MSFS: “A Loss Of Trust From Our Player Community"

[GoranM 3,894]

8 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Lol, that is obviously the genius solution! "backup servers"! Why didn't MS think about this?

Let's try to be down to earth.  After all, it's what you're all known for.

I think we all have enough common sense to know that generally, software vendors, and MS, DO have backup servers. At least, it's such common practise, that anyone would be labelled as incompetent if they don't have some kind of backup solution involved.  In fact, I'd be very surprised if the Azure servers don't have some kind of backup solution, to enable a seamless customer satisfaction experience.  I have my own opinions on what happened, but I'll keep those to myself.

8 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

They obviously don't know how to run a cloud infrastructure like certain folks around here.

I'm sure that you do.  If you can accept what happened with the last update, you're a far more patient person than most people.  I tip my hat, in the most down to earth fashion possible.

Have a great day.

Edited December 14, 2023 by GoranM

[lwt1971 7,989]

3 hours ago, GoranM said:

Let's try to be down to earth.  After all, it's what you're all known for.
...
Have a great day.

You too! ... oh p.s: I know you said you're "quite a busy person", but the time you've spent on the back & forth on this thread could've been used to read the actual facts from MS's report... just some down to earth advice. Also, might help to solidify your "own opinions of what happened" by learning about what actually happened, right from the source 🙂 ... and p.p.s. in addition to the "archaic" thing in this thread, you also seem rather irked about the "down to earth" discussion in another thread, that's just both adorable and comical all at the same time.
 

Edited December 14, 2023 by lwt1971

[Krakin 6,188]

2 minutes ago, GoranM said:

I have my own opinions on what happened, but I'll keep those to myself.

Ooooh! always so mysterious, like you're Bruce Wayne 😄

[GoranM 3,894]

18 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

You too! ... oh p.s: I know you said you're "quite a busy person", but the time you've spent on the back & forth on this thread could've been used to read the actual facts from MS's report... just some down to earth advice.
 

Time efficiency.  Why read a report when a reliable, down to earth person, such as yourself, is here to give me the facts.  

Edited December 14, 2023 by GoranM

[GoranM 3,894]

[kdfw__ 550]

you know the thread is crashing when a certain personality enters the fray. 

[GoranM 3,894]

37 minutes ago, kdfw__ said:

you know the thread is crashing when a certain personality enters the fray. 

You really think I have that much influence?  I'm flattered, but please.  It takes at least 2 more people to disagree with any logic I have, that can POSSIBLY crash the thread.  Maybe if we have an admission of issues, a discussion could be had.

Excuse me for being disappointed in the lack of protocols that help the end user.  This isn't an opinion.  Updates were heavily disrupted.  Imagine the marketplace going down, and developers not seeing any sales.  Imagine that going on indefinitely.  Do you not see the importance in having SOMETHING in place that prevents what happened in the last update?  Even if that something is slower download speeds.  I remember when FSX was rendered useless because Microsoft turned off the authentication servers, without notice.  I wasn't the only one who got frustrated at that.  A year later, they issued an update that bypasses authentication.

Edited December 14, 2023 by GoranM

[JetCat 144]

Hm.... some update caused a loss of trust from the player community? Why does an update cause loss of trust - the opposite is the case, no updates for months or years would cause a loss of trust 😉

But better a loss of trust than a loss of thrust 😄

[Funky D 295]

A network engineer can make a config typo and cripple half of the internet. A DNS provider can have server issues that cripple half the internet. A SAS company can get hacked and all of your passwords can be leaked. A cloud company can get hacked and a bunch of your personal data can be leaked. A different cloud company can have server issues that deletes 6 months of your files. A flight simulator can fail to update for a day.

All of these things (and much, much more) happened in the past year. Some people need to prioritize what they are complaining about...

[GoranM 3,894]

24 minutes ago, Funky D said:

A network engineer can make a config typo and cripple half of the internet. A DNS provider can have server issues that cripple half the internet. A SAS company can get hacked and all of your passwords can be leaked. A cloud company can get hacked and a bunch of your personal data can be leaked. A different cloud company can have server issues that deletes 6 months of your files. A flight simulator can fail to update for a day.

 

100% agree. Hence the need for a reliable backup solution. It’s Microsoft. Not Aldi network solutions. 

[Funky D 295]

11 minutes ago, GoranM said:

100% agree. Hence the need for a reliable backup solution. It’s Microsoft. Not Aldi network solutions.

Azure has over 4 million servers and you're talking "backup solutions" like it's the year 2000. You're also talking "backup solutions" as if MSFS is a mission critical application. It isn't. Microsoft 365, which is a mission critical application with over 345 million users, has a guaranteed uptime of 99.9%. But no, Microsoft obviously doesn't know what they're doing. Shame on them for pissing off a handful of users who couldn't find something better to do for half a day because their beloved sim wouldn't load.

This isn't the first time and definitely won't be the last time that an application dependent on the internet (or a large portion of the internet itself) breaks, and no amount of "backup solutions" will fix that.

[GoranM 3,894]

9 minutes ago, Funky D said:

Azure has over 4 million servers and you're talking "backup solutions" like it's the year 2000. You're also talking "backup solutions" as if MSFS is a mission critical application. It isn't. Microsoft 365, which is a mission critical application with over 345 million users, has a guaranteed uptime of 99.9%. But no, Microsoft obviously doesn't know what they're doing. Shame on them for pissing off a handful of users who couldn't find something better to do for half a day because their beloved sim wouldn't load.

This isn't the first time and definitely won't be the last time that an application dependent on the internet (or a large portion of the internet itself) breaks, and no amount of "backup solutions" will fix that.

Thank you for those statistics. I’m even more surprised now that the update had such an issue. There really is no excuse, then. All those impressive figures, and the update servers were literally halted because of 1 or more bugs, according to Len and the report. Like I said in another post, if the adobe servers suddenly died, and I couldn’t do my job, I’d be pretty annoyed. I’m glad you can be so forgiving of a multi trillion dollar company. 
You’re right that problems happen. I sometimes get internet dropouts. And you better believe I’m on the phone with my ISP and ripping into them. My livelihood depends on the internet. You can disagree on the importance. 

Edited December 14, 2023 by GoranM

[tonywob 4,825]

The way some people are arguing on this thread, I think a small break from not using a sim for a few hours would be a welcome and much needed break. Please just move on as this thread will just end up locked/cleaned-up and those involved have made their point.

I was one of the people who had trouble updating, and it meant I couldn't work on the sim for a few hours (which is part of my work, so I was a little annoyed, but I did something else instead). I don't really care about why it happened, I just want to know that there won't be further repeats of it in the future. If other software I used for work had forced updates in place and I was prevented from using it and a bug prevented me from updating, I would be really annoyed as it's costing me time and money, but if it was just a game I'd move on with my life and forget in a few days. Youtubers love the drama as well, I'm sure it won't be the last we hear of it.

In regards to discussions on protocols, forced updates etc... one thought, both beta and dev users are able to run newer versions of the sim at the same time as users on the older version and they can see each other in the sim, use the same streaming scenery, etc. Asobo/MS could support the update being temporarily optional and give users more time to update at their leisure, but they haven't, and likely because they want everyone on the same version for the sake of their own sanity and bug reporting (understandable). If something major changed in the client-side code that stopped it talking to the server correctly, then that's a different problem and understandable.

[flying_carpet 689]

9 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

Riiight 🙄.. well, here's a hint: this has nothing to do with data transfer protocols. Perhaps availing yourself to some basic learning about how a MMO or other various software systems (that require forced client updates) work might clear your fog a bit.

MSFS has a server side that provides world depiction data & graphics, weather, and various other services which has multiple back and forth interactions with MSFS clients. There are no simple data protocols being used here, and the communications that occur between the MSFS/Azure/etc services and MSFS client software are obviously proprietary. When MS/Asobo make fixes and provide new content there are server-side changes and client-side changes. So they naturally would like to have all clients be updated in order to work with the updated services.

If you seriously think a complex client/server software system like MSFS can be implemented by establishing a protocol like http/ftp/imap/etc, and also being able to *just* use said protocol to make server-side fixes/updates work with multiple client-side software versions without updating them, then please by all means lend your ideas to MS/Asobo 🤣. One would think they have thought this through to come up with the current system which they feel is most optimal, but who knows, they might've missed something only you are capable of solving.

So ... that's your explanation? Some magic proprietery alchemy?
Are they changing every few months the way they transmit (stream) the data from the server to the clients? That would be indeed a reason to update every few months server and client, so they both talk the same "language". So be it. However, there is still a VERY good reason to offer a "Skip this update" as I pointed out earlier and what was my starting point.
So, an update is rolled out and ...

• Scenario 1: I just want to do a short recreational flight of 15-30 min, but now I am told I have to update. Oh no! Slow download speeds were a problem already before, and if I have bad luck, I have to wait some hours until the update is finished.
• Scenario 2: I didn't participate in the beta phase, as I don't like to be the guinea pig. However, I have a relative seldomly used combination of hardware and software (rudder, yoke, navigational software, ...) and I'm a bit frightened it may not work after the update. So, I'm waiting for, say 2 weeks, to check the forums if there are problems with the new (forced) update. After these 2 weeks I recognize, no problems, so I do the update and it works. Fine. However, for 2 weeks I wasn't able to play with MSFS. That's the price I was willing to pay.
• Scenario 3: I didn't participate in the beta phase, as I don't like to be the guinea pig, so I didn't update yet. I waited for some days and observed the forums and tadaaa ... some people with a very similar setup to mine report problems or even CTD's. So ... what to do? Be brave and try it nonetheless with the risk of getting CTD's? Or should I wait until a fix comes out with the next beta and update (i.e. including beta testing time, in some months). During this thime I can't use my MSFS.
• Scenario 4: I didn't participate in the beta phase, as I don't like to be the guinea pig. But I am brave and install the update. I start my MSFS and ... boom ... some problems occur or even CTD. NOW im borked. Do I have to wait until the next beta phase ... (see scenario 3)? I.e. I can't play MSFS during that time.

So, for ...

• Scenario 1: solution is ... "Skip this update" (for the price of not getting some new features which I won't be using anyway). But I can play MSFS for this short flight.
• Scenario 2: solution is ... "Skip this update" (for the price ...) until I checked the forums and find out with relief that there aren't problems to expect. But I can play MSFS ... during these mentioned 2 weeks.
• Scenario 3: solution is ... "Skip this update" (for the price ...) until the next beta/update. But I can play MSFS.
• Scenario 4: solution is ... "Skip this update" (for the price ...) ... something along those lines ...

Still, this is "only" the "entertainment software corner" of MS. What about professional use, e.g. Office 365? Imagine, I'm a company owner and MS announced a mandatory update of Office 365. Ok, fine. Finally some new features ... which I probably won't ever use, but so be it. Monday morning ... a growing number of employees complains that their Office suite is borked. At lunch time it turns out that it is around 25 % of the employees, who can't work any more. Due to the forced update. If MS had implemented a "Skip this update", we could have tested in my company on some PC's to find out whether it works.
But now the update is rolled out and I ask MS what to do. Can I have the old server/client-config? "No, we don't have a backup-solution (the previous server/client-version) any more, we deleted them. This is a mandatory update for working with the latest and best Office365-experience ...blah, blah, marketing gibberish.". Still, around 25% CAN'T work - neither with the latest blah, blah nor with the previous config.
After all, MS found the reason for these problems and writes a report what happened. GREAT!! Now I'm satisfied and love MS again. Although 25% of my employees can't work ...

 

[fsiscool 263]

16 hours ago, flying_carpet said:

Ermm, I remain skeptical ... Isn't the streaming data on the servers?

Client and server maintain very complex bidirectional interaction. Being able to maintain different versions on both sides can easily increase the complexity into dramatic dimensions. Therefore the cloud backend and the client software need to migrate to new versions in sync.

 

9 hours ago, GoranM said:

After seeing what happened several days ago with the update problems, I have a solution that every other software vendor has used in their "archaic" infrastructure, that I was quite surprised wasn't used in the MSFS update.

Backup servers.  

Backup servers? Your reply shows a thinking rooted in archaic technologies. If anything they would not add servers but VM instances. And, if peak demand is a magnitude of order more than normal load, maintaining backup servers for the rest of the year is a non-starter.

Modern Azure backend solutions offers solution which fulfill the high elasticity paradigm, which means that capacity is automatically allocated and ramped up- and down based on current demand. For spikes known in advance capacity schedules can be deployed. These technologies nowadays are basics if you are running large scale web backends.

Azure High Elasticity – vegibit

Edited December 14, 2023 by fsiscool