Genealogy Chat

Have a meeting with the GR team next week in their London office.
Just thought does anybody have serious problems/quirks that are still ongoing.

I have a mental list of 3 issues and have been following the boards but I would appreciate jogs to my memory so I don't forget anything and waste the opportunity of getting some answers.
1. clipboard/copy & paste.
2. error messages
3. search tree or others linked to you, only a surname search works.

Don't mind pm's for this thread

I'm only trying to be helpful to others so don't all shout at once

:-D :-D :-D

Hi NanaSue,

Thanks for being our voice.

When it comes to error messages I have issue with the Surname Summary. I can't search more than for names added in the past couple of days and often the error message appears when trying to move through the pages.

Gai

Just in case peeps think that NanaSue is being given preferential treatment, I'm guessing that anyone who went to the Beta Tree trial last year have been sent an email.

"We are doing quite a lot of work on our search section, and we’d like some of our members to take a look at it and let us know what they think before it goes live."

No disrespect meant to the poster but if the problems have not been sorted after months, and in some cases years, then I have no idea how this meeting will improve things.

If the Team can not take the slightest bit of notice of members that help others & use this site daily by putting forward suggestions to improve this site and informing them of problems then you might as well hit your head against a brick wall.

The emails that I've received refer to GR's work on the >search&; section which she (and others at different times) are there for, then great. A several of us who attended the Beta Tree testing session did the same.

In case anyone is interested, generalised answers were given, but nothing has changed

Suggestions 1 and 3 are relevant on this occassion

As NS has previously said she uses the records on GR and presumably is quite profficient/comfortable with the search function, more novice users may have some queries which she has already found a work-around for.

If people can explain what they've found difficult, then perhaps invitees can try imagine themselves in those peoples situation to see if the propose changes (added functions?) could help

Added on Sun 21st - Was having trouble with the curser the other day. Re-reading this post, it seems to be gobbledee-Gook! sorry about that :-0

Well, I would have thought the members that went to the " Beta Tree Trial", last year
and, who failed to notice the multitude of errors programmed in to it that necessitated the withdrawal of the release and the subsequent fiasco


are the last, the absolute last people I would ever ask to look at any further enhancements


But, that's just me..... what do I know

As I recall most of the problems with the new tree would not have been obvious in the demonstration that some Genes members were invited to. The new tree wasn't withdrawn just the option to continue with the old one was added.

The beta test was carried out at home by many members and some changes were made before the new tree went live a month later. The problems when the old tree was withdrawn would not have been encountered by everyone. In particular those with very large trees couldn't use the tree and those with IE8 had display problems, Most of the other discontent was a dislike of change.

The clipboard copy problem is one not noticed by many members because we don't have reason to use it and I may be wrong but I think the search problem is associated with more recent issue. Also not many of the board using members have Platinum membership so wouldn't notice problems with attaching records.

NanaSue, one of the facilities promised was having multiple trees, and when you select "View other trees" one of the choices is "My trees" which implies that it will be available one day. Perhaps you could ask if that will be soon.

I think there was a problem some people had about adding data and not seeing it on the tree unless the page was refreshed. Refreshing is irritating as it takes you back to the root person instead of just updating the displayed page.

Call me stupid...but the main response from GR on any problems seems always to be 'we can't replicate the problem' or "you need to update browser' etc.... unless, NanaSue you are taking in your own PC to demonstrate,I am not sure that telling them what's not working is going to be any more productive than members sending emails to say the same?

Still, you can tell them from me that when I try and load 'My threads' ( started by me) I get, 2 out of every 3 times, the Error message. Maybe because there are so many of them ;-)

Renes, The problem with the Beta testing was that it was only done for a very short period of time so members taking part had limited time to fully test,

Most of the problems where Highlighted/reported at the time but GR appeared to be only consantrating on how the site looked,? In fact If memory serves me correct members taking part where under the impression that the Site "Makeover" and how it looked was what GR wanted feedback on although I and others did give feedback on functions within the site that did not work like the tree dashboard that people could only see the top half of the box without altering the zoom level of your browser plus many more problems some have been resolved and some have not

Roy

You may call me a Luddite if you wish but my feelings are that very often changes are made purely for changes sake. This does not only apply to GR but to many sites that I have visited regularly over a long period of time. Very often I get the feeling that a site has been "Prettied up" or modified more as a result of a programmer or a programming department needing to justify their existence rather than the need to make the site more efficient or easier to use.

There is I know, a natural resistance to change particularly amongst the "Older" generation (Of which I am one.) many of whom make up GR's membership. Many of those will routinely object to any change whether it be good or bad, simply because things work slightly differently today than they did yesterday.

As far as specific problems are concerned in my own case it is the "Error message" which I and many others seem to see numerous times a day. It tells us that the error has been logged and its cause is being investigated. By the length of time that it has been appearing and the frequency with which it is still appearing it is fairly obvious that there is a major bug present somewhere in the system. It is also fairly obvious that if indeed someone at GR has been looking into the error's cause for so long without yet finding it or correcting it then that someone needs some help.

The meeting that NS is to attend may not be the appropriate place to raise the matter but given the opportunity I think that GR should give serious consideration to these simple suggestions:

A) Give full consideration to the abilities and possible limitations of your members when considering any changes to the site

B) Only make changes where they are absolutely necessary.

C) Fully test all changes offline and prove 100% that no side issues will be caused by them before going live.

.

Thanks for clarifying Det :)

Can you ask them why I can't change my avatar!

I have contacted support three times.......not one reply :-|

Sorry Jonesey but I can't quite agree with you about the error message. It is simply a catch all indication that something has gone wrong. When this thread started I think most of us got error indications, now I haven't seen one of those message for some time (apart from when I deliberately caused one to happen a few minutes ago).

What I am saying is that the current problem that causes the error message is not necessarily the same problem as was reported over a year ago. It may not even be software bugs but simply a lack of system capacity to deal with peak overloads.
As more and more message get posted the chances of overloads increase unless extra capacity can be added.

It is certainly true that the wording of the error message does not seem to be correct, otherwise the team would know how often it is ocurring.

Ken ......................

you are extremely lucky if you have not seen the Error message

I get it 85 - 90% of the time when I got to submit a post.

It does not seem to matter whether I am posting on a thread with hundreds of pages, or on one with only the OP showing

It also does not matter whether I am posting at 10 am, 4 pm, 8 pm, or 4 am UK time ..................... busy time of day or the quietest time, whether servers are overloaded by members attempting to use the site, or when the traffic is mainly UK or from overseas.

It is always happening.


Strangely, it rarely happens for me when trying to open My Threads, a Board, a thread, or Messages ................. it is only when I go to Submit a post

Possibly associated, is that the fact that I can only open 1 message in my Inbox at a time ................... to open subsequent messages, I have to leave Inbox and then re-enter.


As GR always asks what Browser are you using ................... I use Mozilla Firefox, which was updated last week.


However, it boggles my mind that GR can still always blame "my" browser or server ..................... members all use very different ones, members sign in from all around the world. Yet many of us have the same problems.

It has to be GR's problem



My suggestion to NS would be tell them that long time members are sick and tired of the problems in accessing and working within the site, and suggest that they solve these general access problems before trying anything new.

Roy .................


you are quite correct about the Beta Testing ....................... I was part of it.

My initial reading of my "invitation" to take part was that GR wanted feedback on the LOOK of the newly designed site ................. which, just incidentally, was absolutely terrible at first!

I also gained the impression that we had time in which to do the testing.

It was only in the third GR reply to my reporting on aspects of the test that I was asked questions re the OPERATING aspect of the new design "because you have not mentioned that" ................... that was on about the 5th day that I had access.

It was 2 days later that I was informed that the test was over, and the Beta was opened to the whole site ......................... when masses of problems became apparent.


I'm not sure what NS can achieve ................... I know several members who have had similar "personal meetings" in the offices of GR, who have taken in comments collected from other members, who have discussed them with GR staff, and got nowhere!

I hope she can achieve something ..................... but let's say, that I am far from hopeful.

After all, ALL the suggestions made on the Suggestions Board, and on threads on other Boards, have apparently been ignored .................. GR SAYS they read the threads on that Board, but there is no evidence that they do.

"Evidence" to me would be a) postings from GR on that Board, and b) improvement or implementation of a suggestion.



What I do see is GR being folded into FMP, sooner rather than later ............

......... as I am convinced that that was the plan when BS bought GR and the other associated companies, regardless of what they told the Competitions Board.

Hi Ken,

You and I disagreeing on something, I don't believe it.. :-S

Seriously the error messages that I refer to have been plaguing me since about the beginning of this year. To begin with I believed what the error message said. I.E. That the error had been logged and the cause investigated. Eventually my patience ran out so I emailed GR Customer Support on 18/3/2013 to give them details and express my frustration. Thus started the chain of emails asking me to describe the circumstances that appeared to create the problem, details about my computer, its operating system, which browser I use ect and finally one asking me to describe in step by step details what I was doing/clicking on when the problem usually occurred.

I received emails from Alex Brett, Anne-Marie and Lisa. The last of these is below. Since receiving it I have not had any further contact from GR but I still keep getting the error message:


Thank you for taking the time to report this problem.

I have passed the details of this specific issue to our technical team to look at and investigate.

Your patience while we work to resolve this is much appreciated.

Kind Regards,


Lisa
Genes Reunited Support Team

I am not a computer expert or a computer programmer so maybe my assumption that there is a serious bug in the GR system/program could be over simplistic but to me it seems to be the most likely cause. As far as it being down to system capacity, that I suppose could be correct. If so it is certainly not down to increased member activity as that today is far less than it was when I joined the site in 2008. It may I suppose be due to memory consumptive programming as things such as a fancy tree layout, Keepsafe and flashy adverts must take up memory space and slow things down. My computing history goes back to the days when the entire ledgers and payroll of a multi million pound turnover company could be run on a computer with a 20mb hard disk. Today if your home computer doesn't have at least a 1 terabyte hard drive it is considered obsolete. Such is the power of programmers.

Similarly I doubt that time of day has any bearing as I find that the error can appear at any time during the day or night.

Any road up Ken as they say in this part of the world, neither you or I can solve the problem. That is GR's job which I for one would be very grateful if they did sooner rather than later.

I also got fed up with error messages. I asked the Team just how many times does the error message have to be logged before they investigate. Never got an answer to that question.

At the moment getting a bit fed up with the suggestion to change to Google Chrome.

But as most members do not have the problems on other sites we can all draw our own conclusions

GB ................



very true


I have no problems at all on any other sites, including on GR's sister site, Friends Reunited



IF it was my browser or server, I would get the Error message and slow reactive times on every site .............. some of which are far busier than GR is these days.


I refuse to get another browser, ie, Google Chrome, just for GR, when the one I have works just fine on every other site.

I am still not able to print a full tree.I only have 32 names on it. I have emailed GR many times but all replies virtually say they are working on the problem.This problem has been going on for at least six months. We pay our money but I feel that we are not getting what we paid for. Thankyou

It seems that this is a follow-up invitation to the members who went to a similar "meeting" at GR offices" last year.

I've heard of several who have received the same invitation ............... some are going again, some have had to decline because they already have other commitments ................ and some are trying to get a change in the date offered to them.

That explains why the rest of us have not yet been invited.

Mind you, I don't think GR would be wiling to pay travel expenses or a per diem for me :-D :-D

At least, they weren't willing last year ;-)


I think it is a good idea for all those members who went last year to be invited back for further consultation and testing.

Hopefully, we will get feedback from more of the invitees




sylvia