2017 Ticket Sale

[gizmoman]

34 minutes ago, JamieCGFX said:

 

Whilst the text on the booking page appears as text now see tickets were randomly switching it out to be an image. Because they've now closed the sale down we're back to plain text.

 

? That doesn't make any sense, if the page was being changed to an image to defeat refreshinator it wouldn't do so if it sent the regular page first, the user could still select the text to monitor, any later image busy pages would be ignored. If the busy page was to be an image they would all be an image not just a random selection. (unless the idea was to allow SOME refreshinator users to be sucessful).

Ignore that! of course it would work, as refreshinator is looking for the text to disappear. it would then load the image busy page. Very clever seetickets.

Edited October 14, 2016 by gizmoman

[gizmoman]

On 12/10/2016 at 10:53 PM, musky said:

You're right, text. So they must have blocked Refreshinator by another method, possibly by the http headers as there seemed to be an issue there.

They still had the script for the timer in there as well.

Turns out you were right! If they were switching between text and image pages that would defeat ANY auto refreshers not just refreshinator, very useful info for future sales.

[JamieCGFX]

I also checked the Refreshinator headers. He's using a standard iOS webview that has the same request headers as any other iOS app. You really can't tell someone is using refreshinator.

[JamieCGFX]

3 hours ago, eFestivals said:

Erm, you're making a definitive statement there, but not giving a reason why.

As far as i can see it, it might have been done either way, and the only way to be sure would be to have tested it or asked the guy who set it up.

It's pretty standard to have a domain-dedicated server to default to that webdomain if the IP address is used, but I can also see that it would be more-sensible (tho not particularly an issue either way) to not do that with a server that's not designed to be directly customer facing.

At the end of the day, how it's been done could be either one, at the discretion of the guy who set it up. The only way to know is to test it.

(I know the hosts file should only take about 20 seconds if everything works smoothly, tho windoze can be fussy with its admin rights)

I should be more clear. I tried this and got "Unable to find partner site" with a 404.

Edited October 14, 2016 by JamieCGFX
Adding more clarity

[eFestivals]

17 minutes ago, JamieCGFX said:

I should be more clear. I tried this and got "Unable to find partner site" with a 404.

ah, thanks.

 

[parsonjack]

6 hours ago, JamieCGFX said:

From what I've been reading online seetickets did eventually put this server into the main rotation so it started to become used. It was at this point people started to see the usual white screens even with the hack because the server was now busy.

See can mitigate this kind of issue in the future by making sure all the servers are in the main rotation or not online at all.

The server that was used for the Host hacks is not part of the usual DNS rotation,and was not to my knowledge added to the main rotation during the sale.

There are 3 x IP's that are generally resolved by glastonbury.seetickets.com, all in the 194.168.0.0 subnet managed by Virgin Media.  The IP used for the Host hack is part of a second subnet owned by Exponential-e which I believe is the DR facility, and although only 1 x IP was made known in this thread there are in fact 2 x IP's in the 109.231.0.0 subnet that will serve session requests.

How do I know this?  Because I have been monitoring DNS for the glastonbury.seetickets.com domain for over a year now.  in that time several other IP's have also been used, but the ones mentioned above are generally the only regularly used ones.  There is regular use of the 'DR' addresses, mainly on a Tuesday once a month, which again leads me to believe it's a DR facility only.

In respect to the sale last week I monitored DNS throughout and at no time did See advertise either of the 109.231.x.x  addresses.  As such I believe that the IP reported on here was supplied through someone who had also spotted it previously.  I tried the Host hack against both of the 109.231.x.x addresses on the coach sale, but neither worked at that time, and it was therefore a big surprise when one of them worked in the main sale.  Why that is remains unclear, but given that failing over to DR would require a DNS change I'm guessing that See may have suspected a problem with the Production rig, and brought the DR online in anticipation of needing to failover.  I believe this didn't occur but the DR rig was available to serve requests via Host direction only.

[gizmoman]

Anyone have any opinion of the role cloudflare play in the seetickets setup? The images on the busy page are hosted by cloudflare and they are a specialist in anti ddos attack response. I am of the opinion that very few  f5 pings actually reach see's servers, I think most of them are redirected/ignored any thoughts?

[musky]

18 hours ago, JamieCGFX said:

I also checked the Refreshinator headers. He's using a standard iOS webview that has the same request headers as any other iOS app. You really can't tell someone is using refreshinator.

I didn't have Refreshinator so I couldn't check for myself but the results of the user agent were posted up some pages back. Refreshinator didn't display as the app (it didn't return a result) whereas Safari did. Now it was just a test on a single website checking the http headers so there may have been an issue with that particular site, but as it displayed Safari correctly and AFAIK iRefreshonator spoofs Safari I would have expected it to display identically. 

On another note I noticed See are using Google Analytics, which answers the question of how they could check for anyone using an auto refresh app without generating huge log files on their servers. 

[glasto-worker]

On 12/10/2016 at 10:34 AM, Pinhead said:

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  

I reckon we deserve a long serving Medal - its the gap years that make it so difficult to work out if its a Anniversary year. if you plan something let me know as with any luck I may be mobile again as I am due a operation that may cure my peripheral arterial disease sometime in the next 3 months.

[Beerqueen]

On 10/7/2016 at 2:36 PM, verrymerry said:

The boat (?) might have WiFi?

The worry isn't over til we're all in 

We were sailing in a yacht, so no wifi.  I did try on my phone, kept refreshing until at about quarter past, my screen completely froze.  My friend was also unsuccessful.    It's a long time til April and the resales.......

[Pinhead]

On 15/10/2016 at 1:19 PM, glasto-worker said:

I reckon we deserve a long serving Medal - its the gap years that make it so difficult to work out if its a Anniversary year. if you plan something let me know as with any luck I may be mobile again as I am due a operation that may cure my peripheral arterial disease sometime in the next 3 months.

Heh - how about free tix maybe for 20 years service ;) Yeah, will let you know if I actually come up with a plan mate - and all the best with the op.

[timbrass]

On ‎15‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 0:15 AM, gizmoman said:

Anyone have any opinion of the role cloudflare play in the seetickets setup? The images on the busy page are hosted by cloudflare and they are a specialist in anti ddos attack response. I am of the opinion that very few  f5 pings actually reach see's servers, I think most of them are redirected/ignored any thoughts?

It would make sense for Seetickets to use Cloudflare as a way to throttle the traffic hitting Seetickets servers.  The question is what logic is Cloudflare using to determine who gets let through.  It might be that they are using some DDOS logic (in which many repeated F5 retrys might look like a DDOS attack) or it could be that they let through some random small percentage (which would seem fairer - i.e. with the large number of edge servers Cloudflare have, anyone can connect to them and they - hopefully randomly - allow a small set of traffic through to Seetickets servers -it would mean that a single F5 refresh from the bloke sat on an oil platform off Iran has the same chance as any other F5 refresh of getting through.   The question is whether Cloudflare "punish" many repeated attempts in a short period of time as if it were a DDOS attack.  We would need someone from Cloudflare to say what logic they were using....

 

[clarkete]

On ‎11‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 8:06 AM, eFestivals said:

the hosts file hack is guaranteed to work - and I couldn't be bothered to try it at the point someone posted about it - but if i'd thought of trying the IP address instead I would have done, as that avoids the hassle of changing the hosts file.

It's one to remember for the future, as it would save several minutes of messing about with the hosts file with only a few seconds wasted if using the IP address doesn't work.

Please don't.   

As I said earlier I tried it back in 2012 and whilst you hosts editors were all merrily sitting there having successfully got tickets, I wasn't as it didn't work.  Luckily I managed to get some anyway, but those precious couple of minutes trying it could be the difference between succeeding and failing.

[glasto-worker]

2 hours ago, Pinhead said:

Heh - how about free tix maybe for 20 years service ;) Yeah, will let you know if I actually come up with a plan mate - and all the best with the op.

well that sounds a good idea - Things are moving faster than I was expecting - three years of being told that a operation was ' Out the Question ' and then all of a sudden I was told a few days ago that they now wish to Operate - has to be a Hospital waiting list situation - I am having a planning CT Scan next Month and its that scan that is the crucial one that will decide if they can or cannot operate - I am one of the lucky one as I can still walk {not very far {20 to 30 yards} but at least I can still walk} but if they can bypass the blockage then they expect it will cure the problem - time will tell.

[Rumblestripe]

Very best of luck, sending you love and positivity

[young_bairn]

My ticket story.

I have been to Glastonbury 4 times now. Usually its my friend who gets the tickets but I thought Id give it the usual token effort with zero faith that I would have an influence. As usual I was unprepared. I had been out the day before and was feeling tender. I grabed my work laptop 10 minutes beofre 9 and instead of just going online via my home network I logged into my work remote server so I could read some e-mails while I waited.

 I got the white screen of death for the first 10 minutes, then I got to the holding page where it auto refreshes. When I was giving up hope, my Mrs who was lying next to me hit F5 and the details page opened. I couldn't believe it. So I panic getting everybodys details from the group chat, during this I get a warning about the laptop battery, 4 minutes remaining, that's fine I thought. I sent my wife to go get my charger down the stairs and guess what happened.......the laptop died.

I was fuming........raging....... I was ready to throw the laptop across the room but got the charger anyway, rebooted, logged back into the server, opened chrome, typed 'seeticketsglastonbury 2017' tickets into google, clicked the link then boom straight back into the booking page. I thought na, this won't work, but I filled out all the details again and hit submit. As I thought the next page came up with an error. I clicked back auto filled all the details and tried again with the same result. 1 last try I said, click back, auto fill, submit......ticket confirmation. I couldn't believe it. After all my baboonary I bagged the tickets for the group.

In conclusion.....

I am an idiot.

I think logging into my work server helped somehow....faster servers?

The IP address was saved allowing me back into the booking page?

 

[parsonjack]

1 hour ago, young_bairn said:

My ticket story.

I have been to Glastonbury 4 times now. Usually its my friend who gets the tickets but I thought Id give it the usual token effort with zero faith that I would have an influence. As usual I was unprepared. I had been out the day before and was feeling tender. I grabed my work laptop 10 minutes beofre 9 and instead of just going online via my home network I logged into my work remote server so I could read some e-mails while I waited.

 I got the white screen of death for the first 10 minutes, then I got to the holding page where it auto refreshes. When I was giving up hope, my Mrs who was lying next to me hit F5 and the details page opened. I couldn't believe it. So I panic getting everybodys details from the group chat, during this I get a warning about the laptop battery, 4 minutes remaining, that's fine I thought. I sent my wife to go get my charger down the stairs and guess what happened.......the laptop died.

I was fuming........raging....... I was ready to throw the laptop across the room but got the charger anyway, rebooted, logged back into the server, opened chrome, typed 'seeticketsglastonbury 2017' tickets into google, clicked the link then boom straight back into the booking page. I thought na, this won't work, but I filled out all the details again and hit submit. As I thought the next page came up with an error. I clicked back auto filled all the details and tried again with the same result. 1 last try I said, click back, auto fill, submit......ticket confirmation. I couldn't believe it. After all my baboonary I bagged the tickets for the group.

In conclusion.....

I am an idiot.

I think logging into my work server helped somehow....faster servers?

The IP address was saved allowing me back into the booking page?

 

Once you have a booking 'session' you get a cookie that means it's yours for 10 minutes....which gave you the time to reboot etc and complete the transaction before the session timed out.

I had a similar experience in that I got to the payment page and got an error relating to incorrect date/time on my laptop...I've known for ages that the CMOS battery is dead and have to reset the date/time every time I use it, but totally forgot to do so on Sunday morning.  So, with the payment page still open, I set the date/time and go to proceed with payment, the machine hangs, then blue-screens and I have to reboot.  After reboot I load Chrome and go straight in again...re-enter details and get to payment then boom...session time-out.  Cue rage.  F5 takes me back to the holding page and I think my chance has gone.  A few F5's more and up comes another booking page, which I complete successfully this time.  I then get in twice more for other folks.

I am an idiot too....a lucky one it seems....but still an idiot.

 

 

  

[The_Don76]

There's a group of four of us that have been for the past 4 years now, we were on a Great British Alternative Music weekend at Skegness. I knew the minute we arrived we had zero chance, one bar of signal, no 4G and 30 minutess of Butlins free wifi, might as well of had a hamster in a wheel. The four of ussat there in silence, very hungover but all refreshing phones & ipads tethered to phones trying but when my page finally loaded at 9:50 it was to inform me they'd all gone.

Absolutely gutted but knew from the moment the ticket sale date was revealed that it would be an uphill task.

Will suffer in silence until the resale.

[parsonjack]

1 hour ago, The_Don76 said:

There's a group of four of us that have been for the past 4 years now, we were on a Great British Alternative Music weekend at Skegness. I knew the minute we arrived we had zero chance, one bar of signal, no 4G and 30 minutess of Butlins free wifi, might as well of had a hamster in a wheel. The four of ussat there in silence, very hungover but all refreshing phones & ipads tethered to phones trying but when my page finally loaded at 9:50 it was to inform me they'd all gone.

Absolutely gutted but knew from the moment the ticket sale date was revealed that it would be an uphill task.

Will suffer in silence until the resale.

In the face of such adversity and little optimism you nevertheless stuck with it when you could have given it up as a hopeless cause much earlier.

You deserve something for that alone....the resale will reward you I' m sure.   

[The_Don76]

2 hours ago, parsonjack said:

In the face of such adversity and little optimism you nevertheless stuck with it when you could have given it up as a hopeless cause much earlier.

You deserve something for that alone....the resale will reward you I' m sure.   

Cheers, will be doing our upmost. I honestly can't imagine having to make do with watching on tv.