Metservice website suffers under stress.

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surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#166219 6-Mar-2015 10:16

Metservice need to boost the capacity of their website.

Often their webpage times out or you get redirected to a general forecast when there is a bit of severe weather.

I wonder if this is something they will address as it is at these times when you need it the most .

eg, is the kids triathlon on or not....this is what I get when I go to check the rain radar....

www.metservice.com is undergoing maintenance or is otherwise unavailable.We expect this outage to be brief
So, you have been redirected to this site that contains all New Zealand forecasts and warnings accessible from the menu bar above.
Please try www.metservice.com again shortly.

Dynamic

3867 posts

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#1252152 6-Mar-2015 10:20

It's really positive that they have this Plan B in place. I've not seen that before.

Other commercial sites under heavy load that I have seen either give just an error or give a 'sorry we are experiencing difficulties' page.

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wellygary

8315 posts

Uber Geek

#1252160 6-Mar-2015 10:27

They tweeted ( @metservice ) that they are having come issues with their Website and "they have got their team on to it"

nzfatmatt

114 posts

Master Geek

#1252163 6-Mar-2015 10:37

Dynamic: It's really positive that they have this Plan B in place. I've not seen that before.

Other commercial sites under heavy load that I have seen either give just an error or give a 'sorry we are experiencing difficulties' page.

I've seen it a few times over the years, including the time the site was down for days.

Dulouz

883 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1252178 6-Mar-2015 10:57

The IOS app is still working.

Amanon

nzfatmatt

114 posts

Master Geek

#1252183 6-Mar-2015 11:01

Dulouz: The IOS app is still working.

Android isn't. Have you checked the last update time and tried to refresh. I'd have thought it's the same back end it pulls the data from so everything would be effected.

Dulouz

883 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1252199 6-Mar-2015 11:27

nzfatmatt:
Dulouz: The IOS app is still working.

Android isn't. Have you checked the last update time and tried to refresh. I'd have thought it's the same back end it pulls the data from so everything would be effected.

Seems fine, checked the weather in other cities and no issues in updating.

Amanon

nzfatmatt

114 posts

Master Geek

#1252209 6-Mar-2015 11:50

Dulouz:
nzfatmatt:
Dulouz: The IOS app is still working.

Android isn't. Have you checked the last update time and tried to refresh. I'd have thought it's the same back end it pulls the data from so everything would be effected.

Seems fine, checked the weather in other cities and no issues in updating.

Mine is working again very vaguely. Maps aren't loading or taking forever though.

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surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#1252213 6-Mar-2015 11:51

I think they may be a victim of their own success -- the rain radar is awesome.

The generic fall over page has been there a long time, someone mentioned they had not seen it before. but, it does not give what I need .

I wonder if they could have a separate bunch of server that just serves rain radar imagery.

Although, it is quite possible todays issues are just a plain old fault , but there is a pattern of failure during more extreme events, ie, when you need it the most. I'm sure it will only get better though, they do a great job.

nzfatmatt

114 posts

Master Geek

#1252224 6-Mar-2015 12:06

surfisup1000: I think they may be a victim of their own success -- the rain radar is awesome.

The generic fall over page has been there a long time, someone mentioned they had not seen it before. but, it does not give what I need .

I wonder if they could have a separate bunch of server that just serves rain radar imagery.

Although, it is quite possible todays issues are just a plain old fault , but there is a pattern of failure during more extreme events, ie, when you need it the most. I'm sure it will only get better though, they do a great job.

It does slow down with big events, but I would guess is a technical problem. I haven't been able to find info on the time it was down for days but I vaguely remember that as hardware or corruption that spread to backups.

nzfatmatt

114 posts

Master Geek

#1252240 6-Mar-2015 12:16

nzfatmatt:
surfisup1000: I think they may be a victim of their own success -- the rain radar is awesome.

The generic fall over page has been there a long time, someone mentioned they had not seen it before. but, it does not give what I need .

I wonder if they could have a separate bunch of server that just serves rain radar imagery.

Although, it is quite possible todays issues are just a plain old fault , but there is a pattern of failure during more extreme events, ie, when you need it the most. I'm sure it will only get better though, they do a great job.

It does slow down with big events, but I would guess is a technical problem. I haven't been able to find info on the time it was down for days but I vaguely remember that as hardware or corruption that spread to backups.

After a bit more searching I found the June 2013 outage. The ODT article says it was only a day or so. I was sure it was two or three days, unless I'm just remembering things worse than they were due to just wanting to see the weather.

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/261491/metservice-website-back-online

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=97&topicid=120900

Edit:Fixing Links

frankv

5680 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#1252248 6-Mar-2015 12:35

Met Service website redirects to http://www2.metservice.com/ which has a message:

www.metservice.com is undergoing maintenance or is otherwise unavailable.We expect this outage to be brief
So, you have been redirected to this site that contains all New Zealand forecasts and warnings accessible from the menu bar above.
Please try www.metservice.com again shortly.

metvuw.com also seems to struggling.

old3eyes

9119 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1252252 6-Mar-2015 12:48

Just checked with my Android app. It says that I "can't connect to the internet'

Regards,

Old3eyes

chevrolux

4962 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1252304 6-Mar-2015 14:13

Probably due to the many thousands going to homegrown this weekend!!! I don't fancy their luck, it's bloody terrible down here!

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#1252342 6-Mar-2015 15:29

chevrolux: Probably due to the many thousands going to homegrown this weekend!!! I don't fancy their luck, it's bloody terrible down here!

He he, we've had solid sun pretty much the last 3 months with an odd exception, boy goes to camp on wednesday and it hoses down with rain.

I'm guessing they did have an actual technical fault as opposed to capacity issues.