All progress wiped out
ralphwong
April 16, 2014, 07:54 AM posted in General DiscussionI just checked my progress bar and found out that everything has been wiped out. I don't want to go back and figure out all the lessons I have already finished. Anyone else have this problem and know of a fix?
kellyl
April 26, 2014, 08:00 AMI gave up waiting for the 'fix'... I don't think it's ever coming. Even if they restore the database, it's been so long that now they run the risk of wiping out the most recent two weeks of data.
Luckily I've learned from past experience not to put too much trust in the ChinesePod servers, and so I keep a separate offline spreadsheet of what lessons I've studied. I would definitely recommend others to do the same!
chris
yep, been doing this since '07! I'm a bit of an excel junkie....
wingate
April 18, 2014, 07:39 AMHi Alex,
It is more than 24 hours now and I have similar issues with my studied lessons (some having been flagged unstudied again). What is happening? can you give us an update.
thanks
james137
April 19, 2014, 02:30 PMYea Alex. its been a week. this is a serious issue that requires your attention. i cannot see any of my bookmarked lesson in the self study section. This is the most important section to me. I understand that you never reply to many comments on here, but i want you to sort it out.
Although i do not love your terrible service and lack of updates. I love these lessons. please get them back to me.
baoluo7
April 20, 2014, 03:34 AMHere's the thing. It shouldn't happen. Any IT team worth their salt will test EVERYTHING before putting it into production. Most IT shops have a test system, specifically for the purpose of testing new programs, updates, code-rewrite, bug fixes, new APIs. And to top it off they usually make backups of the production system and user data(our stuff, our data and files). The user software is what we see here, it's what we interact with. So if there is a problem like we have experienced they do a "ROLL-BACK" of the production system. The ROLL-BACK restores the production system and the user data as well to a specific point in time, before the problem existed. So they could do this if they know how to, or if they planned properly. This is a simple way to explain what may have happened. So you IT guys get with the program. Don't make excuses! If this happened in a real-world scenario, the customer would get paid according to down-time. My recent problem was all and I mean ALL of the lessons were BOOKMARKED. I may also find other problems as I go along. Please do a thourough test of all fixes no matter how small, especially of your APIs. You do want to please your customer. The customer is the heart of the company. And we are your customer. Remember your ROLL-OUT procedures. Or develop better ROLL-OUT and testing procedures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_testing
Alex@ChinesePod
April 16, 2014, 08:43 AMHey Guys,
We're currently experiencing some technical difficulties after performing server maintenance. We are resolving a number of issues and should hopefully have all aspects of our service, web and mobile, up and running again within 24 hours. If you continue to have issues after this time, or have any other questions, please feel free to contact us.
Best regards,
Alex
james_uk
April 20, 2014, 09:18 AMI also have this problem.
zaphekiah
April 20, 2014, 10:59 AMI doubt that a solution is going to be forthcoming because even if they have a recent copy of the of the affected database to restore from it would be almost impossible to selectively script which bits need to be restored. Some people will have tried to manually sort out their lessons and others will have preferred to wait.
How about designing a page where you can view all the lessons in any particular channel in date order in a table with checkboxes to mark if they are studied and a single button to update all the changes? At least that way it would be relatively painless for everyone to fix their own data.
Right-Wingnut
April 20, 2014, 11:00 PMThe ChinesePod comedy routine continues.
And the routine just keeps getting funnier.
mark
April 21, 2014, 12:00 AMI lost my bookmarks a couple years ago. There was a glitch in the renewal process. So, I was breifly unsubscribed. My subscription problem was quickly fixed, but the bookmarks were beyond repair. Anyway, I learned to live without the bookmarks. I guess, if I don't have any recollection of a lesson, at all, I might as well re-study it. At least, that was how I reconciled myself the the situation. (I was pretty much just using the bookmarks to figure out when I'd caught up to the point that I started studying media lessons, at the time. I think I'm current now and only newly published lessons are new to me. So, I guess others could just study the lessons in chronological order, and have sort of a DIY bookmark that way. Otherwise, I think the bookmarks aren't maintained with sufficient rigor for it to be worthwhile to invest a lot of time in them. At least, it isn't MtGox managing your bit coins.)
rebecka
Hi Mark,
First time commenting :) I did exactly that. The way I started studying on Chinesepod is by studying lessons by chronological order for each level. When I felt comfortable with the level I was in, I would move on to the next level up and start with the very first lesson they ever published in the level so I could easily keep track of my progression. I especially found the first few older intermediate lessons slightly more challenging because part of the lesson banter and explanation of the dialogue was spoken in just Chinese. It really trained my ear to hear the tones and gave me the confidence to move up to Upper Intermediate when I was ready. I've just recently started picking out lessons that are more relevant to what I'm primarily studying the language for, so when this problem happened, I had done around 60 Upper Intermediate lessons and I had just gotten myself up to date with the lower levels and Qing Wens, so I kinda have a good idea of which lessons I did. I'm almost done re-bookmarking and marking as studied the lessons that I have already done. I've been waiting for over a week for this to be fixed, so I wouldn't have to manually mark over 300 lessons as studied again. I didn't study the Upper Intermediate lessons from oldest to newest, so one thing that helped me to find the Upper Intermediate lessons that I studied was that for the past year or so I've been rating the lessons after completing them, and my ratings that I gave each lesson weren't wiped out. I just wanted to let you guys know about that because in the future if this ever happens again and you really want to know which lessons you studied, you can rate the lessons and then you might be able to use your lesson ratings as an indicator :) I don't think you can do this on the Chinesepod app so you would have to view the site through a web browser to rate the lessons. Thanks Mark and everybody who has left comments on the lessons over the years. All of your answers to questions and insights into the Chinese culture have helped me a lot to learn Chinese ^^
geleise
April 20, 2014, 07:44 AMSame problem, no solution. Unfortunately this really sets me back as being able to organize my study is crucial at this point.
pat551a
April 16, 2014, 08:20 AMSame thing happened to me when my account auto-repaid.