FlightAware is a very essential part of my planespotting trips to the airport, however lately I have had quite a bit of difficulty using the website and I hope that there is somebody that can assist me with this issue.
Firstly, ever since the airport pages (such as this one) have been updated to become more interactive, they have constantly caused my computers to freeze up, particularly when the site is tracking multiple aircraft at once. This severely affects functionality and compromises my ability to utilize this important resource. What could be done about this?
Secondly, almost half of the time that I attempt to load a Flightaware page, the computer is unable to load it. If this is because of the server being overloaded, that is understandable, as this site is a very popular resource. Are there any plans to overcome this issue?
The issue affects me on multiple computers, Windows and Mac based.
I am mostly on a MacBook with OS X 10.6.1, 80GB hard drive, 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB DDR2-5300 RAM, and Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics. I use Safari 4.0.3.
I also have that issue on a computer with Windows XP Media Center Edition with SP3, two 640GB hard drives, Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3 GHz, 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT 512MB, NVIDIA NForce 790i Ultra motherboard, and a 700 watt power supply, as well as a Lenovo Ideapad S10 netbook, with an Intel Atom N270 processor @ 1.6GHz, XP Home Edition with SP3, 120GB hard drive, 1GB DDR2 5300RAM, and Intel integrated graphics. Both using Internet Explorer version 8.
I also have this issue with several other Windows and Mac-based machines including computers at work and public-access machines.
I have a cable internet connection at home and at work, and the connection has a very good speed.
Since both issues occur on multiple computers at multiple places I do not believe the issue is specifically on my end. To me I think the new code on the airport pages is too resource heavy for the computers, causing the freezes, and the connection issue is from a bandwidth overload at Flightaware’s end due to high usage, as almost every time I try to load a Flightaware page the browser gets hung (I even had to attempt this post multiple times before I was able to get the Submit request through.)
You’re the first that I’m aware of to report these issues, however I’m only another user.
I use several different Thinkpads on a daily basis while at home connected via WiFi either through my FIOS connection or my wife’s cable connection. Presently I’m at my daughter’s at MMU on one of my Thinkpads (T61P) running Vista Ultimate and FireFox 3.5.5, connected via WiFi to their cable internet.
As you can note in my profile I’m a frequent contributor to the forums but more importantly I track my son’s flights as well as those of friends and associates on a daily basis.
Just for the record I’ve never experienced any of the issues you’ve outlined.
This is interesting. It sounds like it’s not an interactive maps issue if you’re having the same problem on the forums. Would you say the loading is what’s slow? For example, a blank space for a map takes a while to load, and then the map eventually pops in. Or is the actual map itself slow once it loads?
When Flightaware pages load, they load fast. However half the time it simply can’t load and the connection appears to hang, then either the browser gives up trying or it the page eventually loads when connectivity to Flightaware comes back. Meanwhile I am able to load other websites fine as the problem occurs.
The computer freezing issue on the airport pages is a separate issue. This issue is less noticeable on higher-end computers so I believe it is related to memory usage of the code. I do not have this issue on the flight tracking pages, just on the airport pages.
With all due respect this kind of ‘cop out’ response does annoy me. If you’re going to design a site that only works properly with one browser then you should make that clear so that people who prefer to use other browsers can expect the site to only work half of the time. Making websites compatable with more than one browser is hardly rocket science from a coding aspect.
For what it’s worth, I know exactly what Plainplane is talking about as I’ve just searched on the topic myself to see if anyone else is experiencing these issues and clearly they are. As you know, I use Opera 9.64 but before you trott out your “x browser is shit, you should Firefox because that is God” - which, by the way, it isn’t - I have also tried it with IE8 and also Chrome and the issues are still there.
The pages are hanging every so often (seems to be no particular pattern to it) although it happens for me when trying to enter a different airport code to search. The page just freezes and won’t allow the cursor to be placed and trying to close the tab down won’t do anything for 5-10 seconds either, nor can you do anything else on the page, including refresh.
There is also still the bug in the airport code search box which either auto-completes the wrong airport code that you are trying to type in (eg. typing in CYQX always defaults to CYQB the first time round, even though you haven’t typed B or selected it from the drop down list that pops up) and one hit of the ‘enter’ key on your keyboard doesn’t set it searching, it requires 3 simultaneous hits of the key before it will do anything, although US airport 3 letter codes work okay after 1 hit.
Really, all this kind of stuff is pretty basic and should be ironed out before releasing to the public. And before people start frothing at the mouth saying stuff like ‘the site is free, stop moaning/what do you expect’ etc, that has got nothing to do with it and it’s simply down to bad scripting. If you would like someone to check any changes before releasing updates/new features then my services are available at GBP30/hr.
As usual though I expect the ‘use Firefox/we don’t care’ response so not even sure why I bother mentioning the glitches.
…and another thing, the GBP pound symbol is not supported in your coding either - can’t post a message with it in.
That was not at all the intent of my comment. We support all of the major (IE, Firefox) and a few minor (Safari, Chrome, Opera) browsers and expect the site to work in other, standards compliant browsers. We have observed that the new maps work better (faster, smoother) in Firefox than other browsers, likely due to the performance of Firefox’s Javascript engine.
We’re unable to reproduce either of the OP’s issues (pages freezing or the site not loading) on the platforms he’s using. We’d like him to try the browser that we think has the best chance at working better. If it does, it may be an issue with plugins or addons with his other browsers. If not, it may be a larger issue with his systems or internet connection.
I have no trouble entering CYQX and hitting enter once to select it. What characters have you entered when you hit enter three times? You don’t need to type anything but the characters to initiate the dropdown search.
I haven’t had a problem concurrently tracking muliple airports KMGN and KJFK as well as multiple flights TRS525,SWA1657,FDX1218, and NWA632 (all of these flights are totally random).
I am using Internet Explorer version 8.0.6001.18702. I haven’t had a problem tracking the airport activity or the individual flights. Hope this helps and doesn’t compound the problem.
From my experience I would say that the problem is with the OP’s browser…sorry.
I can’t speak for Safari because I don’t use it but certainly some of the problems the OP describes are equally evident with Opera, Chrome and IE8 (to a lessor extent) - certainly the page freezing issue is happening on both of my systems here (ancient pre Pent 1 with XP and 4 month old top spec laptop also running XP) and also the work system running Vista, so it’s certainly not connected to PC spec or OS. It is perhaps worth mentioning the freeze issues have only been happening to me for the few days or so (definitely not as far back as the new maps/interface).
I think you should be spending more time using the different browsers in order to see the problems as I get the feeling you’re giving them a quick 2 minute whirl, seeing no obvious problems and signing them off as compatable.
How the hell you are “unable to reproduce” the issues is beyond me. Certainly the issue I mentioned with the airport search box with Opera is obvious right from the first time you use it. To answer your question above, I am obviously typing in CYQX as that is the airport code. You say it auto-completes but that is exactly that I think the issue is because it defaults to CYQB when you are typing as that is the first CYQ_ in the list. Depending what mood it is in, sometimes it will let you finish typing CYQX before it fills in the B for you even though you didn’t type it, but most of the time it fills in the B and you then have to go back and delete it. Additionally, I can 100% confirm that for 4-letter airports (ie. any that are not US ones), you WILL have to press the enter button 3 times in Opera to send it off searching. The first time you press it the cursor vanishes from the box, the second time you press it the “eg. New York” writing disappears from the ‘airport name’ box underneath, and then the third time it goes and brings the page up.
Clearly it is not working as it should. Quite why you have an auto-complete for a field that only contains 4 characters is beyond me. Surely taking laziness to extremes??? If you can’t manage to type in either 3 or 4 letters without assistance then you should be selling your PC and realising that you are too stupid for the internet. An auto-complete on the full airport name is of course much more sensible.
Anyway, I am sure that the “I am unable to reproduce the issues” record will be put on the deck any moment now so I’ll leave it there…
Adding to the above regarding the CYQX search, if you enter CYQX from here, ie. in the forums with the search area over there <---- then it works okay first time, but I think that is because there doesn’t appear to be any auto-complete working from here.
If, however, you try to do it from the homepage then it doesn’t work and requires 3 entries. Also, having played with it some more, the issue seems to be that the auto-complete/drop-down menu tries to pop-up while you are typing (which is what it’s supposed to do, of course) but as it’s thinking about offering various criteria for you to click on it also momentarily stops you from typing any further. As an example of what I’m trying to describe, try typing in CYQX followed by the ‘enter’ button at normal typing speed and you’ll get as far as CY which will then change to KACY as you are hitting the ‘enter’ key, even though you actually typed in CYQX. It’s that brief lag where the auto-complete offer suggestions that stops you in your tracks. If you’re quick enough you can get as far as CYQ before it changes the X you typed to B instead, and if you type you like a goon (ie. really slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwlyyyyyyyyyyyy) then it will let you type in CYQX unhindered because by this point the auto-complete has got fed up of waiting and gone to sleep.
Solution: just remove the useless auto-complete/drop-down boxes on the airport code and I bet the problem will be solved.
With all due respect this kind of ‘cop out’ response does annoy me. If you’re going to design a site that only works properly with one browser then you should make that clear so that people who prefer to use other browsers can expect the site to only work half of the time. Making websites compatable with more than one browser is hardly rocket science from a coding aspect. 