Best Agilent Support Forum?

[John_ITIC]

I have some questions regarding my Agilent DSO and tried to post in the below Agilent scope forum. I had a terrible experience, since I'm not allowed to post any questions. I don't know why and the whole thing seems to be put together by some corporate drone that does not care whether it works or not. https://community.keysight.com/community/community-help/pages/home

Where's the best forum to get support on Agilent scopes?

[TheAmmoniacal]

This is the best a good forum for Agilent/Keysight support, find some threads by Keysight and post your questions there.

You can try to get Daniel's attention here (Keysight_DanielBogdanoff): https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/oh-no!-i'm-never-buying-any-agilent-keysight-equiment-ever-again!/

Or https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/update-firmware-on-your-keysightagilent-inifiniivision-oscilloscope!/

BenchVue Team: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/t57461/

Other Keysight employees on the forum:

[Earendil]

Have you tried this one?
https://community.keysight.com/community/discussion-forums/oscilloscopes/content

Keysight just recently changed their forum software. The previous one was much better.

[John_ITIC]

Have you tried this one?
https://community.keysight.com/community/discussion-forums/oscilloscopes/content

Keysight just recently changed their forum software. The previous one was much better.

Yes, that is the one I tried to post in. I can enter information (create the post) but I am unable to actually post. The web interface will not allow me to submit since I have not selected a "group" to post to. When trying to select the group (oscilloscopes) I just get a "stop sign". The thing appears broken.

Anyways, I suppose it is better to post here as suggested. My experience with corporate response time in support forums is not very good (weeks to get nonsensical/trivial/wrong answers).

[G0HZU]

Have you tried this one?
https://community.keysight.com/community/discussion-forums/oscilloscopes/content

Keysight just recently changed their forum software. The previous one was much better.

Agreed. The latest forum interface is so bad that it makes you wonder about who at Keysight/Agilent is in charge of this stuff and how much they really care.

The Genesys (EDA) forum was already effectively dead before these changes because almost no one at Agilent ever bothered to respond to user queries. Most posts ended up with plenty of views but no replies. But the genius who designed the new forum layout has really managed to alienate any remaining viewers.

https://community.keysight.com/community/discussion-forums/eda-software/content?filterID=contentstatus%5Bpublished%5D~category%5Bgenesys%5D

The dates of all queries are all the same even if they are 13 years old and the real genius is that (for me at least) they now display the OLDEST posts first even though this isn't obvious. So if you select the default to display the NEWEST posts/activity first it actually shows posts from 13 years ago even though the displayed date appears to be only a few days old.

Any new queries now get buried 13 years down the page history.

None of this really matters because the Genesys forum became a waste of time several years ago.

It looks like there have been about ten user queries on the Genesys forum in the last year and only ONE reply to just one of those queries and that single reply was way back in July 2015. Most queries go unanswered for months or years.

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

Sorry about your troubles on our forum.  That forum format is literally only two or three weeks old so I'll let that team know about the probable bug. 

Also, that forum will now be moderated and checked regularly by the respective product experts, so past behaviors will not reflect how we handle the forum going forwards.

If you are looking for a quick answer to a support question, I highly recommend calling our call center. You get a direct line to a technical expert, and I've even called them with questions from time to time.

[Earendil]

Have you tried this one?
https://community.keysight.com/community/discussion-forums/oscilloscopes/content

Keysight just recently changed their forum software. The previous one was much better.

Agreed. The latest forum interface is so bad that it makes you wonder about who at Keysight/Agilent is in charge of this stuff and how much they really care.

The Genesys (EDA) forum was already effectively dead before these changes because almost no one at Agilent ever bothered to respond to user queries. Most posts ended up with plenty of views but no replies. But the genius who designed the new forum layout has really managed to alienate any remaining viewers.

https://community.keysight.com/community/discussion-forums/eda-software/content?filterID=contentstatus%5Bpublished%5D~category%5Bgenesys%5D

The dates of all queries are all the same even if they are 13 years old and the real genius is that (for me at least) they now display the OLDEST posts first even though this isn't obvious. So if you select the default to display the NEWEST posts/activity first it actually shows posts from 13 years ago even though the displayed date appears to be only a few days old.

Any new queries now get buried 13 years down the page history.

None of this really matters because the Genesys forum became a waste of time several years ago.

It looks like there have been about ten user queries on the Genesys forum in the last year and only ONE reply to just one of those queries and that single reply was way back in July 2015. Most queries go unanswered for months or years.

To be fair with Keysight the VNA forum is still very useful and you can get information there you probably can't get anywhere else.

[Athanasis]

I am sure the forums here are the best for most equipment. Many members, great diversity, and here the members stay.

 

[Earendil]

I am sure the forums here are the best for most equipment. Many members, great diversity, and here the members stay.

Don't let me be misunderstood. I love this forum. But Keysight have some of the greatest industry experts, like Dr. Joel Dunsmore who is the lead designer of 8753 and PNA series network analyzers for example, who are willing to answer even fairly trivial questions there. He helped more than one people debug and fix still insanely expensive old VNAs for example. Those guys don't often hang around here, afaik.

[G0HZU]

I agree that the VNA forum (and the spectrum analyser forum) is a good place for info. It's the EDA forums that seem to be lacking IMO.

In the link below even Dr Joel ended up in a muddle on the ADS (EDA) forum a few days ago. The dates and order of posting is a mess and he ended up replying to a 13 year old request. Dr Joel even comments about the qty of 13 year old posts on the forum.

Ironically, it's a thread question about the 'new forums' but this was when the Agilent forums were new 13 years ago!

https://community.keysight.com/thread/6140

The link above represents the confusion caused by the new forum layout and the date bug. The oldest posts are being shown with highest priority and not the other way around. So even the ADS forum is messed up at the moment...

It looks like the tab for selecting 'oldest' and 'newest' activity is back to front in the forum code. Either that, or the oldest posts were the last/latest to be activated into the new format. So they appear first? Try making sense of that thread I linked to. Unless you are aware of the nature of the date bug the flow of that old/new thread is a confusing mess at the moment.

[Earendil]

I agree that the VNA forum (and the spectrum analyser forum) is a good place for info. It's the EDA forums that seem to be lacking IMO.

In the link below even Dr Joel ended up in a muddle on the ADS (EDA) forum a few days ago. The dates and order of posting is a mess and he ended up replying to a 13 year old request. He even comments about the qty of 13 year old posts on the forum.

Ironically, it's a question about the 'new forums' but this was when the forums were new 13 years ago.

https://community.keysight.com/thread/6140

The link above represents the confusion caused by the new forum layout. The oldest posts are being shown with highest priority and not the other way around. So even the ADS forum is messed up at the moment...

It looks like the tab for selecting 'oldest' and 'newest' activity is back to front in the forum code. Try making sense of that thread I linked to. Unless you are aware of the nature of the date bug the flow of that old/new thread is a confusing mess at the moment.

It's just sad. I hope these issues with the forum won't stop Dr. Joel answering questions. Hopefully Keysight fixes the forum soon.

[G0HZU]

Sorry about your troubles on our forum.  That forum format is literally only two or three weeks old so I'll let that team know about the probable bug. 

Also, that forum will now be moderated and checked regularly by the respective product experts, so past behaviors will not reflect how we handle the forum going forwards.

If you are looking for a quick answer to a support question, I highly recommend calling our call center. You get a direct line to a technical expert, and I've even called them with questions from time to time.

Thanks. If it helps, the Genesys forum behaves itself a lot better if you deselect the default 'Sort by latest activity: newest first' and change the tab to

'Sort by date created: newest first'

To demonstrate, Try selecting the above clickdown menu option in the link below?

https://community.keysight.com/community/discussion-forums/eda-software/content?filterID=contentstatus%5Bpublished%5D~category%5Bgenesys%5D&sortKey=contentstatus%5Bpublished%5D~creationDateDesc&sortOrder=0

This seems to restore some sense or order to the posts and threads although it does show you just how dead the Genesys forum has been for the last couple of years because hardly anyone has used it in this time 

[bingo600]

Have you tried this one?
https://community.keysight.com/community/discussion-forums/oscilloscopes/content

Keysight just recently changed their forum software. The previous one was much better.

Couldn't agree more.
The new forum is close to useless , and i'we lost the summary page where the last posts of al the T&M post were shown.

Actually i haven't even bothered to log into the new forum yet, as there seems to be noone posting.
And often my browser "Stalls" at "too many redirections" , wonder if they test their own forum with ie. firefox/chromium (linux)

Too bad , i liked the old one, but now i tend to go to the yahoo group instead.

/Bingo

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

Thanks G0HZU,

I'll pass your feedback along to the team that is working on the forum!

-Daniel

[calmissile]

And now it is October 2017 and my attempt to post a question on the Keysight forum (Logic Analyzers) was as difficult as the previous posts.... 2 years later.  I ran across this web page by a search for Agilent Keysight forums.  I will try and figure out this forum and post the question in the appropriate place.  Nutshell...need tech data or manuals for 16700-68700  Digital Systems Debug Demo for 16700.

[alager]

2019 and still going!
I just tried to post and I get the same thing, I can't post unless I choose a "space" or a "group" in the Publish Location.  BUT I'm not allowed to choose any groups or spaces!
There are new posts in the forum, but I can't get past the "Publish Location" blockade.

[Tony_G]

The forums have a UX that only a mother could love...

I think what you need to do is to have both an account for login plus register for the forums. In the upper right corner you should see both a "Log in" and a "Register" link to get completely registered.

You're having the exact same issue I had when I went to post an 8902A question - I have a Keysight account that I could log in with but I couldn't select a space/forum until I registered which was completely opaque.

TonyG

[alager]

I did try the register link in the top right, but that didn't do it for me.  What did finally work was to log in to my keysight account, then "add" the functionality by clicking the "join community".  Of course that created havoc with my saved passwords, argh!
But I'm in now.  Thanks for the tip!