email MOTU Cust. Service re: Universal Audio Installer disks

[augusthour]

For over a decade, I've been generally happy with MOTU Customer Service. My most recent experience with them demonstrated why, as they helped me with a shipping problem yesterday. They then followed up today to make sure I got my PCIe card okay.

I am posting my response because it pertains to the fact that they are still apparently shipping Universal Audio Installer disks with software from January 2009 on them, while their latest update is from August 2009.

Thanks to the folks here at UnicorNation/Motunation.com I learned this last night, after many restarts and finally getting the old extension files removed.

My frustration came from the fact that MOTU is apparently STILL shipping disks with outdated installers. Even while the updated are on their site. We all have experience with pressing disks, and know it can be time consuming, but I've never had a pressing project take over 2 months.

Attached is the letter I sent MOTU customer service about the installer date issue. I don't know if it will help, but let's hope it does so that fewer folks have to face the blue screen of dread.

I post this here for two reasons (1) to hopefully encourage others to let MOTU know if they encounter this problem and (2) to let other unwary souls know about the problem so that they'll not use the disk and instead download the MOTU Universal Installer file dated August 2009 from the MOTU site: http://www.motu.com/download/download_m ... duct_id=13

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Thank you very much for your efforts. Yes, the package found its way here and I installed everything.

If I may make one suggestion pertaining to a technical/customer service issue for you to forward to your techservice AND customer service department:

I installed the software that came with the 424-PCIe card. After doing so my brand new, Mac 8-core running OS 10.6.01 was restarted and would not re-boot/restart. It took several attempts and the computer would just hang on the blue screen.

I finally was able to get the computer restarted after scouring the internet for help.

What I found is this: the disk MOTU shipped with the PCIe card contained MOTU Universal Audio Installers dated January 2009. Your website, however, has a MOTU Audio Installer dated August 2009. It seems the old MOTU software installs files that are in no way compatible with Mac Snow Leopard 10.6. (It install an extension file for Tiger that wreaks havoc with the OS 10.6)

MOTU should please stop shipping disks with installers that they know are seven months outdated. Not only is this practice frustrating and potentially catastrophic for Mac users without the experience to trouble-shoot these problems on their own, but it is a bad business practice to ship software that is older than your latest update.

Bottom Line for MOTU Customer Service:

Throw the MOTU Universal Audio Installer disks away, spend a few hundred bucks and get some new ones made. For the amount of money one customer pays in upgrades for the PCIe card and DP 7 upgrade, MOTU could have new installer disks pressed with the latest version of the Universal Installer package on them. More importantly, for the amount of money MOTU pays tech service personnel to respond to this one issue, they could probably press thousands of new disks and solve the problem all together.

It just seems the least MOTU can do for customers who are loyal enough to continue using their hardware and paying for upgrades.

Thank you very much for following up with me on the delivery of the package. I do truly appreciate it.

[dave pine]

yup, shabby shabby shabby........i'm now looking at a big blue screen, just what i wanted to do tonight instead of installing about 1000 plug-ins and vi's

[Hiddenstory]

August, did you receive my private message re this subject? My new MacPro quad core is all frozen up. Can't get motu's disc out of drive. Help! I have movie to score and this sucks big time. What was your salvation?
Thanks,
brian

[FMiguelez]

August, did you receive my private message re this subject? My new MacPro quad core is all frozen up. Can't get motu's disc out of drive. Help! I have movie to score and this sucks big time. What was your salvation?
Thanks,
brian

If I understood correctly, he just downloaded the newest files from MOTU's website and installed those.
I have the original CD for the PCI-424 too, but I didn't bother even looking for it when I reinstalled everything not long ago. I went directly to their site and downloaded the newest drivers. Same for the MTP AV.

BTW, if you can't get the stupid disk out of the drive normally, have you tried sticking a thin wire in the tiny hole in the front panel of the drive? That should open it. Girlfriends' ear-rings seem to work just fine for this.

So in theory you won't waste more than 5 minutes to solve your issue... then score away!

[Hiddenstory]

Thanks for reply, I got in touch with apple and I dumped 3 cache folders. I also dumped a motu/tiger pref from library. Mac pro alive. Now I keep getting a "hardware changed while running" window and my digital outs for 2408 are unavailable. Unless someone has a quick fix I'll have to talk to motu on Monday. Dear universe, may I talk to one who cares.
The bitch about this hassle is I should have started scoring yesterday. But, what the hell, life is good.