake too so that they can see just what us customers have to put up with.
Now before you guys say, you should have paid your bill, had I have been told that it was not ok, I would have borrowed money and gotten myself into debt to pay it. But because I was told it was OK I feel that it should have been ok.
BT please feel free to disconnect my services completely and supply me with a MAC code so I can move to another provider. Feel free to sue me for any outstanding balance as I would love to be givine the opportunity to argue this out over a courtrrom table.
Rant over..
AS

Hi ukdeveloper,
Thanks for posting. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I can look into this for you if you wish. Drop me an email with the details. You'll find the "contact us" form in the about me section of my profile. Once I have the details we'll take it from there.
Cheers
David
BTCare Community Mod
If we have asked you to email us with your details, please make sure you are logged in to the forum, otherwise you will not be able to see our ‘Contact Us’ link within our profiles.
We are sorry but we are unable to deal with service/account queries via the private message(PM) function so please don't PM your account info, we need to deal with this via our email account :-)

Want update photoshop elements 9 to 9.03/ use new iMac Mac OS X Yosemite / Have Installation CD since 2010 and most probably missed update 9.02 because seldom used Elements 9

Have Pse since 2010 and seldom used application. Now with new iMac with iOS X Yosemite want reinstall pse 9 and update to current 9.03 version.

Hi Atul Saini
still unable to update to newest version 9.03.
following message is showing up
Adobe Photoshop Elements 9.0.3-Update
Beim Herunterladen dieses Updates ist ein Fehler aufgetreten. Schließen Sie den Vorgang und versuchen Sie es später erneut.
Photoshop Camera Raw 6.5-Update
Beim Herunterladen dieses Updates ist ein Fehler aufgetreten. Schließen Sie den Vorgang und versuchen Sie es später erneut.
regards Beat

A very frustrating experience with the Verizon website(s)

My tale of woe:
I am downloading call data in "spreadsheet" format, here: https://nbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/accountholder/mybill/VoiceDetails.action
I have multiple lines on my account. I start by downloading the data for one of my non-primary lines ("Line 2"). So far, so good. Then I go back and start downloading the data for my primary line ("Line 1"). But the site keeps giving me files with Line 2 data.
Click "View All Voice Details." I see Line 1 data.
Click "Download to Spreadsheet." I get a file with Line 2 data.
The same thing happens for every month in the record.
Clearly, there is a bug in the code for this page. I think, after spending time diagnosing it, I'll report it to Verizon so they can fix it.
Click "Contact Us" (https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/contact/index.jsp ). This resolves to a blank page titled "Back Button - JSP Page" (http://www.verizonwireless.com/backbutton.html ), with some irrelevant JavaScript commands.
Try again. Same result. (I repeated everything in this story at least twice, to confirm the results.)
Finally, clicking around, I somehow manage to reach the "Contact Us" page.
I don't want any "self-service" options; I just want to submit information. "Send an Email" sounds good. I select "I receive a monthly statement," and click on the submit button.
This takes me to the "Find Assistance" page (https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/contact/findAssistance.jsp ). There's nothing there about sending an email.
I click around some more. I can't find any place to send a message to Verizon!
Fine, I'll post in the forums. I go to community.vzw.com, and register for a new account.
I want to write my own secret question, so I select that option from the dropdown menu. There's still only one input field, which is odd, but I put something in it and submit the form.
The page returns an error indicating that not all of the input fields are filled in. Clearly, it's expecting me to fill in both a "secret question" field and a "secret answer" field, but there's no way for me to do this, because the page isn't showing the "secret question" field to me.
Fine, I'll use one of the preset secret questions.
Now I'm here, preparing a message to send into the ether of "forums," never to pass under the eyes of anyone working for Verizon. If I manage to post the message without triggering some new error, I'll be shocked.
Unbelievable!

Grothka wrote:
I would actually be concerned that it has to do with the browser you are using. This website is made to run on the latest version of Internet Explorer, with Firefox and Safari normally not having any problems. I can tell you that I ran through a couple pages after reading this post and didn't see any problems... I'm running Internet Explorer, you may just want to download the latest version, or clear your cache and try again.
Thank you, Grothka, for your prompt reply! I apologize for neglecting the thread myself.
Could you be more specific about which pages you "ran through?" I've just re-tested the problems I experienced on 2/27, and found that all but one still exist. I've summarized the three remaining problems below.
I use the latest version of Firefox.* While the suggestion that I switch to IE might prove an effective (and certainly well-intentioned) workaround, it is not a solution. Basic functions like sending an e-mail to tech support or registering for a new account should not require the use of a specific browser--especially now, when no single browser has even a majority user share (see http://bit.ly/gfja5z).
*(Technically, I'm running 3.6.16--I haven't yet moved to Firefox 4, which was just released on Tuesday.)
I've been a Verizon customer for several years, and have been happy with their wireless service. However, of the dozen or so companies I do business with on the web, Verizon's website has consistently been the slowest and most frustrating to use. The sequence of consecutive bugs I ran into on 2/27 finally motivated me to write something about it.
Here's the problem list:
1. https://nbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/accountholder/mybill/VoiceDetails.action
Select a secondary line ("Line 2").
Click "Download to SpreadSheet," and save file as "File A - Line 2."
Change the date from the dropdown menu. Then use the same menu to go back to the original date.
The primary line ("Line 1") is automatically selected. Line 1's data appear on the main page, and when we click "View All Voice Details."
Click "Download to SpreadSheet," and save file as "File B - Line 1."
Compare File A & File B. They are identical files, containing Line 2 data.
2. https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/contact/index.jsp
Under "Send an Email," select "I receive a monthly statement" from the dropdown menu, and click the submit button.
This takes me to the "Find Assistance" page https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/contact/findAssistance.jsp, where I see nothing about sending an email.
3. http://www22.verizon.com/content/sso/signin.aspx
Click "Get Verizon Community User ID & Password" to open the registration panel.
Select "Write your own question" from the Secret Question dropdown.
There is no field available for writing the question--only one for the answer.

For some reason my app store email is incorrect on my ipad 1 how do i change the email address? please help me as this is most frustrating. i want to use the same email address i use on my Iphone and I mac

Please help.
for some odd reason my app store email address on my Ipad 1 is incorrect. How do i change it?
i would like to use the same email address i use on my I Phone and I Mac
Please help as i find this situation most frustrating.
many thanks
Joao

Do you perhaps have more than one Apple ID? If your response is "No," are you absolutely positive?

HT4623 I've just upgraded my iPhone from ios3 to ios6 and it has taken my phone back in time. My most recent photos and messages are dated from a year ago. My music is fine, just messages and photos are gone. HELP?

I've just upgraded my iPhone from ios3 to ios6 and it has taken my phone back in time. My most recent photos and messages are dated from a year ago. My music is fine, just messages and photos are gone. HELP?

Restore the device using the most recent backup.
If you have not backed up the device recently, then there is nothing to restore.

When I log off Firefox, there is a long delay, then an error message: Firefox not responding. Then it eventually logs off. The side bar scroll up and down also experiences delays. This is a new problem--I've used Firefox for years. Help!

I uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox to see if the problem would go away--no luck. It's not my mouse nor my keyboard. Internet Explorer does not have this problem nor any other application. When typing on websites, there is also a delay when the cursor is tabbed, and typing experiences fits and starts as well. I'm going crazy!

Hello jesterabk, '''Try Firefox Safe Mode''' to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.
''(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)''
* You can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the '''Shift''' key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
* Or open the Help menu and click on the '''Restart with Add-ons Disabled...''' menu item while Firefox is running.
''Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode"''
'''''If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode''''', your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the [[Troubleshooting extensions and themes]] article for that.
''To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.''
''When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help other users who have the same problem.''
Thank you.

Am having intermittent difficulty rendering in FCE. Using the Sequence menu sometimes delivers results and Command R fails every time. Most frustrating. Any thoughts from anyone? Thanks.

Am having intermittent difficulty rendering in FCE. Using the Sequence menu sometimes delivers results and Command R fails every time. Most frustrating. Any thoughts from anyone? Thanks.

Michael,
There is a forum for Final Cut Express I'd recommend re-posting there.
Roger

I upgraded to Yosemite OSX 10.10.1 and most of the the favicons disappeared in favorites folders.

I upgraded to Yosemite OSX 10.10.1 and most of the the favicons disappeared in favorites folders. So much slower to find folders.

Returning to Mail Preferences - Junk Mail, in the section
When junk mail arrives:
select mark as junk mail but leave it in my inbox
This should then give you the opportunity to mark it as Not Junk
and after several days it may improve.
I say 'may improve', based on my experience of when I upgraded to 10.5 a few years ago. It took a while to learn what I kept insisting was not junk. It is a slow learner but it got there.
P.S. When you are satisfied it is identifying junk reasonably accurately, you can change the Preferences setting back to 'Move it to the Junk mail box'
Message was edited by: roam

Which Mac Pro? More cores=slower speeds? And most of us know the speed matters or FPU for music and I don't understand the faster is for the least amount of procs. And while I get the whole rendering thing and why it makes sense.

Which Mac Pro? More cores=slower speeds? And most of us know the speed matters or FPU for music and I don't understand the faster is for the least amount of procs. And while I get the whole rendering thing and why it makes sense.
The above is what the bar says. It's been a while and wondered, maybe Apple changed the format for forums. Then got this nice big blank canvas to air my concerns. Went to school for Computer Science, BSEE, even worked at Analog Devices in Newton Massachusetts, where they make something for apple.
The bottom line is fast CPU = more FPU = more headroom and still can't figure out why the more cores= the slower it gets unless it's to get us in to a 6 core then come out with faster cores down the road or a newer Mac that uses the GPU. Also. Few. I'm the guy who said a few years ago Mac has an FCP that looks like iMovie on Steroids. Having said that I called the campus one day to ask them something and while I used to work for Apple, I think she thought I still did as she asked me, "HOW ARE THE 32 CORES/1DYE COMING ALONG? Not wanting to embarrass her I said fine, fine and then hung up. Makes the most sense as I never quite got the 2,6,12 cores when for years everything from memory to CPU's have been, in sets of 2 to the 2nd power. 2,4,8,16,32,64,120,256,512, 1024, 2048,4196,8192, 72,768. Wow. W-O-W and will be using whatever I get with Apollo Quad.
Peace to all and hope someone can point us in THE RIGHT DIRECTION. THANK YOU

Thanks for your reply via email/msg. He wrote:
If you are interested in the actual design data for the Xeon processor, go to the Intel site and the actual CPU part numbers are:
Xeon 4 core - E5.1620v2
Xeon 6 core - E5.1650v2
Xeon 8 core - E5.1680v2
Xeon 12 core - E5.2697v2
I read that the CPU is easy to swap out but am sure something goes wrong at a certain point - even if solderedon they make material to absorb the solder, making your work area VERY clean.
My Question now is this, get an 8 core, then replace with 2 3.7 QUAD CHIPS, what would happen?
I also noticed that the 8 core Mac Pro is 3.0 when in fact they do have a 3.4 8 core chip, so 2 =16? Or if correct, wouldn't you be able to replace a QUAD CHIP WITH THAT? I;M SURE THEY ARE UO TO SOMETHING AS 1) WE HAVE SEEN NO AUDIO FPU OR PERHAPS I SHOULD CHECK OUT PC MAKERS WINDOWS machines for Sisoft Sandra "B-E-N-C-H-M-A-R-K-S" -
SOMETHINGS UP AND AM SURE WE'LL ALL BE PLEASED, AS the mac pro was announced Last year, barely made the December mark, then pushed to January, then February and now April.
Would rather wait and have it done correct than released to early only to have it benchmarked in audio and found to be slower in a few areas- - - the logical part of my brain is wondering what else I would have to swap out as I am sure it would run, and fine for a while, then, poof....
PEACE===AM SURE APPLE WILL BLOW US AWAY - they have to figure out how to increase the power for 150 watts or make the GPU work which in regard to FPU, I thought was NVIDIA?

I don't understand the thing you call live bookmarks never used it, and most forums I have used notify VIA E-mail not giving out my E-mail address information when a reply has been made to the thread in question.

So how do I get notified of updates in this forum? As I said: I don't understand the thing you call LIVE BOOKMARKS I have never used them, and most forums I have used notify VIA E-mail not giving out my E-mail address, or other private information when a reply has been made to the thread in question, so how do I get notified of updates in this forum? I have seen no normal options for setting my viewing preferences used for this forum. Thank You.

Thanks for your reply via email/msg. He wrote:
If you are interested in the actual design data for the Xeon processor, go to the Intel site and the actual CPU part numbers are:
Xeon 4 core - E5.1620v2
Xeon 6 core - E5.1650v2
Xeon 8 core - E5.1680v2
Xeon 12 core - E5.2697v2
I read that the CPU is easy to swap out but am sure something goes wrong at a certain point - even if solderedon they make material to absorb the solder, making your work area VERY clean.
My Question now is this, get an 8 core, then replace with 2 3.7 QUAD CHIPS, what would happen?
I also noticed that the 8 core Mac Pro is 3.0 when in fact they do have a 3.4 8 core chip, so 2 =16? Or if correct, wouldn't you be able to replace a QUAD CHIP WITH THAT? I;M SURE THEY ARE UO TO SOMETHING AS 1) WE HAVE SEEN NO AUDIO FPU OR PERHAPS I SHOULD CHECK OUT PC MAKERS WINDOWS machines for Sisoft Sandra "B-E-N-C-H-M-A-R-K-S" -
SOMETHINGS UP AND AM SURE WE'LL ALL BE PLEASED, AS the mac pro was announced Last year, barely made the December mark, then pushed to January, then February and now April.
Would rather wait and have it done correct than released to early only to have it benchmarked in audio and found to be slower in a few areas- - - the logical part of my brain is wondering what else I would have to swap out as I am sure it would run, and fine for a while, then, poof....
PEACE===AM SURE APPLE WILL BLOW US AWAY - they have to figure out how to increase the power for 150 watts or make the GPU work which in regard to FPU, I thought was NVIDIA?

HomeFusion 3 Days down and counting (My experience with HF)

I live approx 5 miles outside of Columbia MO. The VZ website show my address as qualifying for HF (not sure if I'm in extended though) so I order it in Oct 2012. Installer came out and spent 4 hours running wire and looking for the strongest signal. He found a spot on the NW corner and attached the Cantenna (aka HBA or Home Broadband Antenna) to the house with lag screws about 4 ft off the ground. On my Cantenna, there are two indicator lights on the bottom: One for "Power" and one for "SWiM". The power light will only turn red or green. The SWiM light is a signal strength indicator and can turn Red, Blue, and Green. Best case is both lights green at all times. On mine when it's working the power light is solid green and the swim light bounces between red, blue, and green. My download speeds can vary between 1MB and 15MB but generally speaking when a network connection does exist, the speed is acceptable. When it's not working both lights are red and my frustration level is not acceptable.
The internet worked ok for 2 days after that, then bang..nothing. The HBA showed red on both lights. I logged into the Wireless router admin console(aka HBR) via http://192.168.1.254 and the signal strength indicator bars on the left side of the page were all empty and the Connection Status was "Unreachable". I selected "Advanced" and then HBA Advanced Settings and the page displayed "The HBA is currently unavailable."
I went to HF support site and learned that unplugging the power inserter (the small black box that has 2 coax connections on one end and plugs into a 110v socket) and waiting 30 seconds to plug it back in will "reboot" the HBA. After a few attempts of this the HBA appeared to reconnect to the 4G network, obtain an internet routable IP address (which could be observed from the HBR admin console "System Monitoring" page), and function as expected.
Practically every day throughout the following week this was my experience. I call this the "routine".
1. Get home from work and try and get on net with my laptop. No luck.
2. Walk to HBA and find 2 red lights.
3. Go to basement and unplug power inserter. Wait 30 seconds. Plug back in.
4. Go back outside and watch lights on HBA.
5. After 2 mins if lights still red, repeat steps 3 and 4.
Sometimes after spending an hour or so unsuccessfully I would have to give up and try it in the morning before I left for work just to see if it was any different at that time. Sometimes yes. Sometimes no.
After a week or so of this I called Verizon support and explained the situation. The scheduled a new installer visit. A different installer arrived the following week and he and I spent several hours one evening walking the HBA to different locations on the back of my house looking for a better mounting location simply by watching the SWiM light for blue/green vs. red/blue or solid red colors.
We believed we found a location on the roof just a few feet up from the gutter that was "better" than the previous spot. A few more lag screws and some silicone around the bracket and I was good to go.
The following morning I checked the HBA and found 2 red lights. Sigh. The admin console showed the HBA was unreachable and I was again dead in the water. After work, I again started the routine and after several attempts, I could get it working. This same daily experience played out for the majority of October. Rare was a day I could come home from work to find a glorious green power light waiting for me which meant I wouldn't have to burn an hour to just get things functional.
After power cycling the HBA probably more than 100 times in Oct/Nov 2012, I've learned a couple things about how it boots up
This is what happens after I plug it in and it connects:
1. HBA gets power and after 2 secs power light turns red.
2. 1 sec after that the swim light turns red
3. Approx 30 secs the swim light will blink off and back on once.
4. Approx 5 after that, the power light will turn from red to green
5. Immediately after that the swim light will start bouncing from red, to blue, to green.
This is what happens after I plug it in and it DOES NOT connect:
1. HBA gets power and after 2 secs power light turns red.
2. 1 sec after that the swim light turns red
3. Both lights continue to show solid red until power-cycled.
What this appears to mean is that while in the boot cycle, if the connection is not made to the 4G network (i.e. a connection as indicated by step 3 and 4 above) there will be no further attempts to connect until the device is manually power-cycled. I see this as a major design flaw in the software. The HBA, should boot cycle itself every 10 minutes or so when no connection exists so that it could self-heal in the event of a 4G network outage or signal degradation.
That being said what appears to the be the issue for me is that when the HBA is booting it cannot connect to the 4G network either because: A. there is not sufficient enough signal strength to allow the negotiation or B. there is no signal being transmitted due to an area outage.
One other thing I've learned is that I can improve signal strength by rotating the HBA. I generally know where the towers are and I've found that if the HBA is in a good spot I can point the side with the lights AWAY from the towers and get green/blue swim light where if the lights are pointing towards the tower I will get solid red swim light(indicating a low signal not necessarily a lost signal). I have also found that a difference of a few feet laterally can dramatically affect signal. Although vertically it doesn't seem to matter so much. I live on a pretty steep hill so my experience could differ from any flatlanders out there.
So it's November now and a new billing cycle and after 4 days of uninterrupted internet (the new record), on Thursday I came home to find those red lights staring back at me like the devil reincarnate. I thought perhaps the VZ gods had ironed things out but alas it is not the case. No matter how many times I've power-cycled since (I estimate 30 from Friday to Sunday) I cannot connect. I called VZ on Friday and they walked me through a power cycle and after no success entered a "trouble ticket". I've heard nothing since. I'm getting ready to call them again after one more "routine" of course. Wish me luck.
It's a real shame this service is as flaky as it is because like everyone says, when it works it works great.

I can tell there's still customers on this forum who continue to have issues with HF. I feel fortunate in saying that my HF woes have been solved after no small amount of effort by Verizon. Despite any evidence to the contrary I've experienced first hand that there are people in their organization who do care about their customers and want to provide a trouble free services.
For me there were several additional visits from installers and the dropping was improved by moving the power inserter closer to the cantenna (i.e. from 100 ft to 3 ft). While this shortened the outages and seemed to improved the odds that a power cycle would result in a successful connection, a full replacement of the cantenna and the router on a final visit is what I believe did the trick.
My gut tells me the cantenna was primary source of the issue.
I've been by in large up for 2 weeks now with only one or two outages which were resolved by rebooting the HBA through the management console and not having to resort to power cycling the inserter. I wish the same luck to any of you out that continue to struggle.

Worst and most frustrating experience in twenty years of software use

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