HOW TO: Report an issue using the "Contact Softron Support" menu

Check the Knowledge Base

Before submitting a new ticket, always remember of course to check the Knowledge Base first. There's a lot of information available there and you will most probably find an answer to your question or issue directly there. It is not because submitting a ticket is easy that you must submit one each time you have a question ;-)

Contact your reseller or integrator

Some issues are related to a setup issue. While we have a lot of experience with setup, we can not replace an integrator who knows your configuration and can know where the issue comes from. Remember that if you see the playout or the ingest software having issues, the problem usually comes from a different part: the storage has issues, the video card, your CPU is too busy, etc...

Submit a support ticket 

The easiest way to submit a ticket to Softron is to use the menu "Help > Contact Softron Support" because all files that we need will be gathered for you and you will not have to find them individually and send them to us.  If you have a Softron application that was released prior to April 24, 2013, the "Contact Softron Support" menu is not available so be sure to download the latest version of the application you use.  If it is still not available or you can not upgrade, then you will need to follow the steps explained in this article.

Note for OnTheAir Node users only:

As there is no menus for OnTheAir Node, the "Contact Softron Support" is located in the "Node Settings" tab:

Confidentiality Note - We care about your privacy

The "Contact Softron Support" option does not gather any personal information from your computer. It will only gather logs and system configurations that we need to provide you a quick and easy support, and those information are only used for the support request.

If you want to check first what we will send, you can use "Gather Logs". The zip file created by this "Gather Logs" is the same as the one that is uploaded to the support desk when you select submit or update a ticket. Also after the submission, you will be able to download and review the zip file sent. No other information then what you see on your ticket is sent to us. 

1. Submit, Update or Gather ?

When you select the menu "Help > Contact Softron Support", you will see this window:

You should have three choices (Gather Logs is selected by default):

• Submit a New Ticket Online (will create a new ticket on the support desk and upload all log files needed)
• Update an Existing Ticket Online (will create an existing ticket on the support desk and upload all log files needed)
• Gather Logs (will just create a zip file with all the files needed, and you will need to create a support ticket on the support desk yourself)

If "Submit a New Ticket Online" and "Update an Existing Ticket Online" are greyed out, it means that it can not connect to the support desk. Check your internet connections or try again later.

2. Submit a new ticket

2.1. Enter your email address

If you choose to Submit a new ticket, you will see a new area where you can enter your email address. If you haven't yet submitted any ticket on the support desk, when you click on "Continue", you will see a red message telling you that the email does not exist on our support desk and that we will create a new account using that email address:

If you have already submitted a support ticket, check the email address you entered, then click on Continue to create a new account.

!!! Always double-check your email address because if it is not properly entered, you will NOT receive the notification emails from us as to when we will be able answer to your questions to the support desk !!!

2.2. Describe your problem and detail who you are

On the next "page", you will see this window:

There you will need to enter information about you and your company.

For the description of your issue, be as precise as possible and give:

• Description of the problem + time/date at which it occurred.
• Tell us how long you have been using the Softron software and the first time you have noticed the problem.
• Confirm that you have searched the Knowledge Base but couldn't find an answer to your problem.
• What steps you have taken to remedy the issue (+ time/date).
• Severity (from minor cosmetic glitch to complete crash)
• Can the issue be reproduced? If yes, give us the step to reproduce it.
• Description of your workflow: file path, storage, and network configuration.
• Due to the wide array of hardware configurations and the diverse use of our products, some support issues will likely require an evaluation and maintenance of hardware associated with your system. Please specify how your system is configured.

The more you are precise, the better and quicker the support will be.

Make sure to specify when the incident happened, as we will use this information to gather the logs at the correct date/time.

If you are using "Contact Softron Support" from a playout application such as OnTheAir Video, OnTheAir Video Express, or OnTheAir Live, you will have an additional table called "Playlists Involved". This allows you yo link any playlist that shows an issue. Attach playlists only if you think that specific playlists are presenting issues.

Make sure that the option "Attach Logs Automatically" is enabled. If you disable that, we will miss all the logs that are required to analyse an issue, and we will have to ask them to you.

Once you are sure everything is entered, click on "Submit New Ticket."  

If you are using macOS Sierra or later, a password will be required because we need to collect all the system logs from the unified logging database that Apple introduced with Sierra.

As soon as you confirm your password, we will collect the logs, zip the file, create a ticket on the support desk, and upload the files. You should see a status of each "step":

Note that the "Submit New Ticket" button is greyed out for as long as we are "Retrieving the System Profiler". This action can take a few seconds, please be patient.

2.3. Confirmation or not

2.3.1 Success

 If we could successfully create the ticket, and upload the files, you will get this confirmation page:

The message may be different if a new account was created or not. If it was created, we specify which email address was used to create it.

2.3.2 You're almost done! message

If the ticket was created, but the logs could not be uploaded, you will see this window:

Indeed, on the support desk, there is a 7MB limit size, so if the the zipped log file is too big to upload the window will say "Almost Done", and show you a file that you will need to upload to us.

For that you can use your file sharing service (dropbox, google drive,...), alternatively you can use our FTP, or Amazon s3 storage. Contact the support desk for the credentials.

Once uploaded, connect to the support desk and tell us that the files have been uploaded, and where they can be found.

2.3.3. Failed

If we failed to create the ticket, we should show you a warning. You may check your internet connection and try again later.

3. Update an existing Ticket

3.1. Enter your email address

If you choose to Update a new ticket, you will see a new area where you can enter your email address. Enter your email address and click on "Continue". If your address is not valid, you will see a red message telling you that the email does not exist on our support desk.

3.2. Select the Ticket you want to update

If you email address is valid, after you have clicked on "Continue", you will see this "page" with the list of all your "opened" tickets (closed tickets are not listed):

You can click on "View Ticket" to open your internet browser (it will require you to login to the support desk). 

When you know which ticket to update, select it on the left and click on "Continue".

3.3. Description 

On this page, you will need to

• enter your comments for that occurrence. Again, be as precise as possible (see above)
• select when that happened (so we can gather the logs from the correct date)
• If you are using "Contact Softron Support" from a playout application such as OnTheAir Video, OnTheAir Video Express, or OnTheAir Live, you will have an additional table called "Playlists Involved". This allows you yo link any playlist that shows an issue. Attach playlists only if you think that specific playlists are presenting issues.
• select if you want to Attach logs automatically. Note that this should be enabled by default. Of course if you just want to add a comment, you can opt out so no log file is sent.
• Acknowledge that you did not find an answer in the Knowledge Base.

Click on "Update Ticket" to update your ticket with your comment and maybe the logs.

If you are using macOS Sierra or later, a password will be required because we need to collect all the system logs from the unified logging database that Apple introduced with Sierra.

As soon as you confirm your password, we will collect the logs, zip the file, update the ticket on the support desk, and upload the files. You should see a status of each "step".

Note that the "Update Ticket" button is greyed out for as long as we are "Retrieving the System Profiler". This action can take a few seconds, please be patient.

 

3.4.Confirmation or not

3.4.1 Success

If the ticket was updated and the log files uploaded, it should show this window:

3.4.2 You're almost done! message

If the ticket was updated, but the logs could not be uploaded, you will see this window:

Indeed, on the support desk, there is a 7MB limit size, so if the the zipped log file is too big to upload the window will say "Almost Done", and show you a file that you will need to upload to us.

For that you can use your file sharing service (dropbox, google drive,...), alternatively you can use our FTP, or Amazon s3 storage. Contact the support desk for the credentials.

Once uploaded, connect to the support desk and tell us that the files have been uploaded, and where they can be found.

3.4.3. Failed

If we failed to create the ticket, we should show you a warning. You may check your internet connection and try again later.

4. Collect Logs

If your computer does not have access to the Internet , you will be able to select "Collect Logs" and send the logs from a different computer.

4.1. Description

When you "Collect Logs", you don't need to enter any email address, nor describe the problem as all will be done directly from the support desk.

You will just need to

• enter the incident date (so we know which logs we should gather),

• If you are using "Contact Softron Support" from a playout application such as OnTheAir Video, OnTheAir Video Express, or OnTheAir Live, you will have an additional table called "Playlists Involved". This allows you yo link any playlist that shows an issue. Attach playlists only if you think that specific playlists are presenting issues.

• Acknowledge that you did not find an answer in the Knowledge Base.

Note that the "Collect Logs" button is greyed out for as long as we are "Retrieving the System Profiler". This action can take a few seconds, please be patient. Once done, click on "Collect Logs...".

4.2. Select where you want to save the zip file

You will first have to select a location where you want to store the logs.

Then if you are using macOS Sierra or later, a password will be required because we need to collect all the system logs from the unified logging database that Apple introduced with Sierra.

As soon as you confirm your password, we will collect the logs, zip the file, update the ticket on the support desk, and upload the files. You should see a status of each "step".

4.3. Confirmation

This window will show you where the zip file has been created. You will need to take that file to a computer that has an Internet access and create or update a ticket from our support desk.

Note that if you had the issue happening multiple times, you may gather multiple dates for the same issue, just click on "Go Back" and pick another date.