Speed Improvements

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:17:15 -0400 - ajanata

We're aware that sometimes Justin.tv comes back with an error saying that we've exceeded the rate limit. To that end, I've slightly slowed down the live stream updater for Justin.tv streams, and I've added code to cache the stream embed HTML on our server instead of asking them for it every single time a page loads. The former means, unfortunately, that the live stream list will update about half as fast as before. The latter, however, means that most page loads should be much faster.

I'm also going to look into ways we can avoid hitting Justin.tv's rate limit in the first place so we can speed the updater up again. This won't be until the weekend, though. Hopefully the changes I made tonight will keep the error from appearing for now.

Justin.tv Tracking Issue Resolved, and Plans for the Future

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 21:39:22 -0400 - ajanata

Many apologies for the delay in resolving this issue. If I had realized exactly how simple the required change to our codebase is, I would have fixed this months ago.

With the release of Rock Band 3 merely months away (and to a lesser extent, Guitar Hero 6: Warriors of Rock as well), we're going to try to get the site back to full functionality in time. With the new gameplay mechanics in RB3 (and whatever GH6 is bringing to the table — sorry, I haven't been following news on it), people are sure to want to watch top players tackle the new challenges.

Website Becoming Functional

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 07:19:44 -0400 - Grinnz

IBitePrettyHard is back, and as such, the website is becoming slightly more functional. Registration and user account options should be working, and editing streampages should also work though it has not been thoroughly tested. The good news is, the website and webchat held up well to the increased traffic, so we should not have any more of the previous server issues. If you are a JTV user, you may notice that your stream is not showing up on the streams list; the stream aggregator is using old code which JTV is no longer supported, so it will be updated shortly. As always, if you find any issues (even if you think we know about them) either pop into the support chat (#socialgamer) or open a ticket on the trac.

More Server Woes

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:44:27 -0500 - ajanata

You most certainly have noticed it, but the site has been less than fully functional in the last week and a half or so. The website was using excessive amounts of RAM, so I had to disable it. I've been working on fixing it page by page, but it is not a quick task. At this point, the home page, online stream list, and streampages should be fully functional. You can log in and use your personal chat preferences, but you cannot make changes to your streampage or those chat preferences. The goal for this weekend is to get streampage settings changes functional, then chat settings, and finally new user registration.

I know you're tired of this, and we are too. We're trying to get this under control so we can pretty much forget about it if we want to.

Updates to Webchats

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:34:23 -0500 - Grinnz

Because of some recent updates to the LightIRC client, there are a few additional user options for chatting now. You can choose whether to display timestamps before the messages (defaults to on), and whether to play sounds when private messages are received or your name is mentioned in a chat (defaults to off). The sound for mentioning your name isn't quite functional in PJIRC but it does work for private messages.
Also, if you have the webchat disabled, you will now see a link that will let you temporarily load the webchat for that page. We hope you like these updates, if you have any suggestions for more functionality or options, let us know by opening a ticket on the trac.