Server Issues
A number of users are having trouble connecting to Digsby right now. We are working on the issue and will have this resolve as quickly as possible. We’ll post an update here when it is fixed.
Update 1: Everything is back online. We are still digesting what happened and will post an update here with an explanation of what went wrong and what we are doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Update 2: We wanted to apologize again for the short outage we had on Friday. Below is a semi-technical explanation of what happened. There was a network disruption, which caused a mass reconnect of all logged in users. This happens sometimes and we usually handle it without any issues. However, this time it ended up overloading the servers, causing them to crash. This resulted another mass reconnect and another crash. It took a few times for things to stabilize. This happened because several things went wrong at the same time. The new authentication system we introduced in Build 41 didn’t run properly on multiple processors. This cut the amount of logins each sever can handle to be 1/4 of actual capacity. As a result, a queue began to build up of people who had connected but were waiting to authenticate. This queue started to drain the RAM each server had, causing the crash. A variety of things are being done to prevent this in the future. We are fixing the authentication system so a mass reconnect does not slow things down. We are adding RAM to add a little buffer room so if this does happen again, it doesn’t result in a crash. Lastly, we are optimizing how clients reconnect when they lose the connection to our servers.
Mesh Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:26 pm
Thanks for the communication, I’m experiencing issues at the moment.
SomeUser Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:31 pm
+1 after 7 attempts it went through. There’s another reason to not trust services like these, because guess what, my IM services are up!
Matt Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:38 pm
Good to know you are on top of things so quickly. Now if we could only get the same level of support for software we pay for . . . .
Kraig Roche Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:38 pm
I am having this problem too. Stuck on the “Connecting….” screen. Thanks for the update!
Peter Hagström Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:39 pm
Ok now i know why i could´nt log in
just connecting…
Ill try later on
Auggie4000 Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:40 pm
Thanks for the info. I am having issues as well. Any eta?
Spike McAwesome Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:44 pm
Eh, it’s probably better it’s down. I should be working anyway.
Jake Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:44 pm
I love you Digsby! Thank you for letting us now it’s not our fault.
Ziggy Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:47 pm
When will the next Digsby update be? We haven’t had any news!
Azzy Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:49 pm
Hurry with the new alpha patch!
Erika Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:50 pm
Will these server issues affect anyone who is already logged on? Like, should we have to worry about getting kicked off?
Dougsby Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:50 pm
Funny.. pidgin seems to be working fine because there’s no central login.
Weakest link?
Steve Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 5:52 pm
@Erika: You are fine if you are already logged in.
Peter Hagström Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:02 pm
It took some attempts but now im logged in
The problems are not “life threatning”
Infact i think its one of the first times i had some problem with this client
which is an good experience so far
Jakub Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:03 pm
Thx really thx
wish I would look here before I reinstalled it and went all these fealing through like what the hell is going on 
thx … hope you fix it soon
keep on doing such a greate job
chuck Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:05 pm
it crashed then consistently fails to log in.
Operator Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:05 pm
That’s one of the (small) disadvantages about a central login with your Digby ID. But the advantages are so more greater, that it is not that bad if it’s not working for a small period of time.
At least I can use Miranda IM for such things
.
One off-topic question: It has been some time now since the last update. When can we expect the next one? Will it be a bigger update?
Thank you guys for the information, I think you’ve learned your lessons
.
Phil H Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:08 pm
yay blog! I love good communication
Mike Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:08 pm
Digsbys is hanging at the “Connecting…” part for me, as well. Hope this gets resolved shortly. Keep up with the updates.
Maricature King Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:10 pm
I was logged it but the digsby widget stopped working. Issues started early this morning, so I suspect there is something bigger happening here.
Any ETA of a resolution??
norsegod666 Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:15 pm
Wow the response time here is incredible. I am simply amazed because i used to use meebo and if there were issues then they didnt say anything to us and if they did it was after the fact.
Mike Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:20 pm
When the issue is cleared will we automatically get past the “Connecting…”, or do we have to keep closing/retrying ?
Thanks
Great job guys !
Caricature King Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:23 pm
I can log in now, but the live chat widget still is not working – see http://www.caricatureking.com/contact.php
Snoots Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:29 pm
I was having trouble connecting as well, for at least a 1/2 hour, but it’s connected now.
JimD Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:29 pm
Wow, a service that tells you straight up (and promptly) when problems arise. How refreshing!
Mike Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
I’m back in, and chat widget working.
Thanks guys !
Wa Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:36 pm
@Mike; Apparently you can just leave it at the connecting screen, cause mine just logged in after a few minutes from doing that.
Caricature King Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:37 pm
widget is working now
William R. Nemet III Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:40 pm
I don’t think I can live without my Digsby. Normal internet usage is too much work without it! lol
William
William R. Nemet III Said,
January 23, 2009 @ 6:47 pm
Now its online hopefully for good now
Digsby Said,
January 27, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
@All: Posted an update with more details on what went wrong.
Mark Lindell Said,
February 2, 2009 @ 8:29 am
Perhaps you should consider an exponential backoff algorithm on re-connect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truncated_binary_exponential_backoff
Erik Kubs Said,
February 2, 2009 @ 11:52 am
I am still having the connection issue. Says that the internet connection is not available or I need to setup my proxy. No changes have been made from when I left work on Friday and it worked. Hope this gets resovled soon.