2017 Ticket Sale

[gizmoman]

2 hours ago, musky said:

They used a picture for the holding page this year, probably to ensure that Refreshinator was ineffective. It searched for text on the page to recognise that it had changed- with no text it couldn't work. 

No they didn't, the page was still text, it's still live if you want to have a look.

http://glastonbury.seetickets.com/content/busy/

[Stave_1974]

4 hours ago, Pinhead said:

Phones or phones tethered to laptops was the way to go at least this year anyway I think. That's what I'll focus more strongly on next time anyway (though it could be an entirely different system in two years time I guess).

I was firmly in the camp of Tethered 4G phone (on EE) to Laptop, thought this was the way to go.

Tested the connection in the run up to the sale, everything was fine. However Sunday, Nada, Nothing, Zilch. It didn't work for me, just white screen all morning...!

I did finally get through around 9.25 on wired BB (Virgin). It took a few attempts to finally get the confirmation page (Using "Back"), with a few instances on the page just hanging.

One thing I did notice, Firefox didn't get me anywhere, Chrome finally did...                                                                                                      (Firefox Private (on BB) worked for me the previous 4 years in succession!)

I had two laptops (with two tabs in each) working on Sunday:

1 with BB - Firefox Private (Couldn't connect), Chrome (Got tickets).

1 with 4G Tethered - Chrome Incognito (White Screen), Firefox (White Screen).

I will add that the Chrome browser (on BB) was refreshing (F5) on demand, and was better once I'd closed down the Firefox Private tab.

So my conclusion is, whichever method you use, is to stick to one browser per IP, and F5 all the way.

We could go round and round all day long trying to figure out which is the best route to get tickets, but, in my opinion, it is all down to luck, a large portion of...!!!

[fightoffyour]

18 hours ago, Aragorn said:

Did anyone get in confirm payment and then go back and try and re-enter new registrations?

Yes and it didn't work, the addregristrations url that I went back to was then showing as the holding page

[When Jokers Attack]

I was away all weekend and couldn't try for tickets. My friend got me one though, all our group got a ticket so good news.

[parsonjack]

3 hours ago, danegg said:

I think nearer April I may need someone to explain this whole host hacking business to me in detalil. i've had a little google and trawled through here and am still none the wiser.

And there was me thinking I was good with technology.

There's been so much talk about the Host file hack that you can almost guarantee See will have it closed off by April.....unless that is they have genuine reasons to make those servers available.

 

[danegg]

13 minutes ago, parsonjack said:

There's been so much talk about the Host file hack that you can almost guarantee See will have it closed off by April.....unless that is they have genuine reasons to make those servers available.

 

Good point! Probably best to steer clear seeing as I've no idea what I'm doing with it anyway. 

[Pinhead]

56 minutes ago, Stave_1974 said:

1 with 4G Tethered - Chrome Incognito (White Screen), Firefox (White Screen).

Isn't it a risk with private browsing modes like Incognito that the session cookie for the ticket system could be refused...?

[Pinhead]

"There's been so much talk about the Host file hack that you can almost guarantee See will have it closed off by April.....unless that is they have genuine reasons to make those servers available."

They may not even bother enabling their DR system for the April sale...

Edited October 11, 2016 by Pinhead

[parsonjack]

Just now, danegg said:

Good point! Probably best to steer clear seeing as I've no idea what I'm doing with it anyway. 

yep...i wouldn't encourage anyone to make a Host file change, or provide the details myself, unless i could be sure that it would work in that instance.  Too many people know where I live!

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, Pinhead said:

Isn't it a risk with private browsing modes like Incognito that the session cookie for the ticket system could be refused...?

I've previously considered that one, but concluded there couldn't really be a risk of that.

As far as i'm aware nothing of the user would look different at See's end of things, and at the browser end of things all 'incognito' is really doing is isolating that session from all previous sessions (so no cookie sharing from previous sessions, essentially).

If i've got that wrong i'm sure someone will tell me.

[Pinhead]

It might differ between browsers in the implementation, but certainly there are some browsers with a 'private' mode that will also block all cookies from being accepted. There's one on my phone that does this.

[CircuitWizard]

12 minutes ago, danegg said:

Good point! Probably best to steer clear seeing as I've no idea what I'm doing with it anyway. 

I'm happy to get shot down here by somebody with far superior networking knowledge than me but....

I think what may have happened on t-day was that the load balancer that See use was either not functioning correctly and binning traffic or was directing traffic to servers behind it that weren't functioning correctly. What happened with the hosts file entry is that you were forcing your traffic to connect directly to that specific server address that worked (I think). It's always available as one of the multiple servers that See use. It's just that on the day that server was functioning better than the others and had low traffic on it.

Now on re-sale day that server will probably still be available and as long as the rest of the servers, load balancers etc are functioning correctly it will get the usual traffic levels and be at no better advantage than normal. So the hosts file change may not give an advantage.

The best thing to do would be watch this thread like a hawk on resale day to see if anybody has identified a "good" server

[Pinhead]

I thought the IP given to add to your hosts file was for one of the DR systems.

Incidentally, anyone who has edited their hosts file and may use that machine again in the resale next year or in 2018, ought to take that entry out in case See change the registered public IP of the system their end and you end up with a browser that is banging away trying a non-existent server when you browse to glastonbury.seetickets.com

[rustyron72]

How was the IP address of the DR system discovered?

[Pinhead]

Someone sensibly had a quick look at the DNS zone file See had put up for glastonbury.seetickets.com and discovered a number of additional IP's on a different network belonging to a different organisation.

[smudger]

3 minutes ago, CircuitWizard said:

I'm happy to get shot down here by somebody with far superior networking knowledge than me but....

I think what may have happened on t-day was that the load balancer that See use was either not functioning correctly and binning traffic or was directing traffic to servers behind it that weren't functioning correctly. What happened with the hosts file entry is that you were forcing your traffic to connect directly to that specific server address that worked (I think). It's always available as one of the multiple servers that See use. It's just that on the day that server was functioning better than the others and had low traffic on it.

Now on re-sale day that server will probably still be available and as long as the rest of the servers, load balancers etc are functioning correctly it will get the usual traffic levels and be at no better advantage than normal. So the hosts file change may not give an advantage.

The best thing to do would be watch this thread like a hawk on resale day to see if anybody has identified a "good" server

Neil, would it be possible to pin a thread on resale day to the top of the page with some strict instructions on not posting 'I got tickets Woo Hoo!!!', but only to post URL's (although i dont think they work like they did) and info like any host file hacks? I for one didn't have the brain power or the time to monitor this site closely to spot this. I was lucky for my tickets, just, but could have used this hack to get those we missed.

In the how did you do/didn't do debate.......I had a tethered laptop and a pc on my network. Also had three other laptops on the network, and three iphones on 4g being used by others in the house. The tethered machine got nothing but the white screen. My pc got the registration screen at 9.01, straight to the registration check screen and then to the payment screen where it hung. Despite repeated back attempts it timed out after 10 mins. Got there another 3 times all of which timed out. My daughter got through for the confirmation screen on her mac, on the wifi, at 9.45. The payment screen loaded, for her (badly, but still usable) at the same time i was still trying to submitted a payment screen on my machine, which means it wasn't stopping more than one device on the same IP address from loading the payment screen.

I also had 20 people on a concall, two got in for tickets, but most got the white screen and nothing else. At the end we had all twenty trying for the last 6 tickets, but no luck so we will all be back in April for them.

[eFestivals]

14 minutes ago, smudger said:

Neil, would it be possible to pin a thread on resale day to the top of the page with some strict instructions on not posting 'I got tickets Woo Hoo!!!', but only to post URL's (although i dont think they work like they did) and info like any host file hacks? I for one didn't have the brain power or the time to monitor this site closely to spot this. I was lucky for my tickets, just, but could have used this hack to get those we missed.

If i did, I don't reckon it would be seen by many more people here, cos people from anywhere would be glued to the thread like a hawk and probably bring efests down.

Plus as well it would appear as a pre-determined attempt to subvert how the ticketing system is supposed to work, and I don't think it's really right or fair to take that approach. eFestivals supports Glastonbury's attempts to operate a fair-to-all ticketing system.

Having said all that, this isn't me saying that nothing can be posted. Links to legitimate pages of the selling process are absolutely fine.

And if their system isn't working how it should be (which i reckon applies to Sunday) then i reckon it's legitimate to use anything to hand to try and make it work, which is essentially what the hosts file hack did.

I reckon taking that line is respecting both Glastonbury's and See's position, while not disadvantaging people here from info that might also be posted (say) on facebook. Hopefully people will agree that's a fair balance.

[stuartbert two hats]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

I've previously considered that one, but concluded there couldn't really be a risk of that.

As far as i'm aware nothing of the user would look different at See's end of things, and at the browser end of things all 'incognito' is really doing is isolating that session from all previous sessions (so no cookie sharing from previous sessions, essentially).

If i've got that wrong i'm sure someone will tell me.

As far as I'm aware, that's exactly right.

[gizmoman]

3 hours ago, Scruffylovemonster said:

I've looked. But how do I know if that is text or a picture?

If you right click and select "view page source" you can see the page code, you can also select part of the text if you wish, that is how refreshinator was supposed to work.

 

[Pinhead]

Anyways - its over now for 2 years. That in many ways is a good thing.

[gizmoman]

It's over if you got a ticket, if not there's all the fun of the resale and the secret resales. Glad I got mine!

Seetickets haven't changed the core booking system for years they may well use the fallow year to try to end the stupid F5 "arms race" that is currently overrunning the system, I hope they don't as i've never failed yet with it but plenty of people find it pretty unprofessionally run.

[Pear_Cider]

I must admit, I wasn't aware of the Hosts file hack until I came back onto the forum after the dust had settled. I was too focused on trying for tickets to waste any time reading what other people were doing. Getting tickets was too important to have any distractions. In previous years I found the efestivals site to be slow whilst the ticket sale was still on...I guess it's the busiest day of year on here!!

Incidentally, I got through on my phone on 4G running Chrome in the end

[parsonjack]

37 minutes ago, Pinhead said:

Anyways - its over now for 2 years. That in many ways is a good thing.

Yep.....my nerves need a rest.

Just noticed that 2017 must be your 20th.....planning a big one to celebrate?

[Curlygirl]

On 09/10/2016 at 11:08 PM, Scruffylovemonster said:

You don't know that do you? It may have changed this year. 

I'm hoping it's earlier so yes you are right, I don't know for sure, just going by earlier examples. I'll be very happy to be wrong... unless it's later... then I won't be happy. But I'll still be happy that I have a ticket!! 

[Pinhead]

13 hours ago, parsonjack said:

Yep.....my nerves need a rest.

Just noticed that 2017 must be your 20th.....planning a big one to celebrate?

Yep - 20 Glastonbury's over 22 years.... Reckon I need a rest rather than a celebration, but now you mention it perhaps I'll come up with something between now and June