Nightly / emergency MN board 'shut down' suggestion

[NetworkGuy]

From time to time our non-UK friends get upset when the MN board closes (OK, long enough for a cuppa, but still can be frustrating) and also some night-owls get the same situation, but part of the reason for moans about it concern the possible (usual!) loss of something being submitted as a new post.

I know that some browsers may allow the user to return to the previous content, and have just seen DamianTech recommend a 'form recovery' utility (though I suspect some might be unable to install if they have a company laptop - anything which might capture content including credit card details etc could be a security risk).

We know you somehow switch any request to cause the error notification page ("sorry, the system is down at the moment, back soon" or similar) but please, MNHQ, could you ask the Tech staff to create a fix that would accept the submitted form, note the details for which topic/thread it was meant to be going into, and then say:

"Thanks for your submission - it has not gone into a black hole but will appear when Mumsnet's service returns".

A person submitting a form will only get that when the service is "down" (for backup etc) and it would probably need only one small database to capture the information being submitted, and then when things are back up and running, that database would have to be 'emptied' (details copied into the main message database(s)) as if those users had just submitted their posts.

The person who has spent a half hour finding web links etc and clicks the 'submit post' button would get that message, know they cannot submit anything else for a while, and presumably try refreshing the page to see when everything was running again, so the maximum number of new messages which would need to be stored should be very low - only one per "active" visitor and at 3am, that's likely to be quite a small number. Multiply up by 10 100 for the odd 'emergency shut down' during the evening and you can perhaps get an idea of the size of the database needed to temporarily store new submissions.

Please can you see how viable this idea would be? I put "multiply by 100" because I've no idea how many users submit posts at peak times on MN, but no doubt that is a "known" or can be found out.

It would lead to a lot of happier non-UK users and any UK users who sometimes get affected would also give it a "yes please" response, I feel sure. May also lead to far less cursing of computers and 'why does it happen to me!' questions :)

[DamianTech]

Hi NetworkGuy,

I appreciate your concerns, and obviously the add-on I suggested, while useful, is not a universal solution (it doesn't work with IE for a start).

Unfortunately when Mumsnet says it's down, it isn't fibbing. If you try and send a post it will literally end up in a black hole, because the scripts that process it are not there. If we wanted to intercept these requests it would basically involve running a second Mumsnet, which is simply not viable.

An idea that's occurred to me just now though, is to have a small AJAX script running in the reply area, which in plain English means you have something checking in the page background while you're writing a post to see if Mumsnet is actually running or not. If it's not, it can come up with a warning message that posting your message may fail.

I'll have to look into how viable this is, but if it looks like something we can do I'll try and get it implemented sometime in the near future. :)

~D

[FluffyMummy123]

looking good today damo

[NetworkGuy]

Thanks Damian - I had (wrongly) assumed a small db would be enough to allow for storage, but not knowing how the whole site hangs together, it's clearly not that simple. If the script you propose could change a flag to effectively disable the 'preview' and 'post message' buttons as well, it would be even better than just a warning message, though any warning would be much nicer than the present situation :)

[DamianTech]

Hi NetworkGuy,

It's not really a question of storage space (hard drives are cheap), but of processing power. When MN goes down, obviously we want to get it up and running again as quickly as possible, and that means going full-tilt to rebuild the website as quick as we can.

I don't want the script to cover or disable the post buttons, since there's always the chance it's a false positive. I'll certainly make sure the warning is clearly visible though.

~D

[ChippingInNeedsCoffee]

If you could do that DT it would be great :) At least then you can save the post or whatever - I've sent far too many very long posts off into space :(

[empirestateofmind]

Ah ha I am glad I have found the previous thread on nocturnal shutdown issues.

The suggestion for a warning before the site shuts down hasn't been mentioned above, but Madwoman and I both suggested it in the recent thread here.

Any thoughts Damian? Could it work if those of us on MN in the small hours disabled popups?

[BertieBotts]

You could always enable popups just for this site, if you have a general popup blocker.

I'd be interested too. If I'm ever posting at 3am I'm usually writing a really long, involved and emotional post on a "heavy" thread, and it's frustrating to lose it completely.

One thing I have found which does work, is keep the tab open and don't touch anything - not back, refresh, nothing. Open a new tab to keep checking mumsnet's status, and once it's back up, go into your other tab and click the back button in your browser. About 50% of the time, the post is still there in the text box ready to be posted again. This is hard to remember though!