Friday, May 27, 2005

Update on FTP & Hit Counter Problems

Hi everybody... here's an update on the flakiness we've been seeing in
the FTP/Hometown space.  It should be resolved now. Here's what happened:






Around Tuesday, some files were being migrated on the servers that handle Hometown (this includes the images in
members.aol.com that you can put in your Web pages and Journals). 






There was a problem, and some files were lost.  This is what
caused some of your photos to not show up in your
Journals.  Also, an older version of the hit counter was
installed.  This is also why your hit counters may have dropped
some hits.






However, early on Thursday, the techs started running a process that recovered 99% of the affected files.







I've checked in with a few folks who'd dropped me a line, and we've seen most previously affected images back up.







However, I am not sure if the data recovery means that hit counters will be restored to their previous states.







If you folks are still having problems with your hit counters, please leave a comment in this entry so we can take a look.







Sorry for the delay in responding, I wanted to make sure we had good information.







Thanks -- Joe

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

thank you for the update!! I don't have counter envy , so I'm cool!
~ Julie~ http://journals.aol.com/joolsinwa/randommusingsofmymind

Anonymous said...

My hit counter dropped about 50 hits two nights ago, and then again last night. My main journal is about to pass 10,000 hits for the third time in three days.
-Paul
http://journals.aol.ca/plittle/AuroraWalkingVacation/

Anonymous said...

My hit counter dropped over 3,000, which broke my heart because I had finally gotten my goal -- on the last week that the blog will be as active as it has been.  (And the goal, BTW, is thanks to you, Joe, for featuring it back in Feb.  FYI -- It was nine months old at the time at had a grand total of 5,000 hits.  Just three months later, before the hit counter assassination, it was over 40,000.  Thanks!)  So I'm really not complaining, it's just that some of them took much larger hits than others.  But it'll get back to where it was.  If I have to refresh the thing myself.

Oh, and also BTW, are we ever going to get more character space in our sidebar "About Me" section?  It's all I want for Christmas.  Really.  That and the American Idol CD.

~~ jennifer   ;o)

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

So glad my picture reappeared! -Krissy
http://journals.aol.com/fisherkristina/SometimesIThink

Anonymous said...

I have five journals. All of the hit counters were restored except this one.
http://journals.aol.com/barbpinion/HEYLETSTALK

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

My FTP pics have been restored. Thanks again!

http://journals.aol.com/slapinions/Slap-Inionscom

Anonymous said...

Sorry but I think maybe you are the one who tried to help me before. I didn't realize you were the same one. Again sorry. Helen

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

Mine came back. Thanks! I will take the pins out of the voodoo doll now.

Anonymous said...

Not about FTP or counters, but I just noticed the new favicon! It looks great!

Anonymous said...

i still do not have ftp space or my files or a counter.

i've been through all the techlive help, the aolhelp, and written other people, and am getting no where. one tech told me to DELETE my screenname to reset it.

this is crazy - please help.

Anonymous said...

My hit counter is still messed up. :(

Thanks for your help.

Denielle
http://journals.aol.com/deniden/thisisme

Anonymous said...

none of my counters r workin  at all

Anonymous said...

My counter has not worked in nearly a year.  Help files about this issues are either missing are terribly out of date.  AOL has not been straightforward about when or if this problem will be resolved.

I suspect that AOL has sold this feature to the web hitter companies springing up all over the place. This problem could be easily fixed by the staff of experts smart enough to develop the AOL ISP software. It appears that they don't want it fixed.  

I was told by technical support to go to WEBTUT for help, but I received an error message: YOU DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THIS AREA.  They said that they would send me the information via email, but I never received it.  Every technical support person I have talked to about this issue has been conspicuously evasive.

Is there any hope of getting a resolution to this issue or the truth?

Anonymous said...

Hi Susie, thanks for commenting.  In order to fix your counter, please try going to the "Edit Journal" area, removing your counter, saving the changes, then going back and adding it back in.

This should hopefully reset your counter (which sounds like it got corrupted).  Doing this, though, means that your counter will reset to zero.

Please let me know if you continue to have problems after you do this. Thanks -- Joe (posted & mailed)

Anonymous said...

Joe,

Thanks for responding.  I have talked to several technical support people about this problem over the months, and the consensus is that AOL has disabled counters from working. Why would they say that if it were not true?  If you go to AOL's help page--Description of /cgi-bin/counter--and scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will see that even on the page that describes how to define a counter, the counter does not work.

We worked hard over the years to build up our hit counter.  We want visitors to see that there are many people interested in our cause. To reinitiate our counter to zero, undermines the purpose of having a counter.  

If AOL enables counters again, they should at least reset them to the last odometer file reading on the FTP space.  Although this does not make up for lost hits, it offers some consolation.

We have installed a free hit counter.  We really did not want to do that because of the forced ads that come with "free" counters. However, after being ignored by AOL for nearly a year, we saw no alternative.

It is unfortunate that AOL disables counters with no warning nor consideration for customers who use them. Customers should have been told the truth from beginning.  I spent countless hours tweaking my code and searching for answers to this problem.  What a waste of time!

Anonymous said...

Hi...don't know why someone might have told you that counters were disabled -- I apologize if you got incorrect info.  Like I said, if your counter got corrupted, which is what it sounds like, the only recourse is to remove it and put it back in, or if that doesn't work, to delete the .odometer file. Both of these will cause your hit counter to revert to zero. We are working on better ways for users to track the number of visitors, but I don't have any solid progress to report yet. Thanks -- Joe

Anonymous said...

Hi Joe, ...I noticed that a couple of the entries that I had made in my blog were missing...maybe now I know why??...also my hit counter went way back down from 16 or so to 2 today!...I can only hope that they will be restored...I would like to be informed if there are further problems..the name of my blog is....MyrnaL.Cox-Lavinder....thanks for the information....Patches

Anonymous said...

Hi, thanks for writing -- I took a look at your blog (http://journals.aol.com/lavindergr/MyrnaLCox-Lavinder/ though I see you have another blog, as well: http://journals.aol.com/lavindergr/Experienceit/); I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

I haven't heard any reports from anyone about entries being lost. Your saying that you posted entries to your blog, saw them live, and then when you came back later, the entries were gone (without you deleting them)?

Our counter problems are typically unrelated to any other problems, so it's unlikely that counter problems would cause this.

I will pass your report to the product team -- please let me know if it happens again.

Thanks -- Joe (posted & mailed)

Anonymous said...

I added the hit counter to my journal only to get the blank square thingy with the red X. So, I took it off and reinstalled it several times with the same reaults. I have taken it off of my journal
I have no problems with the photos though.
On the up side I have had a lot of fun with my journal, and all the creative apps that I have not seen on other blog sites.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Lilith Eventide Nightshade

Anonymous said...

I'm having the same problem as comment #27.  I put a counter on my journal in September 2007, when I created the journal.  The entire time, it shows me a black box with a Red X in it.  No number.  I have no idea how many times it has been hit.  
Another question...
Since mine is a private journal, I am interested in knowing which of my readers have visited the journal.  Is there any kind of log that I can visit to see my readers.
Thank you.  I just found your blog & find it full of valuable information.