Difficulty receiving support on a paid account (repeated)

[briandigital]

Respectfully, how long is an appropriate expectation to receive a support response for a paying member with a well-documented problem?

I wrote @help twice, on March 26 & 28, with no resolution.

I followed up with an email to help@micro.blog April 10.

It’s now April 14, with no responses.

Even if the response is “we don’t understand why your problems are occurring” that is at least a response. It’s better to receive an acknowledgement that to wait, unknowing, even if you’re looking into it.

I will reproduce my help email below in the hope that someone will respond:

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sent April 10…

Hi,

I sent two notes to @help (Mar 26, Mar 28) about my messages to a Mastodon user failing to be delivered, but while I had a response to the second message, when I replied to the response, no further follow up was offered.

I sent a new message (reply) to the same Mastodon user today, and once again, he has not received the message. He is receiving messages from other users from multiple servers.

This is the Mastodon account:
@threetonesun@front-end.social

Here’s an example of this person being able to reply to my Micro.blog post that he received in his Mastodon client:

https://front-end.social/users/threetonesun/statuses/112180409552497773

Here’s an example of a post of his from today that I responded to but he never received the reply: https://front-end.social/@threetonesun/112247884737475987

Here’s my view of that conversation:
https://micro.blog/threetonesun@front-end.social/35234060

You can also look back on my posts to see my previous attempts to respond to him.

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Further more, I cannot see posts from a different friend on a different server, since April 5, starting with this one (that Manton will surely like) : https://ruby.social/@jayroh/112227794784483276

Looks as though I cannot see any of his posts since Dec 31, only his replies. He’s had ~5 regular posts (not boosts, not replies) since April 1. Interestingly, in that last Dec 31 post he @replies to me.

https://micro.blog/jayroh@ruby.social

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I get that with federation things won’t be as seamless as a Twitter user responding to a Twitter user… but it appears we are developing a pattern of my MB account having Mastodon communication problems.

I appreciate you for looking into this. Thank you.

…end of message…

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[jsonbecker]

Almost all reports of issues with Mastodon turn out to be server and user specific and can be quite difficult to address. I tried to reply to the same post on front-end.social as a test since I had relevant content and I see that the user name is not showing up as a link. I have a strong suspicion there is a bug in recognizing a Mastodon domain with a - in it. As for the Ruby.social account, I cannot find it while searching for it on Micro.blog. That suggests any of a number of things could be wrong with contacting that particular instance.

I can’t tell you what’s reasonable, but Micro.blog is basically a one man shop. I would tell you you’re very likely to be disappointed if you want prompt, thorough, and technical support. It’s just not there. The business doesn’t sustain it, so for thorny issues like this, you just have to hope that others are experiencing it or the timing is good to get it investigated.

In reality, ActivityPub is so poorly implemented and various instances do all kinds of things even when they’re “just” Mastodon that interop is very challenging right now and hasn’t seem to have gotten much better lately. It’s a big disappointment, and no one really talks about it enough.

[briandigital]

Jason, I appreciate your efforts.

likely to be disappointed if you want prompt, thorough, and technical support.

I have experienced prompt support in the past, which is why I am worried that I haven’t heard anything in so long.

As for the Ruby.social account, I cannot find it while searching for it on Micro.blog. That suggests any of a number of things could be wrong with contacting that particular instance.

That’s interesting, as I have no problem finding him via the MB search.

[manton]

Sorry, I’m out of town and email support is slower than usual… Will make sure to get you a reply today. Thanks!