Solarwinds Support
Boom, Solarwinds support, you’re gonna be the first crappy thing I’m gonna rant about at my new job because my most recent support ticket was GOD AWFUL.
It was opened 1/4/2018. It is now 1/30/2018. THE ISSUE IS NOT RESOLVED YET.
My issue was extremely simple. One of Solarwinds’ software has an API that I was trying to build a script around. Basically, I’m trying to pull job status information using the published JobStatusList method. The thing is, the method works! It gives me a decent SOAP response that I can use.
The problem?
It only returns one type of job status. Scripting types. Nothing else. I want to see AV Defender Scan jobs. I want to see File Transfer jobs. I need to see Asset Discovery jobs.
There’s pretty much nothing I can do on my end. JobStatusList takes three inputs: a username, a password, and a key pair of customer ID’s. That’s it. No toggle or anything. The description says its supposed to display everything on the Job Status page, which includes jobs other than the Scripting type.
And so began my deep and dark journey with Solarwinds support. *Cue Moria music with ominous Dwarven chanting*
A ticket of a thousand correspondences begins with a single rage reply.
First, it took two bloody weeks to get anywhere with Solarwinds support.
No wait, before I begin I want to rant about something else. This fucking page: http://ideas.solarwindsmsp.com/
Solarwinds had some seminar/mini online web class things. When I attended them, every time I asked about something simple like “Is there a way to self-heal failed AV’s with a restart service action or script included in the AV monitor?” or “Will Powershell Core scripting be implemented for compatible Linux boxes?” they send you off to this site. Look at it. Take a good minute to browse.
IT LEGIT LOOKS LIKE A PLACE WHERE IDEAS GO TO DIE.
Doesn’t it?
A rare few ideas get implemented, but let’s be real. There’s so many good ideas, but 98% will die on that site. Kinda Solarwind’s way of saying “look, we care!” without really having to.
Anyway, continuing on…
The first two weeks begin with some dumbass trash tier help desk idiot. I’m pretty sure this guy doesn’t know what an API is. He keeps giving me the most retarded guesses at fixes, like “have you tried changing the customer ID?” Yeah, no fucking shit Sherlock, DO YOU THINK I WOULD’VE TRIED CHANGING THE ONE AND ONLY INPUT ITEM I’M ALLOWED TO!???
So anyway, this back and forth of utter bullshit goes on for two weeks. It’s not until I send him a Powershell script calling the API (my initial script was Python) in which it outputs the same response missing all other job types that he seems to finally understand he’s wayyy over his head and forwards my ticket to the developers. Finally, I think, I’m getting somewhere!
Oh, but no. A dev or some help desk monkey representing the devs reply that they’re pretty sure JobStatusList is only supposed to return Scripting jobs. I copy the fucking description, which reads, “This API retrieves the data that is displayed in the Job Status screen of the UI,” and tell them to goddamn read it slowly so it can process through their thick skulls that the Job Status screen displays ALL THE JOB TYPES.
Then finally they say they need to ask a project manager WHO FINALLY FUCKING CONFIRMS THAT YES I AM RIGHT AND JOBSTATUSLIST SHOULD BE RETURNING ALL JOB TYPES OMFG HALLELUJAH I AM SAVED
The dev help desk monkey then says he will forward the ticket to the engineering developers. So, huh, where the hell was the ticket at already? Who the fuck were you, unknown dev help desk monkey???
Thus begins the next stage of this dark abyss.
The ticket sits and sits, with its status in “With Engineering” for 10 days. And still it sits today. My manager has enough of it and asks what’s going on. They reply with some attitude basically saying we have to wait for the next version of the software to come out for the API to be fixed.
Well, fuck you too.
~
[The more you peer into the DevOps world, the more you see that most devs and sysops people are dysfunctional morons…]