Logos, Please do Something
I am a die hard Logos fan and user; it is the best Bible software that is available anywhere. It's power is unmatched among other softwares. I believe in Logos and the people that make it. However, I did want to share an observation with anyone interested in listening. I have been a frequent reader and contributor to the forum, and what I would like Logos to consider is this: If I were NOT a Logos customer and Logos die hard, after reading of the problems that so any people are having with the software, I would NOT be a Logos customer. Praise God, by His grace (and only His grace) I do NOT experience the major problems that other Logos users experience. But if I were NOT already a user and believed in this product, I would not be a user. I have read the forums of other software over the years and these kind of problems do not seem to be reported. Take, for example, the new updates to the Learn Hebrew and Greek with Logos, I went to order the updated DVD and found out that there were corrupted files on the DVD. What is Logos doing to fix this?
As I said, By God's grace, I have not experienced the problems of others, but I am afraid that there is so much negative in the forums. Not from the users, they SHOULD report problems; but I think that it is a danger that SO MANY problems are reported. I realixe that software is apt for problems, but I just Praise God that I do not have the problems I read about here.
Pastor Michael Huffman, Th.A Th.B Th.M
Comments
Logos is fortunate that its user base is one of the best possible, i mean - could you ask for a better demographic than bible students and pastors? Perhaps this is why Logos gets away with things other companies can not. Like:
Performance. I agree with the issues here. I am a developer, so I use a lot of software, and see software launches all the time. I launch my own. Logos has a lot of problems, very much on the high side. Period. Actually, so many problems that it appears to be a Beta and not a full release. Personally, I haven't been fortunate. It has given me a ton of issues, including running my processors at 100% for 2 days (even though Logos was closed), which fried my macbook pro - which btw logos has been nice enough to not contact me back about. It is also very, very slow. Slower than it has to be. I have a 3.0g Quad Core processor, SSD, and 12gb of ram. Logos is by far thew slowest thing on my computer, and it is slow on my computer. Which is crazy considering my hardware - it has to be the programming. I would overlook these issues, if it were not for the fact that I believe these issues have arisen because Logos was coding (actually its complete business model now) to prevent
theft of its products, and not for performance.
Price. Yes their software is free, but their books aren't. I saw a book on Logos today that cost 80.00. The ebook through Google Books cost 30. Paperback cost 14. Logos is charging outrageous prices for books to be used with their reader. As a comparison, view adobe creative suite master collection, comprised of 10 or so top of the line, major applications (with none of the bugs). Compare Apple's logic studio. Compare any major application. These are major program suites, which working cost less than Logos' one program - i say working, because without books, logos does not do anything. Cost comparisons show Logos is way over the line with their pricing.
I have it worse than some, but I am not happy with my purchase without the bugs and lack of support. I am not happy with what appears to have been a decent company taken over by marketers. It seems they have gotten greedy. I am not happy with the pricing, or performance. I wish, honestly, I could get a refund and use my 1200.00(!!!) to go in another direction - oh and i want my macbook pro back.
I have it worse than some, but I am not happy with my purchase without the bugs and lack of support. I am not happy with what appears to have been a decent company taken over by marketers. It seems they have gotten greedy. I am not happy with the pricing, or performance. I wish, honestly, I could get a refund and use my 1200.00(!!!) to go in another direction - oh and i want my macbook pro back.
There's three issues you raise here:
Performance/stability: I'm not a Mac user, so can't comment on the stability or otherwise of the app on the Mac. Nor can I comment on your specific with your processor, as I don't think it's one that you've tried to diagnose here in the forum. (Though I'm sure you're aware that software can't break hardware, unless there's an underlying hardware issue.) I think it's fair to say that generally the developers have not been concentrating on performance, so there is room for improvement here.
Cost: Some individual Logos resources are overpriced. A very small percentage are very overpriced. Obviously then, I don't buy those resources. But there are multiple reasons for Logos resources tending to be more expensive than other versions. But this is often mitigated through academic discounts, frequent sales, the prepub scheme, etc. I'm sure that for every example you could give of a paper-book being significantly cheaper, I could give an example of a Logos book being significantly cheaper. Moreover, it's often the most useful Logos books that are cheapest.
Refund: I don't think better Bible study software than Logos exists, but if you want a refund, I'm sure you could get one if you call CS.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
I agree my computer is being forced to index for 45 hours! This is insane. it seems my Logos has downloads every time a start it. I am not satisfied at all. I am not to ga ga over Logos to tell the truth this is not as good as everyone keeps claiming on this forum.
I agree my computer is being forced to index for 45 hours! This is insane. it seems my Logos has downloads every time a start it. I am not satisfied at all. I am not to ga ga over Logos to tell the truth this is not as good as everyone keeps claiming on this forum.
Ingemar, if you can describe your problem in a bit more detail in a new thread (see "How to ask for help" below), we'll see if we can help.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
Mark,
Over the last few days I have been required to download large updates. Tonight it stated that it would take 46 hours . However, it completed and indexed in about 4 or so hours. I am running a 2 GB RAM, Anthlon X 2. I had some problems before but have had a lot of problems recently problems with excessive updates and indexing. I have the scholars silver. Any advice is appreciated. Thank you and God bless you.
While you can see a big quantity of error reports as negative issue, I think is the ratio between errors and solutions what counts.
I've had some troubles with L4 and, for the time being, always had received a response.
I'm an IT professional and I think the opposite situation is really worse: I recently bought a development software: the forums get 5 or 6 messages a day (so I thought : "oops... so few programmers are using this tool?") and many, many messages has 0 responses ("oops again: tech support is weak and slow?").
I'm not 100% happy with L4. But Logos commitment is really valuable to me. As long as they respond, the activity in the forums seems to me that the product is alive and evolving...
Just my two cents...
Maybe I am totally missing the boat here, but I've been using this software (Scholar's Library LE) for about six months and find it to be completely amazing. I've used it for sermon prep, seminary research, etc. and do not see the magnitude of problems others seem to be having. Other than a few minor and sporadic glitches (mistaken link, spelling error), my software is performing quite well and I find the product more than acceptable.
As for pricing, I cannot speak of all the resources, but I've added several books onto my package that were equivalent in price to Amazon and the Seminary book store price. The bonus of putting them on here is that I can now easily incorporate them into my study and it makes writing papers a breeze.
I hate to be too blunt, but it seems to me that many of the complaints on here sound a bit over the top. I guess I just happened to get one of the good copies of software.
Peace to you, John! And Joy in the Lord! *smile*Maybe I am totally missing the boat here, but I've been using this software (Scholar's Library LE) for about six months and find it to be completely amazing. I've used it for sermon prep, seminary research, etc. and do not see the magnitude of problems others seem to be having. Other than a few minor and sporadic glitches (mistaken link, spelling error), my software is performing quite well and I find the product more than acceptable.
As for pricing, I cannot speak of all the resources, but I've added several books onto my package that were equivalent in price to Amazon and the Seminary book store price. The bonus of putting them on here is that I can now easily incorporate them into my study and it makes writing papers a breeze.
I hate to be too blunt, but it seems to me that many of the complaints on here sound a bit over the top. I guess I just happened to get one of the good copies of software.
I concur with your every word. Completely amazing! Indeed!
Along with you, I honestly do not understand some of the terrible negativity that I've seen on these Forums. Logos 3 was great! Logos 4 is more than magnifent!
Some posters even seem angry at Logos, and I've never been able to figure out why.
Philippians 4: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand..........
Along with you, I honestly do not understand some of the terrible negativity that I've seen on these Forums. Logos 3 was great! Logos 4 is more than magnifent!
Some posters even seem angry at Logos, and I've never been able to figure out why.
It really shouldn't be too difficult to figure out. The old story is that after church everyone has roast Dominie for dinner. It seems to be a church tradition, and Logos tends to be used by church people.
george
gfsomsel
יְמֵי־שְׁנוֹתֵינוּ בָהֶם שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וְאִם בִּגְבוּרֹת שְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְרָהְבָּם עָמָל וָאָוֶן
This issue is DEFINITELY split on the forums. In other words there are valid and emotional arguments on both sides. It is not an issue that will simply go away. In my case, it took me quite a while to regret investing so much money in Logos. In other words, I can't get my money back. I'm in a place where I have no choice but to learn to live with the countless bugs and slowness of the program. There is no other alternative, unless I want to lose most of what I've invested.............which is a lot of money.
This issue is DEFINITELY split on the forums.
Part of the reason it splits the forum, is the relative lack of content - beginning with the title "Logos, Please do Something" ... well they are doing something just not the something wanted by the person writing the title. If Logos staff took a day off for twiddling thumbs they would meet the request of the title.
The slowness of the program is also too vague to be corrected. Where one experiences the slowness and on what platform are minimum requirements for Logos to correct the slowness ... we know from the forums that some people still have unacceptable performance levels - most do not. Logos cannot text every possible combination of hardware, operating system, concurrent processes, etc. They are dependent upon us to say that note files of such and such a size or multiple linked sets of ... cause performance problems. Can you speed this or that up? Or when we can't determine why we experience slowness, call Customer service and let them see what you are seeing.
Countless bugs? I really doubt this is other than hyperbole. Yes, there are more bugs than I would like - then I do have a perfectionist side to me. But the repair of the bugs have to be prioritized by their effect on the user. We are the only ones who can tell Logos which ones they need to get on - pronto. From the bug repair lists in the last few releases we can see that Logos is making significant progress on the errors that most effect users.
Make a list of your top ten irritants / bugs/ performance issues / missing features and post it or email Logos. There is significant evidence that if we hold up our side or the correction / enhancement project, they will too.
Lest you think that I'm a starry-eyed Logos fan, remember I am one who needs a better implementation of lectionaries, prayer lists and notes before I can really use Logos for my primary purposes; I also have a strong need to be able to build (and share) user content - parallels, lectionaries, timelines, PBB's just to get back the functions I did on Logos 3.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
Thank you Mr Murray, and Peace to you!
do not see the magnitude of problems others seem to be having.
One reason there appears to be a lot of complaints with the Logos software is the forum's inclusion of beta tester's comments and bug reports. It had been suggested by several to separate the general forum posts from the beta program. Logos has chosen to keep them all together on one forum and to keep them public and transparent. I won't second guess their decision in this matter.
A second reason for the volume of complaints is the repetition of the same single issue by many different posters as well as the repetition of the same complaint (over & over) by one individual poster. Some topics of complaint are not "bugs" at all. They are more akin to fashion disagreements. Some do not like the Homepage of Logos 4, some do not like it syncing with the servers, some do not want alternative denominational materials included in their base package. The running "bug" tally does not include the fashion wars, of course. [8-)]
Yes John, it sounds like you got a good copy of Logos. I got the other good copy. The other 754, 982 Logos users must be jealous.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
Excellent Matthew C Jones!
Yes I agree I purchase Logos 4 plat back last Jan dumped a lot of money into logos on a six month time frame. At first the software was unusable I do mean unusable which points to it not being ready for prime-time today I enjoy the software and it has become my main program for bible study. I know the thought it isn't a buggy as other software (but in fact in many ways it was worse) you couldn't use it out of the box the application hung took too long to toggle through the bible etc. Of course now it is fine and meets my expectation but the first couple of months were hell to say the least. It is ok to have bugs we expect this but in a truth at first Logos 4 was little better than a beta. For the future I think it would be a wise decision not to launch a future application so fast or at the least wait until the core functionality is working without flaws tha being said I am writing mainly from a quality control opinion Logos 4 is worth the money and an essentail tool I feel for bible study as well as a study into the ancient world in general.
Michael...
I don't represent Logos...I'm a user just like you...so take my comments with that in mind.
Logos has no more issues than any other software that I've come across...they're just more open about it...that's all.
That could be seen as a negative or positive. They could have held this code for a year while they tinkered with it...and we would not have had any input into the final product, but they took the "concurrent engineering" type of approach and I believe that the software is better for it.
I can see your point, and I guess they are willing to take that risk because of the payoff.
Just my thoughts.
Robert Pavich
For help go to the Wiki: http://wiki.logos.com/Table_of_Contents__
Thanks Robert,
Guess I am having an off day. As I said I am thankful for Logos and I am very thankful that I do not experience the problems that many report. It just seems that the more updates they have they keep having the same problems. I think they need to concentrate on getting the repeated problems fixed, I keep seeing the reoccuring problems with each update. My only worry is that this would hinder future users of the Best Software available. But as I said, I am very thankful that I do not see the same problems.
Pastor Michael Huffman, Th.A Th.B Th.M
Let me say that I say these things with concern as a Logos Ambassador.
Pastor Michael Huffman, Th.A Th.B Th.M
I agree with your concern on any given day it is amazing how many errors are reported on the site. I also disagree with the comment that other software companies have as many issues as Logos has this last year!
For one thing this software has been going through major reworking this last year, most other programs do not do it this way. For another point there is no other software that does anywhere near as many things as Logos does, as a result of that, it would be normal for Logos users to have a few more problems.
However, if we look back to the last year of libronix 3, a person will notice the software didn't have any more problems then other software companies.
Hopefully in the next 6 months things will settle down here and there will not be so many problems either daily or weekly. If not Logos will have problems in keeping us believing in them.
I have had a number of bad experiences with Logos software this last year, but before there was seldom ever a problem, I still remember those days and hope to see them back soon!
In Christ,
Jim
I sure do miss the speed (other than searching) of the old L3 program! L4 is VERY sluggish in every other way. I do believe it is the best however.
It is ironic you mention that, I had a very good friend who use to work at Logos when the development for Logos 4 was going on; and what he told me was that Logos 4 was going to be designed to be very fast. Well, it performs very, very well on my laptop. Although, others have speed issues. It is not as fast at 3, but I realize that it is doing and can do a whole lot more.
Pastor Michael Huffman, Th.A Th.B Th.M
I realize it performs slower/faster on different systems. Nevertheless, I have 3 GB Ram, 2.2 GHz processing speed Intel Pentium Dual Core. 320 GB hard drive. It drags for the most part except for searching.
I've had some problems, but CS or others on the forums have always got back to me very quickly and answered my questions or enabled me to solve the problems. The programme sometimes takes a few seconds to do things, but I don't rush into Bible study at 100 mph! And it's much quicker to wait for Logos than to get out an armful of commentaries and leaf through them!
I use a lot of software, and I don't there there are any more problems reported on this forum than on others, when you remember that:
At random, I've gone to another forum for software that I use (called Clear Context). In the first page of posts listed were these:
Now this is a piece of software that I use every day, and rarely have problems with. But many people report problems on the forum - just like Logos. In fact, the percentage of posts describing problems is probably higher there than it is here. I expect that's probably the same for pretty much any complex software that has an active company-supported forum. Fully 29% of posts in the Accordance forum are in the Bugs or Technical Support forums.
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
Forums by nature tend to hold problems and solutions. As a result more posts will house issues than they will random forum speak.
However, since we don't have an official forum for random forum speak - we (I) tend to inject it into regular threads.
On Topic: Forums tend to be a place for worse case scenarios. It's been that way in every forum I've ever participated in; and that is many.
So let me ask this, do you guys notice a difference in the number of problems between the last year, in Libronix 3 and this year in Logos 4? From the sound of your comments it is like you do not see a difference. I do and I think once things are figured out better, things will get better again. I think Michael has a valid concern and if I didn't have some time with Logos before this release, I would be very concerned.
I also want to comment from the point of view of someone that has spent a lot of time teaching believers how to use other bible software programs to, the number of problems in Logos this year has been much higher than other programs, but in the years before that Logos fit in well with everybody else.
To go along with this observation, not having some key features has made it harder to point others to Logos too, but I think most of these issues will be fixed in the next 6 months and I have seen improvement in the program over the last six months, things are headed in the right direction, but there has been serious problems. And Logos has said so to me and I believe they said so on these message boards. That is part of the reason I believe they will keep on improving!
I know from my time as a pro coach that I see things differently than most, but at least in coaching you have to know what is being done wrong in order to improve. Making errors is a way of life, admitting those errors and working to fix them determines how well you will live that life.
I think one of the problems on this forum is that some people do not want to admit problems concerning Logos, and they take any mention of a Logos problem as being harmful to Logos, but I think that is wrong.
In Christ,
Jim VanSchoonhoven
Logos slow? Yes. Logos buggy? Yes.
It's unfortunate that I often resort to the competition when I am discussing our Lord's word with fellow believers because of its sporadic but exaggerated sluggishness. Although, when speed and stability are not issues, such as when I am in the program alone, I recognize for all the shortcomings of the back-end of logos
that it really is the premiere bible software in the industry. The front-end that we users get to see just shows that it is far above the competition.
They just need to totally clean up there mess with the back-end, and it is a mess. As long as they deliver with the improvements in performance and stability, I am quite willing to stick it out to see these improvements.
At this point it's Logos' decision in their direction. Deliver or fade away.
I guess I am not experiencing either of these issues. Though it does take L4 longer to load than L3, once it is up and running I find it runs very fast on my home and office desktops. Neither system is a high end system. However I did experience a considerable boost in performance when I doubled my memory from 2 gig to 4 gig and added discrete graphics vs integrated graphics.
As far as being buggy, I suppose the fact that I am not a Logos 4 "power user" may account for me not having that trouble. I don't do anything beyond basic study and sermon prep and tend to keep the same layout for both purposes. But I would like to propose one possible cause for many of the problems that some experience. As a part time computer tech it truly amazes me how often I work on systems for people who have so many processes and services running in the background that choke their systems ability to even perform standard functions such as checking email and browsing the internet. In addition many of the addons that cludge up their systems are usually not necessary. I recently worked on one system that had four different IE 8 toolbars installed. The same system had 168 malware infections so granted, it was an unusual case. But there are many systems that come with a lot of bloatware preinstalled not to mention the automatic update features of said bloatware and system. Even some of the darlings of the industry such as Norton and Macafee tend to include much more than is required to protect systems. Personally I use a top rated free security program that doesn't bog down my system and hog resources. (FYI - I have never had a virus using that program).
Before blaming Logos for releasing a substandard product, take the time to educate yourselves as to what is running in the background as far as services and processes. Then go the next step and find out what truly is necessary and what you can live without. Granted the users here tend to be more tech savvy from what I have seen. But I would suspect there are many who come here with complaints about L4 that could solve most of their issues just by cleaning up their systems and running only those processes that are absolutely necessary for the proper functioning and security of their systems. It is a lot less than the the software and hardware companies would have you believe.
That's my two cents worth for the day.
More like two dollars, O generous one.
My laptop has reached the point of 745mb left on the hard drive. Now while I could blame Firefox for creating a slow-poke browser (NOT!) I think I will offload a few dozen gigabytes of PDFs, and digi-cam folders.
Logos 7 Collectors Edition
I want to add my vote to the "satisfied user." I use Logos 4 in Windows and Mac (home and office, respectively) [and wish I could in Linux, though biblia.com is a great alternative]. I had experienced a great deal of trouble lately with my Mac version. It was incredibly slow and used memory like crazy (a full 1.5 GB after a couple of hours of usage)---not normal.
So I deleted my Logos folder in my Library folder and downloaded all of my data again. Granted, it took a whole day (only 9 hours, really) to do all of the updating and indexing. Not bad at all, considering how many book I have in there.
I don't mind updates... I keep reminding myself that they make my system more stable and add new features. The more the better, I say! Yes, it takes patience; the indexing process tends to hijack my computer.... but, when I do a search, a passage guide, or an exegesis of a long text (as I often do), I'm grateful for having to be patient with the whole indexing process.
Is Logos 4 perfect? No. I've never read or heard anybody making such a claim. Is it better than other software? Yes and no. It all depends. I've tried the other Bible software alternatives; although I liked them and grew to respect them greatly, I still prefer Logos. It's a wonderful piece of engineering.
Finally, the fact that the Mac developers have so ever nearly reached parity with the Windows version (I do run the beta channel) is absolutely praiseworthy (big hooray! for the Mac developers). Yes, it's expensive; but, when I show to my friends and co-workers what the software can do, and I see their reactions (and I remember my own reactions when I started using the software), I think every penny's been well spent.
Finally, a big thank you to all the advanced users in the forum who so generously help others with issues. They don't have to do it; so here are my thanks to each of you.
My two cents!
Benjamin
Understood brother....no prob....
Robert Pavich
For help go to the Wiki: http://wiki.logos.com/Table_of_Contents__