packages.ubuntu.com is flakey recently

[Rolf Leggewie]

Problems with http://packages.ubuntu.com should be reported at https://rt.ubuntu.com/ and not be discussed on launchpad. Username/Password is ubuntu/ubuntu. For more information, read comment #19.

Unfortunately, http://packages.ubuntu.com is having unstable performance recently. This ranges from complete and rather frequent outages to a generally slow and unresponsive website. Very often, I get a blank page on the first try and only a reload will show me the real page. The website is again down completely as we speak.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

The ubuntu-website team has now control over packages.ubuntu.com. Please contact the website maintainer, listed on the page.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

Sorry, that should read "no control".

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

Mathew, instead of just closing as invalid, you should have pointed out the correct project to use. The problem exist and is not invalid per se. This is also not about just getting it up again, but about stabilizing performance.

Reopening so somebody can assign it to the correct project.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

And BTW, your suggestion to contact the person listed on the website is just pure irony. The website is down!

[Matthew East (mdke)]

No offence Rolf, but when you open a bug in the wrong bug tracker, it will generally be closed.

If packages.ubuntu.com used Launchpad for tracking issues, I would have opened a new task for you, but as far as I'm aware, it doesn't.

You could try contacting the Canonical Sysadmins in #canonical-sysadmin on irc.freenode.net - they may have access to this website, but we don't.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

"ubuntu-website" doesn't sound so wrong at first sight. But I guess that project is more concerned with content?

Anyways, the Sysadmins are already cc'd to this ticket.

reopening again, this time in generic "Ubuntu" task which should keep everybody happy including the "Ubuntu Website" team. Jonathan, may I kindly suggest you do the same next time instead of simply closing an obviously valid issue?

The site is back up now, but can we please hear a bit about why it is so unreliable recently and what is being done to improve the situation?

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

s/Jonathan/Matthew/

my sincere apologies

[Matthew East (mdke)]

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 8:03 PM, Rolf
Leggewie<email address hidden> wrote:
> reopening again, this time in generic "Ubuntu" task which should keep
> everybody happy including the "Ubuntu Website" team.  Jonathan, may I
> kindly suggest you do the same next time instead of simply closing an
> obviously valid issue?

It's certainly a valid issue. I wish you luck in pursuing and
resolving it and I'm sure that it will benefit the community.

However, we have a rather fundamental difference of opinion about the
purpose of a bug tracker. For me, it is to communicate with the
maintainers of a particular project. The people who receive email as a
result of you opening the ubuntu-website task can't help with your
issue. Neither can the subscribers to the "ubuntu" project. The
project maintainer has chosen not to use Launchpad for tracking issues
with the website. There is no purpose served by keeping the bug open
on either project, because the project maintainer doesn't receive
email as a result of you opening the bug on those projects. Indeed,
it's counterproductive because it increases the amount of bug email
received by the subscribers to those projects, none of whom can help.

I certainly don't blame you for not knowing in advance what the scope
of the ubuntu-website project is, it does cover several Ubuntu
websites. However packages.ubuntu.com is unusual because it is
separately maintained. However, having been told that this is not the
bug tracker that the project uses, and having been pointed towards the
right people who can help, you are wrong to insist on using the bug
tracker.

Now that the website is back up, I suggest that you have a look at the
front page and use the contact details described there. If you like,
you can try and suggest that the project use Launchpad as a bug
tracker, but that is ultimately down to the project's maintainer.

--
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

Matthew East wrote:
> However, we have a rather fundamental difference of opinion about the
> purpose of a bug tracker.

I'm not convinced it's that fundamental. But I don't think the purpose
of a bug tracker exhausts itself in communication from reporter to dev.
One could use personal email for that. I think you're at least
forgetting "involving third parties" and "tracking status" if not more.

> There is no purpose served by keeping the bug open
> on either project, because the project maintainer doesn't receive
> email as a result of you opening the bug on those projects.
>

They aren't receiving mail because of the association to a project, but
because I've explicitly subscribed Frank and the Sysadmins group. If I
hadn't already done this, somebody else could have jumped in and do so.
This setup makes it easier for me to keep a handle on this, it resides
in my normal workflow. It may fit in with the workflow of the
addressees as well, who knows. It also makes it easier for others to
find information and receive status updates by subscribing to this
ticket if they want to do that (/me sends a wink to erlguta).

To conclude, I firmly believe this approach makes much more sense than
jumping in and out of less accessible and less public media like IRC,
personal mails, Jabber or whatnot.

At the end, let me suggest that if you want to discuss this further,
let's use chat.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

The apache process seems to be back up, but the returned results are still broken. All searches return empty sets (see attached Screenshot).

[Nicola Ferralis (feranick)]

If I can add my modest contribution to this bug report... At the bottom of any packages.ubuntu.com pages there is an email address in case of problems with that specific part of the website:

"To report a problem with the web site, e-mail <email address hidden>"

I am not sure if that has been done, but for sure that would be the first thing I would do.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

Thanks feranick for your input. As has been pointed out previously, Frank is already cc'd to this bug report.

Let me grab the opportunity to add that the site is still fairly unstable these days.

[Andrew Oakley (andrew-aoakley)]

packages.ubuntu.com seems to have been down from at least 07:45 GMT today 21 Aug 2009 and is still down now 9:15 GMT. Confirmed down by http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/packages.ubuntu.com

packages.ubuntu.com is an extremely valuable resource to me and, I suspect, most other Ubuntu sysadmins. Thanks to everyone involved in making it such an excellent resource, and thanks for taking the time to make it more stable in future.

[Stephen Warren (srwarren)]

It is down again. Sigh.

According to this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=844355

and in particular, this linked message:

http://blog.djpig.de/2008/06/13

then Canonical does host packages.ubuntu.com. Therefore, filing a bug in an Ubuntu tracker is the correct thing to do. I can't tell what email address the site now says to report issues to (to see if it's e.g. @ubuntu.com or whatever) since the site is down.

[Jacob Peddicord (jpeddicord)]

From packages.ubuntu.com (up now):

Please contact Frank Lichtenheld <email address hidden> if you encounter any problems!

Removing Ubuntu as it is not an issue with the distribution itself.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

Jacob, may I kindly suggest you actually READ a ticket before closing it? Thank you. The reason you (IMHO incorrectly) give for closure has been already discussed. Reopening.

Ubuntu is more than just the packages it ships. This is a valid concern, Frank HAS been contacted. Closing (as opposed to actually fixing) this ticket is detrimental, so please don't do it without further discussion.

[Jacob Peddicord (jpeddicord)]

Apologies, it appears I've skimmed over the report a little too quickly.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

And the site is again offline for several hours now. Frank, if I were you, I would be very embarrassed to have my name displayed on that page.

[Matthew East (mdke)]

Ok, I got bored of receiving the irrelevant bugmail (no, marking a task as Invalid doesn't stop the bugmail) so I took the trouble of reporting this issue to the correct place where the people concerned actually track issues.

The issue has been closed today with the comment "This issue has been taken care of, and performance is more reliable now. Resolving."

For reference, the ticket is at https://rt.ubuntu.com/Ticket/Display.html?id=7824 (user/pass: ubuntu/ubuntu)

I'm closing this bug accordingly. Please please please please please use the request tracker for reporting issues in future rather than forcing bugs into projects on Launchpad that can't do anything about them.

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

i am experiencing problems (connection dropped) recently... should i report a new bug or is this still related to the problem discussed here?

[Luke Faraone (lfaraone)]

This is *NOT* a problem that should be reported in Ubuntu. Please read comment 19, these issues should be reported in RT, not Launchpad.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

re comment 19: the performance is of course as unstable as always. But why should I care?