Service Unavailable

#1 I was getting this error a couple days back when I tried to access the site. 15 minutes later everything worked fine.

#2 It's a known issue, see the thread for instructions on reporting the instances it happens to you and possible workarounds.

#3 I cannot access the known issue without the error. lol

#4

Quote:On winXP you can edit the hosts file in notepad in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

add this line at the bottom
216.116.32.49 www.garagegames.com

save and restart your browser.

I'm not sure what the file is called or where it is located on non-Windows OS's but I'm sure there's something similar

#5 I have a better idea: fix the site.

#6 That would be an excellent idea if it were the site.

#7 I wrote up an explanation how it doesn't matter where the cause lies, just that it's been a continuing unresolved problem. Essentially, it's not my problem to care about the origin of the problem, but I can tell you that I was asked about Torque recently and said that TDN being unreliable makes it a hard recommendation to make. If "Service Unavailable" is to be the new slogan for GarageGames, more power to them. All I know is that it looks amazingly amateurish to have such an unreliable site for a company.

Then the danged thing gave me "Service Unavailable". So I paraphrased it in the above paragraph. This time, I copied it, just in case.

#8 @Jason - Are you just ignoring the statements made by GG that they are working to resolve it? They aren't ignoring the issue. It's not like a GG representative said "To hell with it" in another thread.

If you don't care about the origin, do not care that people are working to fix it, do not have a solution, then why post a message that takes a cheap jab at GG?

#9 "Working to resolve it" has been going on a long time.

In the meantime, people are asked to make changes to their host files. That's not reasonable. We've been trying to work on a game using Torque and level of service being expected is that the web site works. That's really quite fair. Running a web site is not a new thing, even with forums.

If pointing out that this problem has been tolerated for a ridiculously long time is taking a "cheap jab", then I'm taking a cheap jab. It's fine that you think that, but I can't recall any commercial site that's been this unreliable since Navigator was a popular browser.

Michael, beyond righteous indignation, it's silly to think you really added anything to the thread beyond rabid, fanboyish behavior. When did GarageGames rise above those of us which are subject to criticism when failing? I, for one, did not get that memo. As a commercial entity, trying isn't good enough. Think, just for a second, with InstantAction coming out soon and this site being so unreliable, wouldn't that give just a slightly bad impression? Why would one subscribe to InstantAction if GarageGames has a hard time running forums and a wiki?

Please, don't believe that I'm the only person who finds this site's service reliability to be frustrating. I'm sure others are more or less vocal, others probably took their money elsewhere, and other just don't really care. Personally, I do care, it's like "Tough Love". If GarageGames was doing a bang-up job, I would compliment them on that, I've certainly praised them when they've deserved it. If I really just wanted to take "cheap jabs", my commentary would have been much more colorful.

GarageGames has products on their site with less than stellar reviews on their site, they've been pretty honest about things. They deserve praise for that, or would you prefer to run off and yell at the people who've let mediocre reviews since you apparently think you're needed to defend their sacred honor? If my frustration really hits such a tender nerve, speaking business owner to business, they are more then welcome to erase my messages and even contact me outside of these forums. Just as I would tell my friends that they're doing things which reflect poorly one them, I would tell GarageGames. Some people think lavish, undeserved praise and endless patience is being a good friend, but I'd rather have honest friends.

#10 I understand that you don't care why the problem is happening and want it fixed. I want it more than you can imagine. I would venture to say even much more than you do yourself since I deal with people who are seeing it regularly. You might deal with the random person asking here or there about Torque. I deal with people every day interested in Torque, having problems with the site, having issues with documentation or deploying TX to their 360, placing orders, accessing their profile, updating TDN, etc.

I wish I could say it were a server issue and we could fix it. It would have been fixed long ago if that were the case. It's not. I harvest the information that Akamai requested. I log it. I wait while they do whatever they're doing. Beat horse. Repeat. I'm more tired of the issue than you can even imagine.

Do I think we should go with another solution provider once the contract is up? Definitely. Do I have any say in it? Nope. But I can try to help people regardless of what Akamai is or isn't doing, and that's what I try to do.

I can understand if you're not happy with that. I'm sure there are a lot of people unhappy with what little I can do, especially when it is completely out of my hands and I'm just in an information passing position. Especially when it is one-way information passing. I'm okay with that. They probably should be unhappy. People like to yell at tech support. Support technicians don't like it quite as much.

Some people have had the problem stop, so I hope that Akamai made it happen, but then new ones pop up. As people use the hosts solution, it bypasses Akamai's proxy or router (whichever is the problem; though it may be both) and gets to us, but we never know if it was actually fixed for that user since they have manually bypassed it. Good for them; not good for our conversations with Akamai because if they didn't do anything, they assume that we did or that there was a simple browser compatibility issue. Even though all the data points to them.

I hear back from a lot of users, and they've been great. I have one who has written a script to collect a wonderful amount of data and format it according to Akamai's standards. Should he have had to write a script to collect this info? Hell no! But he was great enough to give us a nice chunk of data for Akamai. Whether anything was done with it, I don't know.

I know you're unhappy, and I agree that you shouldn't be concerned as to why a minority of users are having the issue consistently. I wish there were something I could do on my end. But I'm doing what I can, which is logging the information they've requested to fix the problem and at least trying to get users to the site until it gets fixed. I hate the work-arounds, but they're what I've got right now.

#11 Jason, I believe you when you say you aren't the only one frustrated. That's obvious and natural. I'm with you and David on the level of frustration. I use this site and TDN for nearly 15 hours a day, so the few weeks of dealing with the issue were riddled with swearing and "face-palming" before learning about the host file fix.

I have said it before, I truly wish my emotions and inflection could be transmitted with my forums posts. Otherwise, some of the things I post come off as critical or rude...and I really wish to avoid that.

I have nothing to be indignant about, and I'll criticize myself before I do others. So, forgive me if my tone was perceived that way.

My only reason for posting was to respond to a message you have already posted in the other thread. You claim I added nothing to the thread, but I could claim the same as you. However, it might be best to continue the conversation in a civil manner via a mutual messenger (AIM: Loco Peffe), if there is still a disagreement.

Or we can just let it be and get back to development, whichever is best =)

#12 "Kill them! Kill them both!"

Are you guys english? this is one of the better and more gentler discussions Ive seen on a long time.

Edit: Yeah, I know, speaking of adding nothing to the thread...

#13 I think it is because they are both mature, smart individuals that know how to handle the situation.

#14 @Novack - Not English. I was born in South Carolina, so I grew up around a bunch of overly proud hot heads and swore I wouldn't fall into the same behavior I was surrounded by.

Also, I value the opinion of my fellow community members. So, if I upset Jason I'd prefer we come to an accord.

#15 There's also no reason to be hostile. Usually, there's rarely a reason to get hostile online. People just seem to like to, often for no apparent reason except blowing off steam.

I don't think anyone in this topic is doing that, despite our frustrations with what's been going on. Plus, we can all see each other's point of view regardless of whether or not we can do anything about the frustrations or not.

#16 It was a pain, but I just used the IP Address instead and it always worked, but for the last week or so, I haven't had any issues at all. It used to be if I used the domain name, I couldn't access the site for about 5 hours a day.

#17 That message was showing up on regular intervals a month or so ago, but then it just disappeared.
Too bad it's not working for everyone. I feel your pain.

#18 I get the the message most of the time, and then sometimes it works for an hour. I simply started doing what others have done and use the IP address which always works, just don't click links once your in! ;)

#19 An error occurred while processing your request.

Reference #97.8f7ffea5.1211581621.4d37f91

Tried to connect to TDN. But this time, saved the error code for this post.

#20 @ Scott W.

Go to the thread I linked to and follow the directions in that thread for reporting. David can't do anything with just the reference number. There are also workarounds in that thread.