Call Support Hero -- Where is a SmugMug Phone Number?

WinsomeWorks

I've got 4 main issues / questions on my new site that need resolving, but it'll be extremely hard to type it all out thru "Chat" which isn't really chat., and will involve more painful sitting. I really need a person to actually speak to. Is there really no way to call anyone at SmugMug? I'm not finding a phone number anywhere. A Hero had already emailed me awhile back... I emailed back him many days ago & haven't heard back, & even gave them my cell phone number, but haven't heard back. Most of what I said then is a moot point now anyway, since I went ahead & tried a bunch of stuff on my own. Simple talking would be so much easier.

denisegoldberg

As far as I know all support is via email or chat.

--- Denise

owilliams

Hi Anna Lisa,

Thanks for getting a hold of us. It is true that we do not offer phone support, but we are always here to help if you need assistance with your site. I do see that email that you sent in earlier - it is assigned to my colleague Kelly. Kelly is off today but should be back tomorrow afternoon to help get things sorted out for you. If you have new questions or need immediate assistance, you can start up a new email to help@smugmug.com and we'll be happy to help you out.


I've had a look at your site and I am seeing that you New SmugMug is coming along nicely. You've got your navigation bar set up, a nice homepage slideshow and your block of favorites below that. As always, we're here for you if you need any help making the final tweaks to your new site.

best,
-Oliver
SmugMug Support

WinsomeWorks

We-e-lll, as they say, "that was then; this is now!"... Oliver, when you're referring to an "email I sent in earlier", I believe you're probably referring to one from just a day or 2 ago, as I'd been working w/ Kelly thru live chat. Lots happened in that session, & yes, I was well on the way towards having a viewable site. And yes, I did have an email back later from someone else telling me (after some follow-up emails between myself & Kelly) not to expect to hear back for 24-48 hrs, which was basically fine since I knew I'd be away dawn to night today anyway. As to the email I was describing in my post here though, no, that wasn't the convo with Kelly-- that was a couple wks ago, to someone else, & it never got answered. So I'd started trying to figure it all out on my own, which was extremely tough & not smart. For me, these tools are anything but intuitive (& believe me, I've really been trying hard!!) & I congratulate people who grasp them quickly. It'll be a long while til I even begin to get the hang of it.

However, hmmm, something has happened since & it's really not great, but I hope it can be fixed behind the scenes, because for me to fix it would take weeks. Here's the thing: I had not, up til now, actually Published my new site. Today, it appears it got published. Of course I expected that could happen at any time & was prepared (I think), but everything that had gotten fixed is basically all reverted now to its pre-fixed state, so the site looks a mess now.

In other words, after my live chat with Kelly, he realized there was a major job he'd have to ask the engineers to do behind the scenes. They had to re-set all my galleries & folders to not have a theme so that all the pages, galleries, folders etc. would then inherit my site-wide theme, which I hadn't been able to get it to do. (My new site was trying too hard, probably due to the Copy of SmugMug thing, to mimic my old site, which I didn't really want).

Anyway, long story short-- by Monday it was starting to look decent; the engineers were successful & the whole thing was uniform. I hadn't actually published it yet because there were some 404s & other messes I figured I'd try to fix before it went live. But sometime today it must've published, and somehow, unfortunately, everything reverted back & I'm not seeing my chosen customized theme & fonts anywhere (it was a modified Aurora), & every folder is different again, like before. Is it possible the engineers wouldn't have known I hadn't yet published when they were working their magic, & that affected how it published? I'm hopeful we can get it sorted out tomorrow, because I have a lot of other things to fix besides all that. My site will be rather messy for awhile I guess-- have another 3-day weekend away again, & little time left this week. So... patience until tomorrow & whenever...

I would just like to register my opinion that phone support is really needed, & would've saved countless hrs during this transition phase for everyone. It is extraordinarily tough to write out all that stuff back & forth, & would be so much faster on the phone. I can tell a lot of people's frustration level is plenty high w/o that. In my case, it meant sitting at the computer for many more hrs when I was already way past my Dr-prescribed sitting limit. I don't see what SmugMug gains by not having any kind of phone support. It seems archaic.

owilliams wrote: »

Hi Anna Lisa,

Thanks for getting a hold of us. It is true that we do not offer phone support, but we are always here to help if you need assistance with your site. I do see that email that you sent in earlier - it is assigned to my colleague Kelly. Kelly is off today but should be back tomorrow afternoon to help get things sorted out for you. If you have new questions or need immediate assistance, you can start up a new email to help@smugmug.com and we'll be happy to help you out.


I've had a look at your site and I am seeing that you New SmugMug is coming along nicely. You've got your navigation bar set up, a nice homepage slideshow and your block of favorites below that. As always, we're here for you if you need any help making the final tweaks to your new site.

best,
-Oliver
SmugMug Support

owilliams

Hi again Anna Lisa. I've just reached out to our engineers again to see what they can do about getting your themes set to the site wide theme again. I'll let you know when we've gotten this worked out.

-Oliver
SM Support

Sam

Anna Lisa,

I understand your frustration.................you can take that to the bank!

I think my frustration level with web stuff will match anyone.

I only do business with one company that doesn't have a phone number. Yes you guessed it, SmugMug".

That said I gota tell ya the support you get is very fast and very good. Here on Digital Grin there are some outstanding people who freely give of their time and expertise, denisegoldberg, and Allen are two.

I think part of the problem was waiting until the last minute to publish, rather than working in the background for a month or two, or three, or five.

The other choice is to pay someone to create a website for you. Done right, very expensive and if you tried to match everything SmugMug provides you would need to rob a bank or two.

If you go to any other photo web hosting sight you will have to start over and learn everything new, then hopefully after all that you don't discover your unhappy with what they offer.

Step back, take a deep breath, couple shots of good whiskey, a good night sleep and start over.

Just saying.........................

Sam

WinsomeWorks

Is there still something like the old "Top Keywords" page?
Forgot to report back, Oliver, that as of yesterday Kelly had already gotten back to the engineers, & they re-set everything again. It mostly stayed intact through that process, although a map & recent photos page disappeared & Kelly put that back together for me as best he could. I've got lots & lots of tweaking (& more than tweaking) to do, & people are going to stumble on broken links, but at least we're past the panicky feeling & I can gradually get stuff looking more like I want!

One link that's broken is on my Nav menu under "Search", where I was trying to link to a page like we had on Old Smug, the "Top Keywords" or /keywords page. ( I think it displayed our top 255 keywords) not to be confused with the All Keywords page at /keyword (there may be a capital "K" in one of them somewhere, I forget). Anyway, if someone knows what I'm talking about, I'd be grateful. It's something I myself used a lot, & it was so handy to get there from my nav bar. Hoping it's still available at some link.

owilliams wrote: »

Hi again Anna Lisa. I've just reached out to our engineers again to see what they can do about getting your themes set to the site wide theme again. I'll let you know when we've gotten this worked out.

-Oliver
SM Support

Allen

The default page is /keyword, no caps. This will show all your keywords.

You could also add a keyword cloud widget to your Page, /keywords. You can limit the
number shown or leave number blank to get all.

WinsomeWorks

Thanks, Al-- I do already have a link to my "All Keywords" page, the /keyword page. But the one I was looking for showed only my most-used keywords. I know it had an "s" on the end of it, /keywords. And I don't think it was capitalized. But I get a 404 if I try to link it now, cap or no cap. None of us ever seemed to know why they set that at 255, but anyway, that was OK for displaying maybe half a screen-ful of keywords, & much faster to load than the "All Keywords". So, if I limit the number shown by using that cloud widget, is it limited alphabetically, or limited by most-used first, on down to the least-used?

Allen wrote: »

The default page is /keyword, no caps. This will show all your keywords.

You could also add a keyword cloud widget to your Page, /keywords. You can limit the
number shown or leave number blank to get all.

Allen

Go to Organizer and look for your /keywords page. If it is an "unlisted" Page you created
the link is missing something like this at end. /keywords/n-XXXXX

WinsomeWorks

Allen wrote: »

Go to Organizer and look for your /keywords page. If it is an "unlisted" Page you created
the link is missing something like this at end. /keywords/n-XXXXX

I'm not seeing it there.. it wasn't unlisted, because I wanted people to use it . I don't think it had any other characters after /keywords , but could easily be wrong about that. I'll find it in my Old Smug screenshots eventually. I didn't exactly create it, except for tweaking the fonts and colors & higlhlight colors. I thought it was one of those system pages Legacy Smug had.