Tickets -- multiple browser tab warning?

[LondonTom]

server sessions don't require the use of cookies, so I'm not sure you'd find anything.

Edited September 18, 2013 by LondonTom

[gaz2theb]

so if they are using stingray - are you saying once you get to the holding page, you are best to actually hold rather than refresh again?

PS - top information - thanks very much!!

Edited September 18, 2013 by gaz2theb

[Pinhead]

Heh "Putteridge Junior School" that's them all right

Good detective work all. Its kind of good to know actually that they are using such devices in front of the web / app servers themselves, rather than just a bare IIS / Apache / JBOSS server or similar. The Stingray is a particularly sophisticated bit of kit that in the context of this thread means that our client connections on ticket day will be pretty fairly held and managed by a dedicated pool server until resource becomes available on the web / app farm. This is possibly why the whole system did not really 'lock up' last year and performed more adequately once you actually got in rather than just crashing half way through buying your tickets, assuming it was in place this time last year that is - is it a new facility for them? It is this facility that will deal with the 'session persistence' (sic), that is the management of your client connections using whatever means it is designed to use (likely a proprietary method; algorithm whatever). In terms of using this information to work out how best to go for tickets on the day - I wonder if refreshing more will make any real difference here since as long as you are 'in the pool', you will be in the queue anyway for if / when server resources become available, at which time your connection is released from the pool and passed to the web / app servers. Else if / when it times out it looks like your connection is passed back to the 'virtual client server' where a configured response rule will send you a page saying "the See site is too busy to server your requests" etc. Its at this point that hitting F5 might make more sense, otherwise repeatedly hitting it may just be causing the system to continually abandon your queued connection in the pool....

What do others think?

[mrtourette]

So is it better to use one phone or multiple phones?

[Avalon_Fields]

So is it better to use one phone or multiple phones?

[phillyfaddle]

This is possibly why the whole system did not really 'lock up' last year and performed more adequately once you actually got in rather than just crashing half way through buying your tickets

[Pinhead]

Well in theory this should not happen as the Stingray would prevent any of the servers from getting so overloaded that they failed to complete transactions. Perhaps this appliance is a new addition from last year then in response to the issue...?

[mike46]

One question I'm never sure on is what to do when the system does crash midway through imputing details?

For the past two years I've gotten through to the page where you put your registration in and click next, and one time to the screen where I just needed to click pay but the systems timed out or whatever and I've just got a blank screen...If that happens this time should I refresh or click the back button?

[UEF]

One question I'm never sure on is what to do when the system does crash midway through imputing details?

For the past two years I've gotten through to the page where you put your registration in and click next, and one time to the screen where I just needed to click pay but the systems timed out or whatever and I've just got a blank screen...If that happens this time should I refresh or click the back button?

[matt_berr]

Seetickets have used both webscreen and stingray for a number of years, they are quoted on their client testimonials (webscreen not anymore due to takeover by Juniper but google has some articles) and there are only a few ways to solve these problems.

The problem with refreshing once you are through to the holding page is that you will kill your current connection and establish a new one, and therefore back into the lottery - appending a URL to the end of the holding page should use the same connection in theory... but I don't think the stingrays will allow this.

Seetickets are not that good technically at all, for this reason I would expect their systems to fail this year, in theory they should have not ground to a halt last year.

I have been tempted to see if they'd let me sort it out for them for guaranteed glasto tickets for life...

Edited September 18, 2013 by matt_berr

[eFestivals]

It crashed for a great many people during the buying process last year, just read the posts on here.

a lot of those "crashes" were a not-found error caused by See having made a cock-up in the DNS entries.

Once that was sorted out at around 10am the reports of crashes seemed to stop, so it looked like their system was about up the traffic it was getting (tho the load at 10am would have a been a bit less than at 9am, cos some peerps did get to sort their tickets before the fix was made).

[phillyfaddle]

Well in theory this should not happen as the Stingray would prevent any of the servers from getting so overloaded that they failed to complete transactions. Perhaps this appliance is a new addition from last year then in response to the issue...?

[5co77ie]

The problem with refreshing once you are through to the holding page is that you will kill your current connection and establish a new one, and therefore back into the lottery - appending a URL to the end of the holding page should use the same connection in theory... but I don't think the stingrays will allow this.

[smudger]

Ok, this is kinda what I do for living.

What everyone is trying to do is get a connection from their PC to one of two seeticket public facing servers.

See tickets have two levels controlling who gets a connection:

1. Webscreen - which awards each IP (internet connection) a rating based on whether it has visited in the past (good) and whether it appears to be flooding (sending too much traffic = bad), it will then block traffic as seetickets get busy - allowing through the traffic with the highest rating.

2. ADC Stingrays - Once you have got past the webscreen the Stingrays will either present you a holding page based on current load (I got this last year and it was a glasto page telling you to refresh in x) or take you to buy a ticket. If you refresh on the holding page it takes you back to step 1 - kinda pointless page. I have a theory regarding appending the rest of the ticket purchase URL at this point, however, stingrays are smart and expensive.

So the best tactics are:

* Visit the registration site a couple of times in the days leading up to the sale, this will increase your webscreen rating (I was in 2 minds whether to share this as the more people that do it the less effective it is)

* Have many people trying from different locations, there may be some advantage from using a mobile hotspot from your mobile (reason is you will be sharing an IP with lots of other users which should have a decent rating or may even be whitelisted so webscreen cannot block it)

* Use multiple browsers rather than multiple tabs in a browser - i.e. chrome, safari and firefox - refresh regularly using ctrl+F5 (forces a complete refresh)

* Be there at the very start as in theory that is the point where there is the most amount of free sessions (100%) up for grabs.

I am hoping that the numbers who are reading this board is a fairly small percentage of the total who try so this should increase our chances.

There are a couple of things I am looking at that may also increase the chances - if I find a way to do it and its appropriate I'll share.

And yes, I do think its unfair that for Glastonbury people like me with this type of knowledge get an advantage, but I'll take it and share it.

[ladybird33]

Thanks for this. Do we always refresh when we get either the blank can't load screen (assuming we do), the glasto holding page and then what about when we get to the page where you put your numbers in? If that comes back with a timed out page is it back or refresh? Again when you get to the payment (here's hoping) page, if that times out is it back or refresh?

Taking your first bit about flooding is there a risk too much refreshing at any stage will flood their servers and cause us to be held back in favour of higher rated traffic? Isn't the registration closed before hand so is just landing on the page that says its closed enough to increase our rating? Can we over do it? What's the time scale for hits to count, hours, days weeks?

Would also suggest we have a post that's just for any successful 'backdoors', with no 'yay I got tickets!' replies so that we can all find the info if and when it applies. Neil is it possible to pin a post like this on the front page and request no one posts unless its really relevant?

Cheers!

Thanks mat-berr. You're advice sounds good and its in plain English!

I agree with smudger about having a useful quick to look through thread on ticket day

[matt_berr]

Ok, so based on what I know....

Unless you have many pc's coming from a single ip don't worry about flooding.

Try and visit the seetickets registration site a few times in the week running up to the sale (its the same underlying system which they flip to sales on the day)

If you get a blank screen refresh using ctrl+f5 , if your ticket purchase stalls try going back on the browser - however, this may result in registrations being locked in a failed sale (some evidence this happened last year).

Ps. I managed to buy tickets for friends many times in may last yer by keeping an eye on this forum

[eFestivals]

Would also suggest we have a post that's just for any successful 'backdoors', with no 'yay I got tickets!' replies so that we can all find the info if and when it applies. Neil is it possible to pin a post like this on the front page and request no one posts unless its really relevant?

it's a good idea in some ways but it's something that has the potential to cause bigger problems, so it's something I'm not going to do.

Firstly, it's a slur in advance of a reason for it onto See Tickets, who would be within their rights to take offence. It's also likely to annoy Glastonbury Festival.

It also runs the risk of attracting massive extra traffic onto efestivals with people constantly refreshing that one topic, and then causing the forums to become unusable for everyone.

And thirdly, I think the likelihood of it serving any purpose this year is very slim. As was demonstrated last October (once they sorted out that DNS error), the system that See has is now robust enough to do the job it's there for, all of the previously discovered flawed have been addressed leaving little room for a new one, and the likelihood of a similar DNS cock-up this year is so very small off the back of last year that it's as good as non-existent.

I reckon we'rew all going to have to keep our fingers crossed this year and hope we all get lucky.

[topmarksbri]

Out of curiosity, people who know about these kind of things, will I be at any disadvantage trying to buy tickets from abroad? I'm gonna be in Canada this year on ticket day

[eFestivals]

Out of curiosity, people who know about these kind of things, will I be at any disadvantage trying to buy tickets from abroad? I'm gonna be in Canada this year on ticket day

At all sensible levels, you're at no disadvantage.

Getting into things at a silly level, you're at an immeasurably small disadvantage, just by the fact that your page requests will (on average) be likely to take a few milliseconds longer to get to the See servers, and so make it possible via adding together those extra milliseconds over the whole sale period that you might make one less page request than someone might in the UK.

But at the end of the day it's all too small to matter. What matters is your page request hitting the server at the exact moment it has the resources to be able to service your page request - and that comes down to the luck of that moment.

[topmarksbri]

At all sensible levels, you're at no disadvantage.

Getting into things at a silly level, you're at an immeasurably small disadvantage, just by the fact that your page requests will (on average) be likely to take a few milliseconds longer to get to the See servers, and so make it possible via adding together those extra milliseconds over the whole sale period that you might make one less page request than someone might in the UK.

But at the end of the day it's all too small to matter. What matters is your page request hitting the server at the exact moment it has the resources to be able to service your page request - and that comes down to the luck of that moment.

[mrtourette]

it's a good idea in some ways but it's something that has the potential to cause bigger problems, so it's something I'm not going to do.

Firstly, it's a slur in advance of a reason for it onto See Tickets, who would be within their rights to take offence. It's also likely to annoy Glastonbury Festival.

It also runs the risk of attracting massive extra traffic onto efestivals with people constantly refreshing that one topic, and then causing the forums to become unusable for everyone.

And thirdly, I think the likelihood of it serving any purpose this year is very slim. As was demonstrated last October (once they sorted out that DNS error), the system that See has is now robust enough to do the job it's there for, all of the previously discovered flawed have been addressed leaving little room for a new one, and the likelihood of a similar DNS cock-up this year is so very small off the back of last year that it's as good as non-existent.

I reckon we'rew all going to have to keep our fingers crossed this year and hope we all get lucky.

[Pinhead]

Ok, so based on what I know....

Unless you have many pc's coming from a single ip don't worry about flooding.

Try and visit the seetickets registration site a few times in the week running up to the sale (its the same underlying system which they flip to sales on the day)

If you get a blank screen refresh using ctrl+f5 , if your ticket purchase stalls try going back on the browser - however, this may result in registrations being locked in a failed sale (some evidence this happened last year).

Ps. I managed to buy tickets for friends many times in may last yer by keeping an eye on this forum

[MichaelsBeard]

They should be a place you can physically queue to get tickets. Something like 100 tickets per a select number of HMV stores.

That would guarantee if you got there early enough and put the effort in you'd get a ticket and not have to rely on luck alone.

[mrtourette]

Too hard to police.

[DeanoL]

And thirdly, I think the likelihood of it serving any purpose this year is very slim. As was demonstrated last October (once they sorted out that DNS error), the system that See has is now robust enough to do the job it's there for, all of the previously discovered flawed have been addressed leaving little room for a new one, and the likelihood of a similar DNS cock-up this year is so very small off the back of last year that it's as good as non-existent.

I reckon we'rew all going to have to keep our fingers crossed this year and hope we all get lucky.