ffdotnetrants | I updated today, not last Sunday

I was able to log on this morning and update my story. However, for some reason, fanfiction.net seems to be under the impression that I updated my story on April 3rd. That was the day I posted chapter four. Today, I posted chapter five. The new chapter is there, and can be read. But, no one will see it, because my story didn't move up the list of stories. And no alerts went out. And I know I have people waiting for the update. But how in the world are they supposed to know that I posted it?!

And I know other people have had their stories go through correctly, because I was able to read the newest chapter in one of the stories I'm following, and that new chapter was posted this afternoon.

At this point, I'd consder going to another archive, but I don't feel comfortable posting my stories anywhere else. And, I wouldn't even know where else to post them.

ETA: As of this morning (4/13/11), my story has finally shown up where it's supposed to be.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

kenyanna dyer (from livejournal.com)

I was able to log in. Post a story and a chapter. Sad thing is that they haven't yet showed up on my profile. So I don't know what's going on around here. How are things on your end?

From:

isethia.livejournal.com

The chapter disappeared from my account, so I reposted it. It went through normally, but the site thinks it doesn't exist. And, unlike earlier, when it was showing up as part of the story, it's not even doing that.

Seriously, the people maintaining ff.net (if they even exist) really need to get their act together.

From:

kenyanna dyer (from livejournal.com)

lolwhat!?

People maintaining?

There are no people!

Only trained monkeys that eat banana and toss poop at the wall! Didn't you know that?

Ah well... being serious now.

I'm STILL waiting for the two chapters to SHOW themselves. I feel like I am stalking the site now. A friend of mine is also waiting for her stories to so up.

This is annoying.

From:

isethia.livejournal.com

And considering that the site did this exact same thing on Saturday, and the stories didn't show up until Sunday afternooon . . . it could be a long wait.

From:

kenyanna dyer (from livejournal.com)

Now my main question is... are the readers actually GETTING the alerts? I mean, I have a major story that I was planning to update tomorrow. However, I am scared to update. I will be honest, I am seriously worried about the readers NOT knowing and the reviews NOT showing up because they didn't even know TO review.

Why does Fanfiction . net have THIS on there main page: News:
April 12th, 2011 -- We have resolved all outstanding issues which affected site service for much of yesterday. Please note we are upgrading the forums engine and some forum features will be inaccessible over the next 24 hours.

IF NOTHING HAS BEEN FIXED!?!?

I viewed the 'Just in stories' and is appears that SOME people are able to post fine. It also appears as if some people are able to review. I don't understand. Is this problem messing with only Half the people of Fanfiction . net and the other half is lucky enough to get smooth sailings?

That ends my mini rant.

From: (Anonymous)

juan_carlos_perez (at)idg(dot)com is a journalist with PC Weekly who loves writing stories on problems at internet sites. He's been great when blogger had the same problems and even found the bunker where they're hiding.

I might give him an email to see if he'd be interested in doing an article on it.

From:

isethia.livejournal.com

If you take a closer look at the just in (click on the feed), it shows that nothing new has been posted in four hours. Those are the people that managed to post earlier today, during one of the times that the site was being cooperative.

I think the readers are getting the alerts, but I can't be sure, becasue the only story I'm suscribed updates very rarely. I did get the alert saying that I'd posted a new chapter. (And I really don't get that. I know when I post a new story, so why am I getting author alerts for myself?)

They probably think they have fixed everything. and they may have fixed the problem they were working on.

My guess is the site has some kind of issue with its cache.

From:

loonynamelass.livejournal.com

Oh, by the way, the reason you get alerts for your own stories is because you have your Carbon Copy Alert enabled. Whenever an alert is sent out to your readers about your story, you can get a carbon copy. To disable that, you can click the Alerts tab there's a handy dandy button.

Not all is bad. :)

From: (Anonymous)

My alerts are going out but guess what the updates are still not showing up, instead error messages when you click the links on the alerts. The updates don't exist.

That's the original problem they had last weekend. it's still there.

I guess this is their way of saying that we fixed A, now we're going to screw up B and C. When of course, A's not fixed.

From:

kenyanna dyer (from livejournal.com)

Gosh dangit.

So if I post at midnight it would be up by eight am? And I would still receive reviews?

-bangs head-

GOSH!

I NEED A NEW SITE TO POST ON!

From: (Anonymous)

My FF.net fandom is small so I don't know if they can even read the updates but somehow, I'm getting reviews eventually on FP stories. It just takes a lot longer.

From:

miszxbrii.livejournal.com

It really is a pain. I get alerts, but you can't access the new chapter because well the error pops up. I even updated today and my update didn't show up. It was fine last night. I was able to upload and it showed up, but now it's not even working. So irritating.

From: (Anonymous)

I wrote support and told them they should just stop upgrading the forums and work on the updates so you know they actually ...show up.

I think they shut down the forums b/c they didn't like reading about themselves.

From:

kenyanna dyer (from livejournal.com)

Sadly the bastards never seem to reply BACK to those who email them.

Has anyone EVER gotten a reply from the so called admins?

I still say they are a bunch of dirty monkeys.

No human could possibly mess up this bad.

From:

loonynamelass.livejournal.com

I disagree only because humans have been known to mess up big time. Random example, most Nazis convicted in the Nuremburg Trials were of above average intelligence, and a few actually qualified as geniuses by their IQs.

From:

ultharkitty.livejournal.com

Has anyone EVER gotten a reply from the so called admins?

I did once!

I asked for a new character to be added to the list, and they actually replied. And added the character. I was impressed.

From:

kenyanna dyer (from livejournal.com)

Well at least we know they DO exist!

And loonynamelass... lol. Nice one. I didn't think of that. Kudos to you!

From: (Anonymous)

I got one once when I complained to them I was missing hits for two days, and they fixed them. Actually, I complain to them all the time about my hits and they only give me a few. I think this stupid site is run by a bunch of dirty, brain dead monkey's who don't really listen to you. If they really care about this site and want to keep it running, they will work with people and fix problems.

From: (Anonymous)

I tried posting a new story up right around 5:30ish. I got the email alert saying that the story was posted, but when I click the link all I get is a "Story Not Found" Error. Then less than an hour ago I checked again and it said something about "recheck in 15 minutes" and a possible outdated url. Now I went back to check one last time just for shits and giggles, low and behold it's back to "Story Not Found". -_- I kinda wish they would pick one and stick with it at the very least. Is it "not found" or is it "going up in 15 minutes". Either way the site is losing a lot of supporters due to this mess...

From: (Anonymous)

mine's up. only three hours after the alerts went out.

From:

laurineandersen.livejournal.com

So weird... Mine is working fine, all the chapters are there and alerts too o.o

From:

isethia.livejournal.com

I just checked the site again, after reading these comments. They're still not showing anything updated more recently than five hours ago. Although, at some point, the new chapter of my story must have been visible somewhere, becasue it had some hits.

Yeah, at this point, if I could think of another place to post, I would.

From:

laurineandersen.livejournal.com

What about LJ? I post here and ff.net at the same time (most of my stories are on ff.net, though)

From:

isethia.livejournal.com

I post my stories in my journal. I just haven't got the courage to post them to any communities. There are some things in my story that I'm not sure the community would accept, such as changing how two characters are related. And I know there's other issues with my stories as well. But, there are so many stories posted on fanfiction.net that it didn't seem to matter as much.

From:

laurineandersen.livejournal.com

I swear, my ff.net is working just fine, i can login, i can post and I have alerts, so... o.o how weird. Maybe it's because well... there are 6 millions of stories -w-.

From:

aleurier.livejournal.com

I'm able to log in. Update a story. Send out alerts for said story. But the chapter is unavailable to view. Plus, I've updated my profile two hours ago and the new changes aren't appearing either.

So, what the heck...

From:

isethia.livejournal.com

My guess is it's some kind of cache issue. Nothing that was posted more than about six hours ago is visible. (Although my new chapter actually is visible, because of the mix-up earlier today. And, hopefully, once they clear out the cache, it will also be where it's supposed to be.

They've been having some kind of issues off and on with the cache at least since last July. Every few months it seems to happen again. And it may have been happening before July, but my last fandom was more active on other websites. It wasn't until that got into Hetalia that I went back to being dependant on fanficton.net in order to have stories to read. And it's the first fandom I've been able to write in.

From:

aleurier.livejournal.com

Yeah, I've heard of the issues before.

It's only until now that I tried to update and actually *see* it first hand.

..and though the fandom I'm working is well-known, I've been in FF.net for nearly ten years. Haven't really posted my stories elsewhere.

Ack, what a pain... x.x

From:

kenyanna dyer (from livejournal.com)

If I post a story at midnight it will show by late tomorrow?

You know... I updated my profile and it still hasn't shown. I think we'd be save to just wait before posting anything. I don't know for sure though. It seems to risky.

From:

aleurier.livejournal.com

Yeah, I bought down the new chapter and back-up'd my stories just in case.

Hopefully by tomorrow, everything is working.

From: (Anonymous)

My update that took three hours to show up just disappeared completely. Even from the stats page. Not there, then there, then gone from EVERYWHERE even my stats section for that chapter.

From: (Anonymous)

Mine's been doing that too. But it'll go from 'It'll be up in 15 minutes' to "story not found". From being visible on my story traffic to just disappearing completely... -_- it's been annoying me for the past several hours....

From: (Anonymous)

Mine's been MIA for the third time but this time I think it's gone. I can't update anymore at least not here.

From: (Anonymous)

Oh my god, my missing chapter just showed up again and the stats are back!

From: (Anonymous)

I can't say anything to help, or tell you how to fix it except by just letting the developers try and handle it themselves. But just try and believe in them, because they know that if it's not working then we'll just leave.

Speaking of leaving, please don't leave! Even if you feel that they don't care about you, you can be pretty darned sure that your readers care (and I care too, stranger!). Please don't go over to another archive; a lot of people have been leaving lately because of the RedBooton issue (which has seriously been taken the wrong way, I mean, they can't physically delete your stories, only report them to be deleted and FF are really, really slow at following up on reports) and there aren't many left on the site.

...
Gah, what am I saying? I'm going off track again.

Basically, this anon just wants you to know that you're loved, and that it'll all be okay. Anon will always love you! ♥

_{of course please don't take this in a creepy way or anything: anon just loves everyone}

From:

isethia.livejournal.com

Ah, you're one of the nice anons. That's good. I've seen some anons that hate everybody. :)

As of this morning, my story has finally shown up where it's supposed to be.

And I don't plan to leave entirely, even if I do start posting somewhere else. I'm just thinking of a back-up plan.

From:

kenyanna dyer (from livejournal.com)

You are sweet. So so so sweet. While most of us are ranting and freaking how you are being kind and understand and... o.m.g -HUGS YOU- I wish every anon was like you!

On another note... you were right.

The chapter showed up this morning. 7: 40 for me.

It looks like they fixed everything.

From: (Anonymous)

Actually I'm back to the disappearing chapters again. :-(

From:

kenyanna dyer (from livejournal.com)

No! OMG!

Can people even review!? I just uploaded four hours ago. O_O

From: (Anonymous)

I got two reviews on yesterday's which took 24 hours to show up without disappearing, lol.

From: (Anonymous)

*hugs back*

From:

chrkya-ler.livejournal.com

I'm glad it showed up for you hun.

I can understand worrying about posting at other archives. Some can all but crush you with their list of 'what we won't accepts' and 'this better be damn near perfect or else it's not allowed'. You think a story fits their requirements only to get the dreaded, 'we don't accept that here' type email back instead of a posted story. As my muse is often all about rubbing my fandom the wrong way I tend to write things are as as anti-canon as they come and that often comes with that 'this isn't allowed here' email when submitted into an archive's que. You don't have to deal with that b.s. at FF.net. It's a little harder for me to find places that won't turn their collective noses up to what I'm writing simply because of what it is depending on who and what I've been writing.

However, things are looking less and less stable at FF.net. A good back-up plan is always sound. I think it was why I was so intrigued by having never heard of AO3 yesterday. Granted the main fandom I write for isn't small - though the pairings I often pick can be sparse. Still I would hate to lose the majority of what readers I have because FF.net is ass of tea kettle more often than not.

Sometimes if you can find another place you feel comfortable posting, it's a good thing to have that. You get a different demographic of readers in some cases that you might not have gotten other wise. Or it could give you a place to have everything in case something drastic were to happen to ff's already unstable site.

*hugs* Hope you get lots of wonderful reviews.

From:

isethia.livejournal.com

Well, no reviews so far (for the new chapter), but I'm just thrilled that my hits went over 1000. So, I know people are reading my story. And I know some of them are coming back to look at it again, because there's a difference in the number of hits and visitors. I don't expect people to review. It's nice just to know that there are people out there reading it, and that some people have favorited it, or put it on alert.

Forgot to say that I'm actually thinking of looking into AO3. I mean, I've complained that there are no stories about my favorite character there, but if I post my stories there . . . then there will be stories. And maybe more people will post stories about him.

Edited Date: 2011-04-13 09:31 pm (UTC)

From:

sashocirrione.livejournal.com

AO3 is nice because it allows almost everything. It allows parodies that AFF won't allow, it allows long author's notes that AFF won't allow, it allows underage that isn't allowed on FFN (that's where I put my underage making-out fic, so as to not break FFN's rules), it allows real person fic, it allows second-person, and as far as I know it allows script format.

I personally use AO3 as a place to put fics that would break rules elsewhere and as a back-up for fics that also exist on one or more other archives.

Other than fics that would break rules elsewhere, I wouldn't upload fics to AO3 alone because it is still small and doesn't have that many reviews. Maybe if it gets bigger I might do that someday.

But putting fics in multiple places means more people can read it, and I tend to get a few more reviews that way, hitting different audiences.

From: (Anonymous)

Well, I'm getting alerts and reviews on FF, but no stats for profile or stories. After updating last night.

Otherwise business as usual on FF.net.

From: (Anonymous)

Stats on FF.net are definitely down.

From: (Anonymous)

Yay I am not alone. Boo, it is not working.

From:

hyarrowen.livejournal.com

Have you found this archive? It's automated like ff.net. I had to request that my fandom be included, but that was done within a day. If you write a particular pairing you can ask that the characters be included in the drop-down list.

http://www.squidge.org/~peja/cgi-bin/index.php