Update on Springpad Outage
Update – 4/22 at 3pm (ET): Springpad is back up. Access your account at Springpadit.com or by logging in via one of the mobile apps. If you run into any issues, please send us details at feedback@springpartners.com
We are entering day two of an unexpected Springpad outage due to a failure with Amazon Web Services. Currently, users are not able to access their data at Springpadit.com. Sync with the mobile apps is also unavailable.
We wanted to take a few minutes to explain to everyone exactly what’s gone wrong, the current status, and our next steps.
We began corresponding with concerned users yesterday morning via Twitter, Facebook, our support forum at Get Satisfaction and via email. We have done our best to be responsive, upbeat and realistic in the face of lots of user frustration.
While it may not help you right now, here’s a summary of our features that will help you with offline access:
- Backup your data: We recently added a feature allowing users to download an HTML backup file of all of their data. When you are once again able to log in at Springpadit.com, we suggest that you create a backup (under Settings > Services).
- Offline access on your computer: In a matter of weeks, we expect to release offline access for all users, utilizing html5 via the Chrome browser. We know that this does you no good today, but hopefully sets your mind at ease a bit.
- Offline access via mobile apps: The Springpad iPhone, Android and iPad apps currently offer offline access. If a user is already logged in and stays logged in, they can access their data offline and continue to save new things – which will sync when the app reconnects to our servers.
We know that many of you rely on Springpad in your daily lives, and we take that responsibility very seriously. We can’t do enough to apologize for the impact that you’re feeling right now.
Now for the details…
Springpad’s reliance on Amazon
The Springpad environment is hosted with Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud. Amazon has changed how many companies do business on the internet by providing a very powerful way to host servers. Instead of buying and co-locating physical servers, staffing up to manage those servers, and dealing with potential hardware issues, Amazon takes on that responsibility for a premium price. They allow customers to dynamically add and remove capacity, and they manage the hardware environment. They also provide services for storage, backup, databases, DNS, load balancing, and more.
Springpad relies mainly on three Amazon systems. Amazon EC2 for running virtualized servers, Amazon EBS for storing user data, and Amazon S3 for backups, and for storing uploads of photos and files from the Springpad client applications.
Current Status
Yesterday morning at 1:41AM PDT Amazon started experiencing network issues with EBS. Well over 100 companies were impacted. Amazon has been working hard to recover from the issue in all data centers, but the zone that Springpad is in is still recovering. Specifically, user data is stored in 12 different replicated Cassandra servers and 50% of those servers are down, which is beyond our capacity to recover.
We want to stress that your data is safe. The EBS volumes affected are most likely going to come back up. The issue was not with the actual storage, but with the networking, which means that the data is still there. We also do have nightly backups of all of the data, so in case of a true disaster we can recover from backup.
Right now we are holding tight and researching our options. We are hoping that EBS recovers soon, but in the event that it does not, we are planning our next steps. Amazon’s current recommendation is to relaunch our cluster in a completely new zone, which would be a very lengthy process – but this will be a good option if things don’t look like they are recovering.
How is Springpad going to prevent this from happening again?
- Offline access is a priority for us. We are in the process of offering support for local storage for Google Chrome users. That means Chrome users can access Springpad as if it were just a desktop application syncing with our servers, and will still have access to their data even in the event of an emergency.
- Amazon does have multiple availability zones. We will be investigating what it would take to replicate everything to a different zone in the event of disaster.
- We are going to be looking into faster ways to bring up a brand new environment from backups or snapshots.
- We will discuss exactly what happened with Amazon to figure out what they recommend in the event of disaster.
- We are also going to be looking back into co-locating our own servers as well as alternate cloud providers like Rackspace, if only so that we know all of the available options.
We know that accessing your data is of utmost importance to you, and understand that this outage has made many of you nervous. We want to assure you that your data is safe, and that we are doing everything we can to mend the situation as quickly as possible.
110 Responses to “Update on Springpad Outage”
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jhorman says:
Gabbsmo (others): It turns out that Chrome supports Web SQL, but Firefox does not. There are 2 competing offline standards for browsers, Web SQL, and Indexed DB. Indexed DB is what Firefox is planning to support. Web SQL is a much better, and faster to develop fit for us b/c we already have most of the code written for Android. Android and Web SQL both use SQLite.
I hope that Springpad will be online again very soon. Missing you very much!
Best regards, libelcom
Thanks for the update. My main concern was what Springpad would do to avoid this from happening in the future, and you addressed that. I was also wondering why Springpad hadn’t relaunched in another zone, as recommended by Amazon, but I didn’t realize it was a lengthy process.
I know Springpad is a small company, and Amazon seemed completely unprepared for this themselves, so I don’t think anyone is blaming you guys for this. I appreciate, as I’m sure many others do as well, your transparency in sharing information and updates.
Hope EC2 comes up soon! Going on 30 hours now. Pretty incredible.
Hey Guys,
don’t worry and stay tuned! I know it’s annoying but it isn’t killing myself 
Keep going and hum the Bob the Builder song 
Can we fix it? Yes we can!
BTW: Is there a desktop app planed with offline access??
sage says: Springpad finally turned my iPad into a useful business tool instead of just a toy for games and buying things. looking forward to having it back. 
Sonia Yack says: Excellent communication. You’re awesome. Thank you!
Jabbo126 says: A big thumbs up for you Springpad and i also hope my precious data are still there somewhere …
I use Springpad everyday, so I miss you guys very much. I was unable to back up so I hope I don’t lose anything. I can’t wait to see you again. Sooner than later.
What? says: That is your offline solution? That is not acceptable, we want our notes to be stored locally, period. Not everyone has internet accesses all the time, and a good amount of us rely on the reminders and notes we set. This isn’t some game where we can do without for a bit. This is an important service that needs to be available no matter what, not just when we can connect to your cloud. If this is not blatantly obvious to you, then I don’t know what dysfunction you have. If you do not implement REAL offline support soon, I know I am not just speaking for myself when I say, you have lost a user.
Debbi says: First, I would like to say that I really appreciate that you guys are doing everything you can to facilitate the repairs needed, and to insure that this won’t happen again in the future. I also appreciate that you understand our frustration. However, I don’t believe this could have happened at a worse time for us, your users. I have several recipes stored in my springpad that I need for the Easter dinner I will be helping to prepare for Sunday, as well as one recipe I need for today. Do I understand that at this time there is no way to access my data? Is there any kind of a timeline estimate for when the site will be back up and running? I know there is no way of truly knowing when something will be fixed, is it close or nowhere near? While I totally understand that this was out of everyone’s control, I am really starting to panic about being able to access my data in time.
Thank you for your assistance! Have a great day!
Debbi
budly says: Any chance we can get an email when you’re back up, please?
R Audibert says: I’m never very interested in blame — unproductive at best and destructive at worst. But there’s no way I can ever trust my information this way again. The inability to use my information yesterday will not happen to me again. There are apparently higher reliability solutions over which I have more control.
David says: Will backup as soon as you get you site back up.. Love Springpadit!!!!!!!
André aramis254 says: Thank you for your explanations.
I see you do your best to keep us informed.
Its a good idea to have offline access with Google Chrome. Can be a first step. But i agree that it will not enough for some people. In the company i worked before, the Enduser coud not decide himself to use Google Chrome or even Firefox, because the administrators used dogmatically the Internet Explorer shit from Microsoft. The best way is to have a locally stored database which is updated by every internet connection.
Anyway, i am impatient to see my Springpad back… I got addicted … ehheheh
Thank you, friends !
Andre
Dan says: I had just committed my tasks, notes and actions to Springpad as the most efficient method to organize my day and week. Having a service unavailable for more than 4 hours is not an acceptable solution. I will seek an alternative.
Hey guys, its really a warm feeling to see the way you have been communicating with your users all over in full length and breadth.And I loved the way you have written this whole blog post. I think this whole Amazon cloud thing will make a very interesting case study. Wish you good luck guys.
Congratulations on the offline message. It was very informative. I’ve Computer Technical Support for over 15 years and have never see a better Outage message. I wish other websites would as much information about what is happening about a specific website…instead of leaving a unhappy face saying our site is down, please check again. Speaking a customer and technician…all we want from out those people responsible is just honest, open and timely communication about what is happening.
Thank You for your time and keep up the good work.
David says: Coming at a time when I was just starting to use Springpad seriously as part of my productivity system, the inability to recover the data – and the lack of reliable offline storage, even without updates – is most likely a killer. While the amount of communication is great, the incident makes SP look small and shaky.
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David: Offline access is the best, and probably the only way to shield yourself from outages. Cloud services will have outages inevitably. We are going to do our best to re-architect in a way that minimizes the effect, but the closer the data is to you, the less chance you will be affected by the many many layers in between you and us. That is one of the reasons we are putting a lot of focus on Web SQL.
Brad says: First.
Thanks for a great product. I am not sure where your revenue comes from since my access has been completely gratis, but for what I’m paying, I’m getting more than I bargained for.
Second.
For your detractors, I’m sorry. You’re probably not paying to use the service, so have a little courtesy and keep your over-the-top complaints to yourselves.
Jeff says: I have stored an important note and now I am unable to retrieve it. A terrible day for me.
Bryan Chance says: Appreciate the update and keeping us users informed.
I am a system administrator and I can understand issues like this. You guys have a great product and i will continue to use and support it.
wes says: I foolishly relied on Springpad to access emergency/backup data. Won’t happen again.
tim morrison says: Thanks for the insightful note.
BUT:
WARNING Springpad!!!
ONE knock only in the School of hard knocks when managing personal Data!
Most reasonable users are going
to ride this one out.
BUT…if it’s not evident that offline locally stored data options aren’t immediately in the oven, your gonna see a flood of walkers.
This from a major Springpad supporter since day1 of its inception.
Tim
Chicago,Il
(Oh, and noteboooks within notebooks also!)
Bob says: I started using springpad to keep my work tasks. I have all my work that needs to be done for next week saved on the tasks portion. If possible. Please retrieve these tasks and email them to me.
I appreciate Springpad and am a bit surprised at the lack of gratitude expressed by those who hold Springpad staff responsible for an event that is beyond their control. This is not an earthquake, tsunami, or flood.
Dan Kozlowski says: I understand your frustration with Springpad being down, but
remember the service is free. I am willing to pay for their service
with a uptime SLA and addtional private shares that I can
control who has access.
Andrea says: Thanks for the detailed and honest update. You can’t always prevent mishaps but it’s how you handle them that matters.
Guy says: Hmmm, its a massive inconvenience not being able to access my data, but I appreciate the information you have posted.
Them’s the breaks…..as said by some famous hop hop star!
I also agree with one of the posts above regarding other peoples posts, you are not paying for this service so the over the top complaints and threats of not using are a bit out of order.
If SP creates a better and more secure product off the back of this balls up then Ill be happy.
Matt says: I am really missing my springpad. I keep multiple shopping lists on it and after having to go from my own memory today at the market- well- I am sure some things didn’t bought. Also went to add a movie recommendation… oppps springpad was down.
Ok- I am not gonig to bitch and whine but I have come to realize how much I rely on your handy app on my droid.
I am hoping this doesn’t happen again… and I am realizing how vulnerable my important data is. How being without it for 2 plus days…
Perhaps I should be looking at a “non-cloud” application????
Tiffany says: Thanks for keeping us informed. I work for a very large organization who has felt the effect of this outage on our own website, so I know that this issue is completely beyond your control right now.
I love your service, and realize when I signed up to store my information in the “cloud” that the possibility of a situation like this was a risk I was taking. Not sure why so many other people don’t feel the same way.
Looking forward to the site returning so I can continue happily using it
Colin says: Why can’t I just bring up simple lists from Springpad on my Nexus S without an Internet connection? I can see not being able to search or share, but simple text? Really? This down time incident highlights a major weakness with Springpad. It’s a good lesson for me about the shortcomings of Cloud technology as well. Does anyone know which note taking app saves on your phone?
Pete Paxton says: This is exactly why I use Springpad over other competitors. I still have my data on my ipad and iphone and can add new stuff when I need to. Once the service is up again I’ll just sync. I love that Springpad allows me to access all of my data via mobile devices. Hang in there everybody.
Derek Hollier-Day says: My poor Springpad, what are Amazon doing to you? ;-;
Stiil thanks for keeping us in the loop awesome developer type people.
Sandi says: Thank you for keeping us informed, and for the steady stream of Twitter updates during all of this. It is really appreciated.
Catherine says: Thanks for the updates. Please, the offline solution needs to include Firefox 4 soon.
I have to 2nd the comment about only 1 lesson in the school of hard knocks or there will be a lot of walkers. I moved to Springpad because I experienced data loss on 2 devices locally at almost the same time, so I thought the data would be safer in the cloud. Ha, ha. Now I’m looking for local + cloud. At least I have more control with local.
You have a great product and I like free but free is a high price to pay for disruption!
judy says: Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
there is one more mishap though that occurred for us that wasn’t addressed. For many of us the application locked us out of even using our information off line. We didn’t sign out we were” signed out” when we tried to sync data. Had I been able to use my information anyway off line it would have made this catastrophe a moot point. There would have been no stress whatsoever in that scenario.
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Judy: Agreed. We realized that when the Android app syncs and receives an error, it was asking the user if they wanted to logout, which is silly. Logging out removes your local data. We are releasing an Android build early next week that removes that dialog. (I assume you were on Android?)
shit happens. this downtime has verified for me how much i love springpad. i know that you’ll survive this and emerge stronger for it.
Val says: It is unacceptable not having an offline copy of the data, and not being able to access it offline. This is a weak data architecture.
I appreciate the fact that is backed up online, but not having it offline is not ok.
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Val: Agreed. That is why we have been putting a lot of focus on Web SQL, in addition to iPad, iPhone, Android.
Mike says: Great communication! Keep up the good work and thanks for all of your efforts. We love you guys!
Zachary says: Those of you who are throwing a tantrum about not being able to access your data should ask for your money back – oh, wait…
Amy says: Looking forward to having offline access beyond on it being on my android. Please look into having offline access for firefox too. (I couldn’t stand chrome.)
Jacco says: I migrated from Evernote, which has an offline browser-independent application. What are your plans to do the same? Why is Firefox not supported in your coming offline solution?
peter says: makes you realise what a great little service it is when it’s not available, eh!
I think you guys (Springpad/Spring Partners) are doing a great job of keeping people informed and doing your best to solve this problem, both immediately as well as for the future. Could this have been foreseen? Possibly. Regardless, how you handle things when they do “blow up” is what matters most.
Sadly there will always be users that whine, moan, etc. when they have no right to. As a free service, I don’t think anyone has the right to complain that there are glitches. Instead of placing blame on Springpad, et al, they should be pointing a finger at themselves for not assuming responsibility for their data. I know that backing up my data is my responsibility. In fact, if a service doesn’t provide the ability to backup my data, I don’t use it. As a matter of fact, I am currently a user and huge fan of Evernote, one of your competitors; they have numerous offline solutions for both desktop and mobile computers, and I also backup my Evernote data to my own cloud storage solution.
As soon as Springpad is as good a tool as Evernote, I may switch. I use Springpad on my Motorola Droid and Xoom, and have installed the Chrome extension on my desktop. I keep tabs on your product and continue to look forward to improvements. Growth only comes when opposition is present; it will either kill you off or make you stronger, and I think the latter will be the case here.
I hope Amazon gets their shit together soon and allows you to have the great weekend you should be able to look forward to!
lee martini says: I will no longer use your springad program. I need access to some of my notes now I thought they were saved to my device not a 3rd party server.
I started to comment in order to say the same thing as Judy. In my case, I was actually showing a fellow Droid user how great springpad is, but when I attempted to open the app it logged me out/I was not logged in as usual.
I don’t rely on springpad too heavily yet, but it is frustrating to be unable to access my notes.
Thank you for posting this update. It is easy to empathise knowing what is going on. Best of luck getting everything back up and running!
Thanks for the clear communication. I appreciate you guys and the service you offer, and will be excited to have it back soon.
- A Big SpringPad Fan
I had a job interview yesterday and springpad went out on me!!!
I was using springpad to get all my job notes in order, review possible questions, etc. this outage hit me at the wrong time.
Anyways, the interview went well afterall.
Lesson learned: Back up notes on traditional pen/notebook.
I will patiently wait for the system to get back up.
Amanda says: OH! I hope it comes back online verrrryyy soon! I have my billing info in a note on here, and I have a bill to pay by tomorrow.. whoops.
-bummer.
Jason says: I too want to emphasize that “BEGGARS CAN’T BE CHOOSERS”. Springpad is FREE. People who expect handouts and then expect them to be perfect have little TOLERANCE for the real world.
Thanks Springpad for the excellent tool and I look forward to the future improvements.
A word to the wise, if your data is that critical, PAY for a more secure application, like a STICKY NOTE!
Felicia says: All I gotta say is Thank you!
It sucks (thankfully it’s a holiday weekend so I don’t have to rely so much on this), but as someone who is also part of the startup community, I appreciate how you guys are handling it. We’re all in it together to build good, scalable products that work and help us in our day-to-day lives, and as a country we desperately need that more of that problem-solving talent and innovative thinking to get us above and beyond to make it seamlessly integrate. Everyone please remember the internet in general is still an infant compared to the other technologies we are used to and take for granted – let alone cloud-based systems – we ARE going to face trials and errors. (even if the news of Michael Jackson’s death could crash Facebook!)
The great part about the cloud is that so far – data is retrievable and in a RELATIVELY short amount of time. Just look at what happened with all the people (.002%?) who had lost access to GMail the other month – I believe everyone got everything back and within 24 hours. Much better than my external hard drive that crashed and burned and has been taking several months to be rebuilt piece by piece, with no guarantee (unless I had serious money to drop).
For the people who are really complaining – this is a free service offered to you and the process of finding investment funding is no joke. not to mention that this is affecting so many other services, give these guys a break!
By the way my Springpad alarms are working! There is hope.
xo – felicia!
RichardHusf says: Like Judy, I was also forcefully signed out of Springpad on my phone. No access. I’m not going to claim that I’ll jump ship, but I do miss my notes, lists, tasks, and events. Fortunately, I only use for personal use, so it’s only my personal life productivity that has suffered. But this is still an inconvenience.
I will say I’m certainly looking forward to the planned offline access feature after this! Hurry up and get it together, Amazon!
Marcy says: First, thank you. I’m an ex-Palm user with an Android, and Springpad’s the best replacement app I’ve found so far for my Palm tasks and notes.
That said, I agree with the comment directly above mine, with one difference — I did sign out, but it was only at the advice of your error message popup. And yes, if I hadn‘t signed out and still had access to my information, this would be much less stressful. Oh well. I understand that programming interpretation of various events so the perfect error message pops up is kind of impossible. Kinda sucks, though. And if I hadn‘t logged off, how long would it have been until I was automatically logged off, as the user above? Normally I‘ve been very impressed with your syncing (I tried Evernote before Springpad, but had issues with their desktop syncing, which is why I left), but this almost makes me wish for the good ol‘ Palm days, when I had control over when my devices synced. (Also very useful when you delete something by accident or make some other kind of mistake — you just check your other device before syncing.) Meh.
And THAT said, I understand this is a very unusual situation, one that not only are you working to avoid happening again in the future, but one that Amazon will be working very hard to avoid as well. Thanks for the free service!
RichardHusf says: Also… I second what budly said. Please email us when you’re back up so I don’t have to keep checking back every hour or two.
Mark says: Gratitude? We should be grateful to Springpad? Are you guys serious? I’m a little shocked at some of these comments (both here and in the Problem thread). Some of you are saying that because Springpad is free we really don’t have room to complain. And others are basically saying it’s your own damn fault for trusting the cloud in general, and Springpad in particular, with important information. That’s wrong on both counts. The world is changing, people (maybe it is more correct to say “has changed”). The cloud has become an important part of the way we work and live, deeply integrated into our workflows and social relationships. It is of course vital to have backups of our important information (backup your harddrive, backup your music, and your medical records, etc etc etc). But it doesn’t follows that it’s *your fault* that you trusted Springpad. The cloud has become such an important part of many of our lives that it’s hard *not* to trust it to *some* extent. If a person gets beat up for wearing a Giants jersey at a Dodgers game, is it his fault, since he knew there was a risk?
Google is free. What happens if they go down and you can’t access your email, your docs, your calendar, or internet searches? I guess that was just your fault for trusting them. Google’s free, right? No room to complain. We should be grateful that they offer such a nice service, and just shut our yaps. That would be ridiculous! The same thing can apply to Springpad–just because a service is free it does *not* imply that we cannot have certain expectations from that service. “Free” is not the same as “out of the goodness of their hearts.”
Now, having said all of that. I am a fairly new user to Springpad. I am eagerly awaiting its return, but I don’t have anything really valuable committed to it. I think it’s great, and I love how responsive they are to our suggestions and concerns. If we have to start paying for the service, I’m walking. But if it’s free, I’ll continue to use it, and tell others about it.
By the way, I like the above suggestion for notebooks within notebooks. (I would also like to see font options, and options when viewing a list of notes [to contain more info, like dates, and a snippet of the note's text].) But above all: I think we should be able to view and create notes, *both* on our phones and on our computers, *without* having to sign into the cloud. Why do we need to sign in to create or view data? That seems crazy to me. Signing in should only be necessary for syncing. Or am I missing something?
Nancy says: Thanks for the timely updates. I understand the issues, but I have to say I went back to Evernote simply because they have desktop clients. My mac client is so much easier to use and SP seems to be too new at this point. I will continue to watch SP as it grows and maybe come back when there is a desktop client. Not feeling too good about all server location now. At first, I thought it was great, but the more time goes on with other cloud based services, I wonder if we all really know what we are getting into. Some days, I think we were better off with a nice cable plugged into our devices syncing stuff to our computers. Thanks again and good luck. I am sure you guys will get the bugs worked out in time, but for now EN has to be my mainstay.
peter733 says: look forward to better data availability online and offline
and please allow dark/black background with white foreground (text)
John says: Thank you for the updates. It is of course clear that the current outage was neither your fault nor in your capacity to fast track a solution to. I do however hope that you can be more specific (if Amazon can be, that is) in what “very lengthy” means… days? weeks? etc.
I am glad that something constructive will come off this episode in perhaps fast tracking offline features, which I had even before the outage felt were not quite good as the alternatives (Eg: EverNote). However, I somehow enjoyed SpringPad better due to its better webapp and its better sense in aesthetics (important to me). I certainly would like to see more complete offline access, which should include offline search. With the Outage, while I am fortunate to have the date offline in my PDA, I have no search. Given my relatively lower volume invested in the app as of now, I can get by without it for now, but can see how annoying it must be for those who are using the app more extensively.
All in all, this otherwise satisfied “free” user can only understand and eagerly await SpringPad’s return.
bct737 says: The cloud made Springpad possible in the first place, so we can’t be too upset. This is just one of the risks. Glad to hear Springpad got the message that offline access is not just a luxury, but is a critical safety net. Springpad (and cloud services in general) will be better after having this wake-up call.
Also, I had the same trouble as Judy–I was signed out by Springpad when I opened the app on my Droid Incredible because it automatically tried to sync, and thus I couldn’t use my information offline. I suppose if I had turned off 3g/WiFi it wouldn’t have done that and I would have stayed in, but I didn’t know about the outage until I opened the app and it logged me out and wouldn’t let me log back in. I think currently you’d have to (a) keep your phone offline to prevent Springpad from trying to sync and (b) know that there was an outage and that you should do (a). So this “offline access” solution for mobile probably needs to be rethought.
Mike Hintenach says: I just started using Springpad and haven’t stored anything critical in it for just this reason. If there was a way to backup I didn’t find it in the few weeks I have been using it. So I am actually glad this happened as I was going to suggest adding the ability to take a backup locally. Previously being a developer and now in IT management I see this capability as critical. This is a very good case study for companies relying on the Cloud. I would stress to any user/business that not having a local backup of data and services is very risky regardless of the perceived redundancy/reliablility.
Whadayagonnado says: Oh well s h 1 t happens on the Internet. Just proves the cloud s u c k s the same as local servers and local hard drives.
Thank God the airlines don’t crash as much as the typical software, servers, drives and tech support in the geek world.
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Whadayagonnado: I think there are a few points. In reality most of the web services I use, including Springpad, have very good uptime. The technology available today to enable “Web 2.0″ companies to build redundant systems is pretty amazing. It is the sort of technology that used to only be available for very big $$, to companies like the airlines as you say. That is why you see so many interesting new businesses in this space now.
Small companies definitely do struggle with the balance of adding features, keeping users happy, planning for failures, scaling, adding iPhone, Android, iPad clients. There is a lot to do with little time.
With that in mind, many startups including ours, put some faith into the bigger guys (Amazon) to help us along. As we grow though, we have to reevaluate our options and see what it will take to scale up to the next level.
Charles says: Offline access isn’t working on my Android. Even if still logged in.
Are there any instructions for getting at the cache on my Android phone? I’d like to be able to access the data on my PC.
Alan says: I also was kicked out on my droid I phone. So I do not understand your comment about the ability to continue using on your phone when the server is down.
judy says: To Jason:
If you are an “Evernote devotee” which is probably the smartest thing you’ve done anyway,why on earth are you taking time out of your busy day to read these posts and cast stones at us poor schmucks who thought we could depend on this service to do what they said they would. And where is it written that because a service is free that it is ok for that service to malfunction and leave users hanging. No one at spring pad said-hey wait, we are a free service so don’t trust us with sensitive data, even though we say it’s safe and you even have it off line. Since we are a free service, you may ultimately lose all of your Data and not have it off line when you need it! But at least it didn’t cost you anything!
Michael says: I fins it very odd and disturbing I must login to the web to access the app and data that is? on my phone.
spring pad is a great tool but free???? come on people! they make money knowing everything about you. to say this is a free app is lame.
Tim says: Sure our data is safe but wtf. Isn’t the idea of cloud access include redundancy – access data independent of any one physical site status.
ramirezg says: man this sucks. i can’t even log on to my android springpad app to jot down notes or anything. This really bytes. i was just getting so used of springpad.
Zachary says: Looks like it’s back up for me.
Trying to work says: To those of you “defending” Springpad by saying that because it’s free no one should have trusted it in the first place, and therefore has no reason to complain–
–um, I think that Springpad would much rather have people use it and complain than to refuse to use it and not complain. Just sayin’.
Also, there IS NO paid option. Nor, to my knowledge, is there a paid equivalent, other than perhaps Evernote, which I use for other things. Since your comments are neither helpful to the people you are responding to nor to Springpad, why are you bothering? And how is your complaining about the complaining any less obnoxious than the complaining about the service outage? You’re not paying to read the complaints. They are free. Therefore by your own logic, you have no basis to complain.
I would like to hear a response to the complaints about the Android app logging people out and preventing them from accessing their locally stored data.
Brook says: While it stinks that there’s an outage, I appreciate the company being so upfront and thorough in their explanation of the problem. I believe these problems happen to everybody at one time or another, but it’s how the company handles the problem that determines whether or not I continue using the service. In my opinion, SpringPad has handled it very well so far.
Trying to work says: Yay! It’s back! (Still interested in hearing the Android-logging-people-out issue addressed).
Nancy says: @Springpad FYI: BTW, I can still see all my stuff on both my Sprint EVO and Galaxy Tab. I do not have problems others are reporting on Android offline. It is working for me on those two devices. I tap the widget, the error comes up asking for sync. I dismiss it. Go to My Stuff and everything is there. Sounds like some devices are still working signed in while others do not for some reason.
Nancy says: Ah I see, maybe that is because it is back. Thanks for clarifying Trying to work.
judy says: Its back!
quick-how do I back it up again??
To anyone whining about this – I don’t know what kind of social feedback system you have, but let me help you with something you are obviously blind to: you’re ungrateful. Just because so-called “cloud services” are becoming more ubiquitous doesn’t mean you have some inherent right to expect them to work 24/7 for free; unless you are paying for the service and have an SLA with the company providing it, you have no claim. Seriously, do you know how annoying you sound? Maybe your parents did everything for you, but responsible people realize that yes, if GMail goes down, they can’t justifiably whine about it. And yes, if Springpad doesn’t offer a way for you to backup your data, maybe you shouldn’t use it until they do. This attitude is one of the reasons our country is going down the tubes – so many think that they are owed something for nothing. This sense of entitlement is sickening when you think about the poverty and hunger many in this world experience.
I think the fact that someone said “if we have to start paying for the service, I’m walking” proves just how ignorant many people are about business. The internet does not run for free – everything costs money, and unless you are paying for something, nothing is owed to you. Get over yourself.
EddieMacc says: It could be worse!!!
At least the Springpadit people are communicating with it’s customers. A lot of other businesses would not do that.
Trying to work says: Jason — Like I said, I think they would rather have people use it, rather than say “well it’s free, so I have no right to trust it or expect it to work, so I’d better not use it” (which is what follows logically from your argument). Do you have any idea how annoying YOU sound?
.
To the Springpad team — thank you very much for all the timely updates! Glad the service is back up and running, and I’m glad to hear about the steps you’re taking to keep things more stable in the future. (I started using Springpad regularly once you added the Export/Backup option, since that was critical for me ).
Hey guys – Springad is back up! You can access your account at Springpadit.com or by logging in from one of the mobile apps.
Thanks for all of your patience over the past two days.
We will respond to all of the concerns expressed in the comments soon!
Trying to work says: Please note the “Jason” in my comment above is directed to the one who wrote the “To anyone whining about this” comment.
No complaints about the “Jason” who wrote the blog entry– quite the contrary, I’m very glad for all the updates on status and the news about the future steps they are taking.
I consider the ability to back up my data (myself) essential, and I put off starting to use Springpad until that feature was announced, but the current way of making backups is barely helpful (for working around outages, or otherwise) at best. I shouldn’t have to go through the website, click on a button, and wait until you send me an email; instead, like Delicious, there should be a URL that I can download at any time (though limits on how *often* I use it are fair enough), so I can *automate* these backups.
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Jonathon: That is reasonable. Behind the scenes are we just hitting an api that you could hit yourself. We could expose that api in the future. I will add it to the list of requests. You also are free to just use the api anyway you like.
Trying to work says: @Judy asked “quick-how do I back it up again??”
.
Judy — from your Home page on Springpad, go to “Settings”. Choose “Services” on the side-bar. Then look down near the bottom where it says “backup”
Judy B says: Thank you, thank you, thank you…for all your hard work and for keeping us informed. I’m checking on “backup” right now!
Michael says: Hey Guys,
Just wanted to cheer you up once again – these things happen and I am sure people understand that you’ll do your best to prevent it from happening again.
And as Friedrich Nietzsche said -
“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”
I am sure this will be applied in your case!
So – good luck!
Michael
judy says: Thank you to “trying to work” for your instructions re back up-and also for your comment to jason of you are whiners fame. His comments were very angry and aimless.
Mark says: @Trying to Work: I agree with you. Correct.
@Jason Bunting: your comments are obviously directed at me. Do you know how annoying *YOU* sound? Mercy mercy mercy. Come down from your high horse, Your Majesty. I’m not upset at Springpad in the least. I personally don’t even use social networks (like Facebook), nor do I really use the cloud for any sensitive storage (dropbox and gmail only). So I was *not* “whining” (as you say) about Springpad going down. I was griping about posters like *you*.
Comments like yours are silly. It simply doesn’t follow that if X is free, then we do not have a claim against X, and we must not have any expectations of X. You need to think about this. Heck, friendship is not something you pay for–and of course there are expectations involved! Is Springpad a charity? And even if a charitable organization promises to do something, and they don’t live up to it (like delivering food or medicine, or materials to build houses, etc), we might still have a right to complain about it. And Springpad gets something out of offering a free service. We are entitled–yes, entitled–to have certain expectations with respect to that service. This has *nothing* to do with a sense of entitlement; it’s capitalism. If your only point were “we should be careful, since things can go wrong,” then I would have no problem. But implicit in what you are saying is that people are idiots for trusting Springpad (and other cloud-based service providers), and that one can *never* expect anything from a free service. And that is pure hogwash.
Mark, I for one do not want to be included in your “we” comments. I appreciate the Springpad program and the efforts of the staff to refine it. I am amazed when any technology keeps working as it is intended. While it was an inconvenience to be with out sp for a while, it was minor compared to real life tragedies. Your comments that are beyond constructive criticsm are “annoying”. I have found the sp staff to be amazingingly responseive from the beginning.
Mark says: Bob, I actually agree with everything you just said. Except of course the part where you say my comments are annoying.:-)
Jabbo126 says: HALLELUJAH! Thanx! It’s great that i can acess my stuff and all!
Bob says: Mark, not all your remarks were annoying to me. Just the ones that are not constructive. Annoying is in the eye of the beholder. I am done commenting on this.
Judy B says: Well, I can open Springpadit.com and see All My Stuff, but I am unable to spring anything from my Google Chrome bar. When I click on the SpringPad icon the window just continues to try to open… Is anyone else having this problem?
Alysson says: yay! all is good on my end. access to all my notes, don’t seem to have lost anything & backed up.
judy says: To jhorman:
judy here..
Yes indeedy! I do use android! Thank you so much for your feedback re fixing the glitch that knocked us offline.
I seem to have recovered all of my data-thank god. But I am still going to find ways to back everything upA
chad says: Can I get my info before the server went down if so how?
Jeremy says: Thanks for updating us on this stuff, folks. I think we all expected AWS to be just about the most reliable thing in the universe – it’s the responsible thing to do, right?!
We don’t blame you, and you’re still awesome.
PS You could be even more awesome if you’d convince Cameron of http://www.gqueues.com to give you an API of some sort… (My other ‘can’t do without’ web service.)
Ramsey says: To Springpad management, pls do not be so apologetic to us users, problems happen and it’s not your fault; no need to apologize profusely like you did. Last week the elevator in my building was out of service, I live on the 7th floor and myself and my (pregnant) wife climbed 7 floors several times in 2 days, but since we did not have anyone to bitch at, we just took as it is, and got some exercise that we both need. Consumers have become such whiners it’s incredible how much pampering they expect nowadays. Granted there must be some users that were somehow negatively affected by the outage, the fact remains that the service is great and it’s not your mistake, just state the facts no need apologize. Many people around the world go without food or electricity for days, Springpad users can compare that with their troubles with this outage to get some sort of a perspective.
One suggestion if I may, while I’m at it, pls introduce more “business-like” themes and make the notebooks sortable and position-editable. Thanks
Lawrence says: I was initially able to access my notes in Springpad even though the servers were down. But Springpad tried to sync online and that’s when I got the error message and I couldn’t access Springpad in offline mode, ie couldn’t open all my notes without having to login to Springpad first, and since the servers are down, I couldn’t access my notes remotely offline.
Maybe Springpad could be updated to save its data on my SD card, AND allow its data to be accessed without the need to login online. Just a password to access my data on the SD card and make updates and changes to it without the need for an internet connection would be great.
maura says: I am a new Iphone user, downloaded your app last Thursday and keep getting, as of just now, “there is a problem communicating with the server error message” so not sure what you mean when you say you are back up and running? I paid for the app and have not been able to use. Please advise.
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Maura – Can you please confirm that you are able to log in at Springpadit.com with your username/password? Also, be sure that your timezone is set properly on your account at Springpadit.com (under Settings) & that your iPhone is also displaying the correct time (we use a time check to confirm login/sync). If you are still having issues, please send us your username at feedback@springpartners.com
Trying to work says: @Lawrence — look a few posts back, on the previous page. They’re releasing a new version of the Android app to prevent people from getting locked out when a synch fails =^).
Alex says: Thanks a lot for your great and open information policy!!
[...] give it credit, the company was very careful to keep in touch with its users during the downtime, tell them exactly what happened, explain how to back up their data, and [...]
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HTML5 Localstorage for Chrome, but not firefox?
Gabbsmo (others): It turns out that Chrome supports Web SQL, but Firefox does not. There are 2 competing offline standards for browsers, Web SQL, and Indexed DB. Indexed DB is what Firefox is planning to support. Web SQL is a much better, and faster to develop fit for us b/c we already have most of the code written for Android. Android and Web SQL both use SQLite.
I hope that Springpad will be online again very soon. Missing you very much!
Best regards, libelcom
Thanks for the update. My main concern was what Springpad would do to avoid this from happening in the future, and you addressed that. I was also wondering why Springpad hadn’t relaunched in another zone, as recommended by Amazon, but I didn’t realize it was a lengthy process.
I know Springpad is a small company, and Amazon seemed completely unprepared for this themselves, so I don’t think anyone is blaming you guys for this. I appreciate, as I’m sure many others do as well, your transparency in sharing information and updates.
Hope EC2 comes up soon! Going on 30 hours now. Pretty incredible.
Hey Guys,
don’t worry and stay tuned! I know it’s annoying but it isn’t killing myself
Keep going and hum the Bob the Builder song
Can we fix it? Yes we can!
BTW: Is there a desktop app planed with offline access??
Springpad finally turned my iPad into a useful business tool instead of just a toy for games and buying things. looking forward to having it back.
Excellent communication. You’re awesome. Thank you!
A big thumbs up for you Springpad and i also hope my precious data are still there somewhere …
I use Springpad everyday, so I miss you guys very much. I was unable to back up so I hope I don’t lose anything. I can’t wait to see you again. Sooner than later.
That is your offline solution? That is not acceptable, we want our notes to be stored locally, period. Not everyone has internet accesses all the time, and a good amount of us rely on the reminders and notes we set. This isn’t some game where we can do without for a bit. This is an important service that needs to be available no matter what, not just when we can connect to your cloud. If this is not blatantly obvious to you, then I don’t know what dysfunction you have. If you do not implement REAL offline support soon, I know I am not just speaking for myself when I say, you have lost a user.
First, I would like to say that I really appreciate that you guys are doing everything you can to facilitate the repairs needed, and to insure that this won’t happen again in the future. I also appreciate that you understand our frustration. However, I don’t believe this could have happened at a worse time for us, your users. I have several recipes stored in my springpad that I need for the Easter dinner I will be helping to prepare for Sunday, as well as one recipe I need for today. Do I understand that at this time there is no way to access my data? Is there any kind of a timeline estimate for when the site will be back up and running? I know there is no way of truly knowing when something will be fixed, is it close or nowhere near? While I totally understand that this was out of everyone’s control, I am really starting to panic about being able to access my data in time.
Thank you for your assistance! Have a great day!
Debbi
Any chance we can get an email when you’re back up, please?
I’m never very interested in blame — unproductive at best and destructive at worst. But there’s no way I can ever trust my information this way again. The inability to use my information yesterday will not happen to me again. There are apparently higher reliability solutions over which I have more control.
Will backup as soon as you get you site back up.. Love Springpadit!!!!!!!
Thank you for your explanations.
I see you do your best to keep us informed.
Its a good idea to have offline access with Google Chrome. Can be a first step. But i agree that it will not enough for some people. In the company i worked before, the Enduser coud not decide himself to use Google Chrome or even Firefox, because the administrators used dogmatically the Internet Explorer shit from Microsoft. The best way is to have a locally stored database which is updated by every internet connection.
Anyway, i am impatient to see my Springpad back… I got addicted … ehheheh
Thank you, friends !
Andre
Thanks for the information?
I had just committed my tasks, notes and actions to Springpad as the most efficient method to organize my day and week. Having a service unavailable for more than 4 hours is not an acceptable solution. I will seek an alternative.
Hey guys, its really a warm feeling to see the way you have been communicating with your users all over in full length and breadth.And I loved the way you have written this whole blog post. I think this whole Amazon cloud thing will make a very interesting case study. Wish you good luck guys.
Congratulations on the offline message. It was very informative. I’ve Computer Technical Support for over 15 years and have never see a better Outage message. I wish other websites would as much information about what is happening about a specific website…instead of leaving a unhappy face saying our site is down, please check again. Speaking a customer and technician…all we want from out those people responsible is just honest, open and timely communication about what is happening.
Thank You for your time and keep up the good work.
Coming at a time when I was just starting to use Springpad seriously as part of my productivity system, the inability to recover the data – and the lack of reliable offline storage, even without updates – is most likely a killer. While the amount of communication is great, the incident makes SP look small and shaky.
David: Offline access is the best, and probably the only way to shield yourself from outages. Cloud services will have outages inevitably. We are going to do our best to re-architect in a way that minimizes the effect, but the closer the data is to you, the less chance you will be affected by the many many layers in between you and us. That is one of the reasons we are putting a lot of focus on Web SQL.
First.
Thanks for a great product. I am not sure where your revenue comes from since my access has been completely gratis, but for what I’m paying, I’m getting more than I bargained for.
Second.
For your detractors, I’m sorry. You’re probably not paying to use the service, so have a little courtesy and keep your over-the-top complaints to yourselves.
I have stored an important note and now I am unable to retrieve it. A terrible day for me.
Appreciate the update and keeping us users informed.
I am a system administrator and I can understand issues like this. You guys have a great product and i will continue to use and support it.
I foolishly relied on Springpad to access emergency/backup data. Won’t happen again.
Thanks for the insightful note.
BUT:
WARNING Springpad!!!
ONE knock only in the School of hard knocks when managing personal Data!
Most reasonable users are going
to ride this one out.
BUT…if it’s not evident that offline locally stored data options aren’t immediately in the oven, your gonna see a flood of walkers.
This from a major Springpad supporter since day1 of its inception.
Tim
Chicago,Il
(Oh, and noteboooks within notebooks also!)
I started using springpad to keep my work tasks. I have all my work that needs to be done for next week saved on the tasks portion. If possible. Please retrieve these tasks and email them to me.
I appreciate Springpad and am a bit surprised at the lack of gratitude expressed by those who hold Springpad staff responsible for an event that is beyond their control. This is not an earthquake, tsunami, or flood.
I understand your frustration with Springpad being down, but
remember the service is free. I am willing to pay for their service
with a uptime SLA and addtional private shares that I can
control who has access.
Thanks for the detailed and honest update. You can’t always prevent mishaps but it’s how you handle them that matters.
Hmmm, its a massive inconvenience not being able to access my data, but I appreciate the information you have posted.
Them’s the breaks…..as said by some famous hop hop star!
I also agree with one of the posts above regarding other peoples posts, you are not paying for this service so the over the top complaints and threats of not using are a bit out of order.
If SP creates a better and more secure product off the back of this balls up then Ill be happy.
I am really missing my springpad. I keep multiple shopping lists on it and after having to go from my own memory today at the market- well- I am sure some things didn’t bought. Also went to add a movie recommendation… oppps springpad was down.
Ok- I am not gonig to bitch and whine but I have come to realize how much I rely on your handy app on my droid.
I am hoping this doesn’t happen again… and I am realizing how vulnerable my important data is. How being without it for 2 plus days…
Perhaps I should be looking at a “non-cloud” application????
Thanks for keeping us informed. I work for a very large organization who has felt the effect of this outage on our own website, so I know that this issue is completely beyond your control right now.
I love your service, and realize when I signed up to store my information in the “cloud” that the possibility of a situation like this was a risk I was taking. Not sure why so many other people don’t feel the same way.
Looking forward to the site returning so I can continue happily using it
Why can’t I just bring up simple lists from Springpad on my Nexus S without an Internet connection? I can see not being able to search or share, but simple text? Really? This down time incident highlights a major weakness with Springpad. It’s a good lesson for me about the shortcomings of Cloud technology as well. Does anyone know which note taking app saves on your phone?
This is exactly why I use Springpad over other competitors. I still have my data on my ipad and iphone and can add new stuff when I need to. Once the service is up again I’ll just sync. I love that Springpad allows me to access all of my data via mobile devices. Hang in there everybody.
My poor Springpad, what are Amazon doing to you? ;-;
Stiil thanks for keeping us in the loop awesome developer type people.
Thank you for keeping us informed, and for the steady stream of Twitter updates during all of this. It is really appreciated.
Great communication & thank you for the detail. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the updates. Please, the offline solution needs to include Firefox 4 soon.
I have to 2nd the comment about only 1 lesson in the school of hard knocks or there will be a lot of walkers. I moved to Springpad because I experienced data loss on 2 devices locally at almost the same time, so I thought the data would be safer in the cloud. Ha, ha. Now I’m looking for local + cloud. At least I have more control with local.
You have a great product and I like free but free is a high price to pay for disruption!
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
there is one more mishap though that occurred for us that wasn’t addressed. For many of us the application locked us out of even using our information off line. We didn’t sign out we were” signed out” when we tried to sync data. Had I been able to use my information anyway off line it would have made this catastrophe a moot point. There would have been no stress whatsoever in that scenario.
Judy: Agreed. We realized that when the Android app syncs and receives an error, it was asking the user if they wanted to logout, which is silly. Logging out removes your local data. We are releasing an Android build early next week that removes that dialog. (I assume you were on Android?)
shit happens. this downtime has verified for me how much i love springpad. i know that you’ll survive this and emerge stronger for it.
It is unacceptable not having an offline copy of the data, and not being able to access it offline. This is a weak data architecture.
I appreciate the fact that is backed up online, but not having it offline is not ok.
Val: Agreed. That is why we have been putting a lot of focus on Web SQL, in addition to iPad, iPhone, Android.
Great communication! Keep up the good work and thanks for all of your efforts. We love you guys!
Those of you who are throwing a tantrum about not being able to access your data should ask for your money back – oh, wait…
Looking forward to having offline access beyond on it being on my android. Please look into having offline access for firefox too. (I couldn’t stand chrome.)
I migrated from Evernote, which has an offline browser-independent application. What are your plans to do the same? Why is Firefox not supported in your coming offline solution?
makes you realise what a great little service it is when it’s not available, eh!
I think you guys (Springpad/Spring Partners) are doing a great job of keeping people informed and doing your best to solve this problem, both immediately as well as for the future. Could this have been foreseen? Possibly. Regardless, how you handle things when they do “blow up” is what matters most.
Sadly there will always be users that whine, moan, etc. when they have no right to. As a free service, I don’t think anyone has the right to complain that there are glitches. Instead of placing blame on Springpad, et al, they should be pointing a finger at themselves for not assuming responsibility for their data. I know that backing up my data is my responsibility. In fact, if a service doesn’t provide the ability to backup my data, I don’t use it. As a matter of fact, I am currently a user and huge fan of Evernote, one of your competitors; they have numerous offline solutions for both desktop and mobile computers, and I also backup my Evernote data to my own cloud storage solution.
As soon as Springpad is as good a tool as Evernote, I may switch. I use Springpad on my Motorola Droid and Xoom, and have installed the Chrome extension on my desktop. I keep tabs on your product and continue to look forward to improvements. Growth only comes when opposition is present; it will either kill you off or make you stronger, and I think the latter will be the case here.
I hope Amazon gets their shit together soon and allows you to have the great weekend you should be able to look forward to!
I will no longer use your springad program. I need access to some of my notes now I thought they were saved to my device not a 3rd party server.
I started to comment in order to say the same thing as Judy. In my case, I was actually showing a fellow Droid user how great springpad is, but when I attempted to open the app it logged me out/I was not logged in as usual.
I don’t rely on springpad too heavily yet, but it is frustrating to be unable to access my notes.
Thank you for posting this update. It is easy to empathise knowing what is going on. Best of luck getting everything back up and running!
Thanks for the clear communication. I appreciate you guys and the service you offer, and will be excited to have it back soon.
- A Big SpringPad Fan
I had a job interview yesterday and springpad went out on me!!!
I was using springpad to get all my job notes in order, review possible questions, etc. this outage hit me at the wrong time.
Anyways, the interview went well afterall.
Lesson learned: Back up notes on traditional pen/notebook.
I will patiently wait for the system to get back up.
OH! I hope it comes back online verrrryyy soon! I have my billing info in a note on here, and I have a bill to pay by tomorrow.. whoops.
-bummer.
I too want to emphasize that “BEGGARS CAN’T BE CHOOSERS”. Springpad is FREE. People who expect handouts and then expect them to be perfect have little TOLERANCE for the real world.
Thanks Springpad for the excellent tool and I look forward to the future improvements.
A word to the wise, if your data is that critical, PAY for a more secure application, like a STICKY NOTE!
All I gotta say is Thank you!
It sucks (thankfully it’s a holiday weekend so I don’t have to rely so much on this), but as someone who is also part of the startup community, I appreciate how you guys are handling it. We’re all in it together to build good, scalable products that work and help us in our day-to-day lives, and as a country we desperately need that more of that problem-solving talent and innovative thinking to get us above and beyond to make it seamlessly integrate. Everyone please remember the internet in general is still an infant compared to the other technologies we are used to and take for granted – let alone cloud-based systems – we ARE going to face trials and errors. (even if the news of Michael Jackson’s death could crash Facebook!)
The great part about the cloud is that so far – data is retrievable and in a RELATIVELY short amount of time. Just look at what happened with all the people (.002%?) who had lost access to GMail the other month – I believe everyone got everything back and within 24 hours. Much better than my external hard drive that crashed and burned and has been taking several months to be rebuilt piece by piece, with no guarantee (unless I had serious money to drop).
For the people who are really complaining – this is a free service offered to you and the process of finding investment funding is no joke. not to mention that this is affecting so many other services, give these guys a break!
By the way my Springpad alarms are working! There is hope.
xo – felicia!
Like Judy, I was also forcefully signed out of Springpad on my phone. No access. I’m not going to claim that I’ll jump ship, but I do miss my notes, lists, tasks, and events. Fortunately, I only use for personal use, so it’s only my personal life productivity that has suffered. But this is still an inconvenience.
I will say I’m certainly looking forward to the planned offline access feature after this! Hurry up and get it together, Amazon!
First, thank you. I’m an ex-Palm user with an Android, and Springpad’s the best replacement app I’ve found so far for my Palm tasks and notes.
That said, I agree with the comment directly above mine, with one difference — I did sign out, but it was only at the advice of your error message popup. And yes, if I hadn‘t signed out and still had access to my information, this would be much less stressful. Oh well. I understand that programming interpretation of various events so the perfect error message pops up is kind of impossible. Kinda sucks, though. And if I hadn‘t logged off, how long would it have been until I was automatically logged off, as the user above? Normally I‘ve been very impressed with your syncing (I tried Evernote before Springpad, but had issues with their desktop syncing, which is why I left), but this almost makes me wish for the good ol‘ Palm days, when I had control over when my devices synced. (Also very useful when you delete something by accident or make some other kind of mistake — you just check your other device before syncing.) Meh.
And THAT said, I understand this is a very unusual situation, one that not only are you working to avoid happening again in the future, but one that Amazon will be working very hard to avoid as well. Thanks for the free service!
Also… I second what budly said. Please email us when you’re back up so I don’t have to keep checking back every hour or two.
Gratitude? We should be grateful to Springpad? Are you guys serious? I’m a little shocked at some of these comments (both here and in the Problem thread). Some of you are saying that because Springpad is free we really don’t have room to complain. And others are basically saying it’s your own damn fault for trusting the cloud in general, and Springpad in particular, with important information. That’s wrong on both counts. The world is changing, people (maybe it is more correct to say “has changed”). The cloud has become an important part of the way we work and live, deeply integrated into our workflows and social relationships. It is of course vital to have backups of our important information (backup your harddrive, backup your music, and your medical records, etc etc etc). But it doesn’t follows that it’s *your fault* that you trusted Springpad. The cloud has become such an important part of many of our lives that it’s hard *not* to trust it to *some* extent. If a person gets beat up for wearing a Giants jersey at a Dodgers game, is it his fault, since he knew there was a risk?
Google is free. What happens if they go down and you can’t access your email, your docs, your calendar, or internet searches? I guess that was just your fault for trusting them. Google’s free, right? No room to complain. We should be grateful that they offer such a nice service, and just shut our yaps. That would be ridiculous! The same thing can apply to Springpad–just because a service is free it does *not* imply that we cannot have certain expectations from that service. “Free” is not the same as “out of the goodness of their hearts.”
Now, having said all of that. I am a fairly new user to Springpad. I am eagerly awaiting its return, but I don’t have anything really valuable committed to it. I think it’s great, and I love how responsive they are to our suggestions and concerns. If we have to start paying for the service, I’m walking. But if it’s free, I’ll continue to use it, and tell others about it.
By the way, I like the above suggestion for notebooks within notebooks. (I would also like to see font options, and options when viewing a list of notes [to contain more info, like dates, and a snippet of the note's text].) But above all: I think we should be able to view and create notes, *both* on our phones and on our computers, *without* having to sign into the cloud. Why do we need to sign in to create or view data? That seems crazy to me. Signing in should only be necessary for syncing. Or am I missing something?
Thanks for the timely updates. I understand the issues, but I have to say I went back to Evernote simply because they have desktop clients. My mac client is so much easier to use and SP seems to be too new at this point. I will continue to watch SP as it grows and maybe come back when there is a desktop client. Not feeling too good about all server location now. At first, I thought it was great, but the more time goes on with other cloud based services, I wonder if we all really know what we are getting into. Some days, I think we were better off with a nice cable plugged into our devices syncing stuff to our computers. Thanks again and good luck. I am sure you guys will get the bugs worked out in time, but for now EN has to be my mainstay.
look forward to better data availability online and offline
and please allow dark/black background with white foreground (text)
Thank you for the updates. It is of course clear that the current outage was neither your fault nor in your capacity to fast track a solution to. I do however hope that you can be more specific (if Amazon can be, that is) in what “very lengthy” means… days? weeks? etc.
I am glad that something constructive will come off this episode in perhaps fast tracking offline features, which I had even before the outage felt were not quite good as the alternatives (Eg: EverNote). However, I somehow enjoyed SpringPad better due to its better webapp and its better sense in aesthetics (important to me). I certainly would like to see more complete offline access, which should include offline search. With the Outage, while I am fortunate to have the date offline in my PDA, I have no search. Given my relatively lower volume invested in the app as of now, I can get by without it for now, but can see how annoying it must be for those who are using the app more extensively.
All in all, this otherwise satisfied “free” user can only understand and eagerly await SpringPad’s return.
The cloud made Springpad possible in the first place, so we can’t be too upset. This is just one of the risks. Glad to hear Springpad got the message that offline access is not just a luxury, but is a critical safety net. Springpad (and cloud services in general) will be better after having this wake-up call.
Also, I had the same trouble as Judy–I was signed out by Springpad when I opened the app on my Droid Incredible because it automatically tried to sync, and thus I couldn’t use my information offline. I suppose if I had turned off 3g/WiFi it wouldn’t have done that and I would have stayed in, but I didn’t know about the outage until I opened the app and it logged me out and wouldn’t let me log back in. I think currently you’d have to (a) keep your phone offline to prevent Springpad from trying to sync and (b) know that there was an outage and that you should do (a). So this “offline access” solution for mobile probably needs to be rethought.
I just started using Springpad and haven’t stored anything critical in it for just this reason. If there was a way to backup I didn’t find it in the few weeks I have been using it. So I am actually glad this happened as I was going to suggest adding the ability to take a backup locally. Previously being a developer and now in IT management I see this capability as critical. This is a very good case study for companies relying on the Cloud. I would stress to any user/business that not having a local backup of data and services is very risky regardless of the perceived redundancy/reliablility.
Oh well s h 1 t happens on the Internet. Just proves the cloud s u c k s the same as local servers and local hard drives.
Thank God the airlines don’t crash as much as the typical software, servers, drives and tech support in the geek world.
Whadayagonnado: I think there are a few points. In reality most of the web services I use, including Springpad, have very good uptime. The technology available today to enable “Web 2.0″ companies to build redundant systems is pretty amazing. It is the sort of technology that used to only be available for very big $$, to companies like the airlines as you say. That is why you see so many interesting new businesses in this space now.
Small companies definitely do struggle with the balance of adding features, keeping users happy, planning for failures, scaling, adding iPhone, Android, iPad clients. There is a lot to do with little time.
With that in mind, many startups including ours, put some faith into the bigger guys (Amazon) to help us along. As we grow though, we have to reevaluate our options and see what it will take to scale up to the next level.
Offline access isn’t working on my Android. Even if still logged in.
Are there any instructions for getting at the cache on my Android phone? I’d like to be able to access the data on my PC.
I also was kicked out on my droid I phone. So I do not understand your comment about the ability to continue using on your phone when the server is down.
To Jason:
If you are an “Evernote devotee” which is probably the smartest thing you’ve done anyway,why on earth are you taking time out of your busy day to read these posts and cast stones at us poor schmucks who thought we could depend on this service to do what they said they would. And where is it written that because a service is free that it is ok for that service to malfunction and leave users hanging. No one at spring pad said-hey wait, we are a free service so don’t trust us with sensitive data, even though we say it’s safe and you even have it off line. Since we are a free service, you may ultimately lose all of your Data and not have it off line when you need it! But at least it didn’t cost you anything!
I fins it very odd and disturbing I must login to the web to access the app and data that is? on my phone.
spring pad is a great tool but free???? come on people! they make money knowing everything about you. to say this is a free app is lame.
Sure our data is safe but wtf. Isn’t the idea of cloud access include redundancy – access data independent of any one physical site status.
man this sucks. i can’t even log on to my android springpad app to jot down notes or anything. This really bytes. i was just getting so used of springpad.
Looks like it’s back up for me.
To those of you “defending” Springpad by saying that because it’s free no one should have trusted it in the first place, and therefore has no reason to complain–
–um, I think that Springpad would much rather have people use it and complain than to refuse to use it and not complain. Just sayin’.
Also, there IS NO paid option. Nor, to my knowledge, is there a paid equivalent, other than perhaps Evernote, which I use for other things. Since your comments are neither helpful to the people you are responding to nor to Springpad, why are you bothering? And how is your complaining about the complaining any less obnoxious than the complaining about the service outage? You’re not paying to read the complaints. They are free. Therefore by your own logic, you have no basis to complain.
I would like to hear a response to the complaints about the Android app logging people out and preventing them from accessing their locally stored data.
While it stinks that there’s an outage, I appreciate the company being so upfront and thorough in their explanation of the problem. I believe these problems happen to everybody at one time or another, but it’s how the company handles the problem that determines whether or not I continue using the service. In my opinion, SpringPad has handled it very well so far.
Yay! It’s back!
(Still interested in hearing the Android-logging-people-out issue addressed).
@Springpad FYI: BTW, I can still see all my stuff on both my Sprint EVO and Galaxy Tab. I do not have problems others are reporting on Android offline. It is working for me on those two devices. I tap the widget, the error comes up asking for sync. I dismiss it. Go to My Stuff and everything is there. Sounds like some devices are still working signed in while others do not for some reason.
Ah I see, maybe that is because it is back. Thanks for clarifying Trying to work.
Its back!
quick-how do I back it up again??
To anyone whining about this – I don’t know what kind of social feedback system you have, but let me help you with something you are obviously blind to: you’re ungrateful. Just because so-called “cloud services” are becoming more ubiquitous doesn’t mean you have some inherent right to expect them to work 24/7 for free; unless you are paying for the service and have an SLA with the company providing it, you have no claim. Seriously, do you know how annoying you sound? Maybe your parents did everything for you, but responsible people realize that yes, if GMail goes down, they can’t justifiably whine about it. And yes, if Springpad doesn’t offer a way for you to backup your data, maybe you shouldn’t use it until they do. This attitude is one of the reasons our country is going down the tubes – so many think that they are owed something for nothing. This sense of entitlement is sickening when you think about the poverty and hunger many in this world experience.
I think the fact that someone said “if we have to start paying for the service, I’m walking” proves just how ignorant many people are about business. The internet does not run for free – everything costs money, and unless you are paying for something, nothing is owed to you. Get over yourself.
It could be worse!!!
At least the Springpadit people are communicating with it’s customers. A lot of other businesses would not do that.
Jason — Like I said, I think they would rather have people use it, rather than say “well it’s free, so I have no right to trust it or expect it to work, so I’d better not use it” (which is what follows logically from your argument). Do you have any idea how annoying YOU sound?
).
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To the Springpad team — thank you very much for all the timely updates! Glad the service is back up and running, and I’m glad to hear about the steps you’re taking to keep things more stable in the future. (I started using Springpad regularly once you added the Export/Backup option, since that was critical for me
Hey guys – Springad is back up! You can access your account at Springpadit.com or by logging in from one of the mobile apps.
Thanks for all of your patience over the past two days.
We will respond to all of the concerns expressed in the comments soon!
Please note the “Jason” in my comment above is directed to the one who wrote the “To anyone whining about this” comment.
No complaints about the “Jason” who wrote the blog entry– quite the contrary, I’m very glad for all the updates on status and the news about the future steps they are taking.
I consider the ability to back up my data (myself) essential, and I put off starting to use Springpad until that feature was announced, but the current way of making backups is barely helpful (for working around outages, or otherwise) at best. I shouldn’t have to go through the website, click on a button, and wait until you send me an email; instead, like Delicious, there should be a URL that I can download at any time (though limits on how *often* I use it are fair enough), so I can *automate* these backups.
Jonathon: That is reasonable. Behind the scenes are we just hitting an api that you could hit yourself. We could expose that api in the future. I will add it to the list of requests. You also are free to just use the api anyway you like.
@Judy asked “quick-how do I back it up again??”
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Judy — from your Home page on Springpad, go to “Settings”. Choose “Services” on the side-bar. Then look down near the bottom where it says “backup”
Thank you, thank you, thank you…for all your hard work and for keeping us informed. I’m checking on “backup” right now!
Hey Guys,
Just wanted to cheer you up once again – these things happen and I am sure people understand that you’ll do your best to prevent it from happening again.
And as Friedrich Nietzsche said -
“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”
I am sure this will be applied in your case!
So – good luck!
Michael
Thank you to “trying to work” for your instructions re back up-and also for your comment to jason of you are whiners fame. His comments were very angry and aimless.
@Trying to Work: I agree with you. Correct.
@Jason Bunting: your comments are obviously directed at me. Do you know how annoying *YOU* sound? Mercy mercy mercy. Come down from your high horse, Your Majesty. I’m not upset at Springpad in the least. I personally don’t even use social networks (like Facebook), nor do I really use the cloud for any sensitive storage (dropbox and gmail only). So I was *not* “whining” (as you say) about Springpad going down. I was griping about posters like *you*.
Comments like yours are silly. It simply doesn’t follow that if X is free, then we do not have a claim against X, and we must not have any expectations of X. You need to think about this. Heck, friendship is not something you pay for–and of course there are expectations involved! Is Springpad a charity? And even if a charitable organization promises to do something, and they don’t live up to it (like delivering food or medicine, or materials to build houses, etc), we might still have a right to complain about it. And Springpad gets something out of offering a free service. We are entitled–yes, entitled–to have certain expectations with respect to that service. This has *nothing* to do with a sense of entitlement; it’s capitalism. If your only point were “we should be careful, since things can go wrong,” then I would have no problem. But implicit in what you are saying is that people are idiots for trusting Springpad (and other cloud-based service providers), and that one can *never* expect anything from a free service. And that is pure hogwash.
Mark, I for one do not want to be included in your “we” comments. I appreciate the Springpad program and the efforts of the staff to refine it. I am amazed when any technology keeps working as it is intended. While it was an inconvenience to be with out sp for a while, it was minor compared to real life tragedies. Your comments that are beyond constructive criticsm are “annoying”. I have found the sp staff to be amazingingly responseive from the beginning.
Bob, I actually agree with everything you just said. Except of course the part where you say my comments are annoying.:-)
HALLELUJAH! Thanx! It’s great that i can acess my stuff and all!
Mark, not all your remarks were annoying to me. Just the ones that are not constructive. Annoying is in the eye of the beholder. I am done commenting on this.
Well, I can open Springpadit.com and see All My Stuff, but I am unable to spring anything from my Google Chrome bar. When I click on the SpringPad icon the window just continues to try to open… Is anyone else having this problem?
yay! all is good on my end. access to all my notes, don’t seem to have lost anything & backed up.
To jhorman:
judy here..
Yes indeedy! I do use android! Thank you so much for your feedback re fixing the glitch that knocked us offline.
I seem to have recovered all of my data-thank god. But I am still going to find ways to back everything upA
Can I get my info before the server went down if so how?
Thanks for updating us on this stuff, folks. I think we all expected AWS to be just about the most reliable thing in the universe – it’s the responsible thing to do, right?!
We don’t blame you, and you’re still awesome.
PS You could be even more awesome if you’d convince Cameron of http://www.gqueues.com to give you an API of some sort…
(My other ‘can’t do without’ web service.)
To Springpad management, pls do not be so apologetic to us users, problems happen and it’s not your fault; no need to apologize profusely like you did. Last week the elevator in my building was out of service, I live on the 7th floor and myself and my (pregnant) wife climbed 7 floors several times in 2 days, but since we did not have anyone to bitch at, we just took as it is, and got some exercise that we both need. Consumers have become such whiners it’s incredible how much pampering they expect nowadays. Granted there must be some users that were somehow negatively affected by the outage, the fact remains that the service is great and it’s not your mistake, just state the facts no need apologize. Many people around the world go without food or electricity for days, Springpad users can compare that with their troubles with this outage to get some sort of a perspective.
One suggestion if I may, while I’m at it, pls introduce more “business-like” themes and make the notebooks sortable and position-editable. Thanks
I was initially able to access my notes in Springpad even though the servers were down. But Springpad tried to sync online and that’s when I got the error message and I couldn’t access Springpad in offline mode, ie couldn’t open all my notes without having to login to Springpad first, and since the servers are down, I couldn’t access my notes remotely offline.
Maybe Springpad could be updated to save its data on my SD card, AND allow its data to be accessed without the need to login online. Just a password to access my data on the SD card and make updates and changes to it without the need for an internet connection would be great.
I am a new Iphone user, downloaded your app last Thursday and keep getting, as of just now, “there is a problem communicating with the server error message” so not sure what you mean when you say you are back up and running? I paid for the app and have not been able to use. Please advise.
Maura – Can you please confirm that you are able to log in at Springpadit.com with your username/password? Also, be sure that your timezone is set properly on your account at Springpadit.com (under Settings) & that your iPhone is also displaying the correct time (we use a time check to confirm login/sync). If you are still having issues, please send us your username at feedback@springpartners.com
@Lawrence — look a few posts back, on the previous page. They’re releasing a new version of the Android app to prevent people from getting locked out when a synch fails =^).
Thanks a lot for your great and open information policy!!
[...] give it credit, the company was very careful to keep in touch with its users during the downtime, tell them exactly what happened, explain how to back up their data, and [...]