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 Unstable access to site/puzzles 
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Posted on: Fri Oct 04, 2013 5:29 pm




Posts: 253
Joined: Tue May 24, 2011 4:55 pm
Post Unstable access to site/puzzles
In a September 23 post in another thread, I described the problem that,
bram wrote:
during the first hour after midnight CET, all puzzles are loading slowly again, especially the timed ones, which sometimes don't load at all. The automatic submission of solutions is also slow.
In spite of Patrick's tweaks, I still experience this kind of access problems every day – not just during the first hour or two after midnight CET, but also at other hours, e.g. late in the morning and in the afternoon. To be sure, access problems do not occur every single time I try to load a puzzle, but they do happen several times every day. (edited to add: Sometimes the problem will be that even if the puzzle eventually loads, the upper left cell doesn't turn orange and it isn't possible to start entering numbers.) For the most part, the forum and the "Your history" page have not been affected, but this has changed the last couple of days. I am not sure how much of this is due to server access clogging and how much is caused by other factors.

So as not to waste Patrick's time on a "bug" experienced by only one user, I would like to ask everybody: Have you experienced this kind of lag lately or not? (If not, it might be due to something specific to my setup/preferences, e.g. that I am using Adblock Plus with Firefox, or that I have enabled the subscriber-only features Don't load Facebook/Google+/Twitter code and Don't show the "solved puzzles ticker" in my preferences).


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Posted on: Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:03 pm




Posts: 275
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:51 pm
Post Re: Unstable access to site/puzzles
Yes!! I have disabled everything I can but it still happens intermittently. I use Safari.


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Posted on: Fri Oct 04, 2013 6:37 pm




Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2011 11:42 pm
Post Re: Unstable access to site/puzzles
Yes I have experienced exactly the same problems over the last week or so, I especially suffered with the problem the other day where the puzzle loaded but I couldn't enter the numbers because the orange box hadn't loaded. A few times I haven't solved all the puzzles in the day because the site was too slow so I didn't have enough time [sad]
I use chrome, and I mostly experience these problems at "busy" times of day, such as when I get in from school/the early evening. I tried solving puzzles last night around 9-10 and it was fine, and so far today the site has been a little slow but no major problems so far.

If Patrick could please fix this it would be very much appreciated, I'm glad you created this thread because I too thought it was only me!!


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Posted on: Fri Oct 04, 2013 9:36 pm




Posts: 931
Location: Ladysmith, BC, Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 1:37 am
Post Re: Unstable access to site/puzzles
Has also happened with me.....but it was the locqal imternet provider that was the problem.....the company serving this are is Shaw and if you are with them, then you will have suffered the same as I [smile]


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Posted on: Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:31 pm




Posts: 253
Joined: Tue May 24, 2011 4:55 pm
Post Re: Unstable access to site/puzzles
Strange: Today, October 5, after 11 days of the problems I described above, everything at calcudoku.org has been loading lightning-fast, in the hours after midnight CET as well as late in the morning. Submission of solutions is also not a problem. [thumbup]

I should mention that I did some apparently unrelated things with my PC yesterday evening after posting the bug report: updated Firefox plugins QuickTime and VLC media player, re-installed Adobe Flash Player because Internet Explorer reported it missing (though it works just fine in Firefox, which is the browser I use for calcudokuing and almost everything else) and, maybe most importantly, ran CCleaner, which deleted a lot of temporary files and freed several GB on my constipated hard drive.

It is not entirely inconceivable that the problems I reported may have been caused by my own system, but seeing that others have reported similar experiences in response to my post and that I haven't encountered this kind of lag at other sites I visited using the same PC, I still find it most probable that the problems have been with the hosting/server.

The functionality at calcudoku.org is near-perfect thanks to all the tweaks Patrick has done. I think that stability of access is the thing to focus on now because the time lag was a big turn-off – and must have been so especially to new puzzlers who aren't yet as hooked on calcudoku as those of us who hang out at the forum [wink]. Stability of access is the single factor most likely to affect the number of users in the long run.


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Posted on: Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:10 pm




Posts: 3296
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Unstable access to site/puzzles
bram wrote:
In spite of Patrick's tweaks, I still experience this kind of access problems every day –

I had a lot of issues accessing the site yesterday as well (!)

I couldn't find anything obvious in the server logs (no excessive bandwidth, load, etc.).

I'll check with the sysadmin of the server. The plan is to switch the site to a single
server this month anyway, that will hopefully make things more stable.

Patrick


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Posted on: Tue Oct 08, 2013 4:39 am




Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Mar 26, 2012 12:05 am
Post Re: Unstable access to site/puzzles
I also experience the same problem, not always but often.


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