Manga Traders

Posted by Yukimura on 02/23/2010 2:22 pm

Alright I just pushed out a change which should resolve most if not all of the problems people have been seeing with blank watches/favorites and the like (at least the ones that are actual problems).  Everyone's watched and favorite series data will be automatically refreshed the next time they come to the site.  This should ensure that if your account managed to get junk into the cache it will be repaired automatically the next time you look at your profile page without you having to do anything.  All the other stuff that gets cached will time out within an hour and get refreshed anyway so if you're still having any problems an hour after the posting time of this post let me know here, otherwise enjoy the site sans bugs for a while.

IMPORTANT: Adding or removing a series from your Watch/Favorite list should be reflected instantly on the profile tab of your profile page and on the series page of series you have on one or both lists.  HOWEVER it may take up to 15 minutes for changes to your list to be reflected on your RSS feed or side panel watch list and may take up to 30 minutes for them to be reflected on your Watched List tab on your profile page.  Please do not report this lack of instantaneous update as a bug, it's a feature, which means it is like that on purpose.

A a bonus I added a feature to the watched and favorite lists so they will show up in red if they have been marked completely available on Mangatraders.  (Don't ask me to make it so you can sort series by completion on your profile page because I won't do it).  If you find you have a ton of red series on your watched list please consider removing them as they aren't doing much good for you there.  I know the interface for watch and favorite list management could be improved and maybe I will work on that sometime soon too.

Posted by Yukimura on 02/17/2010 6:57 pm

It looks like last night got pretty rough on the site after I gave up and went to bed.  We can only learn from our mistakes and I certainly learned a few things when I woke up this morning and saw what the site had been doing while I was asleep.  Here's an overview of what was fixed today based on what was reported to be behaving oddly as of the time I woke up.  All the things on this list should be displaying the proper behavior as of right now, as before if something is still out of whack or you know of something I missed let me know. 

• Site congestion issues causing everything to load very slowly


• RSS Watch List Feeds


• Adding/Removing Series From Watch/Favorite Lists


• Viewing the upload archives page for dates before the current date.


• Displaying of series on watched/favorite list on profile pages. (I added an extra treat when I fixed that one)

Again please don't be shy with reporting incorrect or awkward behavior.  What may seem like a minor inconvenience to you could be a symptom of a major problem building up behind the scenes.  I don't trust you all to maintain the site so please don't trust yourselves to know whether something is worth reporting or not, if something works different from what you are used to or would expect, report it.

A caveat to this, if we have announced an issue as known and being worked on then we do trust you not to report it again unless we have stated that it should be fixed and you don't think that it has been.  I will try to keep all of the open issues I can on the front page so everyone will know what doens't need to be reported again.

SOME KNOWN ISSUES THAT ARE BEING WORKED ON
- All records of downloads made before Feb 12 2010 09:28:19 US Central Time are TEMPORARILY unavailable and will not show up on series pages or your profile.
- If your watch (or favorite) list is not showing up on your profile page it may have been cached as empty, try adding and then removing a series to the list that's not showing up, this should refresh the whole list and it should then show up on your profile page (maybe).
- Tabs on Profile - If you look at your profile by going to mt.com/profile instead of /mt.com/profile/userid your downloads, uploads, and watch list will probably look wrong.  Going to the mt.com/profile/userid link should resolve this.


The site seems to have stabilized for now and should be somewhat faster than it was before we started.  Download speeds might also pick up some as I inadvertently took the site one step closer to automatic load sharing between all the download servers so the average download speed from each one should tend to be more similar than before.  There are a few more new features planned to roll out in the next few days or weeks so try to swing by the forums or check the front page once in a while for more updates.

*A warning to the users with over 100 series on their watch lists, I may be pruning your lists to remove complete series sometime soon.  If you absolutely must have a reference to a series on your profile for whatever reason put it on your favorites list.

Posted by Yukimura on 02/17/2010 2:31 am

Just a warning to everyone, I've started working on integrating some new enhancements into the site aimed at making things load faster and hopefully reducing the frequency of the total crashes we've been having recently.  In the interim while I get all the wrinkles ironed out there may be sporadic interruptions in service or, more likely,  extremely abnormal behavior from the site.  Please bear with me during these upgrades and let me know if any weirdness or improper behavior you notice on the site persists for more than 30 minutes.  That last part is in bold because it is very important. There is a limit to how much meaningful testing can be done by just myself and a few staff members.  The more eyes and fingers looking at and clicking on things the faster problems can be found and addressed.


Also, I have an update about the download records.  We still have them but we've given up trying to use a download server to crunch the numbers for us as it would have taken forever.  We are currently looking into more efficient ways to reimport the old data back into the database without having to shut down the site for the duration.

Posted by Aftershock on 02/12/2010 9:30 am

Hey guys, sorry for the downtime, the site is now back online and fully functional, at this time all downloads which you were able to track have been truncated, we are working to restore all that old data, but in the mean time you are able to download again so enjoy!

EDIT by Yukimura - Ever being the bearer of bad news that I am I wish to point out that we are not actually running at a true 100%.  The issue that was causing the problems yesterday hasn't been repaired, just pushed 'under the rug' so to speak.  Unfortunately the rug is download server 5.  That server is running exceptionally slow today and probably will be for the next few days as it recovers the corrupted data.  I have stopped any new files from going to it and the staff is working to spread the most popular files on it to the other servers but we won't be able to fit everything everyone might want somewhere else.  If you want a file that is on dl server 5 please be prepared for potential time outs and slow speeds if you do manage to connect. 

You can see what server a file is on if you look to the left of the download link on the file's series page.  The icons to the left of each link say DL# where # is the number corresponding to the server the file is on.  For one shots the server icon is to the right of the File Size field.  If you see DLA next to a file that means it is on all 5 servers, and you will be randomly assigned one of them when you click the download link.  If you get dl5 for one of these files you can just cancel the download and try again.

The DL5 Icon looks like this ->
The All Servers Icon looks like this ->

Posted by Yukimura on 02/11/2010 6:32 pm

About an hour ago the site decided to throw a tantrum and some things that are necessary for the download system to function properly were corrupted.  We are in the process of repairing the system but in the mean time downloads have been disabled and the remainder of the site will be running slower than usual as the bulk of the servers resources are going towards repairing the problem.

We apologize for this inconvenience and will have the site back to normal as soon as possible.
Temporarily 

- Mangatraders.com Staff

EDIT - 10:45PM EST We've had to take the whole site offline to try to expedite the repair process but it is going to take considerably longer than originally thought.  It's only 10% complete as of this edit and it seems to go slower and slower the longer it takes.  I don't expect the site to be back up and running for at least 24 hours, possibly longer.