Slow, again...

System · December 21, 2005

On going problems with my website...right now, I getting the generic "Cannot find server" error message. I just hung up with the editor of the local paper, we were trying to get him a photo and I can't get my site up...come on now, this happens far too frequently. Related to speed from SM out to the net, yesterday, the slideshow was so slow, my daughter and I timed it, it was over 10 seconds for every photo...and we have it set for 3 secs--we just closed it down and looked at the files on my PC, but what she wanted was to see what her buddies and the school teachers would see. Right now, the site is working again but that did not help 10 mins ago with my editor. I'm on the web all the time, and SM has more problems with speed and consistancy on its server than any other site I know of. This support site if replete with post such as this or variations on this theme. Please don't tell me "I just tried your site and it works fine"...I know that, I just said that, and it just came up (and saying "I don't have this problem" sounds like SM does not want to face this problem and is trying to duck it). This is a consistant problem over time. I'm not asking for an answer here right now, there is none on my end. My Comcast cable is clocking a 110 today and I've got about 5 IE windows open and running right now, all are working great. So please consider this an appeal to SM to find out what is up with the server...this happens at the worst times. Best, Shane

PS Sorry to be grumpy and fussy at Christmas...it was just really frusterating with my editor on the phone, he is really busy with a deadline tonight, and of course, my site is down just then, again...ugh

onethumb · December 21, 2005

Shane Canfield wrote:

On going problems with my website...right now, I getting the generic "Cannot find server" error message. I just hung up with the editor of the local paper, we were trying to get him a photo and I can't get my site up...come on now, this happens far too frequently. Related to speed from SM out to the net, yesterday, the slideshow was so slow, my daughter and I timed it, it was over 10 seconds for every photo...and we have it set for 3 secs--we just closed it down and looked at the files on my PC, but what she wanted was to see what her buddies and the school teachers would see. Right now, the site is working again but that did not help 10 mins ago with my editor. I'm on the web all the time, and SM has more problems with speed and consistancy on its server than any other site I know of. This support site if replete with post such as this or variations on this theme. Please don't tell me "I just tried your site and it works fine"...I know that, I just said that, and it just came up (and saying "I don't have this problem" sounds like SM does not want to face this problem and is trying to duck it). This is a consistant problem over time. I'm not asking for an answer here right now, there is none on my end. My Comcast cable is clocking a 110 today and I've got about 5 IE windows open and running right now, all are working great. So please consider this an appeal to SM to find out what is up with the server...this happens at the worst times. Best, Shane

PS Sorry to be grumpy and fussy at Christmas...it was just really frusterating with my editor on the phone, he is really busy with a deadline tonight, and of course, my site is down just then, again...ugh

I hate to be the bearer of bad (good?) news, but SmugMug isn't having an outage and hasn't had one since last week. We had some credit card processing problems (so did millions of other merchants around the world), but that was out of our control. SmugMug stayed up and everyone's photos were available.

So these problems you're describing, I'm afraid, aren't indicative of a problem at smugmug. Likely it's something outside of our control, like your ISP.

I think our track record for open, honest discussion of our problems (and there are problems!) speaks for itself. I'm not trying to cover up some problem this morning or something.

FYI, we track smugmug's availability from more than 20 locations around the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We know it when we have an outage, and rush to fix it.

Currently, we have an average of a single outage a month. That's far too often, and I expect that to be reduced significantly within the next month or two.

I'd love to hear more about your outage, though, in the event it somehow slipped through - but I see millions of photos being viewed all morning, without a break. Traffic levels have been high all morning.

Don

System · December 21, 2005

Hi Don, well, I can't explain it anymore than I already did in the original post. All I can say is that all other sites I was browsing at the time were working but not SM, so it just seemed to me that it was related to SM...if it was my ISP, no sites should have been working. But I don't know, I am not very tech savy next to you and your team, just a high level user here and at least it is working now.

Yes, I know you guys are good with customer service and did not mean to slam that. Best to you have a great Christmas!

PS If it's not obvious, I am sticking with SM and have no plans to move, sometimes its just easier to gripe to people you know...and at this point, I kinda know you guys--at least as much as emails and list posts allow. Please know that overall, I'm very happy with SM. Best, Shane

onethumb wrote:

I hate to be the bearer of bad (good?) news, but SmugMug isn't having an outage and hasn't had one since last week. We had some credit card processing problems (so did millions of other merchants around the world), but that was out of our control. SmugMug stayed up and everyone's photos were available.

So these problems you're describing, I'm afraid, aren't indicative of a problem at smugmug. Likely it's something outside of our control, like your ISP.

I think our track record for open, honest discussion of our problems (and there are problems!) speaks for itself. I'm not trying to cover up some problem this morning or something.

FYI, we track smugmug's availability from more than 20 locations around the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We know it when we have an outage, and rush to fix it.

Currently, we have an average of a single outage a month. That's far too often, and I expect that to be reduced significantly within the next month or two.

I'd love to hear more about your outage, though, in the event it somehow slipped through - but I see millions of photos being viewed all morning, without a break. Traffic levels have been high all morning.

Don

mbrady · December 21, 2005

Shane Canfield wrote:

On going problems with my website...right now, I getting the generic "Cannot find server" error message. I just hung up with the editor of the local paper, we were trying to get him a photo and I can't get my site up...

Was your editor also trying to reach your site?

flyingdutchie · December 22, 2005

Shane Canfield wrote:

Hi Don, well, I can't explain it anymore than I already did in the original post. All I can say is that all other sites I was browsing at the time were working but not SM, so it just seemed to me that it was related to SM...if it was my ISP, no sites should have been working. But I don't know, I am not very tech savy next to you and your team, just a high level user here and at least it is working now. Yes, I know you guys are good with customer service and did not mean to slam that. Best to you have a great Christmas!

PS If it's not obvious, I am sticking with SM and have no plans to move, sometimes its just easier to gripe to people you know...and at this point, I kinda know you guys--at least as much as emails and list posts allow. Please know that overall, I'm very happy with SM. Best, Shane

Lags and bandwith issues on the internet can very local. It happened to me multiple times that some sites are very very slow while others come in blazingly fast.

Try to issue a 'tracert' command on your computer's command prompt. It will show you the path on the internet from your computer to the targeted site (e.g. "tracert yoursite.smugmug.com") and to another reference site (e.g. "tracert www.cnn.com"). You see the path and the 'speed' of the path, a measure in milliseconds: The lower the number the faster (in general). You may notice differences in 'speed' between the two paths and see where the bottleneck is.

Slow, again...

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