Author Topic: CCI 2015 Guide to getting a Downtown Hotel Room (Travel Planners Hotel Lottery)  (Read 91121 times)

Offline myfavoriteholiday

  • Sails Pavilion
  • *
  • Join Date: Mar 2015
  • Posts: 7
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 12
Engineer friend on the incomplete form debacle after studying the captured page code...

 "They could have used something to fit the user base. They could have made the form simple and quick, but they used extra javascript. You would think they did not understand their user base - if they were designing this form to be filled out at a leisurely pace, it'd be great. However they used 'elastic beanstalk', so they obviously knew what they were dealing with... but they didn't make it simple"

Why wasn't this form more extensively tested? Why didn't they have user optimization in mind?  :-[

Offline darkron9

  • Gaming Lounge
  • ****
  • Join Date: Dec 2013
  • Posts: 356
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 106
Hi semigeekgirl, it might just  be that between last year and now, TP entered into an outsourcing cloud server agreement for all or much of their storage needs. 

Not giving them a pass on what happened, if this is what happened, the "new" service company learned firsthand how intense we are when it comes to this event.  Some guy doing due diligence probably assured TP that they could handle the load.  I am hoping that if this is scenario, they will be better equipted next year.

Friends of Comic Cons

  • Guest

Offline Az_Rael

  • Gaming Lounge
  • ****
  • Join Date: Jul 2013
  • Posts: 312
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 106
My form loaded in about 15 seconds I think.   I didn't have the drop down issues, so I got my form submitted before 9:01.   I didn't look at the rankings, just entered each hotel and assumed they were going in the right spot, so mine might have had the ranking issue in Chrome.   

I don't understand why they changed it this year?  Didn't it work fine last year?   It's not like the form itself was different, so the fact that they put it up on a new page was just asking for trouble.   


I predict much gnashing of teeth when the hotel assignments come out.    This is like the year you were supposed to pick 20 hotels, but you didn't have to, so if you only picked 1 hotel you got your form in ages before everyone else and got your choice.   


At least we have a good trading system here on the forum.   Hopefully we will be able to help each other out once the results come back. 

Offline darkron9

  • Gaming Lounge
  • ****
  • Join Date: Dec 2013
  • Posts: 356
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 106
Ahhhh...  Don't remind me of the year of the 20 hotel picks.  I did just than and didn't discovered until later that I didn't have to enter in 20 hotel names.   (>.<)

Offline epicaz

  • Ballroom 20
  • ****
  • Join Date: Apr 2012
  • Posts: 742
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 264
Am I alone in thinking that this could all be fixed with a submission system like in badge sales? One way to prevent traffic and random people getting in while others lag is to implement the hour submission period before randomization. I know its great being able to at least try and get an upper edge by being quick, but when the servers and random lag come into play, it could turn into a game of luck just like the old badge buying system. I'd rather have a fair system to at least lay a little peace of mind that you wont be screwed over by a system break.  :-\

Offline beadrbop

  • Supporter
  • Gaming Lounge
  • ****
  • Join Date: Nov 2011
  • Posts: 352
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 86
The link in the email also seemed to have a tracking id. When I hovered over the link it showed where it was forwarded. Checked it against the link my son received and it was different. Not sure if the issue was just not that it was a cloud thing but also maybe the tracking stuff in the link. I remember one year they did that in the badge sales and lots had issues. I'm glad it's over for now. Now the anguish waiting to see what we got.

Offline bothanspy

  • Freebie Table
  • *
  • Join Date: Mar 2014
  • Posts: 43
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 24
For those that had the wrong form and had the phanton submitt with incomplete forms, were you able to select all 6 hotels and did you fill out another correct form?
I hesitate to wait until thursday just because I am afraid I am going to get one confirmation email for the form I submitted 6 minutes later.  Calling has yielded that I need to wait for an email and they cannot confirm I have two submissions.

Offline catvonawesome

  • Ballroom 20
  • ****
  • Join Date: Apr 2014
  • Posts: 734
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 359
Quote
Am I alone in thinking that this could all be fixed with a submission system like in badge sales?

I would not be opposed to a system similar to the badge sale. Even if it was just a waiting room to calm the "everyone click on this link at the same time" lag.

Now that I'm checking in with everyone in my group, multiple people got the bad form page. Will be interesting to see what the email tonight says about fixing the issue.

My form took well over a minute to load up. I'm not sure on the exact time because at that point panic was starting to set in. I think I submitted at 9:03, my slowest time ever.) I had to run out the door to get to work so I took a screenshot and will check it when I get home for exact time.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2015, 12:38:57 PM by catvonawesome »
Do these tacos taste funny to you?

Offline retired

  • Supporter
  • Pre-Registration
  • ******
  • Join Date: Feb 2013
  • Posts: 2160
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 1048
Here are my results

Firefox 9am, pressed enter to load the URL (had pasted it into the address bar)
Loading...

Had chrome on an auto refresh every 1 second on the same URL also.
Chrome alerted the page had changed about 45 seconds after 9am.

Refreshed Firefox, loading for another 30ish seconds before it got to the form

were now at about 9:01:15am
Hotel dropdown wasn't a dropdown!! same issue others had.
Refreshed again. about 15 seconds later, form came up again, this time with the dropdown list.

Picked my hotels, filled out other info, and hit submit. took me a minute at least.
Delay loading the confirmation page, maybe 15 seconds.

Estimated finish time? 9:03:15am . 3 minutes 15 seconds or so.

My take on what went wrong

What went wrong? obviously they hosted the site on an amazon cluster. but somebody didn't get the memo that they needed to set up load balancing, and to make sure the ENTIRE form (website, and associated scripts and such) were copied to all hosts in the cluster. (i don't know how clustering works to be honest).

Load Balancing: The loading Delay

It should have been simple! session1, gets Webserver1, session2 gets Webserver2, session3 gets Webserver3, etc etc. Then when the last host has a session, the next session goes back to Webserver1. this way the load is distributed. I don't think that worked, or was even enabled.

Some able to submit with missing info: Broken Validation Checks

When the page loads for each user session, a bunch of scripts run that creates validations. Like "First name, must have at least one letter" "FirstName:1:text" (or however the logic works). Then the Rules: If Validation(FirstNameEntered)=false, SubmitForm=Disabled & ValidationFailedAlertBox=OPEN() 

If the Web Server was under so great a load that the Validations could not be created, then the submit button would fail to be disabled!!

Hotel Selection Box: JavaScript? Unable to Load

The selection box, has a list of the hotels. But the selections (on click, add selected to PreferenceList) <-- just my guess at how it works
But that special piece, that converts a box of hotel names, into a clickable box with more logic behind it, failed to load.

Again, i think this was a load balancing issue. we probably had 20k+ people all trying to load the page a the same time, and it got overloaded and couldn't make the special clickable box.



All said, i think the old server (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login) may have somehow had load balancing enabled, which is why it worked so well last year.
I think someone forgot to click the "enable" button somewhere.... and someone is getting fired....

Offline darthmaul1309

  • Sails Pavilion
  • *
  • Join Date: Feb 2015
  • Posts: 10
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 3
The only problem I had was it took about 30-40 secs for me to get the form to load, but it seems like everyone had this issue.  Once the form loaded I was able to input my information and choices fairly quickly. I would estimate that I submitted it within 90 seconds, and thats including the time it took for the form to load so I actually like my chances. Sorry to hear that a lot of peeps had problem with the form, hotels disappearing, etc ect...unfortunatley i dont think there is any way to make everyone happy in this situation. 

Offline myfavoriteholiday

  • Sails Pavilion
  • *
  • Join Date: Mar 2015
  • Posts: 7
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 12
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
For those that had the wrong form and had the phanton submitt with incomplete forms, were you able to select all 6 hotels and did you fill out another correct form?
I hesitate to wait until thursday just because I am afraid I am going to get one confirmation email for the form I submitted 6 minutes later.  Calling has yielded that I need to wait for an email and they cannot confirm I have two submissions.

I just called TP again... for the 3rd time today. The new update is we'll all find out via email (tonight?) & they have "no information other than that at this time". Sounds like someone's boss had a meeting...

Offline Arpanet

  • Freebie Table
  • *
  • Join Date: Feb 2013
  • Posts: 40
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 11
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
The only problem I had was it took about 30-40 secs for me to get the form to load, but it seems like everyone had this issue.  Once the form loaded I was able to input my information and choices fairly quickly. I would estimate that I submitted it within 90 seconds, and thats including the time it took for the form to load so I actually like my chances. Sorry to hear that a lot of peeps had problem with the form, hotels disappearing, etc ect...unfortunatley i dont think there is any way to make everyone happy in this situation.

Same here! I used Firefox and it took about 30 seconds to get the form. I freaked out 15 seconds in and refreshed the page again, that's when the form was able to pop up. After that it took my about 25 seconds to select the hotels and some filling in here and there.
Overall I managed to submit the form about a minute after 9AM.

Offline Arpanet

  • Freebie Table
  • *
  • Join Date: Feb 2013
  • Posts: 40
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 11
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
I just called TP again... for the 3rd time today. The new update is we'll all find out via email (tonight?) & they have "no information other than that at this time". Sounds like someone's boss had a meeting...

Or maybe in an hour? I remember getting an email confirmation last year around 2PM to 3PM. But with all the issues that had happened maybe it'll be later tonight?
« Last Edit: March 24, 2015, 01:06:24 PM by Arpanet »

Offline semigeekgirl

  • Supporter
  • Volunteer HQ
  • ******
  • Join Date: Feb 2013
  • Posts: 3731
  • Karma: 0
  • "If the apocalypse comes, beep me."
  • Liked: 2464
If they're still sending simple confirmations, we *might* get them this afternoon as usual. But if they're drafting an "oops, we f-ed up but we're not actually going to admit we f-ed up, but rest assured we've got it all under control now b/c we're totally awesome except for this one totally unforeseeable f-ed-up-ness"... well, in that case I doubt they'll have it before this evening.

All predicted times Pacific.

Offline myfavoriteholiday

  • Sails Pavilion
  • *
  • Join Date: Mar 2015
  • Posts: 7
  • Karma: 0
  • Liked: 12
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
If they're still sending simple confirmations, we *might* get them this afternoon as usual. But if they're drafting an "oops, we f-ed up but we're not actually going to admit we f-ed up, but rest assured we've got it all under control now b/c we're totally awesome except for this one totally unforeseeable f-ed-up-ness"... well, in that case I doubt they'll have it before this evening.

All predicted times Pacific.

haha, yeah and if they send that one I doubt we'll see it until after they close the phone lines for the night.