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For almost a week now, I have been unable to download instructions from the LEGO
site: http://www.lego.com/eng/buildinginstructions/ I have been getting a page
saying "Server Error", no matter which instructions I choose. I sent an email
off, but got no reply, and then asked some other people, and found that many are
not getting the same error.
I would be interested to know why it is working for some people and not others?
Thanks
ROSCO
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> For almost a week now, I have been unable to download instructions from the LEGO
> site: http://www.lego.com/eng/buildinginstructions/ I have been getting a page
> saying "Server Error", no matter which instructions I choose. I sent an email
> off, but got no reply, and then asked some other people, and found that many are
> not getting the same error.
>
> I would be interested to know why it is working for some people and not others?
>
> Thanks
>
> ROSCO
Huh. :-/ It's working ok for me. Have you tried downloading from different
computers? Or logging in/out as a Club member?
-Suz
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On 15/09/06, Suz <suz@baseplate.com> wrote:
> In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> > For almost a week now, I have been unable to download instructions from the LEGO
> > site: http://www.lego.com/eng/buildinginstructions/ I have been getting a page
> > saying "Server Error", no matter which instructions I choose. I sent an email
> > off, but got no reply, and then asked some other people, and found that many are
> > not getting the same error.
> >
> > I would be interested to know why it is working for some people and not others?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > ROSCO
>
> Huh. :-/ It's working ok for me. Have you tried downloading from different
> computers? Or logging in/out as a Club member?
>
> -Suz
Hmm - I have to say, I am having no problems here either ROSCO. Maybe
you ought to copy the text of the error page, and post it to a Lego
webmaster to see if they can help.
Have you tried deleting all your Lego related cookies, and revisiting the site?
Danny
--
Danny Staple MBCS
OrionRobots
http://orionrobots.co.uk/blogs/dannystaple
(Full contact details available through website)
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"Ross Crawford" <ross.{mylastname}@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:J5M2wE.MEB@lugnet.com...
> For almost a week now, I have been unable to download instructions from
> the LEGO
> site: http://www.lego.com/eng/buildinginstructions/ I have been getting a
> page
> saying "Server Error", no matter which instructions I choose. I sent an
> email
> off, but got no reply, and then asked some other people, and found that
> many are
> not getting the same error.
Hmm, I get Server Error too. Maybe it doesn't like Australians? (By the way,
I didn't see the Death Star instructions listed).
Kerry
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Kerry Raymond wrote:
>
> "Ross Crawford" <ross.{mylastname}@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:J5M2wE.MEB@lugnet.com...
> > For almost a week now, I have been unable to download instructions from
> > the LEGO
> > site: http://www.lego.com/eng/buildinginstructions/ I have been getting a
> > page
> > saying "Server Error", no matter which instructions I choose. I sent an
> > email
> > off, but got no reply, and then asked some other people, and found that
> > many are
> > not getting the same error.
>
> Hmm, I get Server Error too. Maybe it doesn't like Australians? (By the way,
> I didn't see the Death Star instructions listed).
I'm thinking maybe they've put in some anti-scanning check, to try to stop me
getting data for my instruction download page:
http://www.br-eng.info/words/?page_id=29 and said check is blocking a large
number of Australian IPs. My ISP is Primus, and as my IP changes every day or
so, they may have blocked a large chunk of IPs. At least 2 other Aussies so far
have said they are experiencing the same problem.
But I could be wrong.
ROSCO
(PS: Their page does not list all instructions available, mine does (well up
until I started getting the error). Search for 10143, you will find it is there,
but you won't be able to download it because of the error.)
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> In lugnet.lego.direct, Kerry Raymond wrote:
> >
> > "Ross Crawford" <ross.{mylastname}@gmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:J5M2wE.MEB@lugnet.com...
> > > For almost a week now, I have been unable to download instructions from
> > > the LEGO
> > > site: http://www.lego.com/eng/buildinginstructions/ I have been getting a
> > > page
> > > saying "Server Error", no matter which instructions I choose. I sent an
> > > email
> > > off, but got no reply, and then asked some other people, and found that
> > > many are
> > > not getting the same error.
> >
> > Hmm, I get Server Error too. Maybe it doesn't like Australians? (By the way,
> > I didn't see the Death Star instructions listed).
>
> I'm thinking maybe they've put in some anti-scanning check, to try to stop me
> getting data for my instruction download page:
> http://www.br-eng.info/words/?page_id=29 and said check is blocking a large
> number of Australian IPs. My ISP is Primus, and as my IP changes every day or
> so, they may have blocked a large chunk of IPs. At least 2 other Aussies so far
> have said they are experiencing the same problem.
>
> But I could be wrong.
>
> ROSCO
>
> (PS: Their page does not list all instructions available, mine does (well up
> until I started getting the error). Search for 10143, you will find it is there,
> but you won't be able to download it because of the error.)
Ross,
It's not working for me or another European so it seems they might have reversed
their earlier NA blocked/rest of the world allowed system. Very odd either way.
Tim
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> (PS: Their page does not list all instructions available, mine does (well up
> until I started getting the error). Search for 10143, you will find it is there,
> but you won't be able to download it because of the error.)
Actually, I just did a search on your page for 10143, and it was found. Then I
did download the PDF. So there may be something to your theory about TLG
blocking your IP range.
How much traffic do you generate when you search for instructions?
Steve
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> I'm thinking maybe they've put in some anti-scanning check, to try to stop me
> getting data for my instruction download page:
> http://www.br-eng.info/words/?page_id=29 and said check is blocking a large
> number of Australian IPs. My ISP is Primus, and as my IP changes every day or
> so, they may have blocked a large chunk of IPs. At least 2 other Aussies so
> far have said they are experiencing the same problem.
So... I don't quite understand-- It says your site is hosted at NorthStar, which
is in Chicago, yes? Are you scanning Lego's site from that server, or from a
machine in Australia? Other question I guess would be how often do you poll?
Of curiosity, I tried downloading set 7133 via your site and via Lego's site,
and got two different URL's:
From your site:
http://assets.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/4177480.pdf
From Lego:
http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/7133-1.pdf
If you're polling in Australia, but hosting in Chicago, the other way around the
problem is to actually load the PDF file from Lego on the US server, then
connect to that directly from your PC. It just has the potential to create a lot
more traffic on your server :)
DaveE
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Steve Bliss wrote:
> In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> > (PS: Their page does not list all instructions available, mine does (well up
> > until I started getting the error). Search for 10143, you will find it is there,
> > but you won't be able to download it because of the error.)
>
> Actually, I just did a search on your page for 10143, and it was found. Then I
> did download the PDF. So there may be something to your theory about TLG
> blocking your IP range.
>
> How much traffic do you generate when you search for instructions?
Negligible. I would guess LEGO's own instruction download page probably
generates significantly more.
ROSCO
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In lugnet.lego.direct, David Eaton wrote:
> In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> > I'm thinking maybe they've put in some anti-scanning check, to try to stop me
> > getting data for my instruction download page:
> > http://www.br-eng.info/words/?page_id=29 and said check is blocking a large
> > number of Australian IPs. My ISP is Primus, and as my IP changes every day or
> > so, they may have blocked a large chunk of IPs. At least 2 other Aussies so
> > far have said they are experiencing the same problem.
>
> So... I don't quite understand-- It says your site is hosted at NorthStar, which
> is in Chicago, yes? Are you scanning Lego's site from that server, or from a
> machine in Australia? Other question I guess would be how often do you poll?
I poll from Australia, roughly once a month.
> Of curiosity, I tried downloading set 7133 via your site and via Lego's site,
> and got two different URL's:
>
> From your site:
> http://assets.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/4177480.pdf
>
> From Lego:
> http://cache.lego.com/bigdownloads/buildinginstructions/7133-1.pdf
Hmmm, interesting. But unfortunately, I get the same server error screen for
that URL. Which either means they are blocking the same IPs on that server too,
or it is a temporary cache and it has been flushed (in which case it is useless
for polling).
> If you're polling in Australia, but hosting in Chicago, the other way around the
> problem is to actually load the PDF file from Lego on the US server, then
> connect to that directly from your PC. It just has the potential to create a lot
> more traffic on your server :)
I do not store the PDFs on Northstar, and I don't want to. There would I'm sure
be legal issues doing that, and with 9.5GB so far, I'd certainly have to pay
more for my hosting at Northstar.
If the polling is the reason they have blocked my IP (and a large range of other
IPs it would seem), I would just like to know. I would be happy to discuss with
them the possibility of updating my database in a "sanctioned" way. But blocking
a large range of IPs because of it seems to be like driving a nail with a 10 ton
truck.
ROSCO
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Steve Bliss wrote:
> How much traffic do you generate when you search for instructions?
To put a number on it, I have received 22329 requests to my page since April.
That's total requests, including non-search, and failed search requests. I have
no way to tell how many requests that generated for lego.com, and besides,
blocking my IP is unlikely to put much of a dent in the number of downloads they
get, because most people using my page have not been blocked.
I don't think bandwidth is the issue here, I'd just like to find out exactly
what the issue is.
ROSCO
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> I poll from Australia, roughly once a month.
Hm. given what you're talking about, it doesn't seem terribly likely that they'd
shut down your IP based on that alone-- unless your polls are REALLY hitting
them hard. But I'm assuming you're doing something like:
for each set in the Lugnet Database:
- Skip the set if its release date is prior to (say) 1995.
- Skip the set if you already have a record for it
- Do a search on Lego for the set number. If a result comes back, save it, but
don't actually download the PDF.
But maybe you're actually testing each PDF to verify that the links are still
valid?
Anyway, I wouldn't expect that the above once a month would do anything terribly
awful to their system. If you're polling once a month, you could even make it
easier on them and set up a cron to pull a page every (say) 5 minutes, but EVERY
day. That'd probably give them less load to worry about, and probably wouldn't
get your DB behind at all.
> Hmmm, interesting. But unfortunately, I get the same server error screen for
> that URL. Which either means they are blocking the same IPs on that server
> too, or it is a temporary cache and it has been flushed (in which case it is
> useless for polling).
I've been suprised at how long things tend to stay on "cache.lego.com", although
admittedly I don't think ANYTHING on their website is safe to consider
"permanent" (URL-wise that is). Both links still work for me (not that that
helps much)
> I do not store the PDFs on Northstar, and I don't want to. There would I'm
> sure be legal issues doing that, and with 9.5GB so far, I'd certainly have to
> pay more for my hosting at Northstar.
Oh, I wasn't meaning that you'd STORE them at NorthStar, but that as a fix
(albeit a very bad one), you could set up a link that used the NS server to pull
FROM Lego (assuming that NS's IP's aren't blocked), then immediately deliver the
file to yourself (assuming that NS isn't blocking your IP). And as soon as the
NS server is done transferring the file, away it goes. But yes, that's possibly
also disallowed, since technically your server would be serving Lego's material
which they've asked people not to do. (But so long as the link isn't *public*,
you're ok)
> If the polling is the reason they have blocked my IP (and a large range of
> other IPs it would seem), I would just like to know. I would be happy to
> discuss with them the possibility of updating my database in a "sanctioned"
> way. But blocking a large range of IPs because of it seems to be like driving
> a nail with a 10 ton truck.
Agreed. It does seem rather... wrong of them to do. Of course, if they're
blocking a wide range of IP's, it could also be unrelated to your polling in
particular, which may be the case, depending on the order of events. I guess
there's not much way to know unless Lego wants to chime in...
DaveE
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In lugnet.lego.direct, David Eaton wrote:
> In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> > I poll from Australia, roughly once a month.
>
> Hm. given what you're talking about, it doesn't seem terribly likely that they'd
> shut down your IP based on that alone-- unless your polls are REALLY hitting
> them hard. But I'm assuming you're doing something like:
>
> for each set in the Lugnet Database:
> - Skip the set if its release date is prior to (say) 1995.
> - Skip the set if you already have a record for it
> - Do a search on Lego for the set number. If a result comes back, save it, but
> don't actually download the PDF.
>
> But maybe you're actually testing each PDF to verify that the links are still
> valid?
It's more complicated than that, because the PDFs are stored by the 7 digit LEGO
number, not the set number. Basically I scan the header of all files in a
certain range (about 1 million), and if it is a PDF I check against my database,
downloading it to my hard drive if I don't already have it. I then have to
manually go through all new PDFs, to find out which set they are for.
> > I do not store the PDFs on Northstar, and I don't want to. There would I'm
> > sure be legal issues doing that, and with 9.5GB so far, I'd certainly have to
> > pay more for my hosting at Northstar.
>
> Oh, I wasn't meaning that you'd STORE them at NorthStar, but that as a fix
> (albeit a very bad one), you could set up a link that used the NS server to pull
> FROM Lego (assuming that NS's IP's aren't blocked), then immediately deliver the
> file to yourself (assuming that NS isn't blocking your IP). And as soon as the
> NS server is done transferring the file, away it goes. But yes, that's possibly
> also disallowed, since technically your server would be serving Lego's material
> which they've asked people not to do. (But so long as the link isn't *public*,
> you're ok)
Unfortunately, Northstar runs Windows Server, and setting up any kind of
complicated server-side stuff is probably beyond what I get for my hosting. And
besides, I really don't want to jump through hoops to do this - it's not that
important to me. If my polling IS the reason, and they don't want to negotiate
about it, I'd just like to know, and I will stop it (which I have done anyway
until it's resolved one way or the other).
> > If the polling is the reason they have blocked my IP (and a large range of
> > other IPs it would seem), I would just like to know. I would be happy to
> > discuss with them the possibility of updating my database in a "sanctioned"
> > way. But blocking a large range of IPs because of it seems to be like driving
> > a nail with a 10 ton truck.
>
> Agreed. It does seem rather... wrong of them to do. Of course, if they're
> blocking a wide range of IP's, it could also be unrelated to your polling in
> particular, which may be the case, depending on the order of events. I guess
> there's not much way to know unless Lego wants to chime in...
Indeed. Interestingly, I just got a reply from LEGO, saying they could not
duplicate the problem, I think probably because the first line of support
doesn't understand the problem. The dialogue continues...
ROSCO
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> It's more complicated than that, because the PDFs are stored by the 7 digit LEGO
> number, not the set number. Basically I scan the header of all files in a
> certain range (about 1 million), and if it is a PDF I check against my database,
> downloading it to my hard drive if I don't already have it.
Ahh. Yeah, I could see that as being potentially red-flagging, if they're
getting a million hits in a short period of time. I was definitely thinking
smaller scale than that.
> Indeed. Interestingly, I just got a reply from LEGO, saying they could not
> duplicate the problem, I think probably because the first line of support
> doesn't understand the problem. The dialogue continues...
Heh, the inevitable 1st level of tech support :) It will be interesting to hear
their explanation, assuming you get one.
DaveE
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> It's more complicated than that, because the PDFs are stored by the 7 digit LEGO
> number, not the set number. Basically I scan the header of all files in a
> certain range (about 1 million), and if it is a PDF I check against my database,
> downloading it to my hard drive if I don't already have it.
Ahh. Yeah, I could see that as being potentially red-flagging, if they're
getting a million hits in a short period of time. I was definitely thinking
smaller scale than that.
> Indeed. Interestingly, I just got a reply from LEGO, saying they could not
> duplicate the problem, I think probably because the first line of support
> doesn't understand the problem. The dialogue continues...
Heh, the inevitable 1st level of tech support :) It will be interesting to hear
their explanation, assuming you get one.
DaveE
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In lugnet.lego.direct, David Eaton wrote:
> In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> > It's more complicated than that, because the PDFs are stored by the 7 digit LEGO
> > number, not the set number. Basically I scan the header of all files in a
> > certain range (about 1 million), and if it is a PDF I check against my database,
> > downloading it to my hard drive if I don't already have it.
>
> Ahh. Yeah, I could see that as being potentially red-flagging, if they're
> getting a million hits in a short period of time. I was definitely thinking
> smaller scale than that.
Well it takes about 7 days to check them all. And it's only grabbing the header
unless it's a new file.
> > Indeed. Interestingly, I just got a reply from LEGO, saying they could not
> > duplicate the problem, I think probably because the first line of support
> > doesn't understand the problem. The dialogue continues...
>
> Heh, the inevitable 1st level of tech support :) It will be interesting to hear
> their explanation, assuming you get one.
Yeah, we'll see.
ROSCO
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What email address are you using to contact them? I'll moan too bcause it's
not working for me and I'm not doing anything that might offend them.
Kerry
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Kerry Raymond wrote:
> What email address are you using to contact them? I'll moan too bcause it's
> not working for me and I'm not doing anything that might offend them.
Great idea Kerry! I initially contacted them via the contact form on the
website. They have opened a problem ticket, so I'm communicating via that system
now, but if any other aussies are experiencing this problem, it can't hurt to
let them know.
http://www.lego.com/eng/service/contactus.asp
ROSCO
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"Ross Crawford" <ross.{mylastname}@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:J5pK1q.o44@lugnet.com...
> In lugnet.lego.direct, Kerry Raymond wrote:
> > What email address are you using to contact them? I'll moan too bcause
> > it's
> > not working for me and I'm not doing anything that might offend them.
>
> Great idea Kerry! I initially contacted them via the contact form on the
> website. They have opened a problem ticket, so I'm communicating via that
> system
> now, but if any other aussies are experiencing this problem, it can't hurt
> to
> let them know.
>
> http://www.lego.com/eng/service/contactus.asp
>
> ROSCO
OK, I went, I complained.
Buth then suddenly one download worked for me. I did it again, it failed.
So, having now spent a number of minutes experimenting, it seems that
sometimes Download or Save Target As will work occasionally, but mostly they
won't. But try, try, again and you get lucky sometimes (less than 1 in 10).
Kerry
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In lugnet.lego.direct, Ross Crawford wrote:
> For almost a week now, I have been unable to download instructions from the LEGO
> site: http://www.lego.com/eng/buildinginstructions/ I have been getting a page
> saying "Server Error", no matter which instructions I choose. I sent an email
> off, but got no reply, and then asked some other people, and found that many are
> not getting the same error.
>
> I would be interested to know why it is working for some people and not others?
Full access appears to have been restored, however I still have no information
on what the issue was, or whether my scanning script was to blame, so I will not
be adding any new instructions until this has been clarified - I don't want
access to disappear without notice for so many people because of it.
I will continue to update any incorrect information.
See them here: http://www.br-eng.info/words/?page_id=29
ROSCO
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