Tuesday, August 9, 2016

RootsWeb Update as of 6 August 2016

RootsWeb by Ancestry logoAncestry.com let me know that they are in the middle of fixing RootsWeb.com. They thought they would be done last week and were supposed to get me an update. They’re not and they didn’t. By the time you read this, the situation may have changed. If so, I invite Ancestry to post a comment to this article.

Here are the most recent reports I’ve received of continued outages. Dave Woody said on Saturday morning:

FreePages FTP Server is still down. CS will not say if this problem will ever be corrected. As a subscriber to Ancestry.com World Service, Fold3, Newspapers.com and as a purchaser to 6 Ancestry DNA tests, I am deeply disappointed in this situation.

On 31 July 2016 Robert E. Sweeney, DA, MS said:

I plan to give them a few more days, then I will ask my contact at RW again when the file manager [freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/­fileman/file_manager.cgi] will be available.

On 30 July 2016 the RootsWeb product manager told me:

We are finishing up sometime next week.

On 27 July 2016 Bobango2 said:

I just heard back, finally, from RW Help Desk: "We are currently anticipating the work to be finished by the end of this week. We apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused you and appreciate your continued patience as these issues are resolved."

On 22 July 2016 Martin Beavis said:

Do you know what Ancestry is doing with the RootsWeb mailing lists which are currently inaccessible?  For example, http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index?list=devon

fails to  connect, giving an Internal Server Error message, whereas http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ does connect. But enter Devon in the search field or click on Devon in the D-list and you get the same error message.  And it’s not just the Devon list that I cannot access. Strangely, some old URLs from the archive do still display when entered.

The Devon list admin have been told these issues arise from an ongoing RootsWeb upgrade but do not know if that means hardware or software or both, nor how long that might take.  So could you perhaps ask questions with a view to reporting in your Ancestry Insider blog?

Are there any other outages that anyone knows about?

22 comments:

  1. I have wondered since back when I worked for RootsWeb many years ago the system was entirely linux-based and Ancestry is entirely MS-based whether they might be switching RootsWeb over to MS as well. Have they given an indication of this? It could explain the time it is taking and the complexity.

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  3. I have not been able to log into my Email list authentication page lately; sometimes it just says it can't connect, although today it says this page is undergoing maintenance. Indexing of the Obituary Daily Times database is still not working.

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  5. And today I cannot send email to the GEN-OBIT email list. It bounces back saying that the rootsweb.com server was unreachable for too long.

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  6. It looks like access to mailing lists archives is still down. The TMG-L (The Master Genealogist program) mailing list is still functioning (I subscribe), although I can't access its archives.

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  7. I'm a list owner for 4 rootsweb mailing list and haven't been able access any of them since Monday morning.

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  8. Nothing seems to be working. Would be nice if staff would let list admins and users know what's going on. As usual, there's no notice on the Help Desk page. The last notice there is dated 2014 and many issues listed have still not been fixed. This morning I received a somewhat cryptic message from Gerard Mannig (who is he?) saying that mailing lists are frozen forever, that another mailing list host must be found, and asking that list admins take a survey he created.

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  9. Archives now appear to be up for my list and the admin functions are buggy but working for the most part.

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  10. Anyone have any updates? Mailing lists have been getting spam, spam and more spam all weekend.

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  12. received this today.....so in short, Rootsweb has left users with NO way to stop the spam...until they decide to fix it or re-enable the filters. Some project planning :(
    _______________________________________________________________________________________
    Dear Tim,

    Thank you for contacting RootsWeb in regard to Mailing List spam.

    We are sorry that you are encountering a problem with spam. We will do all that we can to assist you. The Mailing Lists are undergoing maintenance. Spam filters have temporarily been turned off during this process. Other tools including those for subscribing and unsubscribing are also not available at this time. We expect the spam filters to be re-enabled soon. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

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  13. I have been unable to ftp any pages to update my website. Two weeks ago the Help Desk couldn't give me a date as to when access would be restored

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  14. Having been unable to access the Freepages File Manager since sometime in July I’ve been mostly in the dark about what is going on. My site is fully available for viewing, but I am unable to make any updates. An email to the help desk gave me an ambiguous reply leaving me just as confused. This page is the first place I’ve found where there is at least a bit of information.
    Is there another place where there is more information on the status of Freepages?
    Is Freepages expected to continue?
    Is there a different URL to log-in to the File Manager?
    http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/fileman/file_manager.cgi
    Any further information would be truly appreciated.

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  15. I heard from somebody at RW Help whose reply included the words "decisions are being made as to the future availability of this feature." My impression was that the person was referring to the free pages generally. Suggests to me that they may be abandoning the whole thing. Thoughts?

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  16. Noted today that "something" has changed at:
    http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/fileman/file_manager.cgi

    Instead of seeing:
    "This page can’t be displayed
    •Make sure the web address http://www.giveerror.com is correct."

    I now see:
    "Internal Server Error
    The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
    Please contact the server administrator, root@localhost and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
    More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
    Apache/2.2.15 (CentOS) Server at freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com Port 80"

    Not much but it gives me hope.

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  17. YAAY! It is BACK. Haven't yet tried to make any updates/changes but I was able to log-in and everything looks available.
    http://freepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/fileman/file_manager.cgi

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  18. I just checked and it was just fine.

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  19. RootsWeb Gremlins strike again! Here is the response I received when I reported not being able to access my trees:
    rwsupport@ancestry.com 7:35 AM (9 hours ago)
    Dear Cheryl,
    Thank you for contacting RootsWeb in regard to accessing your account and your trees. We apologize for the frustration you have had trying to access your WorldConnect Trees. We are updating our technical infrastructure which is causing issues with the WorldConnect Trees. Once the update is completed the Trees should then work as planned. We don't have a time frame as to when this will be completed but we do appreciate your patience during this time. If there is anything else with which we might assist you, please let us know.
    Yvonne/RootsWeb Support Team
    http://rootsweb.ancestry.com

    I also got a request to fill out a "How are we doing?" type survey. Hmm, no time frame as to when the site will be functional, I think I'll check out that survey!

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  20. Rootsweb's WorldConnect hasn't been taking gedcom updates for a couple of weeks. Example: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=wroll I can't log on to Rootsweb Support, and can not reset my password. When will these outages stop?

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