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AOL 5.0 Bugs


Note: Knight's questions/comments are those displayed in red, while the sources text is black, and AOL internal memos/letters are in purple typeface.

"What are some of the bugs you have seen in 5.0?"

Just before I left, we had a pop-up in our call center (we have a client call sends message) regarding the new AOL 5.0 that had just come out. This internal-only service tells us about service outages, and they were popping up toward the end almost all of the time, usually stating that web pages, chat, IM's or email were down. When I first worked there, we had maybe 1 every two weeks, on one subject...toward the end, they were continual. This Sends Message said that "Some AOL 5.0 users, after installing, will be unable to boot into windows, even into Safe Mode. Troubleshoot as best you can."

This was kind of a laugh, cuz as of a month earlier they had started switching to an artificial intelligence case-troubleshooting database for tech problems, and we had been threatened with firing if we went outside of it. With it came a ceasing of uptraining to troubleshoot 5.0...all done by Sherlock, the new AI that was to solve the problems for us. But AOL 5.0 apparently was destroying everything...from hosing win95 and 98 registries, to deleting and destroying network neighborhoods, you name it.

This was sent to me by a friend....apparently they were told that if you admitted to a member that AOL 5.0 had bugs, you would be fired...this email was tied into that!

In a message dated 10/11/99

    Team,

    Recently it has come to our attention that we have some major issues with the handling of our new AOL 5.0 client release. There has been a tremendous increase in escalated e-mails to Steve Cases' office. Below is some of the comments from our members based on what some of OUR consultants have been telling them.

    "Two different techs told me that it is so buggy that many, many people are calling about the same problems." "One tech said that I should get a CD with a fixed version in the mail."

    "I contacted AOL technical support to learn that there are bugs with the upgrade and was told to uninstall the program."

    "I was finally told to uninstall 5.0 as they have still a lot of problems and bugs with it and use my existing 4.0 which was still on my system."

    "They said 5.0 had a lot of bugs."

    "I called your customer service..They told me there were all kinds of problems with AOL 5..and to delete it, go back to 4..."

    Folks, the AOL 5.0 client has been the most stable client we have ever released. Those that have been around since the release of 3.0 and 4.0 can attest to that. The only difference now is that we have grown by 10 million members since then. We already have well over 3 million downloads. We reached 5 million sessions on the client WEEKS ahead of 4.0 We realize that when you are taking calls about the client all day that it is easy to think that it is unstable. In reality, Tech calls per million sessions on 5.0 are WAY down compared to 4.0. A good portion of the calls coming in are Member Education calls.

    What is incomprehensible is that some of our employees are telling our members that it is "full of bugs" and is "still in beta." It has a tremendously negative impact on the business and is completely misleading our members when we tell them things like this. It is up to us to support our products and you will see that AOL 5.0 is, in reality, the best product we have ever released.

    Starting immediately, random monitoring into the Tech queues will be done to ensure that these types of incidents are not happening. Put on your equity hats everyone. The success of our business is in your hands. Thanks for all your hard work Team.


Most of AOL's connection problems seem to be a result of the dialing software...on AOL 4.0, the global.org is supposed to be only 10 to 14 kb in size, but on many of the member who drop it is higher even up to more than 2mb in size! Once deleted, it rebuilds itself and the member isn't dropped. Another problem is AOL’s crappy modem strings to initialize the modems. The company claims that these were obtained form the modem manufacturers, but if you have ever called them, they know nothing of it. They were actually written by old RST and senior tech people (RST was the escalation group...if you needed to ask a question, you used an inside line to access their internal call desk and ask them the question) NOT by anyone who necessarily was affiliated with the modem company's at all...any comparison of AOL’s strings with any other database with them on the net, and you can instantly see the vast differences..but hey, if you pay for AOL, they don't need for you to get on anyway, right?

The AOL adapter is another problem...with AOL 5.0, when it's being installed, for some reason it seems to corrupt the entire network control panel. With earlier versions, AOL corrupted fairly easily on its own, so it needed to be removed and manually installed. If someone is getting an IE Cannot open....connection to the server could not be established, they could usually be fixed by deleting and reinstalling the adapter, or else purging the cache. The company is blaming the computer manufacturers for making OEM versions of operating software for this problem...but can AOL really blame them? I mean, didn't it check the software to make sure it worked on most of the computers out there first?

(Dionysos)
AOL rushed this product through both alpha and beta testing. If I recall it was only alpha tested for about 3 weeks or so and then beta tested for a few months. The bugs were never quite worked out completely, but marketing was depending on a new release ASAP so that perhaps the bugs would be worked out by Christmas. I recall finding a bug in it myself at the time where it was changing the outlook express program. I reported it and am oh-so-satisfied to see that it was never fixed. I have a feeling AOL did little to fix any of the bugs, just to make the new features work reasonably well.

The following is taken from a Usenet post, and shows an internal letter circulated within AOL concerning 5.0 and the bugs that they knew were in the software. Check to see if you have experienced any of these, and for Pete's sake, get a real ISP so you won't have to deal with them anymore.

(Dionysos)

What a little gem this is. I found this on the alt.aol newsgroup. Terribly long post so I cut out all the insignificant stuff for those with short attention spans, but what this boils down to is apparently an admission from the higher ups at AOL that 5.0 is doing some pretty strange things.
Enjoy.

In a message dated 9/29/99, DRPEARCE writes:

    The following AOL 5.0 Issues remain open and so far unaddressed:

    1. WIN 95/98 Boot Up issues:
    a. Various scenarios of Windows not coming up after AOL 5.0 and MSIE 5.0 installation.
    b. Some will come up in SAFE Mode, some times not.
    c. Turning off the Video Accelerator helps in some cases and not in others.
    d. On a Packard Bell, running WIN 95, turning off "Energy Star Compliance" worked.
    e. Running WIN 98, experiencing freezes at boot up, re-install or installed Network
    Neighborhood on 4 PCs and it works! Not sure why.

    We didn't see this issue in Beta -- and I'm unsure of the cause/fix. However, we should be able to try a couple of things -- from the reports we have some missing files (ndis2sup.vxd) and can replace them from the AOL 5.0 \net\win98se folder in some cases. In other cases, if we can get to Safe Mode, we should be able to switch the video to Standard VGA @ 256 and, if the hardware acceleration works, this should also. The cause may be a conflict with video drivers and, since most of the errors indicate video driver conflicts (from MS KB for the Fatal Exceptions), this may fix the problem.
    It would be truly helpful if it does work to find out what video card they have installed. We can also remove the AOL Adaptor via sysinfo in safe mode -- that may help -- I, again, just don't know what's causing the problem.
    Suspect a variety of issues. No clear item in SHERLOCK yet for these.

    2. WIN 95/98 Printer cannot be found after upgrading to AOL 5.0
    a. Suspect printer driver conflicts, so far unable to prove out.

    I can't see how installing AOL 5 would cause this problem, haven't seen any reports of this problem, but would think a reinstallation of the Printer software will resolve in all cases.

    3. AOL 5.0 Reset Default Browser.
    a. This we have a fix for in most cases.

    This is broken as designed and is already in the case base. The 7-Step right of purification from "connectoid" should resolve this call quickly. The member "OK'd" using AOL as the default internet interface.

    4. Host of DUN issues relating to tcp/ip connections via BYOA

    I'm not sure what a "host" is but.... We have two known issues and both are, I believe, already in the case base. The first is the CP>Internet Options>Connections reset AOL 5.0 does to both put AOL 5 as a DUN connection and automatically dial a connection. Changing to "never" dial a connection shoud fix the problem -- if it doesn't, just delete AOL 5 as a DUN option.
    The second is the problem where the AOL TCP/IP CP is showing a "hard" DNS server -- just disable DNS on that CP and that should resolve -- this is already in the case base and is NOT unique to AOL 5.0

    5. AOL 5.0 launching and signing on without human intervention.

    Yep, on it's own! Seems to be tied to a screen saver that is launching on a preset. When the screen saver launches, the AOL 5.0 is coming up and attempting a PPP connection. This is a feature (broken as designed) and that information was in the training. As the default Internet Connection, combined with AutoLaunch for AOL, the member will have AOL launch and (if password is stored) sign on periodically whenever there is no internet connection present. The resolution is the same as above - Internet Options CP>Connections and select "Never" -- also, click the AOL Tray Icon>select auto launch options>set as desired. Again, this was in the training and I believe it is already in CBR.

    6. "Hanging up the Phone Line" error message.

    a. Related to a corrupted Tool Folder
    b. Fixed by deleting Tool Folder and Re-Installing AOL 5.0

    Not sure what the problem is here -- We did see a specific HP system with a soft modem causing a system "reboot" whenever the modem was reset by AOL. Ken should be able to find more info in the Beta stats if we need.

    7. "Your windows Network is not properly configured" error message when attempting to connect to AOL via tcp/ip BYOA ISP. Seeing this one on Cable Modems as well.

    I've not seen this one specific to AOL 5.0.

    8. "Outlook Express provided by America Online" is contained in the MSIE 5.0 and is overwriting existing Outlook Express installed on member's PC causing them to loose data.

    Again an I don't know that I've ever seen this one specific to AOL 5 and don't know why that would occur -- a branding problem isn't really a problem if that's all the call is about. I know of no data losses except some favorite places in IE5.0.

This following excerpt is a person asking for help on one of the same type of problems listed above, and a fix for that problem from another. If you're having the same thing happening on your system, give it a try.

Blue Ridge Bubba
Subject: Installing AOL 5 over Office 2000 on Win98 kills Outlook 2000

Situation is as stated in subject. All running fine. AOL 5 is introduced into the picture, and Outlook 2000 dissappears. You get the "searching for program" business.

Anyone see this before?

What's up with that? Did AOL 5 try to use IE5 (which was on the system to begin with) and OE5 (ditto) to clobber Outlook 2000?

Eric C. Vogel answers with:

Un-install AOL 5, reboot if not propted. See if Outlook is working, if not do a detect and riepair or re-install. Once working re-install AOL 5.0 and WHEN IT ASKS you if you "Want AOL 5.0 to be YOUR DEFAULT E-MAIL, WEB Browser, AND NEWSGROUP READER?" Say NO.

I did this because it kept dialing in every time O 2k tried to check E-mail via ISP, usualy it doesn't do anything.

So, as you can see, AOL 5.0 truly is a bug filled piece of crap GUI for a service that is pretty lousy to begin with. These bugs have not been fixed, if actual users are to be believed above AOL's propaganda, and probably won't be for some time. If I hear of even more bugs, I'll place them here as well, so you AOLers can see just one more reason to ditch AOL in favor of a real ISP, that lets YOU choose what software you wish to use, and is of a much higher quality.









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