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When fixing bugs creates even more and newer bugs, how will this cycle ever end?

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richaxes

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Monday, March 12th 2012, 4:41am

When fixing bugs creates even more and newer bugs, how will this cycle ever end?

I've been thinking a lot if I'd ever raise my opinion on this topic, and finally I've decided to do so. The main reason being the fact that everyone's opinion counts and if you don't give response, what could the people working behind a product learn of? Even more, I'm a KPA owner, too, using the unit daily and being concerned about it's evolution.
I understand and realize the fact that beta versions are released for testing purposes and shouldn't be taken into consideration when measuring a product's reliability. However, newer and newer beta versions should be always one step ahead of the former one, and not one step behind.
Currently, I think that the majority of the users are running into different kinds of problems and bugs with the beta firmwares. The scary thing is the variety (and also the seriousness) of these bugs, which also could indicate something really confusing and surprising - do the units out there have different hardware? If so, then I don't even want to think about it what could be there to come...
Anyways, back on topic. This struggle with the bug fixing and thus creating new bugs looks like a never ending cycle to me. I can just hope that the KPA team starts taking these issues more seriously and maybe even considers working double time on the software issues, because all of this going on with these reliability issues might really hurt the KPA's reputation if not addressed soon enough, imho.
I'd love if some people from the Kemper Team (or maybe Christoph Kemper himself) would join and encourage us a little that everything that can be done is done to address the hurting issues people are experiencing now.
But every coin has two sides, and to be fair, I'd also like to add that the KPA is still in its childhood, and even in this stage is really amazing and is bid fair to be one of the biggest thing ever in the market of digital guitar equipment. I also have to say that I'm absolutely impressed with the tones I'm getting from my KPA and I'd never ever consider getting rid of it or getting anything else instead of it. It's just that I'm one of the many people who are concerned about the future of this little box.

audioholic

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Monday, March 12th 2012, 5:21am

I would like to think things will improve and get more solid. I personally am not having issues I've noticed. Hope it stays that way ;-)

Per

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Monday, March 12th 2012, 5:37am

Sorry, I know it can be frustrating, but it kinda sounds like you may have slightly unrealistic expectations of product development. I think the worst thing that could happen to the Kemper is if development was ceased. At that point it'd be time to bail.

With 1.0.6 everything is better than before (apart from Latency) and the fact that some older rigs crash on the rotary speaker. The one big bug that's cropped up is one that existed before whereby changing the patch after launch and going back there's a noticeable change in sound. This was in previous OS versions too.

Software development isn't instant, it's very hard work and takes a long time and doesn't always go "forwards". Coders aren't machines, they make mistakes, so bugs will happen. Just relax and enjoy what is IMO even with bugs and missing features the best amp sim on the market right now and skip the beta OS releases. I'm looking forward to a long development cycle with these fortnightly releases (which is a good schedule as far as I'm concerned) keeping it up to date and ahead of the competition for some time to come.

If that's not for you though then that's understandable. But I think the only viable alternative right now would be real amps, which are kinda expensive and have their own problems. The only really solid guitar FX units that I can think of were the BOSS and Korg units, They don't sound too great and they were still buggy, but they never had any updates so you could get used to them and work around the issues if that's what you need.

DigitalTube

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Monday, March 12th 2012, 6:51am

If I were in KPA management, first thing would be to make sure to have a non Beta version that's fully complete with everything that's on the manual, and make it crash proof, and ship all units with that version, they kind of have been doing that except the shipping version isn't complete, and still not bug free, i think that's really what would make people feel confident about the product, i only have a few issues with mine, but they're very important and I wouldn't trust it for live use at the moment, i can't assign program #'s to patches, sometimes it works other times it crashes it and looses all assignments, now we have the sound changing as you change rigs back and forth.. So ya, Kemper needs to make this unit as close to 100% reliable as possible, then continue as they're doing releasing Beta public version for those brave enough to test it out.. :)
I think anyone who's thinking of buying one, and reads these posts in the forum will be a bit scared, I hope all these problems are 100% software related, not hardware, so i'm not too worried as they'll get fixed with future updates, but if this was the only unit i had available for gigs, I'd probably have returned it, and get something else, but I think if Kemper was clever enough to design this product, I have faith they'll be able to sort out all the bugs, hopefully soon..

loulou222

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Monday, March 12th 2012, 7:41am

I'm not happy
not very professional product this kemper ?(

Per

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Monday, March 12th 2012, 8:44am

It is frustrating, but unfortunately there's no magic wand to somehow make this all happen instantly. No matter how loudly people complain here I don't think development will happen any faster, I'm sure Christoph is working his ass off right now as it is to fix everything, all we can do here is direct him to the really urgent things, so it'll take as long as it takes and personally I'd much rather have the KPA to use right now than wait another year.

Maybe Kemper should call it "Early Access" on the website to make it clear to everyone that didn't follow the development up to this point or research enough to know what they were getting into i.e. more or less a paid beta, that this is the case.

MoreK

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Monday, March 12th 2012, 8:58am

Quoted from "richaxes"

Currently, I think that the majority of the users are running into different kinds of problems and bugs with the beta firmwares.
And that is expected. Beta is a beta, by installing it you take a risk to run to bugs. It's part of the business model. A company release a beta to get it tested by users. Company saves money in testing and users get their appetite satisfied. You just have to tolerate to have issues with no support. And if you don't, you should use a supported version.

However I understand the frustration. Even with supported 1.04 there are some bugs and missing features. I've seen green screen of death couple of times when tamping expression pedals of my midi controller. Sometimes Kemper can't find files in my USB stick. I need to reboot, then it works.

After using Axe for couple of years, which worked like a German tank (couldn't resist the metaphor :), I feel a little disappointed too. However, as I'm working in IT/SW business myself, I know that these things tend to improve in time. We just need to keep sending feedback to Kemper, so that they are aware of the bugs and missing features, and how we feel about them.

JonG

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Monday, March 12th 2012, 9:02am

I'm not happy with the problems with the software either. I'm really angry actually that there was no mention of the product still being a beta test product when I placed my order either. I foolishly assumed that I was buying a fully finished product. The most annoying thing is the unexpected lock-ups which simply should not be tolerated, quite simply it is not good enough....especially when you think of the price that we all paid for this unit. The release of the product and software updates have both been completely mismanaged with particular emphasis on the lack of input on this board from the Kemper team. Very disappointing. It is foolish for Kemper to ignore this as potential buyers will read this forum and our opnions on this may well stop them from buying a unit. I run my own software development business and I would never release a product that so obviously has not been fully tested. Do Kemper have a QA department/person at all ?

MoreK

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Monday, March 12th 2012, 9:45am

Quoted from "JonG"

I'm really angry actually that there was no mention of the product still being a beta test product when I placed my order either.
I think, legally, the product with the latest supported SW release is not "beta". It has bugs and HW has features for "future purpose" (e.g. Performance mode), but it's all in production.

But as said, I fully understand the frustration. It's clear that Kemper has had pressure to get the product to market before gaining a reasonable maturity level. I just hope that it's all about SW maturity, not HW.

Personally I can live with couple of bugs I have found, as I have found also workarounds.

richaxes

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Monday, March 12th 2012, 7:07pm

Today my KPA got bricked with the stable 1.04 release. I've got nothing more to say... X( KPA problems did avoid me until I've installed the stable 1.04 firmware... since then everything is starting to look like a mess.
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