Help? Is there something wrong with smug right now??

Scott_Quier · December 18, 2006

FWIW - I really appreciate the status page you have going up when there is a connection issue. That really can save the day for some!

Good job with that!

cwphotos · December 18, 2006

Just inserting my obligatory "Mine doesnt work either" comment. Return to us as soon as you can Smugmug !

03FatBoy · December 18, 2006

Scott_Quier wrote:

FWIW - I really appreciate the status page you have going up when there is a connection issue. That really can save the day for some!

Good job with that!

Status page?

Where is that?

nickphoto123 · December 18, 2006

No Smugmug - Inadequate notice to visitors
Hello,

I understand your occasional service problems.

I do not like the notice my visitors haveto read.

There should be
1) a date & time listed when service went out,

2) an estimated time of restoration,

3)and an Invitation to return to my site.

The Smugmug Logo and the 2005 copyright date make it appear the outage was pending since 2005.

Thank you.

nickphoto123 · December 18, 2006

P.s.

nickphoto123 wrote:

Hello,

I understand your occasional service problems.

I do not like the notice my visitors haveto read.

There should be
1) a date & time listed when service went out,

2) an estimated time of restoration,

3)and an Invitation to return to my site.

The Smugmug Logo and the 2005 copyright date make it appear the outage was pending since 2005.

Thank you.

PS: There should be no mention of 'Data Loss' for my clients to worry about.

Thank you.

DJKennedy · December 18, 2006

nickphoto123 wrote:

Hello,

I understand your occasional service problems.

I do not like the notice my visitors haveto read.

There should be
1) a date & time listed when service went out,

2) an estimated time of restoration,

3)and an Invitation to return to my site.

The Smugmug Logo and the 2005 copyright date make it appear the outage was pending since 2005.

Thank you.

The first thing I noticed is the 2005 - yeah - update it guys!

1 and 2 might be hard as they might not even be aware of the problem, and untill they are made aware and start looking for the problem, it would be hard to give an estimate. But it would be nice.

3) yeah, that would be as simple as changing the 2005 to a newer year

Oh, I might as well mention that my site is down too

ARE there any estimates? DO they know (yet) what the problem is?

JimM · December 18, 2006

nickphoto123 wrote:

Hello,

I understand your occasional service problems.

I do not like the notice my visitors haveto read.

There should be
1) a date & time listed when service went out,

2) an estimated time of restoration,

3)and an Invitation to return to my site.

The Smugmug Logo and the 2005 copyright date make it appear the outage was pending since 2005.

Thank you.

I agree with Nick. Especially on the copyright date and the data loss mention.

onethumb · December 18, 2006

Status update
Hey guys,

Really sorry for the downtime. I wish I had something glamorous to describe what was happening, but the downtime is actually really stupid and silly.

My cell phone, despite not being on silent, decided not to ring or beep or anything when the site started letting me know that there were issues. Of course, it also didn't ring or beep when other SmugMug employees started calling to find out what happened, either.

Dumb.

What should have been a few seconds fix is now going to take roughly 30 minutes longer because stuff was broken longer than it should have been. We could theoretically bring the site back up now (all the badness has been fixed), but I want to double-check our data integrity before I do so. So I'm sorry, but you'll have to hang tight for a few more minutes.

For the technical among you, one of our database slaves got behind in replication for some unknown reason. We think it's a bug in our database software, and this does happen from time-to-time. With decent notice (ie, a cell phone that actually makes noise while I'm sleeping), it's not a big deal. Since this took far longer, we're having to let replication catch back up and then do some sanity checks to make sure it wasn't caused by some data issue.

Sorry again for the downtime - I promise, we hate it even more than you do, if that's possible.

Don

Barb · December 18, 2006

JimM wrote:

I agree with Nick. Especially on the copyright date and the data loss mention.

Hmmm, mine says 2006

DJKennedy · December 18, 2006

Barb wrote:

Hmmm, mine says 2006

Yeah, it does NOW! lol :P see guys? They DO listen

03FatBoy · December 18, 2006

working again

nice work everyone!

DJKennedy · December 18, 2006

DJKennedy wrote:

Yeah, it does NOW! lol :P see guys? They DO listen

EDIT: my site seems to be up and running now.

Dang it, I wanted to be the first

onethumb · December 18, 2006

Back up!
In case you hadn't noticed, we're back up.

Things will be slow for awhile as our cache's rebuild and refill, but things should stabilize soon.

I'm keeping a close eye on it, and it's remotely possible I'll have to take it down for a minute or two again if one setting doesn't "stick" the way we want it to.

Everythinng else looks great, though. Thanks for your patience.

Don

03FatBoy · December 18, 2006

onethumb wrote:

Everythinng else looks great, though. Thanks for your patience.

Don

Thank YOU and your team!

nickphoto123 · December 18, 2006

Inadequate down time notice

onethumb wrote:

In case you hadn't noticed, we're back up.

Things will be slow for awhile as our cache's rebuild and refill, but things should stabilize soon.

I'm keeping a close eye on it, and it's remotely possible I'll have to take it down for a minute or two again if one setting doesn't "stick" the way we want it to.

Everythinng else looks great, though. Thanks for your patience.

Don

Hello Don,
Know you are busy and focusing on getting back.
But please do not overlook my above concerns regarding your notice posting.

Thank you, Nick

onethumb · December 18, 2006

nickphoto123 wrote:

Hello Don,
Know you are busy and focusing on getting back.
But please do not overlook my above concerns regarding your notice posting.

Thank you, Nick

I didn't overlook it, but I'm afraid I can't do much about it, for a few reasons:

1 - I don't know when our outage began, and figuring out before putting a notice up would add an extra 5 minutes with bad pages while I researcheed it rather than a more useful general notice.

2 - It's *very* rare to know just how long an outage is expected to last, but as anyone here can attest, I often amend the outage notification when I do know. This was one of those times, like most, where it's impossible to gauge.

3 - I already changed the year. Dumb of us. Sorry about that.

What it really comes down to is that my #1 priority is getting the site back up, and anything that detracts from that has to take a back seat. I'm sorry about that, but it's just the way things are around here.

Don

cwphotos · December 18, 2006

and there was much rejoicing !!!!!

yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaa

Scott_Quier · December 18, 2006

onethumb wrote:

I didn't overlook it, but I'm afraid I can't do much about it, for a few reasons:

1 - I don't know when our outage began, and figuring out before putting a notice up would add an extra 5 minutes with bad pages while I researcheed it rather than a more useful general notice.

2 - It's *very* rare to know just how long an outage is expected to last, but as anyone here can attest, I often amend the outage notification when I do know. This was one of those times, like most, where it's impossible to gauge.

3 - I already changed the year. Dumb of us. Sorry about that.

What it really comes down to is that my #1 priority is getting the site back up, and anything that detracts from that has to take a back seat. I'm sorry about that, but it's just the way things are around here.

Don

Don,

To make your life easier RE #1 and #2, you just need to plan these unscheduled system crashes/bottle-necks/replication issues and mark it on your calendar! That way you'll know before hand and have some idea of what it'll take to fix it. Yeah, that'll work!:D

Thanks for getting it back up so quickly!

b-grinner · December 18, 2006

onethumb wrote:

In case you hadn't noticed, we're back up.

Things will be slow for awhile as our cache's rebuild and refill, but things should stabilize soon.

I'm keeping a close eye on it, and it's remotely possible I'll have to take it down for a minute or two again if one setting doesn't "stick" the way we want it to.

Everythinng else looks great, though. Thanks for your patience.

Don

Yah my site is still not up properly. I am assuming it is due to the cache rebuild stuff etc.

I wait patiently.

FYI, my site http://cyberphotogs.smugmug.com

...B:D

ndsimm · December 18, 2006

onethumb wrote:

What it really comes down to is that my #1 priority is getting the site back up, and anything that detracts from that has to take a back seat. I'm sorry about that, but it's just the way things are around here.

Don

and we appreciate that

DJKennedy · December 18, 2006

b-grinner wrote:

Yah my site is still not up properly. I am assuming it is due to the cache rebuild stuff etc.

I wait patiently.

FYI, my site http://cyberphotogs.smugmug.com

...B:D

Seems to be working for me - other than the guestbook issue (which I can't seem to pinpoint), I don't see any problems

rosselliot · December 18, 2006

same. and people can't buy photos from my site either.

- rE

DJKennedy · December 18, 2006

rosselliot wrote:

same. and people can't buy photos from my site either.

- rE

Not sure what your issues are with purchasing, but I grabbed a gallery at randome (Amanda I think) and tried to go thru the purchasing steps and it seems to be working ok

I did stop however when it started asking for my shipping info of course.

PHOTOlink · December 18, 2006

About Smugmug's OCCASIONAL drops...
Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls.... being the sandbagger that I am (a sandbagger is one that usually sits on the side never saying much of ANYthing....

I finally have to pipe up and say this:

I have been on smugmug somewhere around two years... no doubt, we get spoiled, take its workings for granted, and expect things to move swimmingly along as elegantly as esther williams.

this unfortunately, is N-E-V-E-R the case when it comes to have
ANYTHING to do with the internet, servers, backbones, convoluted
routings of the main lines, etc.(just ping your site and watch with
marvel at the convoluted path that your ping takes to get there and back).

websites... ALL websites, no matter HOW MUCH they entice you and PROMISE you of 99% uptime.. are stinkin', lying SOB's. Why? Because, as I mentioned, our current internet is built upon an aging, overloaded infrastructure which in some areas, just CAN'T be controlled, only monitored.

I too, in the past, am just as guilty of being impatient with smugmug when things go south. And I too, want to yell, scream, pull my hair out, curse the internet gods and such (not to mention smugmug in my incantations of voodoo!)... but I have come to learn ONE VERY IMPORTANT FACT.

1-Every dang-blasted thing that connects the internet goes down sometimes.

2- Sometimes its Smugmugs fault, sometimes it isn't.

3- NO MATTER! if the issues lay within ANY part of Smugmug, you won't
EVER get faster, more efficient, courteous and responsive customer service
as you get on Smugmug, even if it takes 48 hours to get going again.

4- NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK that others may offer, Smugmug delivers.
EVERYTIME. 24/7

Try, in your everyday frustrations, to think... and remember that it does
Smugmug no good to be down for every reason you can think of and then some.

When things went into the crapper today (is that ok to say here?), I didn't even bother writing a gripe, or a question, or an eta on when things would
come back, BECAUSE I KNOW THAT THEY WILL GET IT DONE WHEN ITS DONE AND AS FAST AS THEY HUMANELY CAN.

In english this means I place all my trust in them with regards to oversseing, and protecting my website. Think about that and your site
the next time something goes deep six.

Smugmugs speed and courtesy are over the top, and they are totally on
your side. They listen, the respond, and they implement as much as they can in the order that they see fit as being the most important.

To end this diatribe... sure there is plenty more I would like to see added to make my site and my business life goe better..... but yaknow...we always want more, and more and more...

I'm willing to wait, even when Smugmug goes into the Deep, because
I trust them. I trust them with my whole damn business. And, excepting
the occasional drops of service, they have stayed steady time and time again. Start doing a little more learning about servers, backbones, raid
backups, load balancers, and you will just scratch the surface of the
ENORMOUS headache and work that goes into keeping our sites running.

I for one, will always give Smugmug the benefit of the doubt, no matter
how long it takes for them to resove an issue.

Adam Scull

photogmomma · December 18, 2006

Thanks so much for staying on this as well as having someplace for us to go to check on the status (here). I saw issues, came straight here and voila! All the info I needed...

Thanks again for such wonderful customer service and being SO open to telling us what's going on!