Month: February 2016

  • Expand storage by migrating disks from Synology DS713+ to DS1815+

    The 2x3TB disks of my DS713+ were full. Being lazy, I decided to expand the storage by migrating the disk to a new DS1815+ with more bays (instead of doing a full backup and restore on larger disks). It was a piece of cake!

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    1. Do first a backup of the configuration of your current Synology via Control Panel > Update & Restore menu > Configuration Backup tab > Back up configuration button
    2. Move the disks to the new Synology, keeping the very same order (disk in bay n must go into the bay n of the new Synology).
    3. Add a few other disks in the new Synology and create new Volumes
    4. Boot the new Synology and wait for the beep.
    5. Start the Synology Assistant, find your new Synology and click “Connect” on it.
    6. Use the Migration mode, keeping all your files. NB.: you should download the latest DSM for your new Synology and use that local copy during the installation process instead of letting the installation process download that file itself.
    7. Restore the Configuration backup on the new Synology
    8. If you were using the web station and php, enable it. This settings was lost in my case: Control Panel > Web Services menu > Web Services tab > Enable Web Station option
    9. Repair the packages one by one. Wait for each repair to be successful before repairing the next package otherwise you could be in troubles. Pay attention also that the behaviour of the UI can be weird when auto-refreshing after a repair. If clicking repair on a package, you see that the package repaired is not the one you clicked on (but one that was already repaired), close and reopen the Package Center. All my packages where successfully repaired (sometimes I had to skip one and retry later, IMO due to the dependencies…). Here are the packages I had to repair
      1. Audio Station. everything kept as-is, including the user-defined radio
        1. if music does not appear, go to Control Panel > Media Indexing and re-index the media files.
      2. Download Station: didn’t lose anything from its download queue
      3. Plex Media Server. I simply had to reenter my credentials which were expired
      4. DNS Server: all settings/zones still defined. Access to all services from intranet and internet working fine
      5. Maria DB: nothing lost. In particular my Worpress blog.
      6. Media Server: ok
      7. Video Station: all video and metadata accessible
      8. Photo Station: all albums still there and ok
      9. Python 3: I had to retry the repair but works fine
      10. Java Manager: ok (used to install Java 7)
      11. Surveillance Station: Licenses, settings, camera, recordings are all kept
      12. Time Backup: I had to retry the repair but backup tasks are ok, as wel as the timeline itself.
      13. Node.js
    10. Other Packages:
      1. My Custom packages were still there: iPKGui, AcpiOnLan, Mods (My Own Dsm Shorcuts), Unofficial Java Installer (Java 8)
      2. Custom Package Sources are still defined too
      3. Jdownloader was still installed and configured and I only had to restart it.
      4. Settings were lost for FileBot Node. After reconfiguring FileBot Node, it was not working (unable to access its onw port) I had to uninstall it and reinstall (including FileBot). Reconfigured settings were however not lost…
      5. WordPress was stopped. My blog was however well still accessible as I did reenable the Web Station
    11. Synology’s DDNS Service
      1. DDNS Service being linked to the old Synology, I had to go to https://account.synology.com/fr-fr/overview and unlink my DDNS name
      2. Next, I went to  Control Panel > External Access and did Edit my provider (Synology) to re-enabled the DDNS and re-introduced my login/password.
      3. It took a few minutes before being again connected.
    12. I finally moved a few Shared Folders to the new volumes by editing them via Control Panel > Shared Folder menu > Edit. I simply changed the location, picking the new Volume as a target. Attention, during the move, the Control Panel is not accessible anymore. If you need to access it, simply open a new browser 😉 (The only thing that cannot be done, is moving two Shared Folders simultaneously). Notice that the move can take ages as the new volume is probably still under validation (depends if you checked that option when you created the volume).

    Et voilà.

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  • Amazon or eBay: Contact Customer Services

    Sometimes, I eventually need to contact “someone” (= a Human) from eBay or Amazon if I have an unusual issue. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to find the right contact page for that. Here are the ones for eBay and Amazon. Good luck (you will need it).

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    Amazon

    The best support is IMO provided by Amazon. I always got a response from a human within 24 hours. They even called me back once to tell me they got the “suggestion” I sent (not an issue) and were happy to take it into account.

    In English:

    In French:

    Notice: not being logged in, you could be missing the option to chat with someone.

    Contact Amazon [En]
    Contact Amazon [En]
    Contact Amazon [Fr]
    Contact Amazon [Fr]

    eBay

    It has always been much less obvious for me to contact eBay. They are much more pushing the customers towards automatic answers, making impossible for us to report an issue not foreseen in advance (like recurrent delivery issue with their shipping carrier not able to take not correctly of “long” addresses). However, in French, it’s still assumed to be possible to contact an employee via this form:

    French: http://ocsnext.ebay.fr/ocs/cuhome (Select a topic and you will have the opportunity to write a message to an employee or give him a phone call. Authentication required). Ex. or direct link for an undelivered item: http://ocsnext.ebay.fr/ocs/cusr?query=1479

    ONCE submitted, you will get an automatic answer with standard tips to solve your problem. REPLY on this email if you really want a human to read and react on your question!

    Contact Ebay [Fr]
    Contact Ebay [Fr]
    Send a Message Ebay [Fr]
    Send a Message Ebay [Fr]
    Notice their system tells it can take up to 76h to get an answer…

    In English, you will only be able to give a phone call or you will be suggested to contact the eBay community.

    English: http://ocsnext.ebay.com/ocs/cuhome (much much less straightforward, you have to do the right choices and won’t always be able to write a message to an employee. It sucks !)

    Contact Ebay [En]
    Contact Ebay [En]

    How Amazing is Amazon’s support.

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    Amazon provided me the very best level of support when I submitted an issue I got with an undelivered item bought on.. eBay (I buy so much on Amazon.de and Amazon.fr that I didn’t pay attention when I sent them my complain, instead of contacting eBay). As I immediately noticed my mistake, I resubmitted the problem to eBay. But an employee of Amazon answered within 24h, being sorry about that issue and trying to find among my orders the item mentioned in my complain (asking if I bought this item via a subcontractor, or…)…. On eBay side, I have been waiting for an answer during a whole week and they were unable to help!!! I had to figure out myself that my address being too long for the system of their carrier (the carrier available “out of the box” for sellers of ebay.uk). My address had been truncated! I told eBay that I this was the issue but they didn’t handle the problem. I was unable to contact the carrier as this one refused any contact with end-users. I only got my order after about 2 months 🙁

    Yet another example:

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    Again excellent and quick support from an Amazon’s employee: DHL regularly fails to deliver my orders because they use deprecated GPS and don’t find my address (I am in a new residential area built in 2011). DHL neither tries to call me nor try to check my address on Google Map (One kind employee did it once. I saw he had a google map printed next to him). They simply set “Unknown Address” on the delivery and contact the expediter. As I am a customer, they don’t allow me to provide them a new address (or explanations) by phone. And as my address is correct, the expediter can’t give them any additional information. I hate DHL!

    I did submit this issue to Amazon.de as I recently missed 4 of their deliveries. I got an answer 2 hours later (on Friday 23:23!). Amazing Amazon !

    Hello!

    I didn’t get my lasts orders yet… The carrier, DHL, pretends that my addess is unknown. I am very dissatisfied by DHL. I have very regular issues with their deliveries (not only with those sent by Amazon!). They use deprecated GPS and always pretend that they don’t find my address (it exists since 5 years now). The worst is that they don’t even try to call me to check. And next, they don’t want me to provide details to deliver as I am a “customer” and only the “expediter” may provide new delivery information.

    My address as known by Amazon is 200% correct. Can you do something to help me?

    Dear Customer,

    We are sorry to hear that your order has not yet reached you. Please accept our apologies for any disappointment caused.

    I understand very well that this is very annoying for you now when you wait for the order so long and still have not received!

    I will be sure to pass your message on to the appropriate department  in our company for consideration. We always want to know how our customers react to all aspects of shopping at Amazon.de as this helps us to continue to improve the selection and service we provide.

    Of course Shipping within Germany usually does not take such a long time. We understand your impatience.

    In order to provide you a satisfactory solution, I have called DHL and asked to deliver the item as soon as possible.

    You will receive the item soon.

    If your package has not arrived within next few days , please contact us using the link below and confirm the shipping address we have on file for this order:”

    At the opposite the Amazon’s support, Samsung is really not taking care of the customers. It’s IMO not a good strategy. I really buy more and more stuff only if I know there will be a good support behind.

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    See here.

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