Not the case, Bob.  Facebook was down one morning early last week.  Many sites out there don't make major changes very often, but AR has had a lot of very big changes made in functionality.  Tons that goes into it to make sure glitches are at a minimal when changes take place.

How many of you who complain pay anything toward what ActiveRain provides you (those over 500,000 points)?  It's very easy to whine and say that things aren't right, but what do you contribute to this AR community that financially supports what is provided for you?  An attitude of gratitude goes a long way.  An expectation of obligation, not so much.  If it's free to you, why should you expect others to pay for your convenience?  I expect more from AR Ambassadors.

Bob Crane you sure have a valid point. However, lets look at it from their point of view.

coming from IT background and working in financial industry, we have pulled out major changes without a down time. However, it does need lots of resources and redundencies which eventually leads to cost. And ActiveRain here hardly charges any subscrptions! They never had money in mind! First 10-15 pages of the leaderboard members are here for FREE (including me....)

Within limited resources, what we get from ActiveRain is commandable. Hats off to AR Technical Staff - yes, they do a great job.

The resources on ActiveRain as a member, we have is - almost 4 Million blog posts, about 260,000+ members and now, Q&A section!

I do understand your frustration - as I used to think the same way when I was a 'kid' on ActiveRain!

And with such a huge system to handle, glitches are likely to be there. A bug resolution may lead to another bug. And they are there to 'fix' it! Always there to help us!

(And I apologize for such a long answer - and again, this is more of an explanation - and nothing against you or anyone in person - so pardon me if any part of my answer sounded  that way.)

You sure opened up a hornets nest with that post, Bob.

Bob, I also think some upgrades have nothing to do with what you or I see, as in the ROR part of the upgrade. Many things are hidden that make the site work better. But they add new functions at the same time.... and because programs are written by people they sometimes don't work as expected. 

Just like me, when I'm not feeling so well. I don't work as expected!

AR is not the ONLY site and of course you know that now.

If your really had a grasp on all that goes on behind the curtain that results in your ability to simply post a question, you would be a believer in miracles.

OS updates, ever increasing security measures, DNS diversions, obsolescence, new tech, ICCAN, new features, bug fixes...and the list is nearly endless.

Too often..way too often, a little update actually ends in catastrophic failure that takes days to recover.

Hats off to AR staff avoiding that outcome.

Bob,

I don't think it is unreasonable, our bank does updating usually over the weekend and on line banking is not available during those ours.  Overall, I think the AR staff does a great job, and they really do their best to get things to work.

All of us are under the gun to perform,  For all of the "modern technology" that is reputed to improve the quality of life, any talk of eliminating stress, is just talk.  

Add to that our exposure to what I call the "McDonalds effect." Where we roll up to a fast food microphone, saying "I want...", and then moving forward thirty feet expecting everything, hot, juicy, and ready to go.  I have spent 53 years in customer service, and have very seldom seen everything go just as we expected.

I, too become impatient when waiting, and quickly begin thinking " What is taking so long."

I have been having issues with my computer, and aftet wasting my time, I decide to hire someone.  Many times I have seen ten minutes grow into hours (and dollsrs).

Kris, I get it from my wife: "Whst took so long?  Why didn't you  get someone else to do it?

My dad, when asked to wait for someone to get around to doing  something, would always say " Wait (weight) is what tore the bridge down."

I can tell when other sites are doing upgrades. They may not have a curtain that falls but their sites become very slow or fail to respond. If I wait a few hours all is good again. I appreciate the fact that AR does these at night when it has less effect on the majority of the users and thank goodness it isn't every week or two. It seems that many of the bugs are being worked out and less glitches happen after the upgrades now.

Bob - I don't think the downtime is so bad, and think they chose a good time.  I wouldn't expect them to stay up much later.  I just hope that in these updates there are fewer glitches.

I don't know.

To me, the downtime for site upgrades is not an inconvenience.  

I appreciate the efforts to improve and evolve the site to meet members needs, but I sure wish the basic functions of photo uploading from my iPad and editing my profile would make a quick return Kris Neese.

The loss of those functions seemed to coincide with the most recent site changes. 

Sometimes life is just a beach ...

I would like to know that too.  But we are on the site at odd hours.

Hi Bob Crane. I feel your pain. But I like to think of it as the computers need to take a breather. How would you feel if someone was beating up on you day in and day out? Hats off to the pit stop crew! Let it Rain!

Whenever there is a major upgrade my VPS is down. They do schedule this work in the wee hours of the morning. Less impact. 

That is a good questions.  I hope they give us an answer..

No question about it, we have become an instant gratification society.  But sometimes the more important things in life are worth waiting for.  Perhaps in the future if ActiveRain provided a little warning about the downtime, it would be beneficial.

I will say that having it occur over Passover/Easter weekend worked out well for me.  I had a house full of company, and loads of activities.  It helped to know AR was down, and I wasn't feeling the pressure.

One fix I was hoping for however, is the distortion of pictures on our older written blogs would be remedied.  Alas, it was not!

Absolutely whatever works is what works. I don't fault you ever! All the best!

Tell me about it Bob. And if they can't get around it, why not do it at 3:00AM?