So, yesterday was a “work day” on the boat. We really did not do anything, except make water and deal with the anchor chain. Today was not as much fun. This was my last chance for a while to deal with my mom’s iPad issue. So, right after breakfast I called Apple support, this was not a great experience, as I have noted before this has been a long process, and by the end of the day we are probably over a dozen hours on the “help” line with minimal success. Today, I finally gave up with the first line techs and have simply started requesting a senior advisor and going from there. Today I was “disconnected” (or hung up on by Apple) at least 4 times. That means the first three senior advisors got the story from me and started investigating and then failed to call back when we were disconnected, ONE attempted to call back about a half hour after we were disconnected, one sent a generic email about how to get back into the queue. By the time I was talking to the third senior advisor, I made sure that he knew my number and that he had no excuse for not calling back. The last time I spoke with a tech before this, they said they knew the solution to my problem, and that they would send me an article to read with a link in it to fix my problems, I asked what email they were sending it to, and they gave my email, I asked twice and they repeated where they were sending it. Of course they sent it to my mother in Tracy California and a while later she forwarded it back to me, of course it would work to reset the activation lock on your iPad IF YOU KNEW YOUR PASSWORD!! Which of course we don’t, so that was a wasted effort. In any case, the last guy really wanted me to trust him and that he would get to the bottom of this and so he sent me his contact info after generating a new case number to add the second device id to it. He described how this email would bring it directly to him and that all I had to do was reply to sender and that because of the case number it would go straight to him. So, of course the email he sent me had the old case number in it, I asked him about that and he said, no that won’t work and tried again. Same thing. (This is the sort of thing that makes me doubt the tech or senior advisor can fix my problems). In any case the third time he sent the email it was correct.
Anyway after about 3 hours today, I was finally at the end of what I can do on this problem today.
So, it was time for the second issue with support. While we were in California, I got a notice that the firmware in our battery charger/inverter needs a MANDATORY update. Until this update is done, I can’t use the charger software to change anything, This can be sort of important, as one of the features of this charger is the ability to reduce the limit on the supply current, so instead of the maximum of 30 amps in, I can set it at 15 amps or 7.5 amps, which when you are on a weak shore power connection can be helpful to prevent tripping the shore power off. Of course when we are running the generator, I want the setting at the maximum current, as our generator supplies up to 80 amps AC to our distribution system. This way the battery charges faster when we are running the generator and since we don’t have a time concern when we are at the pier it can charge over night. In any case, the note that came with the firmware notice is that it will reset all the settings to factory default. GREAT! Except I have already found that I don’t have access to adjust any of the settings that need to be changed for LiFePO4 batteries, as Victron Energy has that locked with a passcode that they only give to VE trained tech’s. So, before I do this update, I want to talk to the support people at Battleborn Batteries, where I bought the charger and they set it up. No answer, just a recording message and I left a call back number at about 11am, and got no call back by the end of the day. So this will wait until next week sometime.
Overall a pretty frustrating day.
