Contacting support / submitting a ticket is IMPOSSIBLE because your website hyperlinks lead to the wrong places.

[Oddball 4]

I can't express how frustrating it is to be caught in this loop of hyperlinks when I'm in the support section of your website. I will describe the problem in detail, so that you have an idea of what the average user experience is when using the support section of your website.

Webpage 1.

Let's start with "Help & Learning / Submit a request." The URL is https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new 
This webpage gives us a number of drop-down fields, and once you fill those out, you're given this message at the bottom of the webpage:

Quote

Please submit a ticket and provide as much information as possible so we can diagnose the problem. For example:
Steps to reproduce
Screen recording or screenshots
Device & operating system
Activity log

Alright, should be no problem, we're told to submit a ticket.

Is there a way for us to submit a ticket? NO, THERE ISN'T. This webpage is giving us instruction to submit a ticket with no actual way to execute it. I've looked everywhere in the support section of this website and submitting a ticket isn't included anywhere. See for yourself.

However, that "activity log" earlier was a hyperlink, so let's follow that to try to find a lead.

Webpage 2.

"Send an Evernote activity log." The URL is https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208314078 

This webpage gives us the following instructions:

Quote

WINDOWS
In the menu bar, go to Help > Activity Logs > Save Most Recent Logs.
Type "Evernote.log" as the file name and click Save.
Attach this file to a new support ticket or in reply to an existing support ticket email.

Excellent, a hyperlink to how to create a support ticket. This looks promising. Follow it and we land on...

We land back on webpage 1, above, the "Help & Learning / Submit a request" page. Which as I've already outlined, simply ends in instructing us to submit a ticket but doesn't give us a way to do it.

In desperation, I search the bottom of "Send an Evernote activity log" webpage and find:

Quote

Still can’t find what you're looking for? Contact Support

That hyperlink also sends me to webpage 1. To the "Help & Learning / Submit a request" page.

Webpage 3.

I decide to try a different webpage, "How to troubleshoot crashing issues." The URL is https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005567-How-to-troubleshoot-crashing-issues

I find the same links as webpage 1 and 2, the clickable Activity Log and Contact Support that don't lead to an actual way to contact support.

But, I do find this, and it looks promising:

Quote

If none of these suggestions help, please contact us.

Clicking that hyperlink leads us to https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us which does not have a way to contact anyone. This is a list of articles.

In closing,

This is what the user experience is for anyone trying to get contact support or simply follow the instructions that you gave us to file a ticket. It's buck wild. It's impossible. It's a loop of unhelpful hyperlinks.

Evernote. Please get some staff on this to change the hyperlinks above to actually lead to a webpage that allows us to submit a ticket/contact support, because webpage 1 certainly does not.

 

And, no, before anyone tells me that I can't find tickets because I'm not a paid subscriber or something, no, that is not an excuse. All above webpages have presented instructions of what to do, namely to go file a ticket and given me a hyperlink to go with it. None of them have made mention that this is a paywalled feature. And even if it is, it's hardly appropriate to send technical-difficulty-struggling users to a webpage that gives them fields to fill out and ends in telling them to do something that's not possible for their account.

[agsteele 2,950]

Sorry to hear of your issues. As you will soon realise, these forums are largely user-to-user so whilst we can sympathise, we can only give advice.

I can say that my experience is that the website hyperlinks are all working for me.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new takes me via a login to my account to the exact place to submit a ticket. I can also open all the pages you provide links to. All these pages are open access.

So I great that something is is happening with your Internet connection. Or, there was a temporary issue which has now been resolved.

Sadly whilst expressing your frustrations here may help you feel better it is unlikely to get any traction with Evernote.

Feel free to tell us some more about the crashing issue you are experiencing and we may be able to point you to a solution. It will always help to know which Evernote application you are using and your OS.

[PinkElephant 8,114]

In very short words: Technical support is reserved for subscribers. This is an autonomous decision by EN, like it or not. Support needs staff, staff needs to be paid. Who contributes gets access - fair enough.

With my free account I have access to support with the ticket types Account and Billing. As a shortcut this link is working:

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

If this does not work, something may block your access: Safety software, Firewall, AdBlocker or similar. You need to find and unblock it yourself.

[Oddball 4]

On 2/12/2022 at 2:47 AM, agsteele said:

Sorry to hear of your issues. As you will soon realise, these forums are largely user-to-user so whilst we can sympathise, we can only give advice.

True. However, I've written this in hopes that actual staff will take notice and assign their web management team to fix where the hyperlinks redirect to, as well as fix the https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new webpage which is apparently supposed to open a ticket after filling out all the dropdown fields, but does not.

On 2/12/2022 at 2:47 AM, agsteele said:

I can say that my experience is that the website hyperlinks are all working for me. 

I can also open all the pages you provide links to. All these pages are open access.

Wait, are you saying that Webpage 3's "contact us" hyperlink *doesn't* take you to https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us , but to an actual contact page? Or am I misunderstanding you? Because, to clarify my points in the original post, none of these links lead to a 404, they all simply lead to pages that don't provide a way to get in contact with staff like the text says they are. It's as if Webpage 1 is missing content at the end and Webpage 3 leads to an unrelated landing page.

On 2/12/2022 at 2:47 AM, agsteele said:

So I great that something is is happening with your Internet connection. Or, there was a temporary issue which has now been resolved.

On 2/12/2022 at 3:26 AM, PinkElephant said:

If this does not work, something may block your access: Safety software, Firewall, AdBlocker or similar. You need to find and unblock it yourself.

I've tried on desktop, mobile, different browsers, wi-fi, ethernet, and mobile data. My tests have been quite thorough from my end.

On 2/12/2022 at 3:26 AM, PinkElephant said:

In very short words: Technical support is reserved for subscribers.

Please refer back to the final paragraph of the first post. 
If tech support is only for paid users, then this is another issue (in addition to the hyperlink loop above) that the website development needs to solve, because none of the support pages I've listed here make any mention to these features (that they explicitly tell me to do follow in order to file a support ticket!) being only available to some users.
P.S. Well, it does say I need to upgrade if I want to unlock chat or email buttons, but I assume that's a separate thing from filing a support ticket. Those are typically handled in-website from my previous experience.

[agsteele 2,950]

1 hour ago, Oddball said:

Wait, are you saying that Webpage 3's "contact us" hyperlink *doesn't* take you to https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us , but to an actual contact page? Or am I misunderstanding you? Because, to clarify my points in the original post, none of these links lead to a 404, they all simply lead to pages that don't provide a way to get in contact with staff like the text says they are. It's as if Webpage 1 is missing content at the end and Webpage 3 leads to an unrelated landing page.

Yes, it works just fine on my PC and does not require login.

I know you are convinced that the web URLs are all broken but that clearly isn't the case for all users. You are the only person coming to the forums reporting this issue so I'd start at your end of the chain and work upwards.

1 hour ago, Oddball said:

P.S. Well, it does say I need to upgrade if I want to unlock chat or email buttons, but I assume that's a separate thing from filing a support ticket. Those are typically handled in-website from my previous experience.

It would be a mistake to assume that your experience with other services is normative for all businesses. Technical Support from Evernote devs is only available to subscribers. That's not our choice or necessarily do we think its a good idea. Just the way it is. These forums are primarily user-to-user. You can hope that Evernote devs migfht see your concern - but you might well be disappointed. We see occasional visits but it isn't regular. Perhaps one of the moderators will flag your issue for attention up the chain. I couldn't say.

I hope you are able to find the solution. These types of issue can be very tiresome. I remember once some years ago a website problem. Lots of flushing of caches and venting my frustration. Later I discovered that my ISP had added a cache at their server which wasn't updating frequently enough. I used the option to by-pass that cache and suddenly all was well. I'm not suggesting that that is your issue. Just that there are many places where this problem could be occuring other than the Evernote website which seems to working for those of us who have checked.

 

[Jon/t 1,289]

Have you got any ad blockers or tracker blockers switched on in your browser? I've found they sometimes stop some website functionality.

[ohgoodgrief 5]

Oddball, as a fellow free account-er, I've experienced basically the same issues you have - if you care to, you can read all about it here:

https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/140927-no-support-for-free-account/

I've also experienced several technical issues/potential bugs within the app, but as you know, our only course of action is to post here.  This is exactly where Evernote directs us to go with our tech issues.  With two of the issues, I am able to reproduce them and have documented on this site with screenshots, etc.  With one, someone tried to help but with no solution; with the other, the end result was my being told that this is not Evernote, so it seems that even items posted under the "Possible Bugs/Technical Issues" section don't have any hope of actually reaching Evernote as possible bugs/tech issues.

It seems that our only options are to delete our Evernote accounts or pay to upgrade.  The choice to delete my account was an obvious one for me - I sincerely wish you good luck with whatever you choose to do.

[Oddball 4]

On 2/13/2022 at 5:12 AM, agsteele said:

Yes, it works just fine on my PC and does not require login.

[screenshots]

I know you are convinced that the web URLs are all broken but that clearly isn't the case for all users.

Not "broken." They lead to the wrong places. I've already tried to explain to you that this isn't a case of 404s or dead links. It's a case of 

1) This page not giving me a place to open a ticket, instead the bottom of the page is blank.

2) This link I mentioned in webpage 3 "If none of these suggestions help, please contact us." leading to this page, which does not have a way to contact support. It's not a broken link, but an incorrect redirect.

I hope this clears up the issue. I know that you can't personally do anything about it, this is a job for whoever edits Evernote's HTML — but still, I wanted to clear up that the problem isn't what you thought it was. And yes, your screenshots match up with what I've reported.

 

On 2/13/2022 at 12:19 PM, Jon/t said:

Have you got any ad blockers or tracker blockers switched on in your browser? I've found they sometimes stop some website functionality.

I do on my main browser, but as I've already explained, I've tried on desktop, mobile, different browsers, wi-fi, ethernet, and mobile data. Some of these don't have any kind of blockers at all.

 

On 2/13/2022 at 12:38 PM, ohgoodgrief said:

Oddball, as a fellow free account-er, I've experienced basically the same issues you have - if you care to, you can read all about it here:

https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/140927-no-support-for-free-account/

I've also experienced several technical issues/potential bugs within the app, but as you know, our only course of action is to post here.  This is exactly where Evernote directs us to go with our tech issues.  With two of the issues, I am able to reproduce them and have documented on this site with screenshots, etc.  With one, someone tried to help but with no solution; with the other, the end result was my being told that this is not Evernote, so it seems that even items posted under the "Possible Bugs/Technical Issues" section don't have any hope of actually reaching Evernote as possible bugs/tech issues.

It seems that our only options are to delete our Evernote accounts or pay to upgrade.  The choice to delete my account was an obvious one for me - I sincerely wish you good luck with whatever you choose to do.

I appreciate the commiseration/empathy. And funnily enough, your username is exactly what I've been thinking throughout this process.

[PinkElephant 8,114]

26 minutes ago, Oddball said:

…..

1) This page not giving me a place to open a ticket, instead the bottom of the page is blank.

I have just clicked on this link, logged out of everything and did not log in. I tapped on „Proceed as guest“ instead, the lowest of the lowest possibilities in terms of access.

I then got a page with one selection menu, pic 1, chose Billings, which adds more fields below. I filled in 2 more questions, pic 2,  and when I then go to the bottom of the page, pic 3, I can submit my ticket.

This is why I don’t understand the whole „It is not working“ storyline that is told here.

Initial page, opened as a guest:

Follow-up questions, filling in:

When the second block of Questions was answered, there are several options to get support. Chat is greyed out, this is subscribers only:

 

[Oddball 4]

On 2/14/2022 at 5:46 PM, PinkElephant said:

I then got a page with one selection menu, pic 1, chose Billings, which adds more fields below. I filled in 2 more questions, pic 2,  and when I then go to the bottom of the page, pic 3, I can submit my ticket.

[screenshots]

Bizarre! That's not what happens to me. I get a number of drop-down fields, and once I fill those out, a message tells me to open a ticket, and then the bottom of the page under these three buttons is very blank and empty. See for yourself. (There was even more white empty space I just couldn't fit it in the screenshot.)

[Jon/t 1,289]

On 2/16/2022 at 6:47 AM, Oddball said:

Bizarre! That's not what happens to me. I get a number of drop-down fields, and once I fill those out, a message tells me to open a ticket, and then the bottom of the page under these three buttons is very blank and empty. See for yourself. (There was even more white empty space I just couldn't fit it in the screenshot.)

I think the free accounts can only send a support ticket for account questions, not filing bugs. Try billing and payments from the drop down and see if the button appears.

[PinkElephant 8,114]

Free users have only access to ticket types Billing and Account - at least this is how it works on my free account.