Why are uploads taking so long?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by 20757_deleted, Jan 16, 2011.

  1. 20757_deleted
    20757_deleted Member
    I have uploaded several things over the course of the last year or so. Never before has it taken longer than ten minutes. Today though, everything I upload is taking much, much longer, like closer to an hour.

    What's up?
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2011
  2. cmnwdesigns
    cmnwdesigns Member
    Glad to know it's not only me, I've been refreshing my shop page like crazy. It's probably maintenance or something of the sort, they open their office in the Netherlands pretty soon, so I'm sure if it's a problem they'll take care of it soon.
     
  3. Seems like there still is a problem. I've been waiting over 3 hours for two uploads to appear. Any SW people know what's going on?

    Michiel
     
  4. Or somebody pushed a button just now? Not 5 minutes later, my models are available :)
     
  5. 28396_deleted
    28396_deleted Member
    Lucky you ! :p
    I'm still waiting for more then 2 hours ..

    In good ol'days this process took only few minutes.. :rolleyes:


     
  6. barrys
    barrys Shapeways Employee Dev Team
    I just looked, there are over 80 models in the queue still waiting to be processed. Seems there were a few models that took a lot of calculation time.
     
  7. Kaetemi
    Kaetemi Member
    Ouch.. I hope it's not all 500k poly models in that queue, that could take a while :laughing:
     
  8. 28396_deleted
    28396_deleted Member
    Basically i think when ever you see a post by the IT guys about a site update expect serious delays on that day for new uploads.

    Since it happens once or twice a month ... no big deal.

    Perhaps a new servers farm is already on shapeways wish list :D


     
  9. lensman
    lensman Well-Known Member
    Seems the model upload problem may not have been fixed.... :cry: one and a half hour wait and counting...

    Glenn
     
  10. nervoussystem
    nervoussystem Member
    I uploaded a number of complex models yesterday and they took 9 hours to process. I uploaded some slightly simpler ones and they only took 3-4 hours

     
  11. barrys
    barrys Shapeways Employee Dev Team
    Right now, we can only process a few models at the same time. If users upload some complex/large models at the same time (think of more than an hour to process) then the queue will grow and other models that come after that will have to wait before being processed. Yesterday evening was such a moment and at one point in time there were 100 models in the queue that still needed processing.

    Offcourse, as we continue growing we'll continue trying to improve the processtime, such as improving the check algorithms and extending our capacity to process more models at the same time.
     
  12. stop4stuff
    stop4stuff Well-Known Member
    What BarryS said ... and it doesn't help with people like me uploading 300K+ triangle models trying to figure out why MeshMedic spits out an error with just 300+ seperate but interlaced elements :rolleyes:



    sorry
     
  13. 40232_deleted
    40232_deleted Member
    Maybe the option of paying more for a gauranteed turnaround time would be beneficial. Those that do not have timelines or want the cheapest service possible can use the service as is and those that want a set delivery time and consistent upload turnaround pay a higher premium. I have started looking for other online printers and will try them as to me it is only frustrating having to wait. Sorry sounds selfish and it is my hard earned money. It is also annoying when a project is held up without a timeline. Not only is the upload confirmation slow so is the response time in Shapeways starting the actual print process. Then there is the print time on top of it. Starts becoming frustrating when it is all compounded on top of one another.

    just some feedback.

    cheers Ferd
     
  14. 40232_deleted
    40232_deleted Member
    Hi Ben
    I think it is a fine balance between keeping the cost realistic, and still being able to make sure the priority service is deliverable. I would think in the 50-75% increase would be realistic for low cost items and for larger items a lower percentage. ie. paying 4.00 for a 2.00 part rush order is reasonable paying 200$ on a 100$ part starts becoming cost prohibitive.

    thanks
    Ferd

     
  15. stonysmith
    stonysmith Well-Known Member Moderator
    Is there some way to get a status report on the queue?

    I had trouble getting to the site about an hour ago, and now a simple model I uploaded has taken over 30 minutes to show up.

    If there was a "queue status" page somewhere we could check, that'd be helpful.
     
  16. On an alternate tack, is it worthwhile for people uploading large or untested models to test it via https://cloud.netfabb.com/ first? Or would that simply slow things down more?

    I am not certain of the exact relationship between MeshMedic and the Netfabb cloud software, but I was under the impression that the two are more or less equivalent. Thus, the remaining question is whether Shapeways has its own server farm (likely) or uses the Netfabb servers. If the former is the case, then testing on the Netfabb cloud would at least show that the model is doable before bogging down Shapeways with multiple attempts.
     

  17. Hi Ben, nice to meet you!

    I'm not sure I'd pay for just a quicker upload time; I'd just expect that to work at some point, I guess. For a complete priority service, ensuring I have my models in 2 or 3 days, for instance, I would easily pay twice as much on occasion. This could be up to half of my purchases at some point, I think.

    Best, Michiel
     
  18. stop4stuff
    stop4stuff Well-Known Member
    I just tested NetFabb cloud out with one of the models that MeshLab failed on, the model has 6912 seperate but interlaced elements (shells) comprising of 221184 triangles... NetFabb failed with error message "calculation failed"


    So then I installed NetFabb Basic and, erm, for some wierd reason it was showing 89k+ flipped triangles and a minus volume - I've never encountered an issue with flipped normals before, but I fixed it with Accutrans and hey presto no errors in NetFabb Basic.

    With the fixed file, I;
    Tried the online NetFabb service - failed with error message "calculation failed"
    Tried uploading to Shapeways - failed with error message "error while unifying: 17"

    I deduced a while back that the error was possibly caused by a relationship between the number of interlaced shells and the total number of triangles, see; https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=4303&a mp;start=0&

    p.s. I nearly always aim for triangles smaller than the 3d print resolution to make a model print as smooth as possible and avoid visable stepping... 211k triangles is small ;)