Thursday, January 9, 2014

More Problems with Mundia.com - Can't Start a New Tree

I wrote Looking at Mundia.com Again - a Free Family Tree Site on 7 January 2014, and had some problems working in one of my Ancestry Member Trees.  Mundia.com is owned by Ancestry.com, and seemingly provides a free access for researchers to search Ancestry Member Trees.

Today, I wanted to see how a non-subscriber to Ancestry.com (but a registered Guest) would fare in Mundia.com.  I have a Guest account on Ancestry.com in order to see what a non-subscriber sees on the site (mainly for my presentations).

Here is the sign-in page:



I had to check my gender, and check the "I agree to Mundia's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy."  I did that, then clicked on the green "Continue" button, and saw:


The site wants me to select myself in my Ancestry tree.  I have not added an Ancestry Member Tree using my Guest account so I clicked on the green "Continue" button.  The site insisted that I select myself in my tree, or if I clicked the box for "I'm not in this family tree" I was asked to select the root person in the tree.




I figured out that, for some reason, Mundia requires me to have a tree in order to use their site.  So I decided to click on the link to "Start a new tree" (up in the right-hand corner of the screen under "Or, you can choose to start a new tree."  I clicked that and saw:


Um, "Error Loading Page."  And it wants me to "Sign In" again?  Why in the world do I get this?  I already signed in.  Frustrating.  Stupid web site.

Don't the powers that be at Mundia.com (hmmm, perhaps there are no "powers that be?") know that they have these problems?  I'd like to think that I'm fairly knowledgeable about navigating family tree websites, but this site really doesn't work well.  

Being somewhat persistent, I'm going to keep at it - I will upload a GEDCOM file to a new Ancestry Member Tree using my Guest account.  Then I'll see if I can use the site to freely search for ancestors as a non-subscriber to Ancestry.com.  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/01/more-problems-with-mundiacom-cant-start.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver





6 comments:

Geolover said...

There's been some discussion of sign-in problems at Mundia.com on Ancestry's independent 'community support' message board:

http://ancestryforums.custhelp.com/posts/cd501abd82

No solutions, just a suggestion to contact Mundia support. One of the posters was not delighted with response from 'support.'

T said...

I wasn't able to sign in after days and days of trying. Mundia support didn't seem to understand my problem.

Anonymous said...

I repeatedly get this message when trying to look at a tree- "Error Retrieving Views Error retrieving AJAX views, request failure"

I've contacted Mundia via email, Facebook and Twitter but no response at all. Having looked at their facebook group people have been asking for support for the last 5 months and no response at all from Mundia/Ancestry.com.

Some people have put their trees on Mundia and then can't retrieve them again because the system won't allow them to log back in. It's put me off using this site and Ancestry.com which is a shame really.

Anonymous said...

The Ajax view error has been causing problems for a couple of years. I think it is tolerated and maybe intentional to drive users to the pay site.

Anonymous said...

If you look at some of the posts left on-line I don't think it is tolerated at all (and I don't think it should be tolerated when the customer provides the content for the website)

Mundia could be a useful lead through product for Ancestry but not as it stands now riddled with technical errors. Its like being given a free sample of sweets that you can't get the wrapper off (oh and you've given them all your 'recipes' too) So why would you want to purchase anything from them when the free sample sucks?

I've seen posts on Twitter where people have contacted Ancestry requesting support for Mundia. Ancestry appear to be distancing themselves from it eg:

"Mundia is a functioning site. If you need help using it, you may email the support for that site"

I think that's a really lame response. People wouldn't be contacting Ancestry if they were receiving support from Mundia which THEY OWN! 'That site' indeed. Pftt!

Someone there needs to take responsibility, get their web engineers onto it and start listening and engaging honestly with their customers rather than alienating them. Otherwise it's a missed opportunity for them.

JJT said...

I sent in a help request to Mundia last September about the AJAX errors, which used to be intermittent but seem to be propagating.

Their response then is below, but I've seen no change, even when I could login, as I can't for more than a week.

"DearMundia Member,

Thank youfor your email.

Weregret to hear of the error you are experiencing on Mundia.com. We are aware ofthis issue and have passed the information on to our site developers. They arelooking into the issue and will hopefully have it resolved soon.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have causedyou but we thank you for your patience in this matter.

As our sitedevelopers are working to resolve the error, you are always able to continue towork on your member trees on Ancestry, by logging into your Ancestry accountwith your Mundia username and current password.

If you need additional assistanceplease let us know.

Best regards,
Camaris
MundiaSupport"