First off, I've used NT for years and the platform keeps getting better. Their email customer support is adequate. However, I ran into problems a few days ago, hence this post. When it comes to computers I consider myself moderately competent, I can take care of most situations as they arise. A few months ago my T&S sales window was double printing with ask & bids superimposed on each other. After many emails (with screenshots) to customer support and two days later, I finally found the problem myself. Customer support went with all their generic answers... if you ever dealt NT support, you know what I'm talking about. But I can deal with it 'cause it didn't affect anything else and it was a simple but funky fix. Fast forward to Tuesday. NT started acting buggy and got progressively worse 'till it completely shut down late Wed. Before I even emailed support, I ran a complete diagnostics check on my computer, HD, memory, devices, everything. My computer passed all and no other programs were malfunctioning. Remember NT is broken and I can't trade. So as far as I'm concerned this ups the ante for quality support response time and urgency. To make a long story short, after many many emails to no avail and response time taking longer between each (some wouldn't even respond specifically to certain questions I had... it's like they were forgot or ignored) I blew my stack and wrote them a strong letter of displeasure after market close. It didn't help that yesterday was a strong trend day and I couldn't do a thing. I was pissed. To today I STILL haven't gotten a response back after I fired off that letter. MY ISSUE WAS NEVER RESOLVED. I fixed it myself. It took me quite a few hours, a system restore (NT still would'nt work properly) and a couple of reloads ... a complete uninstall (had to manually delete leftover files) and a fresh install. Not to mention the hassle of setting up the work spaces again. What I'm trying to get at with this post is phone support should be available when things are beyond a certain point. Indicators not updating=email. System crash=phone support. There's gotta be some kind of hierarchy with issues. ESPECIALLY SINCE I'M PAYING $270.00 A QUARTER FOR THE SOFTWARE! Did I mention they never responded back to me. For all they know my system could stiil be down! I'm getting more pissed off as I write this. Like I said, I love the platform but some kind of structure needs to be implemented with customer support.
Sorry to hear about your issues. I had no idea NT was now $270 a quarter, when I used it over a year ago it was $150, 5.1 NT. I was think of switching back from TransAct but I don't think so for $270. As far as broker support Mirus knows quite a bit about about NT since Pat helped Ray develop NT, you might try them for a broker. I didn't have too many issues with NT, but this is the problem with any 3rd party software. Oh it's your computer, no it's your broker, no it's TT or Zen, it's not my problem. I would also have it installed to a backup computer so you can make a quick switch since redundancy can make or break you at certain times in the business.
I think the next time I have a problem I'll go straight to Mirus support since that's one of my brokers anyway. But shit, it's Ninja's software. Sheesh. $270.00 will get you the mult-broker edition.
what i'd like to know about is the relationship between zenfire and ninjatrader - presuming nt IS stable - how can or may zf affect nt ? that is how much influence does the datafeed have over the order-entry/charting program ? i can understand from nt's pov, being supplied with many different feeds from many different brokers there's perhaps too many variables to have definitive answers to 'nt problems' 'Mirus lays an egg': http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=131182 relates instances of zf via mirus being the cause of 'nt failures' the additional difficulty is only some users experience problems and where else along the transmission line are there potential hazards ? do brokers other than mirus providing zf Not have these issues ? mirus are immediately available via phone but nt even on their forum has a 'keep your distance' attitude, churns out generic answers and lacks follow-up. my experiece with fxcm's support has been very good using chat so i agree nt could do more than they are doing to pump up their support, and, be more forthcoming about how and why it may be a datafeed problem rather than nt, again presuming nt is stable rather than being poorly designed
See that brings me to another scenario. Since I fixed it myself we'll never know what the problem was. What if it was a simple but hard to find fix and I erased everything for nothing? I swear sometimes support just wants you to get frustrated and handle it on your own, thereby washing their hands of it. I don't know, in all fairness, they do try and help but this email shit sucks. ZenFire has been rock solid. But who's to know if it was the culprit or not. I've got to add that I did upgrade to Service Pack 3, upgraded my Nvidia drivers and drivers for the Intel connectivity device when everything went south. NT support was made aware of this in my very first email to them and they said it's NOT the problem. I reverted my comp. back anyway.
Bronks, Not receiving a reply from our support team is not the norm, in fact, we take great measures to administer responses in minutes, not days or hours. That being said and of course late and after the fact, I would still like to investigate what happened in your case. Would you be so kind to provide me with your ticket/case # that you would have received automatically after sending an email into our support group. If you did not receive a case #, then likely your inquiry somehow did not make it into our system or your spam folder trapped it. Could you alternatively PM me the email address you used to send in the inquiry as I can use it to look you your history in our system.
OK. When you get a chance, could you publicly comment on the pros/cons of phone support? For major issues at least. Another software company I had a problem with remotely went into my computer, controlled the mouse, saw what I saw, and fixed the bug within an hour... all while I was on the phone with that person. That imho is how things should be done. Thanks for getting involved Ray. I appreciate that.