Foxmarks: Version 2 Upgrade
From Foxmarks Wiki
On Dec 17 2007, we released a major upgrade of the Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer that improves functionality and lays the groundwork for a bunch of improvements we've been wanting to make.
Unfortunately, the release process through the addons.mozilla.org site doesn't allow us to control the number of users who upgrade at once. So we're experiencing a temporary spike in the load on our servers as we migrate hundreds of thousands of users from the old platform to the new one. Some users are seeing error messages like "Connection reset", "Server Unavailable", or "Internal Server Error" and others are seeing their sync process take an extremely long time.
Things are getting better. We have worked around the clock to identify and fix several technical bottlenecks. The majority of our users have completed the migration process, and have successfully synced with the new servers. While some users are still seeing errors, these numbers are dropping.
Why are you doing this upgrade anyway? Everything was just fine before!
Although it may not feel like it at the moment, this new version was inspired by user requests for additional features, and lays the foundation for major improvements we hope to make in the coming months and years. As we outlined in an October blog post at the start of our beta period, there are substantial changes to the server that will enable some really cool features in the near future. Here's a list of the new features in Foxmarks 2.0:
- Favicons: Foxmarks 2 now synchronizes your bookmarks’ icons.
- Faster synchronization for large bookmark sets: Foxmarks 2 now transmits (and receives) only the changed bits, making it a much more efficient consumer of network bandwidth and a far more pleasant experience for users with large collections of bookmarks. Foxmarks 1 transmitted your entire set of bookmarks each time you changed anything about your bookmarks.
- Status bar indicator: Foxmarks 2 displays a small icon in the bottom right of your browser window that allows you to see at a glance your synchronization state (which may be why you've noticed for the first time if you're not successfully syncing). You can also click on it to open Foxmarks Settings and right-click (control-click on the Mac) to open a context menu to get convenient access to commonly used sync functions. If status icons annoy you, you can disable it from the menu.
- Foxmarks Settings: We completely redesigned the Foxmarks Settings dialog to make it easier to understand and (we think) much easier on the eyes. We also moved the menu entry from the Bookmarks menu to the Tools menu, to be more compliant with Firefox Add-On standards (to mixed reviews, admittedly).
- Password management: Some users objected to Foxmarks 1.0.1’s use of the Password Manager to store your password. Foxmarks 2 gives you the option of storing it there or not; if you choose not to, Foxmarks will prompt you for it as needed.
- Password security: Foxmarks 2 now by default encrypts your password when it is transmitted over the wire.
Although we know these first couple of days have been rocky for you, we won't put you through this again. Future upgrades will not be so painful, because we won't be migrating all your data to an entirely new platform. Now that you're on our new platform, we look forward to rolling out new versions soon that may address some of these FAQs that we've been getting from our users, e.g.:
- Can you help me keep some of my home computer's bookmarks from syncing to my work computer?
- Can you sync anything else besides bookmarks?
- Can you help me restore previous versions of my bookmarks?
- Can you help me organize my bookmarks better?
- Can I sync between Firefox and other browsers?
- Will you support Firefox 3?
We really want to answer 'Yes' to these questions, but we'd never be able to without migrating everyone to our new platform.
Did you even test this thing before unleashing it on the unsuspecting general population? Can't you tell it's completely broken?
We had a very successful and productive beta period that started over two months ago. The basic client and server software and the protocol they depend on have all been tested thoroughly. What we are having now are operational problems resulting from hundreds of thousands of users simultaneously switching to the new system. No doubt there are some remaining minor glitches which we will clean up as soon as the migration is complete and operations have stabilized.
What can I do until things are better?
Bear with us! We're working as hard as we can to address problems as they crop up. If you're seeing "Connection reset" messages or slow sync times, please be patient and try again in an hour or two. If you're still having problems, please write to us at support@foxmarks.com and we'll be happy to investigate your specific issue.
Can I downgrade until this all blows over?
Of course you may, but we'd really prefer you didn't. Here are some reasons not to downgrade:
- Any errors or slowness you're seeing will be better in a day or two. The extension is great! Don't you want to stick around and let us prove it?
- At some point we will discontinue support for the v1 platform, at which time you'll be forced to upgrade. All this downgrading and upgrading... wouldn't it be easier just to sit tight for the next 24 hours and do nothing?
- You won't be able to use the latest MyFoxmarks. MyFoxmarks displays your bookmarks as our (v2) server sees them, and has recently gotten a fabulous face lift and some nifty features (with more coming soon!).
- If you downgrade on one computer, you need to downgrade all your computers. Versions 1 and 2 of the server don't speak to each other, so your computers won't be syncing with each other unless they are all on the same version.
If you don't find these arguments persuasive, or if you really need relief now, you can install and use version 1.0.1 of Foxmarks, available here. You can also see the v1 server's version of your bookmarks by using the (ugly and mostly read-only) v1 version of MyFoxmarks at http://my.foxmarks.com/v1/.
Why doesn't version 2 seem know about my bookmarks that I synced with version 1?
Version 2 is a completely new platform on the server side, so when you sync for the first time with version 2, it's like you're a brand new user to our server. Only our user database recognizes you as an established user. This is most of the reason our servers are so overloaded with this launch, because everyone is syncing all their data to us at the same time. Once we have the first sync from you and everyone else, things will be much quieter for us, and faster for you.
If version 2 is a new platform and you knew there'd be a lot of data to upload, why didn't you just migrate my bookmarks from the old server to the new server for me? What are you, nincompoops?
We considered other ways to migrate that could have avoided some of the pitfalls we encountered, but they would have involved considerably more time and effort and could have introduced other serious risks (such as losing some of your data). We made a judgment call early on in the design process that we could safely migrate by relying on our users to give us the full set of their bookmarks at the time they upgraded. This seems to have been the wrong call. We sincerely apologize the difficulty our decision created. We are working our way out of it as quickly as we can, and rest assured, the lessons learned here will be well applied in the future.
You keep talking about having no control over the upgrade because of Mozilla. Why don't you put the new version up for a few hours and then bring it down again, and control your rollout that way?
That would be an excellent idea if it weren't for the new platform, as explained above. Imagine for a moment that you're at work, you get an upgrade notice, and you upgrade your work computer to v2. By the time you get home, we've taken v2 down from the Mozilla site to control our traffic. Now you have v1 at home talking to a different server than your v2 client at work, and you're no longer syncing. Since the two versions can't sync with each other, we decided it wasn't an option to do that sort of an intermittently available upgrade on the Mozilla site.
