Mira (brand-new) writer problems

Hello everyone,

I will definitely spend time this Sunday reading any posts about the Mira here and at the Advantage Software site, but I am interested in anyone who has had or is having problems with the Mira writer.

I bought mine on July 31 and have not been happy with it.  My initial problems were and still are the constant adjustments of the depth, tension and key contacts.

This week, however, new problems emerged.  I hit the J-Define on the Mira (in error, as I meant to hit the mark key) and my entire realtime output froze and the steno strokes I kept hitting where nowhere to be found on the SD card or RAM or in my CAT program.  I stopped the proceedings immediately before I lost too many strokes.  The only place capturing what was said was my CAT system's audio even though its output had frozen at the spot I hit the J-Define on the Mira.  I asked a friend who has a Mira and the same Eclipse software  to try it on her writer and the same thing occurred to her.

I also hooked up the OTG microphone for the first time this week and plugging it in also instantly froze the realtime output and the steno strokes were nonexistent from that point, ditto the scenario above.

On Friday, being nervous about this chain of events over two days, I backed up files from the morning to a USB flash drive.  After doing that, the Mira writer was not recognized at all by my computer.  I ended up going out to my vehicle and retrieving my 8000LX (glad I had it with me)  and writing on that for the rest of the assignment via the serial cable.  Later on, the Mira was recognized (after a reboot), but I do not feel I can trust this machine and it has no paper as a last resort for a backup.

Specifics:  Computer is a Dell Inspiron 600m running XP.  Software is Total Eclipse version 4.2.0.7.

After the J-Define problem I did send a message to Stenograph and they did respond with:  "You can do J-defines during a realtime job and while you are creating a J-define the realtime will stop until you you're finished J-defining.  If realtime doesn't resume when you're finished J-defining then there may be an issue.  Also if the steno didn't appear on the sd card or RAM did it appear in your Eclipse software?  If so then it should be there.   If you would like to troubleshoot this please give technical support a call at 1-800-323-4247."

I will be calling them on Monday (tomorrow) since I now have additional issues as stated above.  I was scheduled to go back on the same assignment I was on when these events occurred on Monday, but I do not want to subject the attorneys (or myself) to the chance of this happening again.  This was a very unpleasant position to be in and the glares from a high-maintenance, demanding attorney I was working with were enough to give me work dreams/nightmares since.

Any input appreciated.  This is my first paperless writer and am not feeling good about it but really do want to embrace the latest technology.

Thanks,

Megan

Hi, Megan.

Yeah, that sounds a wee bit stressful.  I wish I had some answers for you.

I use the Mira with Eclipse.  I've not tried to do a J-define, tho, w/ the Mira, so I don't know if that would cause me problems or not.

I do have to adjust the keys more often than I'd like.  For the first year or so, the Mira was great.  Then it seemed to go out of adjustment and wouldn't stay adjusted, so I had to send it in for service.  Then when it came back, it was great - for a few months.   The machine is almost two years old.  I'm at the point again where I've adjusted the keys (using the manual, taking the time to adjust each key and key depth and tension, etc.) and there are still shot-gun repeats of certain keys. Probably time to send it in again.  From the reporters I've spoken to, this is a very common problem.   
I sure hope tech support can help you.

T