Call History Update

Now I'm unable to sign in at all.

Hi Curt. I apologize that the system is down right now. Please try again later. Thanks, Lisa, Cox Support Forums Moderator

FYI, I get that same error when signing into this forum sometimes. Happened to me a couple of days ago. Went away with me not doing anything. Just FYI if relevant.

Thanks, but this was something different.  LisaH posted the system was down.  It was unavailable for several hours.  Cox made changes last night that temporarily affected call records I could see on the website.

Mine isn't either now, except for missed calls in the Missed tab.  There were a few issues, but the All tab was displaying call records early last night.  They disappeared while I was posting.  Then the system went down for several hours.  When it came back, call records in All were still missing.  They went backward.

I emailed Cox about it and received this cryptic piece of dialogue:

Thank you for providing that update. I do apologize it seemed as a coincidence. We are currently still working on the call history and features issue. I assume your diligence in verifying, aligned with the continued back office work. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

Does that mean working on it in general or working on it right now, at this moment? What does "I do apologize it seemed as a coincidence.  I assume your diligence in verifying, aligned with the continued back office work" even mean?  Whoever L.L. is, they even misspelled my name.

That is a cryptic message. It really seems like it was written by someone or something that doesn't fully understand English. I see similarities to posts moderators have made on the forum. I don't know if it's Cox using AI as part of their tool set or the people posting are using some kind of translate app. It looks like something you would see in a spam email. I know moderators are saying it's "human error" but I don't think so. How would someone make those kind of mistakes and why would there be a pattern of multiple people posting that way?

PS. Anyone notice that DSLReports.com is down? Is it for good now? I hear rumors of the site being shut down and now this. ::Edit:: Looks like the site is down for good as per Reddit. RIP DSLR!

A translation app sounds likely. 

Q. How do you misspell a four-letter name when it's on the screen right in front of you?  

A. A translation app spelled my name phonetically, not read from a screen.   L.L. is not in USA.

Is a media center employee in India, or wherever, likely to know what's being done or not done to fix Call History?  I doubt it.  Cox didn't even bother to outsource a response to my last email. 

I am hoping that the outsourced staff just handles some of the email queue and aren't any of the moderators here. However that would explain how some of the moderators here speak and only ask users to email them. It is possible that the in-house moderators don't even know that other moderators are outsourced. I think most/all WFM, so how would they know? There are several posts on Reddit from outsourced Cox employees from South America and other locations. One thing that disturbed me is the admission that they make only 3 dollars a hour! Not only is that a exploit of the country/people being employed, but the obvious reason why they are outsourcing, to save money. Moderators should be concerned by this because it is a open threat to their job security. Not only is the risk of technical support jobs going overseas real, but so is the risk of it being taken over by AI. So it is bad for Cox employees and customers.

CurtB, I checked on the Phone Tools escalation and it was mentioned that this should be fixed. No new cases have come up and it is still being monitored. If you're still experiencing issues please let us know so we can advise the team handling this. 

I agree with everything you said. However, it's funny that you mention " What other company could disable a customer facing application for over a month while an update is being deployed" because that is very similar to what is happening with Sonos. Cox has a history of not testing their products enough. Part of that is because they license product and systems from other companies. I think this is to avoid having to pay for things like QC and R&D. You get what you pay for though.

Are you serious about being silenced? I hope not. Don't forget Hanlon's razor. This forum has a lot of bugs so I would think the issue is related to that then someone causing the issue on purpose. I do worry about a insider here though, who may not have our best intentions at heart.

So, the Phone Tools escalation "mentioned" that it should be fixed?  That's some escalation process you have there.  YES!  It should be fixed NOW!  It's way past time for it to just be monitored.  Cox should find a competent coder who actually can FIX it.  The "Senior Software Engineer" currently assigned to the project isn't getting it done.

Were the 10 emails I sent in the past week not enough for Cox to understand that Call History doesn't work for me?  The last reply received from Cox Social Media Support yesterday was:

"Curt we will forward your feedback to our leadership team with hopes this will improve the customer experience in the near future."

Yeah, right.  Have 'em send me an email while you're at it (spelled my name right, at least... this time).

Sonos (SONO) is public.  Cox gets away with poor service because they're a private company.  

No, I haven't been silenced... yet.  If I decide to leave the forums, I'll let you know before I go.  So, if you don't hear from me for an extended period, it will be because Cox hit my eject button.

Do you think the situation would be better if they weren't private? Wouldn't they just be another Comcast then? I think the reason they get away with so much is because in many areas they hold a monopoly. The tide is turning though. More and more fiber providers are pulling customers away from HFC ISP's like Cox. ISP like Starlink and T-Mobile Home Internet are making a impact too however I don't think those are true competitors performance wise.

I doubt the phone tools website was created in house. They don't have a department for that as far as I know. So that means it was outsourced. If so, the communication between Cox and that company is going to be complicated. It probably has to go through a lot of red tape to even create a ticket and they probably do that thing where they say they fix the problem and close the ticket. But then the problem never actually gets fixed.

The Call History website gathers call records and forwards them to an outsourced database every 15 minutes.  If that database wasn't outsourced, there wouldn't be a need for a delay.  Why would they outsource the front-end and the back-end with different providers?  It wouldn't make sense.  That wouldn't necessarily stop Cox from doing it though.  I'm not impressed with whatever Cox is calling their "back-office" IT department.  Every non-sales website seems to have something wrong with it.

I received a reply a while back (when Cox still replied to my emails) that said a "Senior Software Engineer" had been assigned.  To me, that means coder, albeit not a good one apparently. 

Well at least your question was properly escalated. I tried asking what dictates differences in upload speed. "I don't know" is always a acceptable answer, but it should be followed up with "I will find out". Instead I got the same gas lighting Cox gives it's customers. On top of that, I have someone suggesting that they know my real name or know me IRL in some way, which is creepy as heck, specially since I wonder if they are a suit that works for Cox and may be involved in some of the random loss of people's previous posts. 

WAS my issue properly escalated?  Cox says it's being worked on, but I'm not seeing any evidence to support that.  Cox's assurances don't provide me the same level of confidence they once did.  But they don't reply to emails any more anyway. They've said someone has been assigned to the issue.  Do they just call somebody in from the IT bullpen to fix whatever is broken this time?  Even if that person was actually trying to fix it, they probably aren't familiar with the program code.  Call History was temporarily working (with a few issues) a week ago, but that person apparently broke it again. 

Current and former Cox employees could have found out your real name from information provided when you registered for this forum years ago or possibly from email you've sent them.  There's probably legal recourse you could take if one of them divulges your name.  It is creepy if someone else may know you.  It's possible someone identified you from information you've provided.  That's why I'm hesitant to post about my previous work lives.

CurtB 

Thanks for the update. I see you emailed us your findings too and Raquel let you know that the ticket is still in process and we are updating them as the information comes in. 

Yes, I checked mine at 3:15 PM PST and it is working.  The only calls from 12/21-12/30/2024 are test calls I made and any outgoing calls - - only numbers that are in my Cox Addresses in voice tools. 

I previously reported that robocalls stopped a few days after Call History failed in the afternoon of 12/12/2024.    Well, the call history shows a few on 12/18-12/19/2024 but they were blocked by Cox and I wouldn't have heard the phone ring or have them appear on the TV.  Ironically, one of them was from Cox:  "Spam?Cox Communicati'   (316) 262-0661."  That same number called this morning but all I saw on the Caller ID was the phone number.  It is on the Call History and wasn't blocked this time.  The number isn't in my Cox Addresses.  There were no other robocalls from 12/20/2024 until 1/6/2025. 

I downloaded the last 90 days and everything is there.

I tried to post this as a reply to your last comment on my original report of this problem but it did not appear after a long wait and seemed to freeze the Forum for me.  My Cox account had timed out when I went back to it which may have been the cause. 

Hi, there. I'm really sorry for the ongoing issue here. I must apologize, this issue is still pending resolution despite any information to the contrary. I do sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience with us while we work to get this repaired for you. 

ChrisJ2  If "this issue is still pending resolution despite any information to the contrary" was in reference to my post, I'd like to point out that I said:

CurtB wrote:

Call History is mostly working, but there are still a few remaining issues.

MasterMyDomain and I were giving Cox credit for fixes that have been made to the Call History outage but there definitely are still unresolved issues.

CurtB wrote:

A call record to voice mail should only be created when the call recipient checks for existing voice mail and isn't needed even then.

For some reason, outgoing call records to (256) 724-7534 are being logged in Call History every time an unanswered, incoming call is sent to voice mail.  But ironically, when I actually did call that number a couple of times, I got to voice mail the same as using *298, but neither call was logged in Call History.  Accessing voice mail using *298 isn't logged either.  Calling my own number from the same phone also accesses voice mail, the same as *298, but it also creates an outgoing call record to (256) 724-7534.

Hi, CurtB. Thank you for your update. I must apologize, this issue is still ongoing and although it is being worked on, I do not yet have an estimated time of repair. Thank you so much for your continued patience. 

It's been nearly two months.  How hard is it to STOP creating a call record for one known phone number?  Spaghetti-code it if you have to.  Just stop doing it. 

I cannot speak to the difficulty, but I am glad to share what I know. I can see that this is still a pending issue and I do appreciate your patience with us while we work on this. 

Hello. I apologize that  you've been left feeling this way. This is an issue that is still actively being addressed. I'm sorry we don't have any updates about it, but please know our engineers are working as quickly as they can to correct this so you can use the feature as intended. We appreciate your patience and continued attention to it as well. 

I am curious, you seem to put a lot of effort troubleshooting Cox's telephone system. Why? What makes it worth it? I can't even remember the last time I actually called a friend or family member, never mind from a land line. Is it the principle of the matter? What keeps you from using something else like google voice or Ooma?

Extra, inaccurate call records are clutter.  I want Cox to fix Call History because I use it.  That's my choice.  It's not just for calls to a friend or family member.  I care more about incoming calls.  But I could ask you a similar question.  You seem to put a lot of effort into troubleshooting other people's stuff that you don't even use.  Why?  What makes it worth it to you?   That was rhetorical.

Seems like your mouth is too wide

Says the troll who just started posting here. Why you even here? You're not asking questions and you're not helping people. Go away

Rhetorical or not, you asked a question so I will answer. I help people here because I like solving problems and Cox service is what I know because of my background. I wasn't saying it was wrong/odd to troubleshoot something, I was saying it was odd to keep using something that is obviously broken, and it is pretty clear Cox is gas lighting you about ever fixing it at all. Like if I had Cox and their EOD system was broken and not being fixed after months, I would stop using EOD or switch TV providers all together. I am about the path of least resistance. Last, I wasn't even against your post in general. I was just asking for your reasoning since I didn't understand it.

I apologize that you haven't yet received a reply to the email. We are monitoring your ticket, CurtB, and have included the error you've shared. I apologize for the delay as well. Thank you for sharing these errors as we await an update and will follow-up with you once we get anything.
 

Hello. I can certainly understand your concern with password security and at no time will we request you to provide us with your password. We simply reset the password to a temporary one that we use while working to resolve the issue. Once the work is done, you can change the temporary one to whatever password you desire. 

If the engineer is a Cox employee, shouldn't they have Cox telephone? If so, why don't they just use their own account? This is a system wide issue, right? My guess is it isn't an engineer but some form of triage support that is working the ticket. I am surprised Cox doesn't have the ability to sign in as someone's account without a username/password. I know you could with Cox Business support.

I'm not okay with that.  Are you not going to fix my account unless I say okay to you hijacking it?  Do you need to reset the password for every customer account that was affected?  Why don't you use test accounts in a test environment like other companies do?  Any half-way decent data base administrator could create a test database with test accounts and test data, 

Cox is still pushing their little shakedown.  Unless I agree to allow Cox or some third-party to have open-ended access "as me" to all of my Cox information, they won't fix remaining issues with Call History.  I may never have a kind thing to say about Cox again.