this doesn't bode well...

[ratcreature]

I'm trying to use the AO3, but I'm just getting "Error 502 Page did not respond in a timely fashion. Either you found a page that took too long to render or we're getting more requests right now than we can handle. You can try refreshing the page, the problem may be temporary."

Is this because of the Yuletide sign-up going on? (I'm not trying to do anything challenge related.)

Comments

[yvi]

Yep, I suppose 95% of its traffic is from that right now. The sign-up form is very heavy on the severers (tag-automcomplete and everything)

[ratcreature]

Sigh. Well, I guess I have to hope browsing and searching when Yuletide opens won't be as bad. Back when it had a separate site I didn't care much if it went down, because I'm not that into obscure fandoms, but now it takes other stuff with it.

[yvi]

It's giving me a page at least every second refresh, by the way. Does it not do that for you?

[ratcreature]

It took me five refreshes (slightly spaced) or so before the series page I wanted to see appeared, though then the first story appeared on the first click, albeit slowly.

[haruka]

*sigh* I wanted to do some uploading today that I couldn't do on my last day off because of the 12-hour downtime they had. I have no interest in Yuletide whatsoever. *fume*

[ratcreature]

Yeah. I sometimes read a couple of Yuletide stories, but mostly I'm not into obscure fandoms. But I'd still like to use the archive during the challenge for other stuff. Last year much less interesting fanfic was on it. And back in the past years before Yuletide was on AO3, I didn't care much if the Yuletide site itself went down, because it was separate and impacted nothing else, I'd like to get to. And if it already has problems with the signups which is just participants, how is it going to cope with all the uploading, and then searching and browsing at the Yuletide peak? I vaguely recall some trouble last year. I guess it's a good performance test. :(

[haruka]

Yes, the trouble last year has resulted in a friend of mine who is heavily into Yuletide to withdraw from AO3 altogether (I guess it crashed and no one could get their gifts on time.)

I would think that the site was better able to handle all this after a year of improvements, but maybe not. :(

[ratcreature]

Well, the Yuletide archive often had trouble on opening, so moving to the AO3 didn't make that worse, and probably better, what with it getting larger and larger every year. Just that then it didn't draw other stuff into the abyss with it. I imagine some smaller holiday exchanges may run on the AO3 challenge system too, for example. In any case, I'm crossing my fingers for them.

[yvi]

(I guess it crashed and no one could get their gifts on time.)

It was a slow, yeah, but it didn't crash and I got to read my story about 1 hour after the reveal.

[haruka]

I guess that's two different stories, then. According to her, it crashed and the excitement of Yuletide wore off for a lot of people because the stories stayed hidden for days and it was all anticlamactic. I wasn't involved, so I don't know. *shrug* All I do know is that the experience soured her enough on AO3 that she'll no longer put her stuff up there.

[parhelion]

Seems as if AO3 is using Yuletide as a combination of a free severe beta test of their newest code where they can get lots of volunteers to help in a crisis and a measurement of how much they need to ramp up the next round of servers they're about to buy.

Amazingly, this actually made sense to me, especially given that they're talking about expanding the media they host. But I bet it also means there's going to be some sloooow posting over the next six weeks.

[penknife.livejournal.com]

The site's probably getting hammered right now -- sign-ups just opened this morning, and as people wake up, everybody's jumping on. (Umm, sorry?)

[ratcreature]

:(

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

Despite the yuletide sign-up I'm actually having very few problems. The site loads a bit slower but so far I could access every page I wanted to. :)

[ratcreature]

I could open the pages I wanted to eventually, but it took something like five reloads, spread out a bit. >:(

[sholio]

Yeah, I tried posting that Dresden Files fic to it last night and it just timed out on me; I assume that it's going to be super bogged down with Yuletide stuff for awhile.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I fear that'll be true. *grumble*

[sholio]

You know, back when ff.net was my main archive I always complained (and boy did I complain *g*) about ads and server downtime and so forth, but watching AO3's growth pains, I'm starting to be amazed that a site as mind-bogglingly huge as ff.net runs as smoothly with as little downtime as it does.

[ratcreature]

Yes, I've always appreciated ff.net for its reliability. The only thing I mind as a reader there is that you only have a chapter, not a complete view, and its odd stripping of characters that changed and ambushed people. Even the search has gotten quite useful, compared to its beginnings.

[sholio]

Yeah. There are a number of things that frustrate me about ff.net; among other things, I got so fed up with the upload interface and the way it stripped out characters that I haven't posted anything there in about ... er, two years now, I guess. (Though I still get reviews on my old fic, which means I should probably upload some of the newer stuff so that it doesn't look like I died or left fandom or something.) But despite the problems, it's been up and stable and completely usable 99% of the time for over ten years now, and it's still going strong, which becomes all the more incredible as I watch other archives and fannish endeavors struggling with the same issues that plagued ff.net (heavy traffic, increased visibility and so forth).

By the way, I totally hear you on the problem of Yuletide taking down the whole AO3 archive. And it's just going to be more and more of a problem as AO3 grows and starts to become the central archiving site for a number of fandoms and challenges. It's really a problem for a major fannish hub to be brought to a crawl a couple weeks out of the year because of one ficathon. Hopefully these are just growing pains that they'll work out in the next couple of years, but it really isn't a good sign for the future stability of AO3 in general ...

[red-eft.livejournal.com]

In their latest news post, they mention they'll be getting new servers soon, (http://community.livejournal.com/otw_news/109002.html) and that they'll be using Yuletide to test which parts need to be reinforced. So hopefully, the downtime this year will help prevent downtime in future years. *fingers crossed*