I recommend that you send another CONTACT form and include the following:
My group has problems that are not occuring in other groups.
All of my custom pages are now blank.
When I go to my photo albums all photos are marked with " Posted by (name of member) on (date) but no picture shows up.
I would appreciate you visiting my group and checking it out.
I understand that other groups are having difficulties at this time, but they are NOT the same type of problems.
Your attention to this matter would be appreciated.
Let me know what happens.
Thanks very much for taking time to look at this Smokey. I will do what you say right now, regards, jim
ReplyDeleteHere is what I wrote on the MSN contact form which is at http://groups.msn.com/feedback.msnw Hi, I have had a problem with my group for a month or two. I have written to you before but the situation has not improved. A helpful chap on Community Managers, named Smokey, has suggested that I write to you again and here is what he said-- "From: Smokey© (Original Message) Sent: 05/01/2007 08:16
ReplyDeleteI recommend that you send another CONTACT form and include the following:
My group has problems that are not occuring in other groups.
http://groups.msn.com/petersymondswinchesterunofficialnostalgiacorner/
All of my custom pages are now blank.
http://groups.msn.com/petersymondswinchesterunofficialnostalgiacorner/ashorthistoryoftheschool.msnw
http://groups.msn.com/petersymondswinchesterunofficialnostalgiacorner/georgepierce.msnw
When I go to my photo albums all photos are marked with " Posted by (name of member) on (date) but no picture shows up.
http://groups.msn.com/petersymondswinchesterunofficialnostalgiacorner/photoalbum1.msnw
I would appreciate you visiting my group and checking it out.
I understand that other groups are having difficulties at this time, but they are NOT the same type of problems.
Your attention to this matter would be appreciated.
Let me know what happens." regards,
jim wishart, group manager.
Hi again Smokey, Here is an update, a reply to my/your email. It looks suspiciously like a standard reply but at least it is not telling me that I have lost the pages completely. I'll keep you up to date. "Hello James, Thank you for writing back to MSN Groups Technical Support. My name is Marc and this is regarding the blank custom pages and pictures that are not being displayed in your MSN Group, "Peter symonds, winchester, unofficial nostalgia corner." Please note that the server hosting your MSN Group is currently undergoing maintenance or experiencing technical difficulties. You might experience intermittent issues in the next few days with most of MSN Groups' features, as a result. Our product team is aware of this issue and is working diligently to fix this. I would like to apologize for this inconvenience. Resolving this issue is a top priority. However, we cannot commit to a specific timeframe as to when a solution will be released. We appreciate your patience. You are a valuable customer to MSN and we are glad to give you consistent and effective service. Thank you for using MSN Groups. Sincerely, Marc
ReplyDeleteMSN Groups Technical Support"
This message has been deleted by the author.
ReplyDeleteHello Smokey,
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing back to MSN Groups Technical Support. My name is Hext and I understand that your photos are appearing as red x and your pages are appearing as blank on your Groups. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience you had experienced.
We know about the problem that you are experiencing, and the product development team is currently working on a resolution. The exact date that it will be resolved is not known yet. If you must take any action, such as download an update for the software, you will be notified. If you do not need to take any action, we will resolve the problem without notification. You are a valuable customer to MSN and we are glad to give you consistent and effective service. Thank you for using MSN Groups. Sincerely,
Hext
MSN Groups Technical Support RE: SRX1027029442ID
Current problems with MSN Groups. To understand how and why we are having problems with MSN Groups we have three areas that we need to comprehend. Servers : MSN Groups offers custom pages, photo albums, lists, message boards, document folders and calendars. In order to service the 8,894,000 unique users per month with an average of 429,601,000 page views requires an unbelievable amount of servers and memory. Using Microsoft's own documentation to run this type of service for only 2 million users would require 104 servers and in excess of 300 Gigabyte of memory for only 2.5% of those 2 million online at the same time, MSN Groups would use in excess of 178 times that number or more then 18 thousand servers not including photo storage or hotmail.
ReplyDeletePower: All of our own computers plus the servers belonging to MSN Groups require power in order to operate. Naturally MSN has back-up UPS systems to keep those servers with power although with all power products there is periodically a fail-safe system that cannot protect everything and a spike or a power drain gets through and all of one server or a segment of it gets corrupted. This can create the domino effect with other segments or servers resulting in more then one server to be blown out.
Also with the design of power grids, when a part of the grid is lost, other power is generally re-routed over other paths to keep other parts of the grid working. Now those servers cannot communicate with other areas because they have been taken off the grid, so you will not be able to view what is on those servers.
Cable or Telephone: Most of our computers also require cable or phone lines in order to communicate on the World Wide Web. With fallen lines or damage to them from wind storms, traffic accidents, snow avalanches and the many other day to day problems associated with those services including fibre optics and satellite transmissions, there is an extensive possibility of failure of communications so our computers cannot access part of the WWW. For example, I live on an island and although we have not personally lost our cable, phone lines, power or loss of servers in my neighbourhood, there have been extreme weather conditions this winter which have wiped-out large power grids and cable and phone systems. One of the larger server centers which is located within 25 miles of us has 6 floors of servers within the space of one square city block lost it's outside power source and although backup systems were in place to protect most of the data, some data was lost and outside communication was not available due to downed phone lines, cable lines and shut off power grids. <