Railway codes: not happy

juno

BiggHungryPhill wrote: »

I got myself a code, but RSH won't let me claim it. Keeps saying "We're sorry, but there has been a fatal error with the application".


Anyone got any ideas?

It's your code, so keep hold of it. You can add it to your account when RSH is working again. If you don't need to buy a train ticket now then probably wait until tomorrow.

Mehitabel9860

naff123 wrote: »

Utterly rediculous! Not IMPRESSED You havent put the long standing loyal members before the newbies! we should get them first for being here before this offer was about not joining 5 minutes before the offer came about! I want my Code I waited like everyone but you failed to deliver!

Further More

You need to look at your hosting servers so they do not crash at the first instance of exceptional traffic. One guy in my office sat ajacent from me literally taken for himself about 8 or 9 codes and he has never used the site in his life!

interesting I'm shown as a newbie; please see my joining date!(2009)

Mehitabel9860

Well, same story at 3.00; each time I clicked "get code" all I got was yet another page opening. Some variety, such as "server busy", or a white screen. No code though! What a huge amount of time I've wasted on this today, am totally fed up.
Not my usual experience with moneysavingexpert, must say.

skizz_b

Mehitabel9860 wrote: »

interesting I'm shown as a newbie; please see my joining date!(2009)

its not to do with your join date its down to the number of posts you have.

i just managed to get a code 2 minutes ago so keep trying people :cool:

abruzzese

naff123 wrote: »

Utterly rediculous! Not IMPRESSED You havent put the long standing loyal members before the newbies! we should get them first for being here before this offer was about not joining 5 minutes before the offer came about! I want my Code I waited like everyone but you failed to deliver!

Further More

You need to look at your hosting servers so they do not crash at the first instance of exceptional traffic. One guy in my office sat ajacent from me literally taken for himself about 8 or 9 codes and he has never used the site in his life![/QUOT

Couldn't agree more! I struggled like so many others and if 'Time is money' then we are wasting money with these games - and not saving. If the offer is limited then the fairest way of dealing with it would be to use a lottery system so all have an equal chance.

polymorphe

If I don't get one, I will be disappointed. I have 10mb broadband, I was refreshing the page at 10 minutes to 3pm. I must've entered my postcode and email about 6/7 times and didn't receive any notification of getting a code. Just the CAPTCHA reloading. Several times I received error messages about being unable to connect to the SQL database.

Considering there were 30'000 codes, yet they were gone in less than 5 minutes, I reckon there's some kind of fiddle going on. Probably someone using software to harvest loads of codes. Would be really unfair if these people didn't use the train either, seeing as I don't drive and I actually use the train and will be using a train this weekend. Well, I'll be pretty fed up if I don't get a code...

polymorphe

I'm also under the impression codes will be emailed to your email address? Or am I mistaken?

royale630

polymorphe wrote: »

If I don't get one, I will be disappointed. I have 10mb broadband, I was refreshing the page at 10 minutes to 3pm. I must've entered my postcode and email about 6/7 times and didn't receive any notification of getting a code. Just the CAPTCHA reloading. Several times I received error messages about being unable to connect to the SQL database.

Considering there were 30'000 codes, yet they were gone in less than 5 minutes, I reckon there's some kind of fiddle going on. Probably someone using software to harvest loads of codes. Would be really unfair if these people didn't use the train either, seeing as I don't drive and I actually use the train and will be using a train this weekend. Well, I'll be pretty fed up if I don't get a code...

My broadband's a bit slower but I got the same result, i.e. CAPTCHA reloading when pressing the "get code" button and also the SQL error. I was continually refreshing until the input box came up at 15:01 but no joy until on my umpteenth try I got the "all gone message". Not impressed. I've just tried the reminder option that's now on the page and I didn't get a code at all. So all 15000 went by 15:01, although someone managed to get a code at 15:47!! I originally put the problem down to using Chrome, but I guess that wasn't the issue. I think you need a better system next time MSE!!

Voyager2002

I tried again this afternoon. Again, there were lots of error messages ("connection reset by peer"; "SQL gone") and so forth. As with this morning I entered the "captcha" and this time was fairly sure I had recognised all the characters, but as with this morning all that happened was that the page reloaded with another "captcha". After entering that I got the "all codes gone" message. Interesting that someone above got a code a good twenty minutes later.

Former_MSE_Dan

Hi all,

We appreciate that many of you are annoyed that you didn't manage to get a free £10 code today. Unfortunately, there were 30,000 of them, and we send the weekly email to over 7 million.

We deliberately opened the deal on a Thursday, so that everyone on the email list should have received the email - rather than on Wednesday when some people have received it and others haven't. We also split it into 2 batches to try and smooth demand a bit.

11am and 3pm were chosen as they are in the high traffic part of the day (meaning lots of people are around naturally), but they are not quite the lunchtime peak as we hoped this would help the site stay live.

Demand for the freebie was HUGE. Our previous most people in a page at once is 5,000 - today there were 15,000 people just in the trains guide at one given point. This is TRIPLE our biggest ever traffic to one guide, and inevitably the servers struggled. The codes all went very quickly though, showing plenty of people did get through.

This is a really tricky balance, and we can promise we think these things through heavily in advance. However, it's inevitable that some people will end up disappointed, as there cannot be an unlimited number of codes. There is no conspiracy - just huge demand.

We also take into account feedback, and are looking into the reported problems with the Captcha box, so that if we have a similar offer again we can improve that. This is Google's technology though not ours, so our influence over it is limited.

Hope this helps explain a bit

Dan