Hi,

Backpack’s javascript isn’t working for me anymore. Not working at all.
Pages, Calendar and Writeboards are currently unusable.

I’m on a basic plan. I’ve tested IE6 and FF2.
I’m running Win XP Pro SP2.

Yeah, same here. It was fine yesterday, also same setup as you.

I forgot to mention that Highrise and Basecamp are working fine on the same browsers.

PS : I’ve mailed support with this forum thread.

same here
seems like all the javascripts are not working now – -

The mobile functionality still works, although it is limited and has no access to Calendar or Whiteboards. http://yourname.backpackit.com/mob

You are not alone – I’ve just experienced the same problems on my Window XP

Both with IE6 and Firefox 2.0.0.6

The javascript source code linked to the application is empty : http://asset0.backpackit.com/javascripts/cache/all.js

This explains why the app is not working. I hope they have a backup they can upload soon…

Ouch!

Same here.

me neither.

Bit more for you – mine was working fine until that notice about the scheduled maintenance appeared under the open bar.

Still down and no reaction from 37signals.

Hey guys, I have some good reading for you:

1. Publicize Your Screwups
2. Answer Quick

dw – LOL

To be fair though it is 6 or 7 am in Chicago.

To be unfair though – they have customers all over the world so why has this not been fixed or recognised for almost 5 hours now?

We’re looking into the issue right now. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Hurrah!

All fixed. We’re still looking into the root cause of the issue, but the issue is fixed. You may need to force reload your browser and/or clear your cache so the new Javascript is loaded up.

Once again we’re sorry for the inconvenience.

@Jason: good. As I talked my spouse into switching from Google Calendar to paid Backpack, this was quite an embarassment for me also.

@richallum: Do they really leave their servers unattended at night? Wow. I thought 37signals had the size to monitor the functionality of their service at night (e.g. by someone overseas) and ring the admins on the mobile in cases like this.

Fixed.

@dw:

Do they really leave their servers unattended at night? Wow. I thought 37signals had the size to monitor the functionality of their service at night (e.g. by someone overseas) and ring the admins on the mobile in cases like this.

Don’t know – perhaps 37S can enlighten us on that.

So what do I learn from this?

1. Act as 37signals talk, not as they do.

2. I am such a Backpack-Addict.

We have extensive server monitoring 24/7 with mobile alerts and multiple people being alerted in the case of critical server unavailability. We’ve fixed problems at all hours of the night. Our response time to critical issues related to service unavailability is excellent.

However, in this case the issue was a single Javascript file not rendering properly. Individual Javascript files aren’t monitored by emergency alert services. The servers responded to pings, the backups ran properly, there were no database issues, all monitoring systems were go.

We’re still checking into the reason for the Javascript file issue, but everything is back to normal now. We can’t go back and change the past, we can only apologize for not being quicker to notice and fix this issue.

Interesting, I saw quite a bit of bitchin’ about the system being down. True, I was a little surprised by a commercial app going sideways but lets keep things in context. It costs all of $5 a month on the basic plan folks. If this is mission critical to your organization then perhaps you should look elsewhere.

In my very humble opinion, the folks behind the scenes appear to be living up to their part of the bargain quite well. Very low cost software, doing an excellent job of Keeping It Simple Stupid.

Kudo’s to the folks ( coders et al. ) behind 37signals.