Successful Ticket buying - Mac or PC?

[Charm]

5 hours ago, Cornelius_Fudge said:

My mate got tickets with a bit of rope and a brick, swinging it round his head in the middle of Hackney Common.

 

Horses for courses

This made me laugh way too loudly in the cafe, now people think I'm weird. 
Charm x

[johnny-yen]

3 hours ago, ohvienna said:

My mac didn't get onto the holding page once. I know we are trying to find out if there is a secret formula to getting tickets so we never miss out (phone vs desktop, 4g vs broadband, mac vs pc) but there's definitely been enough of these threads now to say it's pretty much random and down to luck? 

Unless you are a tech wizard who can find out the IP needed for the hosts file hack of course

Thanks. Actually that seems to make some sort of sense.

There was more than luck at play. There is no way one machine could get a response 100% of the time and the other get 0%. Once the tickets had sold out the PC started connecting again. 

[___S_o_m_a__]

1 minute ago, johnny-yen said:

Thanks. Actually that seems to make some sort of sense.

There was more than luck at play. There is no way one machine could get a response 100% of the time and the other get 0%. Once the tickets had sold out the PC started connecting again. 

[Ovechkin]

On my PC: 2 windows open: 1 chrome, 1 edge. white screen 95% of the time.

On my Mac: 1 window open: chrome. white screen 1/3 of the time, holding page 2/3. Came through around 09:30, at the same time as my mate who use a PC, however he was quicker than me and managed to secure our tickets.

On my android: Whitescreen mostly, didn't update as much as I had enough to do running 2 computers

[Charm]

I got through at 9:12 on my wired PC using Firefox, I had 2 iPads tethered on different iPhones and a laptop connected to wireless all these devices got the white screen, I'm sure it's just luck on the day. 
Charm x

[Nice hymer]

I'm certain it was just my turn to be lucky this year.

Bought my tickets at 9.04am, tickets for friends at 9.15am, tickets for efest randoms at 9.40am, missed out on final tickets at 9.50am

All purchased on a five year old desktop running Windows 10 and Edge browser.

Was also running a 2015 MacBook Pro  with Safari - stayed on holding page

and a HP Netbook running Windows 7 with Chrome - couldn't even find the holding page.

Must say it felt really good to be helping others

[Ipayne]

Had 3 people trying on different devices, I was using a Mac, and the others used my phone and a PC. Didn't see the registration page on the Mac or phone, but our battered old PC managed to get in (albeit kicking us out 5 times before it let us pay) twice for 2 different groups. The PC was the one we expected nothing from too considering it's so slow!

[rebeccaa94]

My Mac managed to get through to get tickets twice where as all my mates couldn't get past the white screen on their PC's. Still reckon it's just luck though as in previous years it's been pretty 50/50 whether our group has gotten them on a mac or PC. 

[Pinhead]

There you go. Random.

[timbrass]

Windows 10 on a Surface Book with Edge browser - it's faster than Chrome or Firefox or IE (not that speed of browser makes much difference when booking tickets).  Knowing how to edit your hosts file makes a difference!

Edited October 11, 2016 by timbrass
clarification of hardware

[Madyaker]

Laptop, MacBook, PC, tablet, phone it doesn't matter it's just luck. 

[rinzeanne]

I've got tickets via my iMac this year (on Thursday) and in 2013/2014/2105 as well. 

I used 3 different browsers, Safari, Firefox and Chrome. All reached the holding page and stayed there. Safari was the one that brought me to the ticket page. 

I also used 2 PC laptops and both failed massively. Only white screens and time outs. 

Oh, and this refreshinator app didn't work at all... Got a refund from the app store. 

Long live Apple!

[LondonTom]

18 hours ago, johnny-yen said:

 

Can anyone else confirm if they were more successful with Mac or PC? And any techy people know why there should be such a marked difference?

 

There isn't a difference, every year someone notices a trend that is debunked by someone elses experience. Thus proving its randomness.

For instance, the last 2 years I used a VPN and constantly got through, this year I didn't even get the landing page until I turned it off...

[musky]

20 hours ago, johnny-yen said:

There must have been some reason for the difference though. The PC didn't get the holding page once in 50 minutes. The Mac got it every time. That cannot be just 'luck'. 

While there's no technical reason Macs would be preferred to PCs, there are technical reasons one device doesn't get through.

The site sets cookies as soon as you access it, under seetickets.com and glastonbury.seetickets.com, and a further cookie is stored on accessing the registration page. As has been said, any problems with one of these cookies could mean you won't see the registration page. It appears there was a problem with one of the the servers on Sunday, so if a cookie had been installed which was directing to this server you might never get to see it.

There's currently a couple of expired cookies sitting on my computer that have expired, with different names to those that were there while my session was active. God knows what they were for, but perhaps letting them know I'd already bought tickets (though plenty of people get through again).

[musky]

Oops... Double post.

Edited October 12, 2016 by musky

[Andrea Weir]

PC with Virgin and lots of bad language x x 

[Mr.Tease]

13 hours ago, Pinhead said:

There you go. Random.

Yup, if all efestivalers had a coin and flipped it 10 times, some posters would get heads 9 times, some would get tails 9 times, some would get a 5 and 5 and some one lose the coin down the back of a sofa. The folk that got mostly heads would believe their coin was weighted in favour of it, as would those who got tails. 

Equal chances don't mean everyone will get an equal outcome or experience. 

[Pinhead]

Its like a funny mind game isn't it - it seems non-random sometimes, but then you know its got to be random - surely. Confirmation bias plays a role too I think.

[Woz101]

Two Macs - iMac Retina 27 and Macbook Pro - both good spec and fairly new - white screens the whole time - not a sniff of the holding page. 

Tried on Safari and Chrome on both.

Also tried iPhone - nothing. All on the same network from Wiltshire. I get VERY poor 3G here - tried that and got nothing either. Thankfully a stranger got me a ticket. 

[Pinhead]

5 minutes ago, Woz101 said:

All on the same network from Wiltshire. I get VERY poor 3G here

I know Calne. Try from up the top of Silbury Hill for the Oct 2017 sale 

[Woz101]

Just now, Pinhead said:

I know Calne. Try from up the top of Silbury Hill for the Oct 2017 sale 

Haha! Actually, down that direction I only get signal at The Ridgeway!

[Pinhead]

Barbury Castle? Might get a signal from Swindon...

[johnny-yen]

21 hours ago, musky said:

While there's no technical reason Macs would be preferred to PCs, there are technical reasons one device doesn't get through.

The site sets cookies as soon as you access it, under seetickets.com and glastonbury.seetickets.com, and a further cookie is stored on accessing the registration page. As has been said, any problems with one of these cookies could mean you won't see the registration page. It appears there was a problem with one of the the servers on Sunday, so if a cookie had been installed which was directing to this server you might never get to see it.

There's currently a couple of expired cookies sitting on my computer that have expired, with different names to those that were there while my session was active. God knows what they were for, but perhaps letting them know I'd already bought tickets (though plenty of people get through again).

Thanks. This could well be it. There was definitely a difference between the two machines. 

All these people that talk of randomness and luck didn't experience what I saw. They may have had their own random experiences but for me it was clear. 

I estimate I must have refreshed my iMac every second for first 20 minutes until I got my first lot of tickets. That's 1200 times. EVERY SINGLE TIME it got a holding page. During that same period the PC was refreshed a similar number of times. EVERY SINGLE TIME it didn't get through. 

No one can say that was pure randomness. 

And although the frequency of checking the pattern reduced after that (because we had got our tickets) the same pattern followed right up until the point that the tickets sold out and then both machines instantly showed the 'sold out' page. 

This 'cookie' theory makes a great deal of sense, for my situation. I'm sure everyone has their own experiences and I understand luck does play a massive part but I know what I saw and there was a clear difference on Sunday for me. 

Coming back to the cookie issue, for future reference, what can be done if we suspect that this happens again. Does clearing the internet browsing history clear the bad cookie problem?

[musky]

1 hour ago, johnny-yen said:

Thanks. This could well be it. There was definitely a difference between the two machines. 

All these people that talk of randomness and luck didn't experience what I saw. They may have had their own random experiences but for me it was clear. 

I estimate I must have refreshed my iMac every second for first 20 minutes until I got my first lot of tickets. That's 1200 times. EVERY SINGLE TIME it got a holding page. During that same period the PC was refreshed a similar number of times. EVERY SINGLE TIME it didn't get through. 

No one can say that was pure randomness. 

And although the frequency of checking the pattern reduced after that (because we had got our tickets) the same pattern followed right up until the point that the tickets sold out and then both machines instantly showed the 'sold out' page. 

This 'cookie' theory makes a great deal of sense, for my situation. I'm sure everyone has their own experiences and I understand luck does play a massive part but I know what I saw and there was a clear difference on Sunday for me. 

Coming back to the cookie issue, for future reference, what can be done if we suspect that this happens again. Does clearing the internet browsing history clear the bad cookie problem?

Clearing  your cookies and cache might solve the problem, although I think Neil said he tried it with a device that was just getting a white screen and he still struggled.

[Chazwozza]

Sometimes I get through on a Windows PC.  Sometimes I get through on a Mac.  Sometimes I don't get through.  I haven't found any sort of pattern in the last 10 years.  Sorry...