[revServer] process timeout issue

[Jeff Massung]

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 1:04 PM, Michael Kann <mikekann at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Jacqueline,
>
> One weird aspect to the situation is that the on-rev server is physically
> in Texas (Houston) and the two people reporting problems (Jerry and Jeff)
> are also in Texas (Austin).
>
>
Agreed. I also found that extremely odd.

I can promise that I'm not making up a problem. I have no vested interest in
hurting On-Rev, advocating its use or non-use, and if the servers work well
for everyone else using them, I'm not only happy for RR, but also for the
customers using it. For my particular application/use, it didn't work as
advertised. I had users continually unable to use the application as it was
intended to be used, I needed to move forward, and RR was unable (I'd hate
to think unwilling, but I don't know) to help me.

To possibly help Andre and others diagnose the issue, I had an application
running as a web server using a REST-base API (basically using GET, POST,
DELETE, etc. to interact with a database on the server, think something
similar to couchdb). These commands were timing out regularly and without
warning with very few people hitting my site. They are also commands that
are sent regularly to the server (every 5 seconds or so), so something
timing out is a big problem.

However, if you were to go to the webpage, it would load (eventually) since
browser timeouts are much longer and typically more accepted by users; they
assume the problem is their CPU or internet connection and not the site.

Two of the reasons for my switch (there were others), were:

1) I personally had zero control over the server. If it needed rebooted or
similar, I needed to get in touch with RR and ask them to do it. I was being
reliant on someone else to handle my customer's problems. That was something
I couldn't live with. It's completely subjective.

2) I was having problems with only 8 customers, and - if lucky - I was
planning on growing this service to be considerably larger. If I had no
faith at 10, why would I have any faith at 1,000 or 10,000? It was just a
risk I was unwilling to take.

Jeff M.