Are there still people working at Pbase?

[tvw]

I'm sorry to hear about this problem!
Did you all try to contact Pbase through the help system (not that it helps, but at least you'll have prove your ticket has been logged)?

Come on Pbase talk to your paying customers! How hard can it be?

[dw_thomas]

A week ago things seemed pretty good, but whatever is happening seems to be getting worse at a rapid rate. I have also noted that response times have gotten way longer, increasingly so each day for the past day or three. It appears something is struggling to keep going, though I suspect the few folks who may be working on it may be too submerged in system problems to communicate.

In spite of that I was able to set up several new galleries yesterday without any particular grief. Very strange.

[1designguy]

Well, it's been 3 1/2 years since the BIG crash. It may take another for admins to take this seriously and inform the paying members about what is going on. Sad but true.

[isolaverde]

Well, it's been 3 1/2 years since the BIG crash. It may take another for admins to take this seriously and inform the paying members about what is going on. Sad but true.

Thanks for mentioning that.... not!!!

Today, this old friend has been appearing again:


PBase is currently in read-only mode
PBase is currently in read-only mode while we we finish importing data into the new database. PBase pages are available for viewing, and you may upload, but some image services are unavailable at this time.
In case you were not already aware, our datacenter experienced a total power failure on the morning of 24-Sep-2009. When power was restored, our main database machine did not come back online properly. We have been working nonstop since then with Oracle support to recover all of the data and import it into a new database machine.
Some of you may find that some of your images do not display. This is simply because the data for those images is still being copied over to the new database. As the rest of the data comes in, those images will be fixed.
Thank You,
Slug and The PBase Team


Hey ho!

Peter

[helenpb]

Ok, I've just spent 20 minutes commenting on three photos. We seem to be past the..waiting for Pbase..and stuck at...posting comment..posting comment...posting comment.

I have no idea what it takes to run a site like this but I would bet spending money would help. New servers. Hire programmers. Customer service support.

Just killing time here until whatever is going on passes.

Same thing has been happening to me too, Karen. I lost several comments this evening and had to write them all over. Sometimes it says "Posting comment" forever, and it never gets posted. It's taking a huge amount of time just to move between screens or get to my homepage, with the result that what should take an hour or two is double that. Pretty much every other time I try to do anything, I get an error message. One time it was one from 2009 and the great crash. How prophetic is that.

This site technically used to be free, but now they charge money. I don't see why they can't invest in some infrastructure and customer support staff.

[1heart]

Another day with more error messages. I wonder how many potential viewers and clients this is turning away from my PBase Site:

"Error 503 Service Unavailable

Service Unavailable
Guru Meditation:

XID: 1347061688

Varnish cache server"

and

"Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@exaflop.com 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."

I get the same thing, either someone is asleep at the wheel or more likely the admins are awol.... in any case, very disappointed with Pbase, and not for the first tme. This is so typical of their management (or lack thereof). Somebody is raking in a lot of cash and certainly not re-investing it in this site. I'd be surprised if any management type ever responds to this thread, btw. Damn shame!

[mikelong]

These recurring problems have existed since at least 2004 when I joined, though I haven't noticed any major issues in recent weeks, probably because I upload one photo at a time and then rarely.
The best solution is to have another site which works consistently like it should, and this can be achieved many ways but will generally cost more money, which appears to be the sticking point
with most here. A dollar a day is a pittance to pay for displaying our work on the internet, and what most pay on pbase is far less than that. 12 cents per day perhaps, maybe a little more?
Which is rather odd when you consider we hardly bat an eye when pouring thousands of dollars into the latest, flavor-of-the-month camera system.

Once you have another site to pour energy into, this can be a positive experience in so many ways but most beneficial in that you'll hardly pay attention at all to pbase dysfunction. Frustration and
stress will completely disappear. Pbase owners are well aware that the vast majority of members won't do much more than suck it up and post complaints rather than take any real action like making
pbase at best a secondary site. So there's no incentive on the part of ownership to communicate regularly with their clients, or rush to repair these recurring problems.

[ac]

Mike, the problem is not the money.
PBase is not inexpensive at all if you compare.
On Picasa (Google) you have 1 Gb for free and no limitation whatsoever.
You receive a lot of comments and page views.
About page views, look here : http://www.pbase.com/ac/image/148623112
Compare this with the best ever you (or someone else) did on PBase.
Compare also with "new" sites such as 500px, or else.
Well, I must admit, none is perfect

The problem is in the response you receive for your work.
If they refuse to build a good search tool with transparent keywords, if they refuse to build a Lightroom uploader, a good and reliable stats tool, we should know it.
If they have problems, they should tell us. We need information to orient our work.

[amoxtli]

It's not about money at all. I have a lot of time and effort invested here. I've had sites on Picasa, ZenFolio, SmugMug, and currently have sites on 500px and flickr. None of these have the camaraderie that we have on PBase. I have had over 95,000 comments on my images and daily exchange messages with other PBasers. I participate in the Show & Tell Challenges and the Monthly Challenges from time to time. I've been hosting the Weekly Challenge with Scott Coile for almost three years. I have a lot of interaction with other PBasers, have met over a hundred in person, and have made many friends in my seven years here. This is something that none of the other sites have. If I were to leave, I would leave many friends, and I don't want to do that. And that is what it's about for me.

[mikelong]

ac, I completely agree with your point of view. Pbase is ridiculously cheap (which I mentioned), compared to the $180 per year I pay for my primary site.
For me personally it's simply a question of reliability, not cost - I need my website to display my photos uninterrupted and I need to have the capability to
manage my site whenever I want. If I have a problem and I want to speak with someone directly, I want that option as well. I never check stats to see
how many are looking at my pages, so don't know how that plays out (or really care) though respect that it's important to many photographers. Most of
my business comes from referrals, submissions and direct marketing - this keeps me busy enough.

Because pbase is and always has been sporadic, and more importantly that their communication skills totally suck, I quit relying on them as my primary site
around three years ago. I haven't been disappointed, it was without question the right move for me personally. So my point was that if folks are fed up
with pbase simply find an alternative. It's not at all difficult.

[ac]

I have a lot of time and effort invested here.

And maybe it is the thing which hurts .
ac

[1designguy]

Relationships and community... no one comes close. I too have an expensive pro account on SmugMug that I use for marketing and sales. I would never rely on Pbase for that. I've had the SM account since the BIG crash. I just want the admins to show some respect to the customers here and give us a clue that they know there are problems and let us know that they are working on fixes. Too many unfulfilled promises over the years.

[dw_thomas]

I think some of the problem is a question of priorities. We got a new editor, which is nice, but the old one managed to do what needed to be done. And there may well have been good reasons for the switch, but I seem to recall images are now quite recently served from a different source for improved performance. That's all good, but I'd prefer to see stuff that's actually broken or of dubious reliability fixed first.

But that's curmudgeonly olde me ...

Ex:
When I just clicked 'submit' I got:

Oops, you were automatically logged out while you were typing - Logging you back in now - Please hit "Submit" again.

[mikelong]

Personally I find the lack of communication by owners/admin the most disturbing.
Seriously, how much effort does it take to post a simple message and occasional updates regarding what's going on?
Are they on drugs?

[paninic]

Personally I find the lack of communication by owners/admin the most disturbing.
Seriously, how much effort does it take to post a simple message and occasional updates regarding what's going on?
Are they on drugs?

You're right Mikelong. There are several photo sharing websites but we are, for the most part very happy to be here, on Pbase, for many years, because we 've always said that the power of Pbase is the power of friendly and community...Then, if we 've some questions...Please, Pbase's Team... Only an answer 'ld be a minimum...
Sinceraly
Pat