Thursday, September 11, 2008
"Long Wait" Queue Hiccup
Hi, Kevin McEntee here. I’m in charge of engineering for the Netflix Web site. We had a hiccup on the site today. For about 2-1/2 hours, from about 11 a.m. to about 1:30 p.m. Pacific time, every movie in everyone’s Queue showed “Very Long Wait.” This was caused by a change we made in our database yesterday that inadvertently impacted the whole site today. Shipping, receiving and Queue adds were not affected. There was no connection between today’s event and the hardware issue that prevented Netflix from shipping DVDs last month. We’ve added more circuit-breaker and audit protections in the system to protect against this from happening again. In short, nothing happened today except some confusion about when your movies would be available, which was quickly corrected.
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Thanks for letting us know, you really should allow submissions of technical bugs when one is believed to be encountered. Here is a recap of what happened to me a few days ago (I posted in the last thread, but I figure there's a better chance of having it seen here)
I just experiences another possible artifact that may be related to these ongoing issues.I Added a 3 disk series(Blue Ray) to the top of my que, and your system sent me disk 3, yet disk one still has a very long wait. Could the series algorithms be screwed up since you had a period of data loss that may prevent it from knowing what you had last?
It definitely used to work in the past, now I have movie that I can't watch until disk 1 comes out of "long wait" status and disk 2 comes out of "short wait" status. I hope the system doesn't send me disk 2 next before 1 becomes available.
Since this is the only chance anyone directly gets to talk to Netflix, can I ask why you guys don't do ANYTHING with this blog other than report site errors?! Isn't that just a little depressing to you? I mean c'mon, you guys haven't added or changed anything interesting on the site in months, except for to try and anger your customers by taking away features we use!
This is getting downright silly, and my faith in Netflix wanes over time. A once innovative company is in my eyes becomes a stalemate. Do you really have no news or anything interesting to say?
The site performance is so atrocious in general, on a high-end PC (2x 3GHz Dual HT core w/2G RAM) in any browser (IE, Opera, Chrome) that I pretty much try to avoid going to the site in the first place. :(
I am new to netflix and the second shipment of movies I was to receive was delayed by two weeks. First of all, I signed up for the free trial and my card was still charged. Then I received an email stating that my subcription would be discounted by 15%. My first 30 days was not free and my second month was not discounted, it actually cost more, and I didn't get my movies on time. I am cancelling my subscription and I am telling everyone I know how horrible netflix' service is.
Ok, thank you very much! I think Netflix is the greatest thing since peanut butter. We very rarely have problems, but almost always have excellent service.
WHAT?!? My whole queue said "Long Wait" for 20 minutes straight!
Only a 25% reimbursement will make me feel better about this horrible horrible mistake.
We have a queue???
Why didn't anybody tell me, no wonder I never get any movies....
thanks for the update
QUOTE FROM -TOM """The site performance is so atrocious in general, on a high-end PC (2x 3GHz Dual HT core w/2G RAM) in any browser (IE, Opera, Chrome) that I pretty much try to avoid going to the site in the first place. :(""""
Bud thats not a high end PC. Thats an average PC. Check your drivers, clear your cache, hell updater your computer. If your still having issues after that, reformat if its honestly that important to you. I myself have around the same build as you and have no issues with the site what so ever.
Go read a book.
So, is there an estimated time when we can expect shipment again? It's been almost a week since I sent my last movies back, and I don't have anything "shipped" as of yet.
Also, I understand problem happen, but is there a way Netflix can post a big note at the top of the Home page saying, "we are experiencing technical difficulties" or something, so we know what's going on? I just found this blog a couple of days ago, and had to search for it, not very helpful.
I am trying blockbuster free trial and it seems to be working fine. I don't want to leave netflex but I got another e-mail saying I was taken off HOLD on mailing any DVD's. I should have gotten to DVD's in the mail but only blockbuster DVD's was in the mail. The last time I was told by e-mail that my address was removed from HOLD it was over a week before I was shipped any DVD's.
Is NETFLEX paying their USPS bill??
Please fix the system is messed up again 4 last 2 hours ur home page has been screwed up. ty
I have been experiencing week-long delays for about the last 4 shipments I've had. Previously I would send my netflix from just one city over from my local distribution center and you would receive them the next day. BUT for the last 4-5 rounds of DVDs i've sent have taken 4 days. I even tried to send them directly from a post office instead of the usual mailbox i use just in case my route was the problem. A friend of mine is noticing the same delay.
This lag seems a bit like some people I work with!
I love Netflix but the longer processing times are cutting down what i once thought was savings for the amt of videos i got per month.
I had to cancel my account as well.
I have already been billed for the month of September, but never received Sept. movies, only movies I got where delayed movies from Mid August, Between the Delays and constant damaged /cracked discs I had to give up. I can rent movies at my local Albertsons for 2$ so for the $18.00 a month I can Get 9 movies a month, which is 9 more then I was getting with Netflix.
I am very dissapointed in the long delays my family has been experiencing with our movies lately. I mailed back a movie almost a week ago, and it's still not checked in.
I find it very curious that the same month my account has been upgraded due to the lawsuit settlement just happens to be the same month that your shipping and receiving is having more lag than ever. At least I'm not paying for the upgrade. After experiencing this lag for the past several weeks it's doubtful I will.
The most difficult thing in this world is to wait for anything. If we were in a que, we don't want to stand and wait for our turn because we think it is just waste of time. We always try to find a shortcut.
Why is Netflix not responding to any of this? Is anyone there? If not, I want out.
I had this happen to one movie, but it went away finally. My guess is that it was a long wait becaise I got the movie finally.
EOTechTrijicon
Everytime I see another NETFLIX popup I feel the urge to stuff your marketing manager's mouth with camel dung. Do you really think popups are a viable attraction given the hundreds of complaints about such intrusive tactics?
I actually just signed up for netflix in anticipation of being able to watch movies over Xbox Live, but then I went to your website and found browsing movies sucks. I couldn't find "Iron Man," which came out a month ago, even though I search for it nine ways to Sunday, including using the new releases scroll function. It only came up when I typed in its name. That's great; but, as I need a reminder of what movies I told myself I wanted to watch, I want to be able to find movies that might interest me. I knew Iron Man did, but I couldn't find it (or any of the other ones I can't quite remember the name of). Thus I canceled. Whoever thought of that side scrolling thing is... well, I'm canceling. It took too long to scroll through that piece of ... only to not find any of the movies I was looking for. Can't list them all on one page, huh? Had to do something fancy (and useless)? I even called customer service to see if there was a way to find Iron Man, etc. Even they couldn't help me. I was a member for 15 minutes; I will not be back even with the idea of watching over Xbox Live. What a waste of time!
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