[nickvh1]

I'm probably a bit behind the curve here, but just came across this thread ( was unaffected as I have the mirror service) and just wanted to take the opportunity to say what am absolutely brilliant service Gixen is.

I still remember years ago working without Gixen and the huge amount of extra time it took. I also remember looking at other services and how unrealistically expensive they were.

It just seems a good time to say thank you for a small but very significant service that makes a real difference to my business. Hard to argue it's not worth free even with the occasional outage, and absolutely worth the few dollars for the mirror.

Sorry about the unfortunate complainers. I am overwhelmingly happy. Thank you again - Nick

[Rickajho]

[Nick]

[Graham]

[gixen fan]

I am astonished. This is by far the best free service and is by far the best paid service I know of. I am sorry for those who had a snipe fail, due to a SSD failure (I would like to know some more details for my education, what were the SMART parameters like? Was there no warning at all?) A single machine is not 100% reliable. If a snipe is extremely critical, one should make sure two snipes are sent. Actually, if it's a critical item, and even if the snipes are geographically separated, can you afford relying upon the network? maybe you should not snipe at all and bid normally a higher amount (that you saved thanks to sniping repeatedly on items which are easy to find for sale).

[Cupid]

[unessential]

Is this why I got an email saying my gixen mirror expired, yet when I tried to log in I didn't get the wait time?

[Mynde]

[Nick]

Having read some of these comments, I feel the need to add my opinion. I have just discovered Gixen, and not (yet) paid for the mirror service, as was trying it out first. I have so far used it twice, once very successfully, and the second time exactly when the service was down. I therefore lost out on a bit that I would definitely have won.

A fully accept that this was a risk I took by not subscribing to the mirror service. I think that this service is OUTSTANDING, and I am amazed that you can offer it for free. The fact that people are complaining is mind-boggling! I am really grateful for the service you provide, and am about to subscribe to the mirror service. Everybody else who uses this service should show some gratitude as well. To suggest that you caused the outage deliberately to get people to pay is verging on clinical paranoia.

Thank you Mario once again!

[wilcastillo]

Hi Mario,

Thank you for managing Gixen for all of us. We LOVE the service provided.

People dont seem to see, understand and comprehend the amount of money and the time they save by using the Gixen Sniper.

I've been a paying customer for years. Dont use it very often but within the few 3 or 4 Sniper wins every year I probably well recover the $6/year fee. Just well worth $6 a year. Not counting winning those auctions that end at crazy hours of the night or morning [UGH] :-)

Hard Drive failures happen and will continue to occur, this wont be the last - it's a fact of life and the computer world we live in.
If they want security and assurance, then they need to support the mirror service. That's all.

Thanks for the hard work.
From St. Louis, Missouri !

[mario]

No raid, when this database server was first instated RAID was not supported for SSD drives. Gixen uses slave database servers on different physical hosts. That said, this was a dedicated server, as all the other Gixen servers are. No prior warnings whatsoever.

Gixen does not use cloud. Call me old-fashioned, but I have doubts about privacy and security of keeping customer data in the cloud.

[wilberger]

I too would like to know:

Are you running a RAID? What type?
Did you get prior warnings of the drive failure?
Are you running on a physical host or a cloud server?
If cloud hosted, who is the supplier?

Please advise.

[19seamans]

Thanks Mario. Long time user of $6 mirror. Mirror snipes more than paid for mirror. Great service. Thanks from Cape Cod

[Guest]

Mario, I work in IT support for a company with thousands of servers, and am curious about the details of the outage:

Are you running a RAID? What type?
Did you get prior warnings of the drive failure?
Are you running on a physical host or a cloud server?
If cloud hosted, who is the supplier?

FWIW, I think this service is a bargain. I was previously running some sniping software locally, but after losing a couple of bids because my PC crashed, I figured it wasn't worth the hassle and purchased a two years subscription. No regrets.

[mario]

[TheSeeker]

Mario,

Huge fan of your service!

Read this on a coffee mug once.
To error is human, but to really screw up you need a computer.
$hit happens!

Nobody can predict hardware failures.

Thank you for sharing your vision and keep up the great work!!!

[Bobbi]

Just my 2¢ -- people shouldn't complain when a free service has a little downtime occasionally. I think the free service is great and, if they want super great, they should just pay for it.

[Steve]

just another message in support of this excellent, extremely reasonably priced service. The selfish cheapskates who are posting in their underwear need to get out more.

[eebeeweebeegix]

Glitches are a fact of life, and not restricted to the digital world. Plus, there are companies out there that make you pay through the nose to enjoy theirs.

Thank you Mario for your continued efforts in maintaining both free and reasonably-priced services.

[InkKni]

Sorry, it was on 12.10.19.

Overall Gixen provides good service. I used it for free in the past and if any glitch happened I thought - well, its free service I cannot ask more. But when I pay (even a very little amount), I would expect less glitches?

[RW]

I'd like to delete you, you useless sack of shit!

[k1ngad]

Its a great service .
If you dont want uncertainty PAY THE $6 for gods sake .

[linencupboard]

Love Gixen - for $6 a year it provides an excellent service and has saved me well over the annual fee that I pay. So all the FREE users lost out - as someone else on here has said you don't get something for nothing. Pay up, or shut up

[RW]

I used Gixen free just one time and immediately decided to subscribe to support this great service and have only used it once since then, which has been a couple months. And not only did I subscribe, but I chose to pay the $8 non-recurring price because it was more. Shame on any of you with the balls to sit here and complain about your free service, you are ungrateful leaches and contribute nothing to society, just like you contribute nothing to Gixen...I don't see any paid members complaining, it's interesting how that works.

[InkKni]

I do not use Gixen very often, that is why I paid for 10 day subscription. And two my bids were not placed on the 13.10.19. So, what is the point to pay if it protects nothing?

[Anon]

:lol: :lol: :lol: crybabies should code their own gixen if they're not happy

[Guest]

[Lonestar]

Hey Mario, these things happen. No sweat. Keep up the good work, and thanks again for everything :) Paul

[GranJ]

I use Gixen very infrequently and would be happy to make a small donation when I win an auction rather than subscribing on a monthly basis for a service I'm not using. This needs to be a VERY simple option preferably via PayPal.

[Hfrost]

[Jayne]

Hi Mario I don't know how you are supposed to predict that these things will happen and it seems that the complainers are the free users. I used Gixen for a short time for free then paid just over ÂGBP 9 for 2 years which is great value. I love Gixon.
Love from UK.

[9littlebees]

Let me add my voice to those saying thanks for the service and don't waste any time or energy on the haters. Of course hard drives fail, and I think 3 hours of outage is a pretty short period of time. Greetings from Germany.

[mario]

Read all the comments. For the user who said is a paid user, please let me know the item id(s) that failed. Mirror server was unaffected, so your snipes shouldn't have failed.

As for the comment that I do this intentionally... well, not sure how to defend against that. Hard drives (or in this case SSD drive) do die occasionally.

The criticism I haven't heard, and could be guilty of - the downtime could have been reduced with some more planning ahead of time, I admit that. I am looking into that.

[allthepretties]

Hey Mario! All good these things happen! Your doing an amazing job and I have used Gixen for many years now.

[Guest]

[joiedecollage]

I used to use another service for my eBay bids and it cost me a fortune. One day I discovered Gixen. A FREE service??!!?? I'm in. Saved tons of money over the years. Then, Mario asked people to sign up for the mirror service as funds were needed to maintain Gixen. Personally, I could never figure out how he did it for free. I happily signed up. Six dollars? For a whole year? How can anybody possibly complain?

[Nesoj]

Guess they are not teaching that 'Beggars can't be choosers' in school anymore. :(

Subscribing to a fully optional, free service and then complaining ??? :?

Guess it this modern 'I am entitled to everything for free' syndrome :roll:

Keep up the good work, Mario

[Guest]

+1 for all the posts supporting Gixen.
Mario does an outstanding job and provides a valuable service for minimal cost.
For $6 per year users have the option to sign up for the mirror service which continued to work fine during the outage.
I am not aware of any other service that comes close to providing this level of value.
I am a very happy customer of Gixen.
Mario - a very sincere thank you for all your hard work in providing this service.

[Guest]

This kind of posts (opinions) in such a forum are really "PROFFESIONAL" :D
Forum moderators do their job "fantastic" :lol:

[Kevin]

Thanks for the explanation and I appreciate the transparency.

I can see why the free users are frustrated, but I bet they saved a bunch using a free service...

[johnd5602]

[learningtocodenow]

They probably did it to get people to sign up. Way to have an error then say hey if you don't like it pay. Yes it is true you should play to have better service. For the system to crash and then to say you need to pay is ludicrous.

[KevinSanders]

[Annon]

You Sir... Are what they technically call.. A complete dickhead. If I could delete your account I would.

[Laupetre]

Then don’t use it.

[Dolbajob]

These outages are intentional to bring on more paying customer. PR tactic. Nothing less.[/list]

[Sologeoff]

Hi Mario
Thank you so much for this very consistent & professional service you offer for such a great price.
1: A fact of life man made products fail after a period of time.
2: They may inconvenience some guests who are not prepare to pay for this magnificent service of a mirrored service which worked during this mechanical breakdown.
3: Mario does a fantastic job and offers a valuable service For a very meagre amount.
4: it is unfortunate that there will always people in this world that you cannot please.
5: Keep up the great work Mario.
6: All the best from Australia
Geoff

[Fidiusr]

Blackadder:
Very well put!
Mario does a fantastic job and offers a valuable service
For a very meagre amount!

Larry

[Craigblumus]

Hi Mario,

Thank you for managing Gixen for us. Well worth $6 a year.

HDD failures happen. Another good reason for supporting the mirror service.

Best wishes from the south coast of France.

[Oz]

Over the years Gixen has been pretty consistent in what it's set out to do. The interface could use some QOL improvements but... Come on for $6 a year you can't complain. Other software I searched years ago ware more expensive, unreliable or not up front with what they were doing with my eBay account info.

I guess there are always haters on the internet

[Blackadder]

So you are complaining that a free service has had a minor outage and you have been inconvenienced?

But you can't (or won't) pay $6 per year to have the backup of the mirror server (which worked throughout the outage)?

I think Gixen is a fantastic service and is amazing value. And I think "I'm sorry that the free service I provide stopped working for a few hours" is more than enough from Mario.

[DBSDBS]

Hello Mario,

I'm agree that such things happens...

I'm agree too that the project have to be supported.

But you have pointed the support ammount.

All of us that believed you and have paid, are not guilty for a such problems, but we got looses...

I thing that a simple "I'm sorry" here is not a proffesional.

This is my opinion.

If you do not like it - delete my account.

[Blagbox]

Welcome back!

Whilst some people got very uppity about the downtime, I think most of us realise it was merely an inconvenience.

Thank you for rectifying the problem swiftly, however, please try not to let it happen too often - I had to do some tedious chores in my normal Gixen time! :wink:

[mario]

Most likely yes, downtime was between Oct 13, 2019, 4:27AM PDT and Oct 13, 2019, 07:45AM PDT, which corresponds to 1.27pm - 4.27pm CEST.

[Guest]

I missed a bid at 13:30 CEST. Is because the server was down?
I use Gixen free account.

Thank you

[mario]

The main Gixen database server suffered a hard drive failure. Stand-by server is now operational. Still working on minor issues, will post details later.

Mirror server worked fine during this time.

Please do not email me unless necessary, I will post updates here.