Has the BF server crashed already???

67 replies
I was lucky enough to get on the early bird list for the launch of Butterfly Marketing 2, but I can't actually buy it! It looks like the site has crashed already - even *before* the official launch in an hours time!

-John.
#crashed #server
  • Profile picture of the author DEERFARMER
    Same thing happened to me.
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  • Profile picture of the author eholmlund
    No surprise there. It appears to me that the site has not yet crashed, but it is loading VERY slow. I'm a supporter and promoter of the program... but come on Mike! You've done this enough times ;-) There ARE ways to load balance massive amounts of traffic.
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    • Profile picture of the author jlandells
      Originally Posted by eholmlund View Post

      It appears to me that the site has not yet crashed, but it is loading VERY slow.
      It loaded really slow, but the sales page is timing out!
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      • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
        this sucks, I went on a Carribean cruise with Mikes lot in Jan, and am booked for next Jan, but man if he cant even sort something like this out, forget it.
        Im sure theres more than 5000 available etc but even so, come on i aint got time to waste so you can save peanuts on the servers etc
        Signature

        Mike

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    • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
      Originally Posted by eholmlund View Post

      No surprise there. It appears to me that the site has not yet crashed, but it is loading VERY slow. I'm a supporter and promoter of the program... but come on Mike! You've done this enough times ;-) There ARE ways to load balance massive amounts of traffic.
      Dude, go read up on the launch of Quixtar.

      If they could burn through hundreds of millions of dollars, hire the best and brightest minds anywhere, and it still crashes on launch, what chance does little old Mike Filesame have of that not happening...even with all the experience he has at doing this stuff?
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      • Profile picture of the author LittleMike
        Originally Posted by Floyd Fisher View Post

        Dude, go read up on the launch of Quixtar.

        If they could burn through hundreds of millions of dollars, hire the best and brightest minds anywhere, and it still crashes on launch, what chance does little old Mike Filesame have of that not happening...even with all the experience he has at doing this stuff?
        I agree, Floyd. Look at Blizzard Entertainment's releases of World of Warcraft. This is a company that can print money at will, yet they always have server issues then they release an expansion - heck they even have server issues on patch days.
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        • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
          Originally Posted by LittleMike View Post

          I agree, Floyd. Look at Blizzard Entertainment's releases of World of Warcraft. This is a company that can print money at will, yet they always have server issues then they release an expansion - heck they even have server issues on patch days.
          And they aren't even an 8 billion dollar corporation....like Amway is.

          I hear the City of Chicago still won't allow Amway distrubutors to set foot in the place after they crashed internet service there...and that was 10 years ago.
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      • Profile picture of the author eholmlund
        Originally Posted by Floyd Fisher View Post

        Dude, go read up on the launch of Quixtar.

        If they could burn through hundreds of millions of dollars, hire the best and brightest minds anywhere, and it still crashes on launch, what chance does little old Mike Filesame have of that not happening...even with all the experience he has at doing this stuff?
        You just answered your own question. Mike has the experience of going through this several times. Quixtar did not. Besides that, bandwidth and enterprise level hosting is WAY cheaper now than it was back when quixtar launched. There are ways to handle traffic. In Mike's case, maybe it is not worth the investment because he knows he will give away all the BM courses anyway, but it is definitely possible to handle it. It is common for sites to crash when they get mentioned in a major news article (ie. the old slashdot), and in those cases the site had no way of being prepared. But in this case, Mike had plenty of time to prepare.
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        • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
          Originally Posted by eholmlund View Post

          You just answered your own question. Mike has the experience of going through this several times. Quixtar did not. Besides that, bandwidth and enterprise level hosting is WAY cheaper now than it was back when quixtar launched. There are ways to handle traffic. In Mike's case, maybe it is not worth the investment because he knows he will give away all the BM courses anyway, but it is definitely possible to handle it. It is common for sites to crash when they get mentioned in a major news article (ie. the old slashdot), and in those cases the site had no way of being prepared. But in this case, Mike had plenty of time to prepare.
          You mean to tell me Mike Filesame is way smarter than the combined brains of IBM and Microsoft? I just spit coffee all over my keyboard just thinking about that one. :p

          You really need to take a chill pill. This stuff happens, and if a multibillion dollar company can't stop it, I doubt Mike Filesame and his six figure launch budget has a chance in hell of avoiding the same fate.
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          • Profile picture of the author eholmlund
            Originally Posted by Floyd Fisher View Post

            You mean to tell me Mike Filesame is way smarter than the combined brains of IBM and Microsoft? I just spit coffee all over my keyboard just thinking about that one. :p
            I'm not sure what you mean about the "combined brains of IBM and Microsoft", but yes Mike and his team know more about their own product launches than the combined brains of IBM and Microsoft.

            BTW- Mike is a good friend and it's not like i'm mad at him or anything. I also understand that stuff happens no matter how well prepared you are. But I question whether he was ill-advised by someone in regard to how prepared he was for the traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    loads slow and the buy it page crashes, no doubt we'll get 4 weeks suppky of 'Im so sorry we goofed' emails now poor poor show by someone who can afford much better
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    Mike

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  • Profile picture of the author Ross Kenny
    So no one has it.. The payment page didn't work for me either...
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  • Profile picture of the author DEERFARMER
    This is insane-Filsiame
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  • Profile picture of the author LittleMike
    Same deal for me. I went on at 11:45 after I got the early bird email and the sales page was loading slow as molasses. I couldn't even get to the buy page after hitting Add to Cart. I was really hoping I could get my hands on one of the free 5000.
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (11) in /home/butter/public_html/free/lib/inc.db_mysql.php on line 91

    Temporary Error

    Right now this service is unavailble. We are experiencing a temporary error and will be fixed within 24 hours.
    A complete report with this problem was already sent to our programmers and they are working on fixing it asap.
    We apologise for this. Please try again later.
    SITENAME Staff.
    Database error: connect(localhost, butter_bfmuser, $Password) failed.
    MySQL Error:
    Signature

    Mike

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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    perhaps they didnt expect 45000 people to be interested DOH!
    Signature

    Mike

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  • Profile picture of the author LittleMike
    Okay, so I got to the buy page now but I keep getting a browser pop up that say "There was a problem with the request"
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    • Profile picture of the author NoelleGrandison
      I haven't even gotten that far. I'm just getting a timeout after hitting the add to cart button. Geez.:confused:
      Signature

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  • Profile picture of the author LittleMike
    Now the pop ups stopped but it looks like the Place Your Order button isn't doing anything.
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    i went on when i got the email, now some 45+ minutes ago, and ive just been let down , you guys go to http://butterflymarketing.com/free/ theres ustream there apparently MF and Tom Beal etc trying to sort things out and asking people not to order so they can sort it out, well yeh ok, like your worldwide emails are going out in 10 minutes so wheres the advantage in us pre booking now huh, see below next post for the latest
    Signature

    Mike

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  • Profile picture of the author LittleMike
    Ugh, my mistake, I hit refresh thinking maybe I could get the Place Your Order button to work and now it just won't load at all. Let me know if Mike pops his head in here telling everybody he's going to have more made to give to us.

    Hell I'd even pick it up from his office. I'm only like 15 minutes away or so.
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  • Profile picture of the author saxi
    Mike "Network Timeout" Filsaime

    Why would he use some no name hosting provider to try to do a multi-million dollar launch, I've never even heard of Tek Channel Consulting / Wholesale Bandwidth.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rachel Incoll
    Yep, I'm the same. Before I could actually get the main web page, just not the order page but now I can't get anything.

    It's 3 am in the morning here so I'd rather be in bed, but as I made the effort to get up half an hour ago for this I'll stay up for a bit longer!
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  • Profile picture of the author jlandells
    Could this be part of the launch strategy??? Mike's got all of us here primed to order, and the site is set to go "public" in 25 minutes! Maybe he wants to have the site sell out within minutes of the official launch time, by having us all here frantically trying to beat the masses???
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    • Profile picture of the author PeteNY
      I can't get in either. And, it's not even the "official" 1pm launch time. This is still "early bird" time.

      Hope we all get in eventually!
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    Mike Filsaime, Ustream.TV: MarketingDotCom Live with Mike Filsaime. Education,How to,News,Events,Technology,Information Technology

    its live from his office, he guarantees everyone gets a course thats on the early list
    Signature

    Mike

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  • Profile picture of the author Alton Hargrave
    I think the butterfly musta crashed. The excitement is there. The buyers are ready...

    I wonder if more than a very few managed to purchase. I almost did. I got all the way to the payment button...but it is dead.

    Alton
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    • Profile picture of the author LittleMike
      Originally Posted by Alton Hargrave View Post

      I think the butterfly musta crashed. The excitement is there. The buyers are ready...

      I wonder if more than a very few managed to purchase. I almost did. I got all the way to the payment button...but it is dead.

      Alton
      Same here Alton. Then I hit refresh and i can't get in at all now. What did he say on UStream?
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  • Profile picture of the author jlandells
    Ha - this gets better! I'm connecting through a 3G card, and my service provide have blocked UStream "for security reasons"....!
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  • Profile picture of the author jlandells
    OK, so now the site really is down - not just overloaded!
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  • Profile picture of the author sublime-products
    I'm glad I'm not the only one with the exact same problem.

    I have to say it doesn't say much for the great Kiosk hosting, that's supposed to be able to cope with anything you throw at it.

    At least it'll be interesting to see exactly how fast this does sell out and how fast some 'extra copies' are made available - and how many.

    Amin
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Mayhew
    It's an abortion!
    I had my credit card details filled out and submitted at 11:01!
    LOL.
    Can't arrange for a reliable server? Knowing 45,000 are coming?
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  • Profile picture of the author DavidCarter
    Been trying for 45 minutes now...glad in some ways it's not just me having problems
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  • Profile picture of the author mgbgt
    I was able to log on but when I went to check out my total was over 2,000. When I went to paypal it didn't change. Did I miss something?

    Dave
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    yeh true, we're just frustrated, not really mad
    Signature

    Mike

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  • Profile picture of the author PeteNY
    They ask that we not try to go to the server so that they can log in and tweak a few things and get it up and running.

    He hit the "most viewed" page on Ustream with 2172 current viewers. The number two spot for "most viewed" is just over 500.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ross Kenny
    Mike is strugglying to log into the server himself... Got the video stream on of him trying to sort the issue out. He keeps broadcasting updates. He's trying to slow traffic down by only letting people order if there surname is A - F.
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  • Profile picture of the author jlandells
    Wow - this is a new error:

    "Connection Refused" !
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  • Profile picture of the author jlandells
    So, if there are 5000 with surnames in A-F, the rest of us lose out???
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
    I couldn't care less, but the cynic in me just wanted to say, "and here everyone is talking about it!".

    BTW, BF2, or BF3, or XJ9 or whatever isn't going to get 10,000,000 people (WoW est.) trying to buy - so the downed server thing looks like part of the strategy. Whether it is or not, it appears that way. If they are so wealthy from the products they hawk, then why not show off that wealth by having just one - just one - launch go smoothly?

    Downed server = more free publicity.

    All the best,
    Michael

    p.s. You know what would really make me happy? Not having launches discussed at the WF. It gets annoying.
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    "Ich bin en fuego!"
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    • Profile picture of the author Raydal
      Originally Posted by Michael Oksa View Post

      I couldn't care less, but the cynic in me just wanted to say, "and here everyone is talking about it!".

      BTW, BF2, or BF3, or XJ9 or whatever isn't going to get 10,000,000 people (WoW est.) trying to buy - so the downed server thing looks like part of the strategy. Whether it is or not, it appears that way. If they are so wealthy from the products they hawk, then why not show off that wealth by having just one - just one - launch go smoothly?

      Downed server = more free publicity.

      All the best,
      Michael

      p.s. You know what would really make me happy? Not having launches discussed at the WF. It gets annoying.
      But isn't this is the place to discuss marketing strategy. You said
      that this was a strategy to get more publicity.

      -Ray Edwards
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      • Profile picture of the author Michael Oksa
        Originally Posted by Raydal View Post

        But isn't this is the place to discuss marketing strategy. You said
        that this was a strategy to get more publicity.

        -Ray Edwards
        Good point, Ray.

        There's a fine line between discussing marketing, and the actual marketing itself. It seems for each new big launch, that line gets blurred.

        On the other hand, there are lessons that can be learned from that.

        1. Get other people to talk about your stuff.

        2. Any buzz is good buzz.

        3. Forum rules shouldn't be broken, but creatively exploited.

        Again, I'm flipping back and forth here. Part of me does get annoyed with the cookie-cutter posts for big launches, and the other part of me is smart enough to mine the good stuff from the same posts.

        Anayway, good point, and it looks like I really need another cup of coffee (the sedative from yesterday's procedure must not have worn off all the way yet).

        All the best,
        Michael
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        "Ich bin en fuego!"
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        • Profile picture of the author Gerry Humphrey
          I think it is funny with all the apologetic messages and using Quixtar/Amway as an example. (There was a lot of things down)

          It is rather straight-forward to deal with mass influx of visitors, as there are even wordpress blogs that have handled larger amounts of traffic.

          The problem is that the BFM site seems it was not completely designed for it.

          The order page has to do multiple hits to deal with the two country fields and the two affiliate sign up fields. This puts a lot of load on to the MySQL server.

          One thing they did right was push out most (if not all) of the images to an Amazon S3 system.

          In any case, at least they are trying to get it back online and are being rather open about it. =)

          Now, the reason for my post, is if any of you are not watching the stream, they posted the following on an overlay...

          Order Process On Hold
          Come back between 3pm and 7pm (eastern)
          We Will Guarantee Everyone A Course
          While I am not sure who 'everyone' is exactly, (hopefully at least everyone who got an Early Bird email) it is time to stop refreshing the site and trying to order =)

          Mike F. just said on uStream that the site will be back later and kept online for 24 hours or maybe 2 days and if he needs to make more he will.. so everyone will have a chance to order it (during that time period)

          Should be interesting to see how the "Next Big Thing" is launched =)
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  • Profile picture of the author DavidCarter
    Mike has just asked people not to do anything while they are working on the server so I shall just sit back and see what happens.
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  • Profile picture of the author eholmlund
    Mike has just announced that everyone will get one, so you don't have to waste time waiting for it to go live.
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  • Profile picture of the author jlandells
    Hey - I'm in!

    It seems to be working now with no performance issues at all!
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  • Profile picture of the author jlandells
    I spoke too soon!

    So, it took my credit card details and through 2 OTO's, then crashed again!

    Now I don't know whether I've been charged, or whether I need to order again, although if I order again, Mike has stated that I'll get nothing and be blacklisted (see the terms on the first page...)
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    • Profile picture of the author shorwood
      Originally Posted by jlandells View Post

      I spoke too soon!

      So, it took my credit card details and through 2 OTO's, then crashed again!

      Now I don't know whether I've been charged, or whether I need to order again, although if I order again, Mike has stated that I'll get nothing and be blacklisted (see the terms on the first page...)
      He just said on Ustream that they are resetting it because multiple people have had this issue. So just wait until he says the site is up and running and then you can order. You will not get blacklisted.

      Shawn
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  • Profile picture of the author PeteNY
    Mike Says we can get a course today or tommorow. No rush.

    Early bird crashed again. Was only for people with last names A-F. I'm D... Damn!

    OTO is an invite to a workshop in Vegas in June.
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Beazley
    He's saying "everyone" will get one, because of the "crash." So maybe he never planned to only send out 5000 freebies? He seems like a smart guy, I'm sure he could have got a decent server...
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  • Profile picture of the author jlandells
    OK - I definitely made it - I got confirmation emails!

    Good luck to the rest of you with getting in.

    I'm outta here to face the commute home...!

    -John.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rachel Incoll
    Managed to get in - the order confirmation page (after the cc details) crashed and didn't display but I've just received an email saying thakyou for your order so looks like it went through ok.

    Anyway, I'm off to bed for a couple more hours shut eye!

    Cya
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  • Profile picture of the author mikefilsaime
    I know Eric. I suck!

    LOL - I hate this. We are told everything should be ok...and we UNDERESTIMATED.

    Our last 3 launches went off without a glitch.

    The7fs, TrafficFusion, InstantAffWebsite etc.... and they were all JV'd up.

    But this one was my most supported launch ever. One of the most in our
    industry in fact.

    And it was NOT $1997 with a TRAFFIC and 4% conversion.

    It was not a risk free trial for a DVD or a Report.

    And I think the 5000 number really had people chomping at the bit
    to be there even just early bird. So with the $2k value for just s&h
    plus massive support and limited production units, it is obvious we
    underestimated here

    But 1700 actually made it even while we removed the order button when
    the site was slow or crashing.

    I agree Eric, there are ways to deal with this. But we just never had
    5000 people wanting to hit a ORDER PAGE (not sales page) at the
    same time so we were just not experience for this one

    We are live on the BFM home page with a ustream video to let them know and we
    will make the order page live in a few hours...

    Thanks,

    Mike Filsaime
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    - Thanks
    Mike Filsaime

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    • Profile picture of the author PeteNY
      Gotta hand it to you Mike, you're calm under pressure!
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    • Profile picture of the author LittleMike
      Originally Posted by mikefilsaime View Post

      I know Eric. I suck!

      LOL - I hate this. We are told everything should be ok...and we UNDERESTIMATE.

      Our last 3 launches went off without a glitch.

      The7fs, TrafficFusion, InstantAffWebsite etc.... and they were all JV'd up.

      But this one was my most supported launch ever. One of the most in our
      industry in fact.

      And it was NOT $1997 with a TRAFFIC and 4% conversion.

      It was not a risk free trial fr a DVD or a Report.

      And I think the 5000 number really had people chomping at the bit
      to be there even just early bird. So with the $2k value for just s&h
      plus massive support and limited production units, it is obvious we
      underestimated here

      But 1700 actually made it even while we removed the order but when
      the site was slow or crashing.

      I agree Eric, there are ways to deal with this. But we just never had
      5000 people wanting to hit a ORDER PAGE (not sales page) at the
      same time so we were just not experience for this one

      We are live on the home page at ustream to let them know and we
      will make the order page live in a few hours...

      Thanks,

      Mike Filsaime
      Mike thanks for chiming in over here for us. I had been trying since 11:45am and couldn't get in. Man, can I just come to the office and pick one up? I'm right in Hauppauge. LOL
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