Ocean Medallion App - Part 3

[nzOdy]

As a past leader of software engineers, here's what I would lay money on having happened.

In software you can wrap 'features' in either a feature flag or experiment condition that essentially turns the feature on or off. At some point they added this screen-reader accessibility mode, which is great. But in this release they either removed the flags/experiment, turned the flags/experiment to a default on state or didn't push the right flag/experiment settings to their production environment.

 

They likely tested in staging or a QA environment where said flags and/or experiments were set correctly and therefore never even saw this broken state.

 

HOWEVER - a good software development team will always sanity check their work in production immediately following a release - that has clearly not happened in this case.

 

I just saw this popped to the top of pg 238, so for anyone jumping straight to the end, this is in relation to VERSION 3.0.108702 of the Android Medallion app being stuck in screen-reader mode, which disables swipe actions and requires double tapping for 'click' input. Making the app unusable for normal users.

Edited November 4, 2023 by nzOdy
adding context

[Steelers36]

It's the old ID10T error with the Ocean App squad.  The whole bunch of them should have been forced to walk the plank ages ago.  Unbelievable - but believable knowing their past history.

[Kellyansapansa]

6 hours ago, nzOdy said:

Mine is a Samsung S23+.

To the person in Australia saying their app is working, it's entirely possible the AU and US playstores have different versions. It's also possible the app behaves differently based on user locale. I'm in the US, so it appears to be broken for US users at the very minimum!

I'm in Australia and it's totally borked on my Google Pixel phone.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Kellyansapansa

[nzOdy]

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

It's the old ID10T error with the Ocean App squad.  The whole bunch of them should have been forced to walk the plank ages ago.  Unbelievable - but believable knowing their past history.

Hopefully,  if it is a feature flag or experiment setting in production problem,  someone just needs to log into the production configuration server and set the right settings, and boom the app works.

 

If it's genuinely bad software then we are in a much bigger hole.

[nzOdy]

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

It's the old ID10T error with the Ocean App squad.  The whole bunch of them should have been forced to walk the plank ages ago.  Unbelievable - but believable knowing their past history.

Let me guess you worked on L10N or I18N in your past? That's a great hijack of the development shorthand system!! 😉

[leck57]

6 hours ago, nzOdy said:

Mine is a Samsung S23+.

To the person in Australia saying their app is working, it's entirely possible the AU and US playstores have different versions. It's also possible the app behaves differently based on user locale. I'm in the US, so it appears to be broken for US users at the very minimum!

 

I'm the person in Australia. I just updated the App on my Samsung S7+ tablet and it is working fine on that as well so that makes one of us happy I suppose. In fact I haven't noticed any change so I don't know what the update was supposed to do anyway.  (I have two cruises booked and if I open up the second cruise the shore excursions that come up are those for the first cruise, so all isn't perfect. However that was happening before the latest update and is a separate piece of Princess IT incompetence).

[jej122000]

On Sky Princess now,  they know the app update is "full of bugs" and are refunding the 14.99 fee charged for using it. It's a huge inconvenience, how something like this can happen is beyond belief.

[kapsgp]

I have a Samsung S22+ and a Samsung tablet and both are working fine with update. Both devices are running Android 13  My husband has  a Pixel 6  and also working with the new update.  He is running Android 14.

[nzOdy]

OK, the fact that we have people with working Androids, can you please confirm app versions, and people with forced screen reader Androids further makes me think this is a buggered experiment configuration.  (See earlier software themed post).

[kamelia]

I am beyond frustrated with this app and do everything I can to avoid having to use it more than the initial attempt after completing a booking.  I get as far with that as the app will allow me to and then I'm done.  I honestly only accessed it this morning after reading your comments about the issues with the latest Android update because I fully expected to be reporting that the Apple version was similarly completely broken, and admit I was surprised to be able to get as far as seeing my future bookings.  Two of them are still bollixed up however so obviously those weren't bugs fixed in the latest update. 🙄

[kapsgp]

Running version 3.0.108702. As my above post states... all devices working. Odd to say the least.

[leck57]

9 minutes ago, kapsgp said:

Running version 3.0.108702. As my above post states... all devices working. Odd to say the least.

 

I'm same as above, and Android 13.

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, nzOdy said:

Let me guess you worked on L10N or I18N in your past? That's a great hijack of the development shorthand system!! 😉

No, but that error code is old as Methusula or close to it. 

[shutterbug12]

Google Pixel 6 running Android 14, app version 3.0.108702: not working

Samsung Galaxy tablet S7 running Android 13, app version 3.0.108702: working

[nzOdy]

Update, I've been communicating my engineering theories to a CS representative on Twitter/X. Latest reply which just came through:

 

"Thank you for your comments, which we've shared with our IT team, they have confirmed there is an issue and they are working on it. We will follow up with you on Monday with an update. We appreciate your patience. Thank you."

[MissP22]

9 hours ago, nzOdy said:

Mine is a Samsung S23+.

To the person in Australia saying their app is working, it's entirely possible the AU and US playstores have different versions. It's also possible the app behaves differently based on user locale. I'm in the US, so it appears to be broken for US users at the very minimum!

 

9 hours ago, nzOdy said:

Yes, this is an Android app issue, specifically version 3.0.108702, released Nov 1st.

I think I might have a fix for those that have a Galaxy S20-S23 series phones.

I stumbled across a fix for mine this evening. Sorry I can't take a screen shot. For some reason it's not working. 

Anyway, on my home screen I've got a little man standing there at the bottom of my screen with outstretched arms. I never use it for anything.

If you click it, an option will open up to edit shortcuts. A link to Windows was turned on, which was causing all the problems. If you turn it OFF, all my problems with the Medallion app have disappeared and it working normally again.- as normal as it gets. 

Good luck. 

[HiCCCs]

7 hours ago, nzOdy said:

Totally agree. It's quite shocking to me that this got cleared for release! I'm now dreading the cruise coming up this month!

Don't let technology (or the lack thereof) steal your focus that you are going on a cruise! Don't let technology glitches rob the joy that is yours to be going on a cruise! 

 

Anyone who needs to forgo their cruise because these technology problems are entirely unacceptable, please allow me to go in your place.

 

Toot-Toot! 😘

[nzOdy]

36 minutes ago, HiCCCs said:

Don't let technology (or the lack thereof) steal your focus that you are going on a cruise! Don't let technology glitches rob the joy that is yours to be going on a cruise! 

 

Anyone who needs to forgo their cruise because these technology problems are entirely unacceptable, please allow me to go in your place.

 

Toot-Toot! 😘

Haha,  I'm not that deep in dread, sorry for you!!

 

Actually feeling better about it since I managed to convince them to stop running Customer Service scripts against me and take my engineering advice. Maybe I should tell them to put me in charge of their engineering team!! 😄 🤣

 

I'll pass on what I hear on Monday.

[HiCCCs]

1 minute ago, nzOdy said:

Haha,  I'm not that deep in dread, sorry for you!!

 

Actually feeling better about it since I managed to convince them to stop running Customer Service scripts against me and take my engineering advice. Maybe I should tell them to put me in charge of their engineering team!! 😄 🤣

 

I'll pass on what I hear on Monday.

DRAT!!! I was starting to pack my bags.

 

Just as an FYI....once on board, the app did work fine. My only complaint was that they claimed drink orders were "delivered" but I never received one!!! After the third failed attempt I stopped ordering through the app and dealt only with humans. Bartenders were always sympathetic and credited back the undelivered cocktail. My advise at the end of the cruise survey was to associate an employee ID with each "delivered" drink to see if there is a personnel problem at hand. I'm not expecting a change....but since they asked I thought I would offer my two cents.

[nzOdy]

2 minutes ago, HiCCCs said:

DRAT!!! I was starting to pack my bags.

 

Just as an FYI....once on board, the app did work fine. My only complaint was that they claimed drink orders were "delivered" but I never received one!!! After the third failed attempt I stopped ordering through the app and dealt only with humans. Bartenders were always sympathetic and credited back the undelivered cocktail. My advise at the end of the cruise survey was to associate an employee ID with each "delivered" drink to see if there is a personnel problem at hand. I'm not expecting a change....but since they asked I thought I would offer my two cents.

Yeah that's a known issue with the Ocean Now system. There is no 'Unavailable' or 'Cancel' option in that system that a bar tender or wait staff can use to inform the passenger. The only way they have to close out an order that has a problem is to mark it 'Delivered'.

 

We discovered this on our cruise before last by talking with bar staff.😀

 

I feel like Princess rushed this system to their ships to get a marketing win, a customer service win (so they thought)  and a way to cut costs.  Due to the rush we are still dealing with bugs and oversights made for speed to market.

 

As long as you're aware of the issues and gaps in the systems it has been pretty convenient overall,  in our experience at least.

[boeckli]

Samsung Galaxy A33 running Android 13, app version 3.0.108702 - no problems

[donswife]

I have a Galaxy A51, and verified that I have the newer version.  It seems to be functioning properly.  The only change I see is the Experiential Dining tab under DMW. (For Discovery Princess).

[nzOdy]

43 minutes ago, boeckli said:

Samsung Galaxy A33 running Android 13, app version 3.0.108702 - no problems

Yes, I have to believe it's a misconfigured experiment wrapper around enabling 'screen reader mode'. Somehow a bunch of us non-screen reader users are being put into the screen reader enabled bucket.

 

I've seen plenty of examples of misconfugured experiments leaking to production during my time working in software development. 

Just none so severe that it completely broke the service.

 

Just imagine the other side of this where visually impaired users with properly enabled screen reading systems are now dealing with no screen reading ability.  I'm assuming the experiment muck up is affecting both groups.

[Pinballs83]

My app updated today and seems to be working OK on a  S23+.  Did notice a post in a facebook group for a specific cruise there was some trouble going on.

[lx200gps]

Latest version of the app runs normally on my Android 10 Galaxy S9+. They had better get rid of the incredibly obnoxious voice over/screen reader however.  Worryingly, given their history with this app development, I have the fullest expectation they will consider it a good feature and force it down our throats without any way to disable it.