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Hi all

Posting here in sheer desperation. I have an Eaton UPS connected via network management to an IPM2 VM. Simple enough, and to date, mostly working well

Late last year my maintenance license expired without any notification from Eaton or my distributor. Fair enough, my bad, I should have had that marked down somewhere. I ordered a renewal. A full month later I received the new (or rather, renewed/reused) key. First of all, how does a digital key require a full month to deliver?? Secondly, when I tried to reactivate the key it showed up as expired and required several emails and retries over another month to actually get a working, activated installation. Far out.

I attempted to upgrade to the latest version, which destroyed the VM (stuck in a boot loop due to a dependency issue). Reverted via backup, tried a couple of different versions, same result. Ended up doing a fresh install and restoring a configuration backup. Now I need to transfer the license. Two phone calls via Eaton’s listed details got me a support email to contact, several emails and TWO WEEKS later, this was the latest response.

"Greetings!!!

As we have checked with the Team they have provided this link to contact the support team - https://www.eaton.com/in/en-us/catalog/backup-power-ups-surge-it-power-distribution/eaton-intelligent-power-manager.html#tab-3"

The link in question points to the Resources tab (manuals etc), which is where I started and was told in one of the FAQs to contact Eaton support for license transfers/reactivations. The Support tab on this page appears to be dead, as does live chat.

Seriously. Am I the exception or has Eaton support gone rapidly downhill because the last times we’ve had to deal with them they’ve been great. I’ve gone from an almost 15 year supporter to looking at other vendors.

5 Spice ups
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Not just you. I have my own ongoing issues.

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While I don’t use Eaton UPSes, if your judgement is based on 1 experience, over 15 years and you’re ready to jump ship because of it, you wont be with any vendor long.

Perhaps you’ve just been unlucky and got a lesser experienced support person to assist you.

I can’t speak for why a digital key takes that long, but there may have been a misunderstanding of what you wanted, because you seemingly got the wrong thing anyway.

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Hi, I’ve reached out to our software and Australia teams and will post again when I have more information.

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Two experiences, dragged out over months, involving multiple support people from multiple channels including the distributor who had to go back to Eaton about 4 times after multiple incorrect confirmations from Eaton that the key had been renewed.

And no misunderstanding, correct product, hell they even re-used the existing key. Just couldn’t get the expiry changed on it or something of the like.

In fairness to the support person they have theoretically sent me to the correct place, its just that both channels available there are broken. Which is how I ended up talking to what is probably the wrong department in the first place, it was my only available option!

So the issues run a bit deeper than just one less experienced support person and I’d say coming up five months is a fair amount of patience to show with any vendor. If this was a customer’s system I’m sure they wouldn’t be as tolerant.

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None of the above is something I am aware of, I was just giving an indifferent view.

Either way, if you jump ship, what’s to say the next company’s support is bad from the start. You’re back to where you started, but worse.

Good luck.

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Could give you horror stories from several vendors about license renewal after we split from another org where they keep issuing quotes/keys to the other company even though we paid for them and then want us to work with the other company to transfer them. Probably half a dozen vendors that can not get this correct. The big channel partners are not guilt free either.

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I had a bad experience with eaton’s support. Asked for support more than three years ago, didn’t get it. Now, after changing batteries again, i have same issues with same ups. Followed @mike-eaton advice on one of the threads and wrote an email to support, got a ticket number one week ago and i am still waiting for response. Should I wait more for a response that could never come or go and by another ups ? What is the supposed lifetime of an eaton ups ?

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Sorry that you haven’t heard back. I’m pretty well connected with our international teams but don’t have a good one for Tunisia. The only other thing I can think of is to reach out to our UK team: UK Electrical Support Enquiries

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First of all, thank you @mike-eaton for your fast reply. I really appreciate to have someone from eaton replying to me. I already sent an email to egupseatonfrance@eaton.com as this is the “nearest” support i could think of, as we don’t have a “Eaton Tunisia”. Should i also contact the UK support without waiting more for a reply from the french support team ? Wouldn’t this be a bad behaviour to open a ticket to several support teams (like a denial of service/(support team) attack) ?

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Followed your advice and opened a ticket with the UK support team.

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Update on my case, Thank you @mike-eaton who got a member of the appropriate team to reach out and had the issue sorted within 24 hours of contact :slight_smile:

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