Overloaded Servers

[+Jansenators]

I am beyond frustrated!

Yesterday a group of cachers and myself went out and got 103 caches for the day!

I have tried a number of times since yesterday to log all of these caches, and keep getting shows a screen saying that the servers seem to be overloaded. I try in 1 hour, and same thing.

 

I have now (almost 24 hours later), gotten thru about 90% of the logs, but still have a few more to go.

 

what the heck is up with these servers????

Time to upgrade them perhaps?

[+on4bam]

I am beyond frustrated!

Yesterday a group of cachers and myself went out and got 103 caches for the day!

I have tried a number of times since yesterday to log all of these caches, and keep getting shows a screen saying that the servers seem to be overloaded. I try in 1 hour, and same thing.

 

I have now (almost 24 hours later), gotten thru about 90% of the logs, but still have a few more to go.

 

You might take a look at some of the software packages that are API partners. Writing logs offline and then uploading via API might reduce your workload considerably.

I use GSAK (Windows), connect the GPS to the computer, get logs (geocache_visits.txt), write logs in GSAK (with template), mark TBs for retrieval or drop and hit "publish all". Minutes later it's all done, no matter how many logs have to be send.

When I used to log on the website (long time ago) it was slow during weekends or busy periods too. With API access I haven't seen this yet.

[+The A-Team]

The site is typically sluggish on Sundays, but I can't recall ever receiving a message that the servers were overloaded. When do you see this message? Is it anytime you try to view a page on the website, only after you submit a log, or something else?

[+GeoTrekker26]

I am beyond frustrated!

Yesterday a group of cachers and myself went out and got 103 caches for the day!

I have tried a number of times since yesterday to log all of these caches, and keep getting shows a screen saying that the servers seem to be overloaded. I try in 1 hour, and same thing.

 

I have now (almost 24 hours later), gotten thru about 90% of the logs, but still have a few more to go.

 

what the heck is up with these servers????

Time to upgrade them perhaps?

 

I see you are in South Africa, so there is a good possibility the delay is being caused by your ISP or the trunking into/out of South Africa. I know Telkom is prone to such problems.

[+fizzymagic]

what the heck is up with these servers????

Time to upgrade them perhaps?

 

Prior to about 2008 or so, we used to have big performance problems with geocaching.com. However, they did a complete redesign and have been migrating to a more and more scalable system. In the past few years, performance problems have been nearly nonexistent for me (here in the USA).

 

IMO, geocaching.com does an incredible job of keeping their service up and running. They deserve accolades!

[+Jansenators]

I am beyond frustrated!

Yesterday a group of cachers and myself went out and got 103 caches for the day!

I have tried a number of times since yesterday to log all of these caches, and keep getting shows a screen saying that the servers seem to be overloaded. I try in 1 hour, and same thing.

 

I have now (almost 24 hours later), gotten thru about 90% of the logs, but still have a few more to go.

 

You might take a look at some of the software packages that are API partners. Writing logs offline and then uploading via API might reduce your workload considerably.

I use GSAK (Windows), connect the GPS to the computer, get logs (geocache_visits.txt), write logs in GSAK (with template), mark TBs for retrieval or drop and hit "publish all". Minutes later it's all done, no matter how many logs have to be send.

When I used to log on the website (long time ago) it was slow during weekends or busy periods too. With API access I haven't seen this yet.

 

Thank you for the response Maurice.

I run Apple Mac, and GSAK only runs on Windows. So that is a no-go.

Do you know of a program which runs on Mac as well?

[+Jansenators]

The site is typically sluggish on Sundays, but I can't recall ever receiving a message that the servers were overloaded. When do you see this message? Is it anytime you try to view a page on the website, only after you submit a log, or something else?

 

It was happening after every few logs that was added.

The delays between when it stopped working and when it allowed me to start adding more logs was different each time.

[+Jansenators]

I am beyond frustrated!

Yesterday a group of cachers and myself went out and got 103 caches for the day!

I have tried a number of times since yesterday to log all of these caches, and keep getting shows a screen saying that the servers seem to be overloaded. I try in 1 hour, and same thing.

 

I have now (almost 24 hours later), gotten thru about 90% of the logs, but still have a few more to go.

 

what the heck is up with these servers????

Time to upgrade them perhaps?

 

I see you are in South Africa, so there is a good possibility the delay is being caused by your ISP or the trunking into/out of South Africa. I know Telkom is prone to such problems.

 

I have never had this issue with any other site in my life.

Also, I tested this theory. I was doing the logs whilst on my wi-fi connection. Once it stopped allowing me to send more logs, I switched over to my mobile network with Vodacom, tried again - same result. So it's definitely not an ISP issue.

[+on4bam]

I run Apple Mac, and GSAK only runs on Windows. So that is a no-go.

Do you know of a program which runs on Mac as well?

 

You can run GSAK in a VM on a Mac. I haven't tried it but there's a subforum on the GSAK forum.

[+Adventure.AS]

I run Apple Mac, and GSAK only runs on Windows. So that is a no-go.

Do you know of a program which runs on Mac as well?

 

I use iCaching on my Mac and like it's database management features. Not like a Swiss Army Knife, but good value.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I run Apple Mac, and GSAK only runs on Windows. So that is a no-go.

Do you know of a program which runs on Mac as well?

 

You can run GSAK in a VM on a Mac. I haven't tried it but there's a subforum on the GSAK forum.

 

You make it sound simpler than it actually is. There are actually several ways one can run GSAK on a mac.

 

A VM (Virtual Machine) is an application that serves as a container for an operating system. In this case, you're essentially installing a copy of the Window OS (you *do* have a license for the copy of WIndows you're installing....right?) into the container, then installing GSAK as an application in that operating system. The two most common VM containers for a Mac are VMWare and Parallels. Both are commercial products (Parallels costs $80US). There's also an open source VM called VirtualBox that I've used on a PC. It works fairly well as long as the machine has a reasonable amount of memory (how much does that extra memory cost?). It is somewhat tedious to use just to run a single application. First you have to start up the VM application. Then (after your have installed Windows in the VM) you have to boot up the Window O/S. Then you can start up GSAK and do whatever is needed with. Once you're done you can close GSAK, shutdown the windows O/S, and then the VM application or you can just minimize the VM application, but keep in mind that it's going to use some memory and cpu resources even when it's minimized.

 

Another option is to use something like BootCamp. Basically you have to install a copy of Windows (again, if you're going to be legal you're going to need a Windows license) onto a separate partition on the hard drive. Then, when the booting up the computer BootCamp lets you select MacOS or Windows for the O/S you want to run. That means if you want to run GSAK you have to reboot your computer then reboot again when you want to switch back to running MacOS.

 

A third option is to use an application called Wine or Winebottle (the latter is a customization of the Wine software). Wine basically takes a windows executable and replaces windows specific system calls with code which works on linux/macos (MacOS is just a customization of linux with a graphical front end). However it doesn't always work as intended and doesn't work for all windows applications. Apparently GSAK version *mostly* works. However, the authentication pieces (for providing credentials to the Groundspeak API) doesn't work *unless* you install GSAK on a Windows machine, login to GS from that machine, then backup GSAK running on Windows onto a USB drive, then restore that backup onto the version running on the Mac. The authentication only needs to be done once (unless the token changes) but if you have access to a Windows machine with GSAK running on it, why not just run it there all the time? This is probably the simplest and least intrusive solution but there are still a bunch of hoops to jump through,

[+on4bam]

I run Apple Mac, and GSAK only runs on Windows. So that is a no-go.

Do you know of a program which runs on Mac as well?

 

You can run GSAK in a VM on a Mac. I haven't tried it but there's a subforum on the GSAK forum.

 

You make it sound simpler than it actually is. There are actually several ways one can run GSAK on a mac.

 

I don't know the OP's tech skills and don't have a Mac myself to give step by step instructions so I was just pointing towards a possible solution.

 

Besides, this is beyond the scope of "overloaded servers" right?

[+ChileHead]

MacOS is just a customization of linux with a graphical front end

 

Technically MacOS is a customization of BSD UNIX, not linux. Linux is an independent distribution of a UNIX system. BSD predates linux by about 15-20 years.

[+Sagefox]

what the heck is up with these servers????

Time to upgrade them perhaps?

 

Prior to about 2008 or so, we used to have big performance problems with geocaching.com. However, they did a complete redesign and have been migrating to a more and more scalable system. In the past few years, performance problems have been nearly nonexistent for me (here in the USA).

 

IMO, geocaching.com does an incredible job of keeping their service up and running. They deserve accolades!

Thanks for your comments. This is my experience too. We were patient during the growing pains and have been thoroughly rewarded with a very smoothly operating site.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

MacOS is just a customization of linux with a graphical front end

 

Technically MacOS is a customization of BSD UNIX, not linux. Linux is an independent distribution of a UNIX system. BSD predates linux by about 15-20 years.

 

I actually knew that but figured some might not even know what Unix is but have heard of Linux.

 

In 1984 or so I was a systems administrator for 4 systems running Unix System 5. These machines were used by HP to develop HP-UX. I was the source code product engineer for HP-UX 1.0 (a product for building HP-UX from source code). Once HP-UX released I supported 12 workstations running the O/S and set up the first TCP/IP network at HP with those machines (and the 4 original machines). One of those machines was as used as a Usenet server and I supported that as well. After leaving HP I worked for a startup company that developed a real-time version of Unix called LynxOS that ran on a PC (one of the first to do so). Prior to working at Cornell I worked for another startup that developed a software product that was supported on many different versions of Unix. As the systems administrator I had to support the developers machines which included at least one instance of Unix that we supported. That included Solaris, SunOS, HP-UX, AIX (IBM), Digital Unix (DEC), Unixware, Redhat Linux, and Irix (Silicon Graphics).

 

You might say I've got a bit of experience with Unix based systems.

 

[+Jansenators]

I run Apple Mac, and GSAK only runs on Windows. So that is a no-go.

Do you know of a program which runs on Mac as well?

 

I use iCaching on my Mac and like it's database management features. Not like a Swiss Army Knife, but good value.

Thanks for this! It's helpful.

If I saved finds offline, how do I import those into iCaching to get ready for submitting?

[+Adventure.AS]

I run Apple Mac, and GSAK only runs on Windows. So that is a no-go.

Do you know of a program which runs on Mac as well?

 

I use iCaching on my Mac and like it's database management features. Not like a Swiss Army Knife, but good value.

Thanks for this! It's helpful.

If I saved finds offline, how do I import those into iCaching to get ready for submitting?

 

From the iCaching webpage:

ADDING CACHES FOR LOGGING

First add the caches you want to log to the log list. You can do this in two ways:

 

• Open a file with fieldnotes from your device. For now this is for Garmin and Magellan paperless devices. These files are called geocache_visits.txt on Garmins and logs.txt on Magellans. Open this file by clicking the toolbar button. iCaching will remember the location of this file for the next time.
• Add the selected caches from the cachelist to the loglist by clicking the button on the toolbar of the logging window. Note that the loggingwindow is not blocking the main window of iCaching, so you can jump forth and back.

[+Jansenators]

I run Apple Mac, and GSAK only runs on Windows. So that is a no-go.

Do you know of a program which runs on Mac as well?

 

I use iCaching on my Mac and like it's database management features. Not like a Swiss Army Knife, but good value.

Thanks for this! It's helpful.

If I saved finds offline, how do I import those into iCaching to get ready for submitting?

 

From the iCaching webpage:

ADDING CACHES FOR LOGGING

First add the caches you want to log to the log list. You can do this in two ways:

 

• Open a file with fieldnotes from your device. For now this is for Garmin and Magellan paperless devices. These files are called geocache_visits.txt on Garmins and logs.txt on Magellans. Open this file by clicking the toolbar button. iCaching will remember the location of this file for the next time.
• Add the selected caches from the cachelist to the loglist by clicking the button on the toolbar of the logging window. Note that the loggingwindow is not blocking the main window of iCaching, so you can jump forth and back.

 

Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it