Well, what operating system are you using?
Try deleting the AOL adapter and temporary internet files. You can do this from the AOL system information tool. If you have version 5.0. If you don’t you can do it through control panels, network and internet options. If that doesn’t fix it, it’s probably a browser issue. You can either try running the repair tool from control panel -> add remove programs -> MSIE 5.x and Internet tools -> repair IE5. If this isn’t there, go to keyword “Browser” and download the newest browser online. If this doesn’t work, I’m afraid it’s a microsoft issue that’s beyond my area of expertise. You may want to try going to keyword: Step5 and downloading the repair tool from there.
Wow, can you be a little more clear for me? Do you get an error message? Something along the lines of “An AOL error has occurred” etc.? Or do you mean it just exits to the desktop inexplicably?
After reading what Enderw23and anya marie said, why do you guys put up with that? You don’t have to! My ISP has no ads, they don’t harass me to upgrade, didn’t take over my computer, I never get spam from them, I never get kicked offline, etc., etc, etc. I would not put up with crap like that for even five minutes. Remember you are paying for a service you can get cheaper elsewhere!
I have heard people say they like using AOL because it’s “easy to use”. Well, I had no computer experience when Gateway delivered the boxes that held my new computer to my door. I set it up and with the crystal-clear instructions my ISP had given me I, a complete computer newbie, was able to connect to the internet on the very first try. No software was installed. It was simple. I am very happy with my local ISP.
Yepper, poof
[key] twilight zone theme [/key]
Obviously.
Everyone likes to bash AOL. Fact of the matter is, I talk to about 64 people a day, and about 62 of them are telling me about how they really need their AOL back because they really love it. I get about 2 calls a day about how bad my service is and how they should just cancel the service blah blah blah and usually these people are just looking for credit. AOL is a wonderful content provider. Alright, we have some issues as an ISP, but as a content provider, we are definitely number 1. Everything right where you need really easy to get to. Again, we’re for newbies. If you’re a seasoned internet veteran (like myself), AOL is just going to piss you off. But the fact of the matter is, most everyone I talk to (people who are mad because it isn’t working) absolutely love the service (when it works). I talk to a lot of people a day. We’re really not all that bad. We’re an integral part of a lot of people’s lives. Can you check your email from your cell phone and chat with your online buddies with your local ISP? I can. Does your ISP read you your email, news, stocks etc. over the phone? Mine does. Does your ISP have a device that acts like a pager and lets you IM and write emails from anywhere? Mine does.
My poor old Grandmother decided a few weeks ago to purchase a new computer. She goes out and buys a Gateway, which I figured would be fine for her level of expertise, which was almost none.
She asked me to come by and set it up for her, which I gladly do. Now, she already had an ISP at this point (Earthlink) which she was very happy with, and for obvious reasons did not want to change. Apparently, Gateway has made some deal with Satan to insist that users of Gateways must use AOL to get to the internet. How do they do this, you ask?
They rigged Interned Explorer to open to a page that only says this: “To access the Internet, close this window and click on the AOL icon.” No joke.
Those bastards. I’m not sure whether I blame Gateway or AOL more.
I was able to work around it by creating another profile and putting another link on her desktop, but believe me, there was no way in Hell she would have ever figured it out without me. In fact, all the documentation that came with the system did not even address the use of anything other than AOL.
I even called Gateway’s tech support at one point. When they instructed me to click on the AOL icon, I informed them I had uninstalled the entire thing. I swear it was as if I had told them I had murdered the Easter Bunny: “You mean you didn’t even try it once?” They tried to tell me that the system wouldn’t work without AOL.
After purging the evil from her system, it appears to be functioning fine.
romanticide and CatBiker-
See ed’s post? Now that’s where I get pissed. It’s predatory and malicious. It’s successful only because it feeds off of people’s fear of computers and things technical. Twenty-five million voluntary members? Right.
ed’s experience echo those of my friends, “Well, it told me to click on it”.
I really wonder how successful your product would be if you didn’t cram it down peoples throats.
My service? I cram it down where? You said, “I heard, I heard, I heard.” And you run Lunix, right? Now that is stable. Why even mess with Windows, Microsoft, et al? Gates is the biggest crook, right? Hell, he even lost in court. A real badie. If you are going to cast me in with all those you don’t like, cool, but try to not say that I am this or am doing that without having some idea of what you really know. The system you use to do what you want is? Like I care. :::: sheesh :::; and to add to that, you come on with a ‘TUDE’ to somebody you don’t know. You went and looked me up, checked my posts to see who and what I am. NOT! You just start shooting from the hip and scatter poop everywhere. Well, this is the pit, you are safe here to do that. I am having a ball, mostly a bunch of cry babies down here that don’t even know what they are yelling about. That link to the site, that is a good one, I’m going to run it past some folks I know and see if AOL is the baddie he makes it out to be. It ‘sounds’ like he is legit and might even know something. If AOL is stupid enough to follow in Microsoft’s foot steps, then they’ll be in court inside of a year. Why don’t you file the class action suit? Put your money on the line. You have the Straight Dope on them. Go on, show us!
Oh, by the way, sleep tight son. Prolly tired after playing so hard all day. Night, night.
Well, everything Romanticide has said has pretty much debunked their claim that AOL is so easy to use. “Oh, in order for our computer to work properly, you must change at least 10 setting in you computer, including but not limited to HW acceleration, FIFO buffering, etc…” :rolleyes:
Romanticide, you guys have got a shitty product. Except AIM, which is really confusing me because why is AIM so much better than AOL Buddy List??
Dammit dammit dammit, I’ve had too long a day…Not a big difference, but it was bugging me all the same.
Well, everything Romanticide has said has pretty much debunked their claim that AOL is so easy to use. “Oh, in order for our product to work properly, you must change at least 10 setting in you computer, including but not limited to HW acceleration, FIFO buffering, etc…”
Romanticide, you guys have got shitty products. Except AIM, which is really confusing me because why is AIM so much better than AOL Buddy List??
Just trying to kill the email notification thing…
romanticide,
Is all that included in AOL’s $21.95 a month deal? Or is it “extra”? I don’t need to be that connected, but my cell phone (Sprint PCS) is capable of that sort of content. I just don’t use it.
As a general rule, no you don’t have to change all of those settings. I think less than 1% of our total member base calls in with problems. For most people, it works fine. You just hear the horror stories. I know some people get disconnect problems. I deal with them all the time. However, we are not a shitty product. We have bugs, but with 25 million members on as many if not more computers, it gets hard to make it perfect for everyone. We’re not like any other ISP or content provider. We don’t run off of microsoft’s software like everyone else. So we have to work around some stuff.
Ed, I know about that internet explorer thing. I’m really sorry about that, but it’s not us. I promise. That’s 100% gateway. I don’t know why they did it, and it makes me just about as mad as you do. I know how much that would piss me off. And I don’t know anyway around it except for what you did or just uninstalling and reinstalling, which is ridiculous. It’s given me more headaches then anything else.
And just so you guys know, since the release of 6.0 our call volume has dropped around 7%. Conversions are going easy and painless for most people. Unfortunately, it’s one of those things that either goes over really easily, or it goes down like a 2 dollar whore. But that’s why we’re here. We know all of the issues, and we can fix all of them. You got to call us though, and let us know what’s going on. We can’t help you otherwise. Our first time fix rate is in the upper 70s. Our overall courtesy and knowledge levels are in the mid nineties and mid eighties respectively. Our average wait time is 3 minutes. I love it when people call and complain about the 20 minutes they spent on hold when you have a little button you can hit that tells you exactly how long they’ve been on. I had one guy have the audacity to tell me he’d been holding for 33 minutes and 10 seconds (like he’d been timing it.) I checked the phone. Rang twice, held for 110 seconds. Yeesh. Sorry, I digress.
Anyway, if you have problems with AOL, please call us. That’s what were there for. You guys pay my paycheck. Again, you can even ask for me personally. I know there’s some people who don’t know what they’re talking about, but they’re in the extreme minority.
As far as us cramming the service down people’s throats, I’m the first to admit we do have a rather aggressive marketing strategy. But with 25 mill, we must be doing something right. The number of people who start accounts far out number the number of people who call to cancel accounts. And when they do, it’s usually for technical problems that we get resloved and the member walks away happy. And if you’re too dumb to not be able to realize there’s other options out there for you, that’s not our problem. Not my fault if you’re an uninformed consumer. If you don’t like the product, call us and cancel it. There’s tons of other people who would really like your business. Just don’t do it because everyone else tells you how much we suck or because of easily resolvable problems.
CatBiker
Huh?
I made a comment and romanticide called me on it. In an odd kind of way, so did you. I think… it’s hard to tell.
I followed it up with a link to an article, actually a number of articles, that best explain and expound on my feelings towards AOL.
Pretty simple, ehh?
romanticide-
See, that’s what’s ticking me off. When you don’t give people a choice, like ed mentioned, then how is that doing something right other than aggresive marketing?
It’s misleading.
And I’m sorry, I don’t buy that Gateway suddenly decided on their own to add the AOL software on their systems. Are you saying there isn’t some financial gain on the part of Gateway to pre-install AOL software?
boscibo, this computer is not mine , if it was aol probably would not even have been installed in the beginning.
i do hope to get my own computer soon and will sign up with a different isp then.
anya
Real ISPs don’t give you software. You call them on the phone and get a username, password, and phone number.
We are first and foremost a CONTENT PROVIDER. About 10% of active connections aren’t even through us, they piggybacking us off of their existing internet connection using tcp/ip. And Black, any company that gives you internet access is a real Internet Service Provider. We’re providing the internet aren’t we? Gateway gets a reward for every member who signs up using their computers. They don’t get paid because AOL is preinstalled on their computers, AOL is preinstalled on most every computer. Why do you think Gateway gives you a year free? That’s not a year free from us, Gateway is paying that. So bitch about gateway, not us. We don’t do that to IE, and that’s not OUR marketing, that’s Gateway’s marketing.
Not always a satisfied customer, and it has taken some interesting finagling (for example, I use Earthlink as my main ISP, and not AOL, thus all but eradicating the damn random disconnection problems), but I do like certain aspects of AOL. The techs, however, are not among them.
I’ve got news, man, not all techs have the vaguest clue what the hell is going on. I made 6 separate contacts regarding a problem I was having upgrading to 6.0 (you can even refer to my case #60790325); 3 were phone calls, three were online, all over a period of a month (although the case # refers to 3 phone calls made in one evening). None of the techs had any idea what the hell was going on. Every one of them said something to the effect, “I guarantee, this will work,” then wouldn’t stay on the phone long enough with me to find out for sure if it did (it didn’t). One particularly dopey twit had me delete the main.idx file from 4.0, despite me asking, “Are you sure? Won’t that impair with 4.0 running correctly?” Oh yes, it will be fine. Bullshit. It created more problems, more serious problems, and did nothing for the original issue. (The next tech I called was stunned that she told me to do that–but I assured him she had, and we spent half the phone call undoing her damage).
It was that last tech I talked to that finally gave me the vital information that upgrading from 4.0 to 6.0 is a big jump. He helped repair the damage to 4.0 the previous tech caused, and made some suggestions to try and improve compatibility–which were unfortunately ineffective. However, spurred his insightful comment, I tried installing 6.0 separately–rather than as an upgrade and copying files–and everything goes smoothly now; all the previous problems vanished. All I have to say is, how ridiculous is it that AOL isn’t compatible with itself?!
I guess 7th time is the charm. I tried, in order, copying the main.ind file from backup, uninstalling then redownloading 6.0, uninstalling then reinstalling 6.0 from the CD, deleting the main.ind file from both 4.0 and 6.0, deleting the main.idx file from 4.0 (brilliant, then doing a clean install of 4.0 before installing 6.0. None of that worked. “We know all of the issues”…bullshit! I was the one who finally figured out how to solve the problem, although a tech did put the idea in my head indirectly. Why even call these people?!
Two more rants: What the HELL is with answering my phone call, telling my call is being connected, putting me on hold, THEN telling me, “We’re sorry, all of our customer service representatives are currently helping other customers. Please call back later.” WHAT the HELL is wrong with just giving a busy signal so we don’t waste each others’ time? And…I am particularly offended by the lame sales pitches that follow at the end of the conversations. I just called because AOL wasn’t working and am already in a bad mood…DON’T TRY TO SELL ME LONG DISTANCE SHIT!
There. I feel much better now.