How to ask questions to get help?

Imagine a hypothetical situation. You are alone at home, you write an entry on your blog after a whole day of collecting materials. It seems to be nice and relaxing. Meanwhile, however, your website is falling!

Free operation of the site, strange things happen, everything disappears from the screen and unrealized things happen. The page stops responding. With your last strength you dial the support number, say that it doesn’t work and you are disconnected.

We start the action! You have managed to call for help over the phone, but without giving any details. First of all, administrators have a problem to determine who is reporting the problem. The number you called from is different from the number you gave us to contact. We call you back, but you do not answer anymore. We have old e‑mails and archives. It’s hard, but somehow we’ll find out who called us.

However, we cannot determine which side of the problem is concerned. There are many domains, several instances of WordPress, lost files, thirty giga music, unused plugins, themes, forgotten scripts, Windows installations. Nothing. We are trying.

The first domain has expired, the second one does not exist. On the next one: fifty plugins, twenty motifs. Logs. Thousands of four hundred-four, Notice and Deprecated. The misfortune is complemented by a non-updated version of WordPress running under the old PHP.

If any of these items are present on your site, please be aware that support may be difficult or no way to help with your esteemed site.

Reporting a problem is like calling for an ambulance

Despite the monitoring of each server, sometimes something does not work properly or unexpectedly. Then you will be contacted by technical support. How quickly a problem is identified may depend, to a large extent, on you.

The more information you provide about a problem, the faster the help will be given to you. Creating a report with a laconic description in the style “does not work“, will only make the time of handling such an incident lengthen.

Where to report problems?

Very often we send people writing to us in chat or calling us on the phone to set up a call in the Customer Panel. Why? This is the only place where we can help you solve your problem in a safe and quick way.

Przede wszystkim, aby zgłosić problemu, należy się zalogować do panelu. To pozwala nam, na sprawdzenie kto faktycznie zgłasza problem, oraz jakich usług on dotyczy. Logowanie do panelu, może być dodatkowo zabezpieczone poprzez dwuskładnikowe uwierzytelnienie, co zwiększa poziom bezpieczeństwa.

First of all, to report a problem, you need to log in to the panel. This allows us to check who actually reports the problem and what services it concerns. Logging into the panel can be additionally secured by two-factor authentication, which increases the level of security.

When reporting a ticket, we very often exchange confidential data, so it is important not to send it via e‑mail or instant messenger. Telephone, email or chat are ideal to talk about offers, server parameters or prices.

How best to report a problem?

First of all, start by creating a new application through the Customer Panel. It is important that it is made from the account where the problematic service is located. Otherwise you will be asked to create a new report from a valid account.

Before writing to us, it is a good idea to look at status.thecamels.org. You will find there the currently ongoing planning work or occurring breakdowns. Perhaps your request is related to this and our administrators are already working on a solution.

Problem with access to the server, hosting, cPanel

The most common problem with access to the server or hosting is blocking your IP address. The problem occurs when a wrong password for logging in, e.g. e‑mail, FTP or cPanel service, has been entered many times.

When creating a new request, please give us your IP address from which you are connecting. It will be easier for us to locate and solve the lack of access to the service.

Problem with e‑mail account, delivery of messages

E-mail does not always work perfectly. Sometimes messages arrive late or not at all. Hundreds of factors determine the deliverability of messages and unfortunately not all of us can influence them.

When reporting a problem with e‑mail, it is useful to provide information such as:

• sender’s e‑mail address
• the e‑mail address of the recipient
• date and time when complications were observed
• describe what the handicaps are

It’s also a good idea to send a header or an example of a problem message. This will help us to help you faster.

How can we help?

If only we can, we try to help you with any reported problem, even if it does not apply to servers. We will try to give you tips on what to do, or we will recommend companies that specialize in this.

How to ask not to wander? So where and how to look for WordPress help

On this very interesting topic, you can read on the website of Katarzyna Janoski. This topic was also presented at the 12th WordUp in Łódź.