SPECIAL BULLETIN
NOTE : back online right about midnight CA Tueday 1/3/12. (pretty sure that we will be told the usual nothing about what actually went wrong, though, lol)
apparently right about midnight CA time New Year's Eve(thank you , wolfen68!), the site max-glitched and we cannot log in - and existing logins got dumped. (we stay on on all of our active profiles and access via bookmarks)
both www and m are in the same condition...interestingly, though the email and passwords remain in place on Canaan and my personal, the one here at FooBA4U blanks every time i try to enter it.
we checked facebook and their blog (on WordPress yet - my, my, were they THAT impressed with OpLifeboat, lol?), and neither had any current info. stuck a post up on FB so they'll know we're paying attention...
will try to keep this updated and hope people find it helpful for networking : pass the word to those you have email access to to get together here.
as we believe that Monday is a "legal" holiday for New Year's, this may not get addressed until Tuesday when their coders hit the office...as most of their "satellite" sites (Support, etc) are still up, the odds are that this IS just a monster glitch and not just a sneaky way to bow out on us. (subsequently confirmed via email from Parrotlady - thanks to her and mamacat11!)
Rivet's other little gem, PetTales, is up and running - though we didn't wait to find out how well. more as we are able to find anything out. must say, in the course of this we're finding out a LOT of new and interesting things about the Mojo/Rivet Jekkyl-and-Hyde scenario that we had not been aware of...either way, this will bear a great deal of looking into.
Carrie's comment about the coding definitely sounds on the mark - although i am still wondering about accounts like mine that were signed on at the time we got hit - it not only locked us out, but pushed us out the door first. hmmm. just lifted this out of their blog...at least they are publicly acknowledging they know about it :
"Site Issues
Posted on January 2, 2012 by mynameissnacks
Hey everyone, we are aware of the issue that people are unable to login to on our site, and we’re working hard to fix it. We apologize for the inconvenience and we appreciate your patience as we investigate this issue!"
we posted on the Foo FaceBook page, 11:30pm...
"just out of curiosity, have they posted ANYTHING other than this canned message copy/pasted from the blog as yet? and for those staunch defenders of Rivet employees' holidays...last i knew, you did not have to go in to the office to post online. i'd like to think that at least some of them have FooPet accounts - so unless they rely on botcare, they must have noticed SOMETHING fairly early on into the problem.
what i - and many other FooPet customers, i'm sure - are mostly irritated by is the consistent neglect of the one site for which they demand payment up front. FooPets has been FooMojo/Rivet's stepchild since (actually before) the change in name and management staff, and since they have elected to make it pay-to-play only - the special coding installed to block the existing players without CF most likely being the guilty party in this mess - it seems it would behoove them to give that site MORE attention, not less. it appears that visibility, rather than income, is the priority - PetTales and their other "free" apps on high-profile sites like this one, while they have been heir to the standard battery of glitching long-term aficianados of FooMojo/Rivet products can bear weary witness to, have nowhere near the problems FooPets does as a matter of course.
i understand coding problems, financial considerations, and holiday needs...and had no expectations that this would be seriously addressed until Tuesday. what i take issue with is the oh-well-whatever attitude that allowed the problem to occur in the FIRST place...on the only site which their customers are obliged to pay for, or else."
About Me
- GOLD RUSH
- Tabby Road, New Furrsey, Foo S. A.
- i am a seven-year-old virtual Cream Persian FooCat (born on Little Christmas, 1/5/10), the mascot and spokesfurson for FooBA4U, the FooPets members' cooperative service site.
just heard back from mamacat11 (who emailed ParrotLady) that yes, it IS just a glitch, and "it shouldn't be much longer". PL is sweet, but i'll take THAT with a large spoon of salt...$64k is - whah hoppen? what were they trying to do that caused THIS much havoc?
ReplyDeleteI last logged in at about 11:50 pm. I tried to sign in again at 12:05 a.m. and was unable to get in so the site went down in that 15 minute timeframe, PST. Bummer. Maybe they forgot to set the new year 2012 code...Wolfen68
ReplyDeletei had a hunch it was right around midnight...are you in Pacific? (am DST here, so 12am for Foo is 3am for me) - Happy Foo Year, indeed, lol. do they really have to do something special just because the year changes? i was on a site straight through their midnight, and saw nothing special...
ReplyDeleteWell, the server is not down (one can tell via widgets and because the "adopt a pet and pay us to play with it" page is still there.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that what has happened is caused by their paranoia about anyone who has not paid seeing anything at all in the site apart from their very special pages (all of which can still be seen) They spent a lot of time in early 2011 making sure that profiles and forums could not be seen by those who did not pay. But, being sloppy coders, they did something wrong, added a plus-one or minus-one somewhere which meant that, on the stroke of midnight at foo, something messed up the login page. Simple, no?
And they will surely not, as we have seen before, do anything to compensate people for lost time, lost badges, lost bonding, and starving pets.
Meanwhile, has anyone peered over at PetTales? The facebook wall and NON-facebook-based forum? Anyone notice that they got free gifts over there at Christmas, and that there is some kind of support there over the Christmas hloidays as evidenced by disappearing cats being restored to the players?
Happy New Year to all except foo players!
oh, yes...despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that their PT players, at least the non-FB-junkie ones, have been getting rapidly disillusioned with the site changes and problems. (sound familiar - at least the problems?) my little spy spot there has had occasion to use their Support (which is actually ours as well), and while they never actually DID anything about the problem(s), lol, i DID receive a prompt and polite response from a live human who was willing to engage in a civilized dialogue.
ReplyDeleteif it goes another day, i may have to pull everyone out on widgets - out of curiosity, does that register on their care, or just fill their little tummies?
Murphy may rule, but...have you ever noticed that with the possible exception of pets on public sale staying there for a few days after member sales were shut down, NONE of their myriad glitches has favored the members rather than the site?
going on 5pm CA...guess they did observe the "legal" New Year's. God forbid they should pay their programmers overtime just because the customers they forced to be paying are without service...
ReplyDeleteI logged on to fb to see what was being said and it was just as usual. The complainers wondering what they were paying for and the plants bullying everyone who is unhappy to leave. Sigh. It is getting old, so old. Now we are unreasonable to expect them to pay someone to give us access to our pets. And so mean to deny them their holidays. Well how about those of us who have not had time to get on for months and are back to the grind tomorrow. Am too tired to care anymore. It is not worth being abused to comment.
ReplyDeleteyes, i've been monitoring FB in a loose sort of way...and i keep thinking that somehow i hit the FP Forums instead. (sardonic lol)
ReplyDeletethink i'll put a little capper on their comments now, as a matter of fact...
So we are up again, hurray. Am on a mad feeding frenzy now.
ReplyDeleteI must be getting over my foo addiction because instead of getting frantic about my starving pets I spent an entertaining few hours yesterday on and off watching the bickering on the Foopets FB wall. Sorry, Anonymous, I understand your pain but I got some amusement from that wall. It looks like the same people as always defending the rivet right to take our money and not even leave a skeleton staff over the holiday period (poor babies need their time off LOL) and the same people smacking them. I just got my popcorn and watched.
No, the widget does not even fill their tummies when the person feeding is not logged in. I suspect that what you see is simply a generic set of animations of the particular breed. Which makes it even more silly that they don't sell a downloadable "lite" version of the game. Maybe we should do something about that.
And yes, none of their glitches favour the members, largely because they are so very attentive to code which prevents rather than enhances. Whatever little skill they have goes into "security".
Well, Happy New Year people xxx
PS I just did a catch-up read this morning on their FB page. Oh I loved your posting there! That was brilliant, dear Gold Rush :)
ReplyDeletethanks - and i must say, i AM impressed by how quickly they actually got the site up...and the whole holiday/overtime issue the cheerleaders were screeching about was obviously NOT in play, as we were back up long before working hours CA. it apparently just took that long (once they knew to get the programmers on the case) to get it fixed.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it took that long to find a sober programmer. Do these people know that company policy is you always have on call staff for emergencies? Oh I forgot who we are talking about. Business practices are not part of their procedures.
ReplyDeleteI just read a few of the early posts on foo. They are already threatening that if we complain too much the site might crash from over work. The jerks. And pooh poohing that we are being screwed.
The usual bullies and condescending so and sos are out in full force. It is really not worth the aggravation to try to get a fair hearing. LOL I swear the words and threats have not changed in a year and they are coming from the same mouths. Like little robots. Blag blah blah.
Loved the post. It was so nice to read intelligent analysis for a change.
I guess they realize they goofed big time. Go to forum - chit chat - new item and get a "sorry". 100fd scene for 1 fg.
ReplyDeleteI hope someone from foo reads this. I read some of the forum posts. Shorti is such a bad rep for foo admin. She insults and throws gasoline on every situation with no thought for truth. Calling everyone a liar is no way to win support and loyalty.
ReplyDeleteAll she does is cause bad feelings and further discourse and mistrust. And she is a bully. Pure and simple. I cannot abide her treatment of anyone that does not kiss her back side. Since she is always front and center when there is a problem, I can only assume this is how Admin chooses to handle these things but I am sorry - it does not work any more. We simply avoid the forums - keep our noses clean and despise their policies. This is just another example of her blaming the users and abusing anyone who dared to protest. And then she threatened us by saying if we put in tickets to get back what was rightfully our we could crash the site again. In other words 'trust us" ROFLMAO. I have not gotten everything I lost from the previous crashes and I know I will get nothing from this one either. So shorti can kiss my grits.
hmm. i get the distinct impression that not only do the FooPowers - A and otherwise - not TELL the ambs much, they don't pay a lot of attention to what they SAY, either...it has always been my understanding (from ambs past and present who ARE honest, and my friends) that they have a pretty free hand as long as they don't wander (too far) outside the TOS. it serves to keep the members' attention off the people with actual power, and this may well be the ambassadors real purpose...folks busy trying (generally fruitlessly) to make them see a point are not filing Support tickets or messaging A's, lol.
ReplyDeleteas far as filing Support tickets affecting the site...shorti needs to catch up on the New Foo. Support is now handled via Rivet's dedicated site, serves all their products, and has no direct connection to the FooPets site at all.
as far as on-call staff...well, FooMojo/Rievt, despite being a service industry like a restaraunt or a utility company, has never shown much interest in the wants and needs of their customers, paying or otherwise.
a "free" background, eh? valuable because they chose to price it accordingly? thanks, but no thanks...if they genuinely meant it, they would either issue a $100FD credit to all (not just those who haunt the Forums), or at least offer your choice of items listing at that price. (and personally i still probably wouldn't bother - i'd FAR rather be told what went wrong and how they intend to prevent it in the future.)