Serious frustration with PingPlotter. It's nice that PingPlotter has advanced features suitable for IT staff, but I'm looking for a simple solution to track the source of internet interruptions over the course of a day or two.

Much of the Knowledge Base is from previous versions of 10 or 20 years ago, and is even http rather than https. The text of the examples it gives sometimes don't correspond to the accompanying screenshot.

"Page not found" is the landing page for "How PingPlotter Works page from the PingPlotter manual" (http://www [DOT] pingplotter [DOT] com/manual/howitworks.html?pk_vid=04002308c12c2c39178001721729cc3f).

However, using that URL as a clue, I found the manual at https://www.pingplotter.com/manual/

It turns out you can also find the manual from the bottom of the Desktop drop-down menu on the home page https://www.pingplotter.com/ or on the "Pricing" page https://www.pingplotter.com/products/
That latter page says "We also provide a free version (1 connection, no remote collection) for home networks. Compare all." but clicking "Compare all" just brings up a comparison of the three paid versions, NOT including the free version.

Downloading for Mac, there was only one choice which when launched turned out to be labelled the "Pro" version (presumably a two week free trial, though it didn't say so or ask permission to set a cookie) which starts at $29/month for one computer suitable for a small office.

The manual says "PingPlotter 5's "Share" feature provides a quick option to distribute your trace data to whoever you need, and it's easy to use!" No, it's not. Once you've mastered the 139 page manual it's probably easy to use, although it's replete with notices that the features mentioned may not be available on some versions, and doesn't say which versions have which features.

This is for my partner who is highly allergic to tech, and simply needs a software that says whether the problem is the laptop, router, modem, or ISP, and provides a document of evidence suitable for giving the ISP if the ISP is the problem.

Does anyone know of a simple non-video guide to using PingPlotter for these basic purposes, if it's capable of them? Or another software that is?

Max,

You're right on basically every point, and it hits close to home, since we really want to be better than this. Ouch. Thank you for the work you did giving great and specific feedback. Thank you.

We're going to spend some time internalizing and processing your feedback, but you shouldn't have to wait for us to do that to get some guidance.

Yes, PingPlotter does exactly what you want, and you and your partner do not need the 139-page manual to do it.

1. Point it at one address (8.8.8.8 is fine) and leave it running.
2. When you encounter a problem, look at the time graph (https://www.pingplotter.com/manual/time_line_graphing/). If you see red or high latency, create a share page (File -> Share -> Create a Share Page). There are guides at the bottom of the share page that help troubleshoot.
3. If you want to go back to a time in the past (and you're still using the trial version, not the free version), drag the time graph at the bottom back to a time in the past (using mouse-dragging) until you find something that looks red or high latency. Then submit a share page from there.
4. When you've got a window that shows the problem, that's your evidence.

The getting started guide does this with current screenshots: https://www.pingplotter.com/fix-your-network/getting-started/

Now, in reality, PingPlotter is best for people who are interested in network troubleshooting. It sounds like you are and your partner probably isn't. The instructions above are the "simple" version of how to collect it, but not how to really interpret it. For that, you do have to spend more time understanding things. For that, you should go through the interpreting results part of the manual: https://www.pingplotter.com/manual/interpretgraphsexampleone/

On money: the free version handles a single target like this and is probably all your partner needs to capture the issue, but you have to catch it in action (last 10 minutes). The download is a 14-day Pro trial that drops to free on its own when it ends. Nothing gets charged unless you decide to buy.

And if either of you would rather not stare at a trace and guess, create a share page (File -> Share -> Create Share a Share Page) and send the link to support@pingman.com and someone here will read it and tell you straight whether it's your gear or the ISP.

Thanks for caring enough to write all this down. We'll follow up next week when we've had a chance to make a game plan on your comments.

-TJ

Thanks TJ, that is certainly one of the clearest help messages I've ever received!

Some of my difficulty may be due to the problem being with my wife's Mac which I am unfamiliar with, being a PC user myself.

Upon installing PingPlotter on her Mac and running a trace to target dns.google (https://8.8.8.8), PingPlotter started working about two days ago. I now know that a mouse can be used to drag the display back in time, and the dropdown beside the default "10 minutes" can be used to view a longer period such as 48 hours.

The problem was finding the menu line with Share choices, which seemed to be missing. According to the help images it should be on the second line of the window, immediately above "All Targets..." but that location only has a light blue band with rotating PingPlotter marketing messages.

At the top of the Mac screen were the usual "Finder File Edit View Go Window Help" menus, but "File" had "Share" greyed out. It turns out, at least on this Mac, that those are all Mac menus, not PingPlotter menus, even though PingPlotter was happily and actively chugging along.

I finally discovered that clicking anywhere on the PingPlotter window caused a subtle change, namely the top Mac screen line to change to "PingPlotter File Edit Tools Summaries Workspace Window Help" which are PingPlotter menus rather than Mac menus and the title line of the PingPlotter window to change from grey text to black text, although the operation didn't change otherwise.

Some additional miscellaneous notes about the manual:
>Chapters 2 to 5 are missing from the current manual ("Version 5 Manual copyright 2018").
>The first menu line is supposed to be "File Edit Workspace Help" or "File Edit View Workspace Help" according to various images in the manual, but is now "PingPlotter File Edit Tools Summaries Workspace Window Help" in the trial (Pro) version.
>On page 14 of the manual, the File menu dropdown does not have any "Share" choice so the manual must be out of date.
>The manual explains Options but apparently does not say or show where/how to find the "Options" tab; that choice appears upon clicking Pingplotter > Settings.

Thanks again, your kind reply encouraged me to keep trying.

I tried your suggestion of making a Share page, but Clicking File > Share > Create Share Page just caused the Mac screen to flash, so perhaps that's not working during the trial period? I'm going to try installing PingPlotter on my PC, and maybe it will work on that.
File > Export to Text File worked.
File > Save Image didn't seem to work, so I used a screen grab.

Thanks for the advice to consult https://www.pingplotter.com/manual/interpretgraphsexampleone/ I really don't know what I'm doing and I'm having a little trouble understanding the subsequent section "Interpreting Results: Bad Hardware" which I suspect is the most relevant to us: https://www.pingplotter.com/manual/scenariocustomernetworkproblem/ where the customer was required to quickly reboot their modem and router during an internet disconnect in order to track down that the problem was the router. It says "Notice how hop 1 stays working through the reboot of their cable modem, but not through the reboot of the SOHO [router]....during the disconnect, hop 1 was non-responsive." I don't see how this can be inferred from the accompanying image, nor understand what it means by hop 1 being both non-responsive and still working.

I guess what I need to do is purchase PingPlotter Sidekick for USD $20/28 days (approx. CAD $28) to guide me through fixing the problem?