Studio 2019 broken promises - is this consumer fraud?
Thread poster: Tomasz Poplawski
Tomasz Poplawski
Tomasz Poplawski  Identity Verified
Local time: 12:27
Member (2007)
English to Polish
+ ...
May 31, 2019

- Slower than 2017 (sometimes 10x slower)
- More prone to crashes
- Many more senseless and obscure error messages
- Still no useful Help
- None of the pet peeves reported for versions taken into consideration/fixed
- Often, in order to use it al all, all new functions have to be disabled

That's the short summary of issues indicated on Proz and other user forums, and confirmed many times by my own experience. And I am sure the list is incomplete.
... See more
- Slower than 2017 (sometimes 10x slower)
- More prone to crashes
- Many more senseless and obscure error messages
- Still no useful Help
- None of the pet peeves reported for versions taken into consideration/fixed
- Often, in order to use it al all, all new functions have to be disabled

That's the short summary of issues indicated on Proz and other user forums, and confirmed many times by my own experience. And I am sure the list is incomplete.
On the other hand, I would not be able to point to a single feature that would make 2019 a better, more productive software than 2017.

In other words, all promises of the "Upgrade to Studio 2019" ads were false. Is this consumer fraud, warranting a class action lawsuit, or am I too harsh in my assessment?

In the spirit of full disclosure: I am not an SDL hater, quite the contrary, I've used Trados/SDL product since 1997. But I believe their complacency has grown to something more sinister.

What do you think?
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Enrico C - ECLC
Lucienne Parsons
René van Buuren
 
Sandra & Kenneth Grossman
Sandra & Kenneth Grossman  Identity Verified
Israel
Local time: 19:27
French to English
+ ...
You should reinstall Trados 2019 Jun 1, 2019

Tomasz Poplawski wrote:

What do you think?


Hi Tomasz,

The 2019 version is light-years ahead of 2017, which I only keep as backup and will happily discard on the next version of Trados.

Here are my answers to your issues:

- Slower than 2017 (sometimes 10x slower)
Not true. It is slower only in the preparation of files, possibly because it's doing fragment aligning, which is time well spent.

- More prone to crashes
I haven't noticed any difference. It does crash every now and then. I don't understand why there is no automatic backup of the target XLIFF file, which would save a lot of heartache in such cases. Do a backup every now and then. This saved me reinstalling Trados several times.

- Many more senseless and obscure error messages
They are about the same. The only one that annoys me is the consistent error message when I try to copy items from the TM, which is resolved on a new attempt, but still...

- Still no useful Help
While the Help function is indeed useless, asking your question on the SDL forum provides almost immediate responses, well beyond your support subscriptions. In fact, this is where the Trados forum has moved. Forum users, - some with considerable knowledge, are encouraged to answer queries, and this is why there are very few technical issues discussed here. It pays to ask Google, too. All the problems have already been discussed.

- None of the pet peeves reported for versions taken into consideration/fixed
Actually, they did. My pet peeve with 2017 is the automatic insertion as a confirmed segment of ALL the capitalized one-word items, considered as placeables and automatic propagation to ALL such items, irrespective on whether they had been confirmed or not. This was insane.

- Often, in order to use it al all, all new functions have to be disabled
I don't know what you mean here.

I find the 2019 version to be the first "smart" version in Trados history, possibly due to the fragment technology integrated into Trados.

I still find Trados visually challenging as two-column layout separated by a middle column that can be neither adjusted nor hidden.

In conclusion, if you are experiencing the above issues, it is probably because your system is not functioning properly and you should consider reinstalling.

You are entitled to free SDL support for installation issues, until it works properly, which is probably the case.


HTH,
Sandra



[Edited at 2019-06-01 11:29 GMT]


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 18:27
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Only upgrade if you want new feature Jun 1, 2019

Tomasz Poplawski wrote:
All promises of the "Upgrade to Studio 2019" ads were false.


I don't know what exactly those advert promised, but they were likely to say things like "simpler", "better", "faster", etc., which every software developer will say about every new upgrade. You should not upgrade because you believe it will be "faster". It won't be faster, and the developer is not being dishonest by saying that it will be. That's commerce for you.

What you should do when deciding whether to upgrade, is evaluate which of the new features you are willing to pay the upgrade price for. The new features in Trados 2019 (compared to Trados 2017) are listed here:

https://www.sdltrados.com/landing/lsp/translation-agency-reasons-to-upgrade.html
* A different process of starting to use Trados (for new users)
* A different help system (branded "Tell Me")
* Fewer "Next" buttons in the project wizard
* "Easy and quick mid-project updates" (not sure what that means)
* Extra QA checks
* A different way of doing TM maintenance

Were any of these features worth the €225 upgrade fee?

Sandra& Kenneth wrote:
Tomasz Poplawski wrote:
Often, in order to use it al all, all new functions have to be disabled

I don't know what you mean here.


I, too, would like to know what you're referring to. I did not know that one could disable any features in Trados.

Sandra& Kenneth wrote:
The 2019 version is light-years ahead of 2017...


I'm not a power-user of Trados 2019, but I see little difference between Trados 2017 and Trados 2019.

The only thing I've noticed is that the tabs docked into the right side of the window tend to open "by themselves" a lot (they don't really open by themselves, but they open when my mouse accidentally hovers over them for 1 microsecond, so then I have to move my mouse away gain, and wait about 3 seconds for the tab to close again, and this happens a lot because they are placed right next to the scroll bar, which I often use). You can disable to tabs entirely (but then it's very difficult to get them back again, if you need to use them).


[Edited at 2019-06-01 08:42 GMT]


 
Sandra & Kenneth Grossman
Sandra & Kenneth Grossman  Identity Verified
Israel
Local time: 19:27
French to English
+ ...
Jun 1, 2019



[Edited at 2019-06-01 11:40 GMT]


 
Sandra & Kenneth Grossman
Sandra & Kenneth Grossman  Identity Verified
Israel
Local time: 19:27
French to English
+ ...
Opening tabs Jun 1, 2019

Hi Samuel,
I could not reproduce your issue, which means that I must have disabled them and never noticed. Which tabs are those?
You should report this. Perhaps you can move the respective screens someplace else or hide them somehow.


HTH,
Sandra



[Edited at 2019-06-01 11:40 GMT]


 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 20:27
English to Russian
Notifications, etc. Jun 1, 2019

Sandra& Kenneth wrote:
Which tabs are those?


Notifications, Preview, AdvancedDisplay Filter, User Tips pop up when you hover over them. You can only choose between either having them in place but popping up when you don't need them, or not having them at all.
I can't understand why not design them to open by clicking, not hovering.
Miserable users moaned about this annoying behavior ages ago, but who cares...

[Edited at 2019-06-01 13:23 GMT]


 
Heinrich Pesch
Heinrich Pesch  Identity Verified
Finland
Local time: 19:27
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
+ ...
Good to know Jun 2, 2019

They have to wait still before they see my money on their account at SDL. I hope the get the thing in order before they announce any new version, maybe 2021. Reminds me of the song In the Year 2525...

 
Jakov Milicevic
Jakov Milicevic  Identity Verified
Croatia
Local time: 18:27
Member (2010)
Croatian to Italian
+ ...
Not worth of any penny Jun 2, 2019

I used to process all of my jobs with Trados Studio but the only version which was pretty stable and reliable was SDL Trados Studio 2011. The version 2015 was still fine but full of bugs which were reproducing errors and giving me massive headaches when making return packages or final files. After this I decided to abandon Trados as it takes me more to solve technical issue than to focus on translation. I use now MemoQ (version 2015 since also newer versions of MemoQ became full of bugs as Trado... See more
I used to process all of my jobs with Trados Studio but the only version which was pretty stable and reliable was SDL Trados Studio 2011. The version 2015 was still fine but full of bugs which were reproducing errors and giving me massive headaches when making return packages or final files. After this I decided to abandon Trados as it takes me more to solve technical issue than to focus on translation. I use now MemoQ (version 2015 since also newer versions of MemoQ became full of bugs as Trados) and Memsource. Trados was a good program before SDL bought Trados - they are placing on market now new versions of tool which are useless and full of bugs and also as LSP offer rates which are shameful (I was contacted by their resource managers few times which offered me so low rates that I told to them to delete all of my data from their database).Collapse


Darius Sciuka
 
Stepan Konev
Stepan Konev  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 20:27
English to Russian
Attitude Jun 7, 2019

I remeber this idea with -3 votes was marked as 'Delivered' next day once posted. By the way, speaking of fraud... Can anybody tell me how this new feature feels now? Do you enjoy it? It has been delivered, hasn't it?

Since same time (1 Aug 2017), another idea with +68 votes still under review. Perfect.

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Studio 2019 broken promises - is this consumer fraud?







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