Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It's been 191 days since Google Drive worked for me

dynalist.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 238 posts

Re: It's been 191 days since Google Drive worked for me

#61

Post by victorhooi »

Nition wrote: post #17

Ridiculous that they imply throughout that they have a (mysteriously silent) Level 3 support or engineering team working on the issue for almost that entire time. Would be amazing if that's actually true and it turns out they discovered some huge underlying issue with the system from the user logs that they've actually had a team working on... but I'm sure it isn't. For a start if an issue like that was being worked…

I am on that team =).

I won't say much publicly, but if this is the issue I think it is (customer has a huge number of files, and is trying to sync it with a 32-bit client, and hitting memory issues), we are aware of the issue, and are definitely working on it.

It's a tricky thing to solve in any sync client - for example, Dropbox has a cap around 300,000 files (I believe this customer had 700,000 files?):

> https://www.dropbox.com/help/space/file-storage-limit

Note: The performance of the Dropbox application may start to decline when you store above 300,000 files.

Other clients may have similar limits. I'll see if I can find our docs on it.

Disclaimer: I work for Google.

Re: It's been 191 days since Google Drive worked for me

#62

Post by flukus »

mgkimsal wrote: post #45
Steeeve wrote: post #42

That's comical. I feel like I have an understanding of what's going on because I've been in this scenario on a contract - not with Google. I was told - "there's a backlog of support requests. They are old requests that nobody has been working on and our offshore team can't handle. Being an expert in this particular product (and always in need of some extra cash), I said "OK, but let me be very clear that this is seco…

"scaling support" almost always seems hand in hand with "dumbing down for lowest common denominator". By the time things have made it through "please restart your computer"-level stuff, maybe the only way to scale is to put real engineers on problems and "allow" them to actually talk to the people having the problems. This approach seems to be the only one companies seem hell-bent on never trying.

Because engineers are expensive, engineers that can talk to customers are even more expensive and decent engineers willing to do support are even more expensive.

That said, I do think software devs should be more involved with the customer for other reasons, far to often they are building software without having any idea what the customers workflow is.

Re: It's been 191 days since Google Drive worked for me

#63

Post by Nition »

victorhooi wrote: post #61
Nition wrote: post #17

Ridiculous that they imply throughout that they have a (mysteriously silent) Level 3 support or engineering team working on the issue for almost that entire time. Would be amazing if that's actually true and it turns out they discovered some huge underlying issue with the system from the user logs that they've actually had a team working on... but I'm sure it isn't. For a start if an issue like that was being worked…

I am on that team =). I won't say much publicly, but if this is the issue I think it is (customer has a huge number of files, and is trying to sync it with a 32-bit client, and hitting memory issues), we are aware of the issue, and are definitely working on it. It's a tricky thing to solve in any sync client - for example, Dropbox has a cap around 300,000 files (I believe this customer had 700,000 files?): > https://…

I realise that you probably aren't able to contact the customer yourself, but someone needs to tell the guy clearly what Google thinks the issue is (support saying "according to an entry on the help forum..." isn't exactly conclusive although at least they're trying), refund him for the six months, and suggest any possible workaround.

Because there's no direct contact from anyone beyond level 2 support, the guy is stuck in limbo without being able to know where his issue is in the realm between "about to be fixed" and "never."

On the other hand, it's nice that there is actually a team on this and that it's not just support palming him off. Problem is there's no way for the guy to know that. If I keep telling you that Santa is urgently working on some presents for six months eventually you're gonna stop believing.

Re: It's been 191 days since Google Drive worked for me

#65

Post by hprotagonist »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

This is why Dropbox has value. It works, its reliable, and if you're a paying customer you can get support. Spend the $10/month. Don't go on for more than half a year with your storage being broken. Disclaimer: no affiliation except a satisfied pro account user EDIT: Edge cases notwithstanding.

Dropbox traditionally has some nasty habits on disk.

for example: http://applehelpwriter.com/2016/08/29/discovering-how-dropbo...

Re: It's been 191 days since Google Drive worked for me

#66

Post by est »

hprotagonist wrote: post #65
toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

This is why Dropbox has value. It works, its reliable, and if you're a paying customer you can get support. Spend the $10/month. Don't go on for more than half a year with your storage being broken. Disclaimer: no affiliation except a satisfied pro account user EDIT: Edge cases notwithstanding.

Dropbox traditionally has some nasty habits on disk. for example: http://applehelpwriter.com/2016/08/29/discovering-how-dropbo...

Nasty, yes. But can it do the file sync job correctly? Also yes.

Re: It's been 191 days since Google Drive worked for me

#67

Post by marcosdumay »

flukus wrote: post #62
mgkimsal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"scaling support" almost always seems hand in hand with "dumbing down for lowest common denominator". By the time things have made it through "please restart your computer"-level stuff, maybe the only way to scale is to put real engineers on problems and "allow" them to actually talk to the people having the problems. This approach seems to be the only one companies seem hell-bent on never trying.

Because engineers are expensive, engineers that can talk to customers are even more expensive and decent engineers willing to do support are even more expensive. That said, I do think software devs should be more involved with the customer for other reasons, far to often they are building software without having any idea what the customers workflow is.

Well, an entire support department that adds no value may indeed cost less, but losing your market because your product is defective (and you don't even know) can not be cheaper.

Re: It's been 191 days since Google Drive worked for me

#68

Post by sneak »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

This is why Dropbox has value. It works, its reliable, and if you're a paying customer you can get support. Spend the $10/month. Don't go on for more than half a year with your storage being broken. Disclaimer: no affiliation except a satisfied pro account user EDIT: Edge cases notwithstanding.

Remember that time Dropbox's ops team was so on the ball they let anyone log into your account with any password?

No, thank you.

Re: It's been 191 days since Google Drive worked for me

#69

Post by dpkonofa »

victorhooi wrote: post #61
Nition wrote: post #17

Ridiculous that they imply throughout that they have a (mysteriously silent) Level 3 support or engineering team working on the issue for almost that entire time. Would be amazing if that's actually true and it turns out they discovered some huge underlying issue with the system from the user logs that they've actually had a team working on... but I'm sure it isn't. For a start if an issue like that was being worked…

I am on that team =). I won't say much publicly, but if this is the issue I think it is (customer has a huge number of files, and is trying to sync it with a 32-bit client, and hitting memory issues), we are aware of the issue, and are definitely working on it. It's a tricky thing to solve in any sync client - for example, Dropbox has a cap around 300,000 files (I believe this customer had 700,000 files?): > https://…

This is my annoyance with the OP - they're a very clear edge case and, technically, the product still works for them. They're not paying for a Windows or Mac app, they're paying for online storage and that part of the service works fine. They can still access all their files via the web browser and they can add and download files as they see fit. The issue with the app is probably exactly what you're mentioning and the person is acting like the service they're paying for is broken. It's not broken, they're just using the service in a very non-standard way.

Edit: Since people seem to be voting my comments down, I'll offer an analogy. This is like a professional bowler going to a family bowling alley and complaining about the balls they provide for you to use. These same balls work for 99% of the people paying to bowl. You don't deserve a refund because you're an edge case from all their other customers since the actual bowling alley is still open and you can still bowl, it just might not be a great experience. Get another ball, bring your own ball, or stop coming to this bowling alley.

Re: It's been 191 days since Google Drive worked for me

#70

Post by lvh »

The official Google Drive client has had all sorts of weirdness and missing features. a) 1 account :/ b) Oh, your wifi is off because you just went on a plane? Allow me to _busy loop and drain your entire battery_.

I have reasons for not liking Dropbox much, but their client is a lot more reliable.

Post reply on HN