Mouser is a disaster these days. Can't recommend

[Alien Brother]

Just had Mouser remove Analog Devices parts from my order as well. I do wish they did it before I placed the order. At least, I could pick alternative parts or something.

[peter-h]

Frequently I get "bot" warnings from Mouser when I try to view datasheets on common components.  Very annoying!
Jon

This is probably to block DOS attacks. I run some websites and well over 90% of server load is from high speed bot traffic. These love downloading big PDFs. It becomes a real problem if your site links to other sites for stuff like PDFs because you then get blocked by the others.

I have blocked entire server farms e.g. Hetzner (they respond to complaints but say they cannot stop it), Tencent, and somebody I know blocked all of AWS If your site is behind Cloudflare, even the free CF gives you 10,000 IP ranges you can firewall. Of course I already firewall China, Russia, India, etc but a typical business can't do that.

I find it rather amazing that companies the size of Digikey and Mouser don't have someone that routinely checks forums like this and looking for complaints and then try to improve their service.

They do, lots of companies do, but they are prohibited from responding, and anyway a business of any size will have loads of unhappy customers which one cannot do much about.

Sometimes they react. Years ago, a UK bank closed my account, basically chucked me off, pretty obviously after I posted a report on their cretin staff online

Why the problem with Analog Devices?

[mike011235]

Hey all,

I just ran into something pretty frustrating with Mouser and wanted to check if others have had similar issues – and how you’re dealing with this from a design/planning perspective.
I placed an order with Mouser that included, among other things:

• Analog Devices / TMC2209-LA
  
• Analog Devices / MAX98357AETE+T

I received a “Product Notice – Order Cancellation” email saying that, due to restrictions imposed by the manufacturer, Mouser is unable to ship these products to my location (Germany). All other items in the order will ship as normal, but these two lines were outright cancelled.

Same here... and same text. A had ordered 1 Analog Devices Inc. DS1302N+

I had ordered on last Thursday well before their opening hours. The order was picked on Friday and will not ship until Monday. Holiday season rush maybe.

Anyway, have used mouser for a while and previously have always been impressed with orders being delivered to very often within 2-3 days. One of the things I like is the low threshold for free shipping (~ 50€ I think).

As far as European suppliers go, I've ordered from Reichelt and TME in the past. One needs to 10-15€ for shipping at least so I would wait until I have and order worth 100€ or more before ordering... I was impressed with TME's speed of handling orders.

[radiolistener]

i may add my 2cent , on a last week production customer ordered 78L05 on a partial reel ,after assembly on first power-up the magic-smoke 
after investigation and checking device marking i find that actually mouser put on the reel 78L12 ! but label reel as 78L05 ,whole prod have need rework 

Maybe Mouser already uses AI for labeling — and for an AI, a regulator is a regulator: the higher the voltage, the better… so it simply decided to provide you with a sweet holiday surprise.   

[hve]

I ordered some ADI parts, they are still in processing status, I assume they will get canceled.

The mouser representative said that ADI and TI have changed their policy to not sell to individuals.
The exact criteria he didn't know, he tried to find out but that it was determined by ADI.

My take on this is that US is imposing export restrictions in order to ramp up production of military gear and block technological advancement of other industrial nations:
- US (trade) war on China,
- US (NATO) war with Russia.
- Pending US Venezuela war and other "non-great" countries in the western hemisphere.

So basically make America great again and ramp up the killing machine... 

[mike011235]

I ordered some ADI parts, they are still in processing status, I assume they will get canceled.

The mouser representative said that ADI and TI have changed their policy to not sell to individuals.
The exact criteria he didn't know, he tried to find out but that it was determined by ADI.

My take on this is that US is imposing export restrictions in order to ramp up production of military gear and block technological advancement of other industrial nations:
- US (trade) war on China,
- US (NATO) war with Russia.
- Pending US Venezuela and other non-great countries in the western hemisphere.

So basically make America great again and ramp up the killing machine... 

I had, TI parts in my order too, they weren't cancelled. Mostly SN74xxx stuff, but also a TI SRAM Nonvolatile Controller, BQ2201SN which is compatible with and cheaper than the DS1210 from ADI. I also ordered a few ATTEC parts from Microchip (I²C/SWI  hardware encryption/key storage chips)... Everything shipped except the RTC chip from ADI. As I said earlier, the order was placed way before business hours in Texas.

Anyway, after the message regarding cancelling, the order remained in the processing state "orange" for several hours before changing to "green". This likely delayed the order picking until the following day.

Also, I noticed that some FPGA dev boards from Terasic  are now show "Shipping Alert: Due to government regulations, Mouser is unable to sell this product in your country." or "Product available only to OEM/EMS and design business customers. Product is not shipped to consumers in the EU or the UK". I ordered a Terasic DE10-Nano from Mouser in 2023 with no problems. I guess, in the future those may be simpler to order from Terasic, and then deal with customs and VAT if myself if they don't.

I think that I decided on using mouser over digikey about 15 years ago because I bought a few DE0-nano boards back then as an individual,  and there was some hassle from Digikey and no hassle from Mouser. I think I needed to tell Digikey that I would not re-export the boards.

Handling customs and VAT for EU individual customer is something I value at simplifies shipping and one doesn't need to think about paying fees to shipping companies to handle (or allow you to handle on your one ) the customs and VAT.

[mikeselectricstuff]

There was a time when Mouser were cheaper for some items than Digikey, but the last few production or orders  I've done this hasn't been the case. Shipping is often slower than Digikey IME.

[jpanhalt]

On the other hand, getting pre-purchase technical service at DigiKey has been impossible.*  I am considering a evaluation board that can come pre-programmed, which implies to me there are two versions, but I can't find two part numbers.  I tried submitting the question to DigiKey without success.  At Mouser, at least I was able to submit the question.  Of course, that doesn't mean I will get an answer.   

*That may be browser based, but I have no problem communicating with other online retailers like Amazon.

[hve]

Btw, the ADI parts i ordered was the ADR1399 eval board.

[thm_w]

On the other hand, getting pre-purchase technical service at DigiKey has been impossible.*  I am considering a evaluation board that can come pre-programmed, which implies to me there are two versions, but I can't find two part numbers.  I tried submitting the question to DigiKey without success.  At Mouser, at least I was able to submit the question.  Of course, that doesn't mean I will get an answer.   

*That may be browser based, but I have no problem communicating with other online retailers like Amazon.

On the right hand side of the product page there is a tab that says "Need Help?" which takes you to live chat, email, phone number, etc. They are usually fairly quick to respond.
If you are looking for two part numbers then that sounds more like a question for the manufacturer themselves.

[jpanhalt]

On the right hand side of the product page there is a tab that says "Need Help?" which takes you to live chat, email, phone number, etc. They are usually fairly quick to respond.
If you are looking for two part numbers then that sounds more like a question for the manufacturer themselves.

Do you really think I didn't try that?  Seriously?  It is browser dependent, and DigiKey decided not to support my version of Chrome for everything EXCEPT ordering, which works fine.  Unfortunately, the options are very limited, and DK knows that too.

[thm_w]

Do you really think I didn't try that?  Seriously?  It is browser dependent, and DigiKey decided not to support my version of Chrome for everything EXCEPT ordering, which works fine.  Unfortunately, the options are very limited, and DK knows that too.

Tested and works on every browser on my machine: chrome, firefox, edge.
The options are: live chat, email, phone, forum support, not sure what else would be needed.

[David_AVD]

Do you really think I didn't try that?  Seriously?

Now see the correct (polite) reply would have been "Hmmm... I don't see those options in my browser".

[jpanhalt]

Do you really think I didn't try that?  Seriously?  It is browser dependent, and DigiKey decided not to support my version of Chrome for everything EXCEPT ordering, which works fine.  Unfortunately, the options are very limited, and DK knows that too.

Tested and works on every browser on my machine: chrome, firefox, edge.
The options are: live chat, email, phone, forum support, not sure what else would be needed.

Do you use Windows 7 and the latest Chrome that supports that?


All I got were blank screens.

[thm_w]

Windows 7 has been out of support for over 5 years, so I wouldn't have expectations of or criticize any company that doesn't spend time supporting an obsolete OS.

I assume you are running a recent forked/patched Chrome and not one that is out of support: https://www.reddit.com/r/windows7/comments/1j5i9bq/comment/mgmgpt5/

[jpanhalt]

What I am criticizing is that it supports my browser just fine for purchasing, but not for getting information about what it wants to sell.  It should be neither or both.

Your opinion of Windows 7 doesn't matter to me.  At least, I am not sending my life's history to Microsoft every time I turn on my PC.

[thm_w]

Its not "my opinion" its officially no longer supported by the manufacturer.
Whether it works half the time or none of the time is not Digikeys problem, they don't support it either.

If you are worried about privacy you can either use some flavor of linux or windows 10/11 IOT LTSC, which probably has less telemetry than windows 7 does.

[Cyclotron]

What I am criticizing is that it supports my browser just fine for purchasing, but not for getting information about what it wants to sell.  It should be neither or both.

Your opinion of Windows 7 doesn't matter to me.  At least, I am not sending my life's history to Microsoft every time I turn on my PC.

Trust Chrome less than Windows for sharing your life's history.

[edavid]

I hate myself for contributing to topic drift, but...

If you don't want to change browsers, you can install the "User-Agent Switcher for Google Chrome" extension and set it to the current version.  (Most websites that test for a particular version, don't actually require that version.)

[peter-h]

I have no problem with Digikey or Mouser, using whatever old Chrome was last for win7-64, and running on win7-64.

I have seen the British Airways website bomb on the above, but works ok on Firefox.

It is dumb to check the OS version, even though it is possible. Why do that? The browser version is all that matters.

[Faranight]

You guys do realize that Mouser website is serving spyware to every visitor in order to identify them and their system, right?
So, simply switching the user agent does nothing to protect your privacy. They know almost every other parameter of your browser.

To prove I'm not bluffing, here is the javascript in question, that is loaded from their own domain upon your visit. You can find it by looking at HTTP requests while the page is loading.
https://eu.mouser.com/QHqTQ_TPrebRbQpZWvupfs8RNiM/kE1LDGSbD2SNG01z/Zmp6JgE/NyUWKC/48GzI

[jpanhalt]

I hate myself for contributing to topic drift, but...

If you don't want to change browsers, you can install the "User-Agent Switcher for Google Chrome" extension and set it to the current version.  (Most websites that test for a particular version, don't actually require that version.)

THank you for that idea.  I have found that "we do not support" claims do not mean "it won't work."    The tax program I have used for the last 3 ro 4 years is one more example.  I am skeptical of the motive behind forcing people to use Windows 10/11.

[M4trix]

Again, yesterday I placed an order for 3 surface-mount parts

Why would anyone order only three 0806 resistors ? No wonder Mouser isn't happy with your order.   

[Cyclotron]

You guys do realize that Mouser website is serving spyware to every visitor in order to identify them and their system, right?
So, simply switching the user agent does nothing to protect your privacy. They know almost every other parameter of your browser.

To prove I'm not bluffing, here is the javascript in question, that is loaded from their own domain upon your visit. You can find it by looking at HTTP requests while the page is loading.
https://eu.mouser.com/QHqTQ_TPrebRbQpZWvupfs8RNiM/kE1LDGSbD2SNG01z/Zmp6JgE/NyUWKC/48GzI

That JS is part of the Akamai Advanced Bot protection that Mouser is purchasing from Akamai.
It monitors a large number of vectors and instrumentation, and yes, it collects things about your activity.

The purpose is to prevent malicious bot networks from account takeovers and abuse of ordering systems.
Unfortunately, it's as required as an NGFW, Web Application Firewall, or Anti-SPAM/Phishing technology today.

[jpanhalt]

I have no problem with Digikey or Mouser, using whatever old Chrome was last for win7-64, and running on win7-64.
I have seen the British Airways website bomb on the above, but works ok on Firefox.
It is dumb to check the OS version, even though it is possible. Why do that? The browser version is all that matters.

1) Chrome version is dependent on OS version.

2) Have you tried getting technical help?  That is the question.   I am sure the bean counters would probably want Windows 3.1 and Netscape still to work.  It's all a matter of priorities.  Service is way down from sales, marketing, and CEO salary in the pecking order.  I have seen that first hand with a CEO at a small hospital on the Allegheny River just NE of PIttsburgh.  The medical staff, which was concerned about service, gave him a clear view of what would happen if he didn't fix his bean-counter mistake.  DigiKey doesn't have that feedback system.