You can also take them apart with a pair of pliers if you’ve got good tekkers.

Cheers scotroutes,thought it was just me that had this not getting on with connectors problem.
I’ve just set up my 11 speed today and I probably spent more time trying to connect/disconnect the links than I would admit to so thanks,joining them up wasn’t to bad but separating them was a mare.
But the groupset is 100% smooth now.

The pliers for splitting them have been one of the best investments I have ever made in tools, even on the old 9sp it just saves the faff and greasy fingers.

The cheapest/simplest way to open them is to wrap one loop of garden wire around the rollers and then pull on the ends using two pliers. You do need to have two pairs of pliers, though.

(the highly detailed schematic below depicts a 9sp link for illustration purposes)
Using this method on a 9sp/multi-use link will render it useless, as it will score the indentations where the pins should sit.

Can anyone recommend a good split/close tool that works for both 9 and 11 speed?

Just use a normal pair of pliers; FFS, how do you think people managed before split link pliers were invented!?!

If you’ve got a spare couple of hours of an evening, it’s worth practicing the technique on an old bit of chain.

The BBB one has worked fine for me

What sort of a man are you?

Heh; not much of one; not even got a drill or a log store!

My bbb one works fine on 11sp

We were all running 9sp which comes apart much easier, we also believed people that said they were not reusable (in reality they just hold a lot tighter)

LOL, yeah. Spot on on both counts.