How to get quick support in times of need

READING TAKES 2 MINUTES

I understand you want to jump right in, but if you have 2 minutes to spare, I can save you a lot of frustration that you might experience along the way. From 30 years of experience with thousands of students, I can tell you that at some point in your journey, you will experience technical issues. The internet is after all still "Neuland" as our former, and deeply missed as a person (well, by me at least), chancelorette Angela Merkel. Here's what to do if things don't work as expected:

Got A Technical Issue?

Do not try to handle technical issues alone for more than 5 minutes please. I understand how frustrating those things can be and it'd be a pity if you wasted more time than this on anything technical.

If my website or a tool isn't working properly, first try the measures below. If none of these measures work simply contact me ASAP via the contact form of my website and I help you quickly.

My courses are very reliable technically and those troubleshooting measures here will fix 99,99% of all issues which mainly are caused by working with a wrong browser (you need Chrome) or being behind some sort of firewall (e.g. when using a company device or company network) or a VPN of sorts or an adblocker. It's really THAT simple.


Always Try First: Troubleshooting Measures

Here now the steps that will fix almost any technical problem of yours within 5 minutes. Work through them one by one from the top:

  1. Are you using the original Chrome browser? If not, THAT's the problem.
  2. Hard refresh your browser window. Here's how to do that.
  3. Clear your browser's Cache. Here's how.
  4. Have you tried turning it (=your device) off and on again? Do that. I'm not kidding.
  5. Update: Are your OS and your browser up to date? If not, now it's the time to do that.
  6. Vocab Tool: If you got trouble with the vocab tool make sure you are logged in to the tool. You can login via the monster in the lower right corner and then clicking on the V for Vocabulary.
  7. Cookies Matter: Go to the footer of courses.smartergerman.com and click on "Cookie Settings" and accept all cookies. If it was for me, I'd not ask for any data of yours but it's not in my hands.
  8. It's Your Device: Try another device e.g. your mobile phone. Work devices often have built in firewalls/restrictions.
  9. Hidden Firewall: Try another network e.g. your mobile internet via a hotspot. Some networks and routers have built in firewalls esp. when you are using your work's internet but also in private environments. If those work, you are problably behind some sort of firewall or VPN.
  10. When in Venezuela, China or Russia use VPN and set your VPN to a server in Germany or at least Europe (except Russia). 
  11. Chrome extensions: turn off all extensions and see whether that fixes your problem. If yes, turn them on one by one always testing whether the course still works as expected until you find the culprit.
  12. If you are having trouble with your microphone, it might be a permission issue in which case try the following: System Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone > Turn the slider to "On" next to Google Chrome.
  13. Höhere Gewalt: At times there's a temporary issue that we can't do anything about on Teachable. You can check those here: https://www.teachablestatus.com/ 


Nothing Worked? Don't get Worked Up!

If none of the above helps, reach out to me letting me know that you have tried every single one of the 13 solutions above and that none of them worked. If you have skipped one, don't write but execute the one measure you have missed out on and see whether that did the trick. When really nothing of the above worked, let me know and I'll take care of it as fast as I can.

Keep in mind that your problem might not mean the end of the world, so before you get more frustrated than you probably already are, write to me quickly, then go for a nice walk or listen to your favourite songs for a while and when you come back skip that lesson in question and move on until I respond.

Life is too short to waste it on being angry about technological issues. And in the meantime I'll take care of this issue or ask you a few more questions.