Folding Forum

Hey all!

Thanks for the report and apologies for the slow response! The issue seems to be with fah-web.stanford.edu (the stats frontend), which went down over Labor Day weekend. Points are still accruing on the backend servers, and this should be apparent once Stanford IT resolves the frontend problem. Will keep you all updated!

UPDATE: fah-web.stanford.edu will need to undergo maintenance, but should be back up in the evening (PST). See post here: https://folding.stanford.edu/home/fah-w ... in-motion/.

Carlos

I can't access my personal stats either at http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/mai ... &username=. Has the Pande Group ever been asked to be proactive in these kind of problems - they could have a special status section somewhere in the FAH Forums easily accessed, where it could be stated what's wrong, if it is being worked on, and maybe time to get fixed?

Well here it is Tuesday, 9/6 2:30pm CST and still no updates...no wonder so many are quitting.

caintry_boy wrote:Well here it is Tuesday, 9/6 2:30pm CST and still no updates...no wonder so many are quitting.

I personally do not fold for the points. I use the points to determine how well my machines are working or if there is an issue with one of them.

The points are safe, I know that because i saw 4 hours ago on fah stats that I received 1,4 Million points since the problem has started. For me the most important thing is that all the work, since the server problem has begun, is ok. We didn't fold for nothing. The points will still be received like we were told. We don't have to quit so easy. It's not like all the work was lost...

Thanks Carlos for your response and update.

tbk-aracthebold wrote:

caintry_boy wrote:Well here it is Tuesday, 9/6 2:30pm CST and still no updates...no wonder so many are quitting.

tbk-aracthebold wrote:I personally do not fold for the points. I use the points to determine how well my machines are working or if there is an issue with one of them.

Me too...

https://mobile.twitter.com/foldingathom ... 7686949888

snapshot wrote:Yes, a word or three from the team would be appreciated.

A notice posted by Dr. Pande - https://folding.stanford.edu/home/fah-w ... in-motion/.

I'd like to know if somehow my (in-)actions have contributed to the frustration expressed above.

It's my understanding that Stanford's Servers are managed by the I/S department, and FAH is a user of their services. Presumably there is some sort of notification and escalation procedure when the University is closed for a holiday or a weekend, but I don't know what it is.

My first knowledge of the problem was when a forum member posted at the beginning of this topic and someone else in another topic. I don't have access to information about what might be wrong so I couldn't have added any assessment of the problem or a projection of when it might be fixed (except "after the holiday"). That notification waited until today.

I have frequently posted that it's EXTREMELY rare that the points are ever lost, but rather that they're being stored off-line and would appear when the issue was resolved. That information appears above.

How could your forum Mods (including myself) have helped?

ra_alfaomega wrote:

tbk-aracthebold wrote:

caintry_boy wrote:Well here it is Tuesday, 9/6 2:30pm CST and still no updates...no wonder so many are quitting.

tbk-aracthebold wrote:I personally do not fold for the points. I use the points to determine how well my machines are working or if there is an issue with one of them.

Me too...

Add me to the list. The science being done is a nice benefit also.

@bruce: I don't think it is a problem that forum mods can solve. You can't post info you don't have.
One problem is that there are now too many FAH communication channels: Forum, blog, twitter(?), reddit, and at least two more for testing. Speaking personnally, I cant monitor them all. Which is the main one? How can relevant issues be cross-referenced? Who is going to do that?

Is there still a communications professional at PG? I recall at least two, neither of whom managed to communicate with donors over this sort of issue.

But the core of the problem is for PG to monitor their servers (maybe they do) and respond (at least with "Sorry, it's down") within hours, not days. The fix for stats is hardly a priority needing a 24/7 IT response -- other issues might be serious enough for that. But information for donors is critical to donor recruitment and retention. Another example: FAHClient 7.4.4 has a default setting that results in no CPU folding on many systems. It's been known a long time. But there is no effective way to tell new donors -- maybe the new client needs a link to a web page with current information, so the installer could display a page saying "It is currently necessary to change your CPU setting to CPU:6 instead of CPU:7 or CPU:-1 " (that needs more work, because it's incomplete, but you get the idea.) Thinking about it, the v6 CLI client used to display a News line. v7 GUI doesn't. That's progress for you.

tbk-aracthebold wrote:

caintry_boy wrote:Well here it is Tuesday, 9/6 2:30pm CST and still no updates...no wonder so many are quitting.

I personally do not fold for the points. I use the points to determine how well my machines are working or if there is an issue with one of them.

I am the same, I Fold because "Oldtimers" disease runs in my family along with cancer and heart disease, in fact I just had a quadruple bypass done July 5th. I use the points to gauge my output on my machines...

ra_alfaomega wrote:

tbk-aracthebold wrote:

caintry_boy wrote:Well here it is Tuesday, 9/6 2:30pm CST and still no updates...no wonder so many are quitting.

tbk-aracthebold wrote:I personally do not fold for the points. I use the points to determine how well my machines are working or if there is an issue with one of them.

Me too...

Me three! Except I don't use the points to determine how well my machine is working unless it's radically slow...am just happy to do what I can. Would do it without earning ANY points.

I'm a middle of the roader - I do fold for "The Cure" whichever cure that may be, then I'll move along to the next "The Cure" . . . But folding for points gives us a road map we can use to challenge others. I'm a HUGE fan of the gamification of folding for "The Cure" and have been collecting the stats on my own team and then later for the top 50 teams and their folders, as a result, for a few years.

I do this so we at EVGA can have regular folding contests that have hourly updates vs the EOC three hours between updates, but it's to provide a more instant feedback vs that large gap.

So, yeah, I stand in both camps.

Also, @Bruce - I'm not sure what can be done to improve the frustrations people feel about these outages - We're at the whim of the campus IT team as to total resolution, and a large portion of us have been through this enough times to pretty much expect that. We'll figure things out as we go.

d