smugmug weekly maintenance window - Monday night / Tuesday morning

onethumb · July 27, 2004

I figured it'd be a good idea to try to standardize maintenance on a certain day and time, so people would be aware of when the site might be down.

Usually, we don't have to do site maintenance very often, so most weeks everything will still be up during this timeframe, but we have it scheduled "just in case".

Monday night 11pm to Tuesday morning 4am (Pacific Time) is our window. Again, it's rarely used, but we'll try to keep scheduled maintenance to that window.

Thanks,

Don

wxwax · July 27, 2004

Shakey · July 27, 2004

Great... there goes my PUI day. Monday is my Saturday:D

Tim

PerezDesignGroup · July 27, 2004

VERY smart putting the link on the maintenance page. There's nothing better than keeping your customers fully informed and updated.

Erik Olsen · October 3, 2004

onethumb wrote:

I figured it'd be a good idea to try to standardize maintenance on a certain day and time, so people would be aware of when the site might be down.

Usually, we don't have to do site maintenance very often, so most weeks everything will still be up during this timeframe, but we have it scheduled "just in case".

Monday night 11pm to Tuesday morning 4am (Pacific Time) is our window. Again, it's rarely used, but we'll try to keep scheduled maintenance to that window.

Thanks,

Don

Bummer... that's 9pm - 2am our time (EDT)... right after a weekend event (weddings, Horse shows... etc.)

Thursdays from 1am - 6am (Pacific Time) would help us folks here in the eastern part of the world.

Thank you,

Erik Olsen
www.manevideo.com

Baldy · October 3, 2004

Hey Eric,

I actually think 11 p.m. our time (Pacific) is 2 a.m. your time.

snapapple · October 3, 2004

That's right - Tuesday, 2 am to 7 am Eastern time. I hope not too many people are up then.

cilles · October 5, 2004

Erik Olsen wrote:

Bummer... that's 9pm - 2am our time (EDT)... right after a weekend event (weddings, Horse shows... etc.)

Thursdays from 1am - 6am (Pacific Time) would help us folks here in the eastern part of the world.

Thank you,

Erik Olsen
www.manevideo.com

I agree and I'm on the west coast. Just finished uploading the weekends shoot and if it had gone down for maintenance it would have cost me an entire day since I can't do it again (usually) until the next evening.

-Chris

ian408 · October 8, 2004

Finding time that doesn't affect someone somewhere is always a difficult task.
Skew for the Americas and Asia / Europe suffer....

Good luck and thanks for the heads up!

Ian

jpeake · March 15, 2005

Don't forget us Aussies...
I understand that picking a time that doesn't affect someone somewhere in the world is tricky, but please bear in mind that your chosen timeslot is 4pm-9pm for us here in Eastern Australia...

That qualifies as photoprocessing prime-time for me, so please try to minimise the outage time / frequency... This is the first time I've encountered any downtime on the site, but it's happened twice in one day (one unplanned / one planned?)...

It's quite ironic that I chose smugmug because pbase was down at the time that I was looking for a place to register...

gus · March 15, 2005

Let go forward & aft OT.

I would do it to minimise the outage to my biggest client base which is to you...the US.

The rest of us can live without it for a few hours.

Its not as if you are doing it all the time & it is for improvements.

onethumb · March 15, 2005

jpeake wrote:

I understand that picking a time that doesn't affect someone somewhere in the world is tricky, but please bear in mind that your chosen timeslot is 4pm-9pm for us here in Eastern Australia...

That qualifies as photoprocessing prime-time for me, so please try to minimise the outage time / frequency... This is the first time I've encountered any downtime on the site, but it's happened twice in one day (one unplanned / one planned?)...

It's quite ironic that I chose smugmug because pbase was down at the time that I was looking for a place to register...

Yes, I realize we're a global company, and it pains me when I have to take the site down for long periods of time, but the fact of the matter is our traffic is nearly non-existent during these particular hours.

Since I have to pick SOME time to bring things down for upgrades and whatnot from time to time, it seems to make sense to do it during the least busy hours.

Today's earlier outage, FYI, was the first major (greater than just a few minutes) unplanned outage since August of last year. Even short outages are rare.

Maintenance is also pretty rare (actually, I do it a lot, but most of the site can be upgraded behind-the-scenes). I don't think we take the site down for more than a few minutes even once a month during our scheduled time.

Tonight, though, is a biggie. It'll be out of comission for quite awhile, but it should be a nice upgrade for us.

Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Don

BBJ · March 15, 2005

Don, I am a new pro user and as i live in Australia and now today we have had 2 outages as after all my racing pictures that i have uploaded and getting phonecalls and emails for orders and now the site is down. I realise that the server needs to have work done and i think that maybe a more suitable time of the week like midweek. After weekend shoots everyone will be wanting to see there photo's and now monday comes and no go.

Can we please try and make these midweek or later in the week as i think it would suite most people.
Thanks
John
BBJ

onethumb wrote:

I figured it'd be a good idea to try to standardize maintenance on a certain day and time, so people would be aware of when the site might be down.

Usually, we don't have to do site maintenance very often, so most weeks everything will still be up during this timeframe, but we have it scheduled "just in case".

Monday night 11pm to Tuesday morning 4am (Pacific Time) is our window. Again, it's rarely used, but we'll try to keep scheduled maintenance to that window.

Thanks,

Don

tmanchester · October 18, 2005

Erik Olsen wrote:

Bummer... that's 9pm - 2am our time (EDT)... right after a weekend event (weddings, Horse shows... etc.)

Thursdays from 1am - 6am (Pacific Time) would help us folks here in the eastern part of the world.

What he said is right on. I would suspect a lot of us pro users shoot and post weekend events. Most of our traffic is early in the week.

Is there any possibilty you might consider a change?

Andy · January 30, 2006

Bump.

mdraughn · January 31, 2006

Congestion pricing?
Doesn't the upload count against a user's bandwidth allocation? If so, perhaps you could encourage your larger users to upload off-peak by not counting off-peak uploads against the bandwidth buget. I'm assuming that off-peak bandwidth has zero marginal cost to you. You'd lose the fees for the additional bandwidth, but you might smooth your load a bit.

devbobo · January 31, 2006

mdraughn wrote:

Doesn't the upload count against a user's bandwidth allocation? If so, perhaps you could encourage your larger users to upload off-peak by not counting off-peak uploads against the bandwidth buget. I'm assuming that off-peak bandwidth has zero marginal cost to you. You'd lose the fees for the additional bandwidth, but you might smooth your load a bit.

No only download bandwidth. Unlimited uploads.

kygarden · January 31, 2006

Hope it's back up soon! I've got images hosted on Smugmug that are used on my eBay auctions. If people don't see the photos of the product, I lose out

As of 6:24 AM Eastern...still down. I realize it must be done...but the sooner it's done, the better

krmujn · January 31, 2006

I posted a mess of pictures yesterday, and now they all say "maintainence".Will I have to re-post them, or will they come back when you're done? It was a LOT & took me quite a while.

kygarden · January 31, 2006

krmujn wrote:

I posted a mess of pictures yesterday, and now they all say "maintainence".Will I have to re-post them, or will they come back when you're done? It was a LOT & took me quite a while.

They will return automatically.

P.S. If it's not up by 8 AM EST, I think it's panic time for many people. Lots of people will be at work or up at home, browsing the web...and all the places our photos are linked to will get the maint. message. Not an extreme problem for me personally, but sure...it gets worse as time goes by. I too left Pbase after I had one too many bad experiences with my photos not being available for whatever reason. Smugmug seemed to be much more stable. I guess the other thing about Pbase which I don't understand...while they have a disclaimer stating that they don't allow galleries with nude images that are clearly not of a professional nature, they are loaded with them. I was a little worried people I send my photo links to would browse around and stumble on those nudes by accident (Mardis Gras shots, etc, etc)...it's surprisingly easy to do (stumble across them I mean).

DKS photography · January 31, 2006

Well, looks like Australians are in the minority
Yes, I like the smugmug service, yes I like it maintained, it needed it, wouldn't let me log off last week, so at 11.00pm I guess that I should be going to bed and tell any prospective clients to do the same. But, I just did a big push this afternoon for my site, and now it ain't there.
Can smugmug make an Australian site, down time to suit Australia and also in Australian currency? Is this a big ask?
Dave.

Andy · January 31, 2006

DKS photography wrote:

Can smugmug make an Australian site, down time to suit Australia and also in Australian currency? Is this a big ask?
Dave.

Hi Dave - we're very sorry that we have to do this. Fortunately, we rarely do. We have this window of time published so that folks can have an advanced warning. Sorry for the troubles!

Andy

kygarden · January 31, 2006

It's baaaaack

SCS_Photo · February 7, 2006

The website down message that points to this board seems to imply this is the official place for smugmug support, even though onethumb stated that it isn't...

Matthew Saville · February 28, 2006

Wow, I feel like a big boy now! I think this is the first time ever the maintenance window has affected my dealings with a client. Of course, a few minutes once a week is a fantastic-good deal for over 2 years of purrr-formance...

Sadly however, today is ALSO the first time I've had to inform a client about Smugmug's tubed prints often having creases in them, and my hesitancy in offering them to the general plublic. Hopefully, I will never have to deal with a customer actually getting a damaged print, but for the record- Has anyone noticed an improvement in tubed print handling? I haven't ordered anything tubed since a few months ago when Smugmug had to reprint a pic for me...

Take care and keep up the good work,
-Matt-

DKS photography · February 28, 2006

I understand, but please

onethumb wrote:

I figured it'd be a good idea to try to standardize maintenance on a certain day and time, so people would be aware of when the site might be down.

Usually, we don't have to do site maintenance very often, so most weeks everything will still be up during this timeframe, but we have it scheduled "just in case".

Monday night 11pm to Tuesday morning 4am (Pacific Time) is our window. Again, it's rarely used, but we'll try to keep scheduled maintenance to that window.

Thanks,

Don

can you guys do it mid week?
The other questions I have.
1. Can you build an Australian site, using Australian currency, Australian states etc. I have many clients turn away when they are asked what American state they live in. I am aware they can click on the country to post to, but a lot of my clients don't understand that and say to me, "That site wanted me to be a Yank and I think it might be easier if you just get the photos locally for me".
Global batteries has an amazing site, you would swear it was in Australia. The software is out there guys......
2. Can you make a site that is not as cookie dependant? Every time I email regarding an issue, I get the "Our site is very cookie dependant," and I am asked to clear my cookies or turn them on....I can't tell my clients to enable their cookies when they want to buy photos, they are but poor simple folk, not very net savy, but hey do have money and want to spend it.

Andy · February 28, 2006

Matthew Saville wrote:

Wow, I feel like a big boy now! I think this is the first time ever the maintenance window has affected my dealings with a client. Of course, a few minutes once a week is a fantastic-good deal for over 2 years of purrr-formance...

Sadly however, today is ALSO the first time I've had to inform a client about Smugmug's tubed prints often having creases in them, and my hesitancy in offering them to the general plublic. Hopefully, I will never have to deal with a customer actually getting a damaged print, but for the record- Has anyone noticed an improvement in tubed print handling? I haven't ordered anything tubed since a few months ago when Smugmug had to reprint a pic for me...

Take care and keep up the good work,
-Matt-

Matt, this was months ago, and we've had several posts and threads where we've discussed this issue, and how we have dealt with it at the source. It was also extremely rare that this happened.

Andy · February 28, 2006

DKS photography wrote:

can you guys do it mid week?
The other questions I have.
1. Can you build an Australian site, using Australian currency, Australian states etc. I have many clients turn away when they are asked what American state they live in. I am aware they can click on the country to post to, but a lot of my clients don't understand that and say to me, "That site wanted me to be a Yank and I think it might be easier if you just get the photos locally for me".
Global batteries has an amazing site, you would swear it was in Australia. The software is out there guys......
2. Can you make a site that is not as cookie dependant? Every time I email regarding an issue, I get the "Our site is very cookie dependant," and I am asked to clear my cookies or turn them on....I can't tell my clients to enable their cookies when they want to buy photos, they are but poor simple folk, not very net savy, but hey do have money and want to spend it.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Matthew Saville · February 28, 2006

Andy wrote:

Matt, this was months ago, and we've had several posts and threads where we've discussed this issue, and how we have dealt with it at the source. It was also extremely rare that this happened.

Thanks Andy, I'll have to hunt down those topics when I have some time.

But, "extremely rare"? Here's my situation: well over 50% of the tubed prints I've gotten from smugmug had at least some little blip in them, but I just never brought it up except the one time when it was overly unacceptable. I hope it's is NOT the case, but it's possible that others experienced the same thing and just didn't bring it up...

-Matt-

PS- You lucky dog! Enjoy PMA!

jchin · March 28, 2006

Must be my bad timing. Of all nights I wanted to work on my photos; right in the middle of the maintenance window

I look forward to the new features when it all comes back online.

smugmug weekly maintenance window - Monday night / Tuesday morning

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