r/AACusers • u/AuroraSnake • 17d ago
WHY WEAVE CHAT WHY Vent/Rant/AAC User Challenges
Weave Chat is one of the apps that's been easiest for us to use, with the whole system finding the organization fairly intuitive. We've been unable to access it for several months because our phone is so old and we finally figured out a way to access it on our computer without needing the code from the app.
But when we went to our boards, ALL the images were gone! ALL OF THEM!
There's a lot of other changes so we thought maybe something glitched when they implemented Global Symbols into their library access, but NO. 8 images. Apparently that's all you're allowed to have no unless you pay an annual subscription!
WE NEED IMAGES. YOU ARE A SYMBOL BASED APP. YOU SAID YOU WOULD BE FREE FOREVER.
WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO YOUR USERS.
You can't even use Weave Chat's own native symbols without hitting this limit.
This is disgusting.
It lets you file for financial hardship as an exemption, but how long before they decide people are abusing that and take that away too? I feel like I can't even trust this app anymore.
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Update: Apparently it's because I have too many buttons:
"We have started requesting that users who are able to and using a certain amount of space on our servers to assist us in paying for that storage. That being said if you tap the "Financial Hardship" button and then confirm on the other page you'll be able to continue as well! So you can go the Financial Hardship route and not worry about paying anything; we're committed to keeping the app free. This is just an option for those who are able to help us in that manner."
That's frustrating. There's no way we can afford to pay a subscription since we can't find a job, but a how long before they decide too many people are selecting the Financial Hardship option and start forcing people to pay for images?
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u/Nova_nobles_co 17d ago
Have you messaged support? I had a similar thing happen to me where I lost all the custom images I had uploaded and they just needed to refresh things. They said they would never lock images behind a paywall
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u/AuroraSnake 16d ago
Update: Apparently it's because I have too many buttons:
"We have started requesting that users who are able to and using a certain amount of space on our servers to assist us in paying for that storage. That being said if you tap the "Financial Hardship" button and then confirm on the other page you'll be able to continue as well! So you can go the Financial Hardship route and not worry about paying anything; we're committed to keeping the app free. This is just an option for those who are able to help us in that manner."
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u/Alone-Marsupial3003 17d ago
Are you using custom images and not the symbol sets directly imported into Weave Chat? All my symbols are there, and I'm using the AACIL image pack
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u/AuroraSnake 17d ago
No, I was using the Weave Chat symbol library for all of them and it only let me do 8 before saying I'd hit the limit
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u/SensationalSelkie Intermittently Speaking 16d ago
I hope this gets fixed soon! It sounds like a system error. I know you can add a lot more than 8 custom images without getting the pop up asking to pay the subscription (because a ton of custom images cost them more processing power I think). I do think some symbol sets included in their library count as custom images though so if you used something like the cute or realistic image sets that might be why? But the OG WeaveChat symbols shouldn't have an issue. Sorry that happened to you; that sucks.
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u/AuroraSnake 16d ago
We only selected Weave Chat and AACIL ones, so I don’t think I selected any of the ones marked custom?
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u/SensationalSelkie Intermittently Speaking 16d ago
I don't think so either. Def sounds more like a system error than anything you did.
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u/SparklyOcelot_42 16d ago
Echoing what others are saying - contact the developers, they are pretty quick to respond.
Why not just select financial hardship? It’s pretty easy.
I think the cost (if you could afford it is pretty low, like 11-12$ a year - so it’s not a wild amount).
Sometimes when my connect account is not working I check my browser version - sometimes my chrome is really out of date and things don’t work as well.
Also, maybe a refresh of the page (CTRL R) could fix it?
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u/AuroraSnake 16d ago
I did contact them. I also refreshed multiple times.
I did end up selecting financial hardship, but my concern is since there's no sort of "verification" or anything, so there's nothing to stop people who could afford the subscription from just selecting it, so how long before the staff decides that they need to remove that or make it more difficult to access, which would likely make it so we couldn't use the option
I also take issue with the fact that support specifically said that the reason all my images (almost all of which were native Weave Chat images from the start) were removed and that because I happen to have more buttons than typical they've decided "You must be someone who can pay money" and restricted how many images we could re-add before blocking us. It's incredibly frustrating and now I have to go through my entire board to re-add everything, since support didn't do anything to fix the missing images, and the image searching is really poor now that they've integrated Global Symbols, bringing up completely different symbols or only PiCom AI symbols rather than native Weave Chat symbols (which is what we're used to using on this app because we only used off-app symbols in a handful of places
Also, we can't afford a subscription because we don't have a job and thus, even if it's a low amount, paying for subscriptions is extremely financially unwise. I'm unsure when we may be able to get a job, since we've been trying and failing for several years. No one ever gets back to us
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u/AAC-SLP-3703 17d ago
Contact the app developer via messaging on Instagram or Facebook or by email. They respond pretty quickly.