Frozen: How Tech Support Helped a Customer with a Problem “Let It Go”

A school phoned Open Options’ Tech Support to report that their DNA Fusion software was freezing up randomly multiple times per hour. The problem was adversely affecting dozens of people using the system at any one time. To resolve the issue of the “frozen” access control system, Tech Support fired up the teamwork.

Zack Davis, a technician in Tech Support at Open Options, answered the call from this school and listened to the customer explain how the lockup of the system would render the software “unusable” until the program was terminated and reopened. Zack was able to remote into the customer’s computer and verify the problem. The diagnostics of DNA Fusion, along with all the other necessary log files, were uploaded back to Open Options for analysis.

When he determined that there was nothing that stood out to be causing this odd issue, and the senior technicians were not able to find anything, Zack connected with the Software Development department within Open Options, forwarding details of the problem to Gary Bell, VP of Software Development.

“The way Open Options addressed this customer’s issue is a great example of cooperation between departments,” said Nic Robran, Technical Support Manager, Open Options. “Zack kept an open line with the Software Development team and was checking multiple times a day with them to answer questions and pass on recommendations to the customer. Zack was crucial in relaying the information back and forth as quickly as he could, and he maintained a constant vigilance for emails throughout the weekend and after hours. He showed that he cared about the customer experience.”

After days of troubleshooting and constant feedback from the customer, Gary and his Software Development team discovered the root of the issue: the NREGSrv COM+ object was exceeding its pool size.

“We had never seen this at a site before, and our default setting for this was 64,” Robran explained. “This had been more than enough in the past, but due to this discovery, Development has now increased that to 128 to avoid this happening at other customer sites.”

Zack was able to get back with the customer and upgrade their system to handle the increased demand that was causing the issue on the DNA Server. To ensure all was well, Zack continued to monitor the site to verify that they were able to run DNA Fusion without it freezing up anymore.