geeky techie chat about the ticket sale

[Stu H]

because the url is glastonbury.seetickets.com there is no www its the same if you go to the IP address that glast.see.cm

I'm blaming my hangover! Luckily it was only on one machine and not the other one we were trying on! And to think, I work in I.T.....

[musky]

Thought I'd been clever too, 2 different browsers on PC, same result! I read during the week that 5co77ie did it also, did he get a ticket, not seen it mentioned?

Scottie got a ticket, but the registration page didn't go though.

I tried the same thing on Wednesday and it just dumped me on the holding page.

[Hello... I'm Johnny Cash]

It's just a lottery, plain and simple.

Having lots of different browsers, on different machines over different connections is like buying more tickets.

You can buy 100 tickets and lose or buy 1 and win, you still stand a better chance with 100 though.

[2brains]

My 2p on the situation, I think some internet providers faired better than others this morning (or course this could all be coincidence)

I had my main pc and laptop running with firefox using Plusnet fibre and they were loading the holding page nice and quick each time, with a success on my pc. I also had connections open to 3 virtual servers from 3 different providers. 2 of them were getting the holding page without problem, and I got another success through one of these. The 3rd virtual which was the one on Amazon EC2's service did not get a holding page at all during the sale, not a sniff, which was a little surprising as i thought with infrastructure as large as Amazon's I would of at least got to the holding page at least once.

My other half was trying with a laptop on a sky fibre connection, and reported not getting to the holding page for the majority of the time. What can we learn from this? well potentially nothing :-P but it seemed that See's systems were running well and reasonably quickly if you had no trouble accessing the holding pages, but you had a more difficult time if you were on an ISP that couldn't get you that far.

[eFestivals]

Interesting how so many people (myself included) had timeouts on the payment page, something I've never heard of before. Do we think this is a product of the increased throughput that the merchants/See payment processing server are now the bottleneck?

Presumably nothing to do with all the banking maintenance? Anyone work in the finance sector that could shed any light?

from my own experience of running the efests servers, my suspicion is that See's set-up is not as robust as See think it is, and that it's getting over-loaded at points which then locks out those people who are getting a white page.

That would then explain how come those people have success when trying with a different device - tho if things are working in the way I'm thinking those people would have had the same effect by trying a different browser on the same machine.

The only other alternative would be caused by traffic bottlenecks, tho that's most likely to experienced by users of one particular ISP - and as there doesn't seem to be a theme of "few XYZ ISP users had any luck", I'm thinking that's the least likely to the two possibilities.

[eFestivals]

Could be a coincidence, but two browsers on the VPN got a blank screen constantly, while four browsers on the PC all got the holding page right away. So this may be working via IP rather than session.

it could be, tho it's a daft way to set anything up with any IP-based blocking, as there's plenty of people who will be coming from just one IP address as far as the See servers know (people using their mobile phone providers' net access, for example).

Just as with the sales part, a person can only get that far if there's a spare slot in the system. Likewise, a person could only get a server session if the server has a free session to give them.

There's definitely something which locks people out in exactly the same way on the efests system if I allow server load to go too high (I've got better ways of managing the load in place now than I've had in the past, which seems to have stopped it happening), and as there's no IP blocking being used on the efests set-up it makes sense that the issue is caused by the servers getting over-loaded.

[Pinhead]

They have (or at least had last year anyway) an IP security system on the front end (cant remember the product but it was identified and posted here last year) which is a breed of IP reputation filter designed primarily to identify and distingush between legitimate traffic and potential DoS behaviour. Poorly configured and this will drop desired as well as unwanted traffic on occasion...

[Swieve]

I had a tablet going with one page, three IE pages open on my laptop and was letting them all refresh automatically by the See Server. I also had one Chrome tab open on the laptop and was F5ing like mad on it.

It was the Chrome tab that got got me through at about 9:07am. From that I will take that one tab and frantic refreshing is probably the way to go for future sales. I will still do the others as it was easy to setup and no hassle.

The other thing that made it easier was loading the Cyclist deposit page earlier in the week and entering the required details. That meant I could add all five registrations with a few keystrokes rather than the nervous copy / paste lark

[eFestivals]

They have (or at least had last year anyway) an IP security system on the front end (cant remember the product but it was identified and posted here last year) which is a breed of IP reputation filter designed primarily to identify and distingush between legitimate traffic and potential DoS behaviour. Poorly configured and this will drop desired as well as unwanted traffic on occasion...

yep - but they're a seller which often has big traffic spikes for big sales like Glasto, where blocking out your customers is the very last thing you'll be wanting to do.

So it would take a mighty stupid techie to set things up to cause that effect - and do you know any techies whose knowledge is that stupid who would end up being the person in control of high-level kit like that?

(If you do, the IT world has gone very downhill in the last 15 years).

[billum]

They have (or at least had last year anyway) an IP security system on the front end (cant remember the product but it was identified and posted here last year) which is a breed of IP reputation filter designed primarily to identify and distingush between legitimate traffic and potential DoS behaviour. Poorly configured and this will drop desired as well as unwanted traffic on occasion...

Yes I think I was a victim of that last year - never got a sniff of even the holding page, and hence no ticket. I had a fairly full-on system of browsers, tabs & auto-refresh, but in retrospect all going through the one IP (thanks to NAT), so I could have triggered DoS detection.

This year I just had desktop & laptop with one browser each (different IPs) and got through twice on the lappy! Happy lappy! (panicked me a bit coz it's a bugger to copy & paste the information on, but hey)

[majormajormajor]

I'm blaming my hangover! Luckily it was only on one machine and not the other one we were trying on! And to think, I work in I.T.....

i think this is the exact definition of 'epic fail'.

[billum]

The other thing that made it easier was loading the Cyclist deposit page earlier in the week and entering the required details. That meant I could add all five registrations with a few keystrokes rather than the nervous copy / paste lark

Yes that's a really good time-saving idea that should be remembered for next year - one of my crowd got timed-out while entereing the info & we started to panic. I'd done the pre-entry on my desktop but not the laptop, and guess which one got through!

It's almost worth making up an FAQ of tips for helping regulars on here get tickets, but, and I don't want to seem mean, I'm not sure where it could be put so that the efests regulars get it but casual googlers don't...

[eFestivals]

all going through the one IP (thanks to NAT), so I could have triggered DoS detection.

it's exceedingly unlikely that just the traffic from one house would cause that - cos there's still plenty of ISP traffic that goes thru a shared gateway and appears to all come from one IP address at the website's end of things.

It would need a moron to be configuring See's kit for that to be happening.

Edited October 6, 2014 by eFestivals

[majormajormajor]

Me too. One mac, Safari, one tab open (plus eFests chat!) and a cool head.

Every year 3 or 4 of us get together in the same room, all start trying to access the page at about 8:45 and every year it's me who gets through first and gets the tickets. Almost a complete waste of time the others coming round to be honest. I'm not very tech-savvy but I have bought hundreds of tickets online over the years. My feeling is that *some* people tend not to get through because of basic mistakes: refreshing error pages rather than the original url; not back clicking if a page times out, maybe not having their info to hand etc. One of my friends got through after me today - we needed a 7th ticket - and only realised you needed a debit card when his credit card was declined!

I think they are typical of a lot of people who - left to their own devices - would blame See or their equipment before themselves if they lucked out. I know there are other reasons at play, and there's a lot of luck involved, but you can certainly increase your chances of being lucky by getting the basics right.

completely agree here. some people would be refreshing a page which isn't even where you buy tickets. IMO if you are prepared, your chances of getting a ticket in the general sale isn't bad.

also, if you are completely prepared and have time, i can almost guarantee you'll get a ticket next april/may. you just need to do your research and be prepared.

[eFestivals]

i can almost guarantee you'll get a ticket next april/may. you just need to do your research and be prepared.

you're talking bollocks.

There's no research that will increase your chances.

Only the number of attempts at getting a page - or simple luck of your timing in requesting a page - increases your chances.

[Swieve]

completely agree here. some people would be refreshing a page which isn't even where you buy tickets. IMO if you are prepared, your chances of getting a ticket in the general sale isn't bad.

also, if you are completely prepared and have time, i can almost guarantee you'll get a ticket next april/may. you just need to do your research and be prepared.

Agree with this. The key word being "almost". I am the only person in my buying circle who actually gets tickets (every year since 2007) I share the relevant info every year. My mates think I have a magic button on my keyboard that says "buy Glasto tickets" but you can only ever be sure of what you do during the sale and I believe actual perserverance is the key. It is hardcore intent and sheer will that gets you through.

[UEF]

This. More often than not I end up making the purchase, but it's because I try harder. You can also get a 'feel' if a website is going to respond or not and when it's worth going back and resubmitting rather than waiting. I can't explain it.

[Pinhead]

yep - but they're a seller which often has big traffic spikes for big sales like Glasto, where blocking out your customers is the very last thing you'll be wanting to do.

So it would take a mighty stupid techie to set things up to cause that effect - and do you know any techies whose knowledge is that stupid who would end up being the person in control of high-level kit like that?

(If you do, the IT world has gone very downhill in the last 15 years).

Yep! Plenty still don't RTFM and just go charging in there thinking they know how it all works in every context... Not saying this is the case at See, but security devices tend to be amongst the most poorly configured or understood by many technicians imho.

[eFestivals]

Yep! Plenty still don't RTFM and just go charging in there thinking they know how it all works in every context... Not saying this is the case at See, but security devices tend to be amongst the most poorly configured or understood by many technicians imho.

I've never worked for a business that is so stupid to think that someone used to a classroom and not real-world operations is the best person to put in charge of real-world operations, so perhaps that's more to do with your choice of employer?

[Dannydonut]

Got bt fibre into the house last year running up tp 312 Mbps but too late for the main sale,used it this year two computers wired up .....No luck

My daughters mac book pro.....On the wifi ...no problems at all.

Checked her speed afterwards it was running at 221 Mbps on the wifi.

It may just be luck but a bit of fast broadband helps.

[Pinhead]

Tbh every employer I have worked with since being sucked down the black hole of IT over 18 years ago has always employed at least one muppet who manages to bullshit their way out of every balls up they make on a system with tech babble to managers who frankly are very rarely technical enough to smell it. Oh to be self employed....

[eFestivals]

Tbh every employer I have worked with since being sucked down the black hole of IT over 18 years ago has always employed at least one muppet who manages to bullshit their way out of every balls up they make on a system with tech babble to managers who frankly are very rarely technical enough to smell it. Oh to be self employed....

everywhere I worked the muppets got sussed before they got a job, or VERY quickly got sussed and moved to somewhere they couldn't do any damage.

In my own experience, retail businesses are much better at not employing the muppets. It's the 'blue sky' high-end techie businesses that are stuffed full of them, and most retail IT managers are exceedingly aware that they are and so are very careful about how they use them.

[eFestivals]

It may just be luck but a bit of fast broadband helps.

it really doesn't, at least not to any extent you'd be able to notice.

[Dannydonut]

The browser was refreshing instantly ......

Never known that before lol

[SLEEPYMOPS]

Got tickets in under 5 mins by not pressing f5, i get them every year by letting it refresh itself and have never waited more then 10 mins for a ticket. I keep thinking every year my luck will run out but seem to get lucky every year. My mate lets it auto refresh and she gets them every time aswell