July 17th, 2006
by DougBack in Business
Hi all,
Sorry about all of the ups and downs today but it looks like we’re good for the night.
The most current update addresses the serious case of the slowness you’ve most certainly noticed. We also have a new fancy-grade beefy database server on the way that will also make a major difference.
Most of the changes in this release are on the back-end but here are some UI and functionality changes/bug fixes we sneaked in:
- OPML import handles categories better and no longer barfs Rails stack traces
- Feed list animation and rendering bugs have been fixed
- Email address are actually parsed correctly now in the new user page
- Blog and Forum links now the top of the page
Because of the way we’re caching the feed list, we currently cannot change the unread counts based on what is selected in the “Show entries from” drop-down. However, when you select a feed, the entries you see are limited by the selected value the same as before. Getting the unread counts to change again is near the top of the list of things we’re addressing in the next rollout. The main page loads around a billion times faster now so the trade-off was an easy choice.
The “mark everything as read” link has also been removed because of database killing concerns, but will also be back in a future update.
Please let us know if you have any problems!
July 17th, 2006 at 9:52 am
The speed is back, and the bugs are gone. What a lovely combination!
July 17th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Ha - I was just about to report the unread feed count bug! Keep up the good work.
July 17th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Unread news items still do not seem to be populating correctly unless I refresh the page. I read a batch of news items, mark them as read, and then wait - and wait. No more unread items ever come to my attention until I refresh the page. Is that as designed?
July 17th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Aaron, How long do you wait? I’m testing it right now myself.
Thanks.
July 17th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
I have waited at times over an hour before refreshing the page. Every time I refresh the page, it always seems to find new feeds that have been updated (Digg, Slashdot, etc.). I’m running the latest version of Firefox with Tab Mix Plus and AdBlock as the only extensions. I haven’t had any problems with other AJAX-enabled sites, so that’s why I couldn’t immediately point a finger at anything.
July 17th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Aaron, looks like you’re right. Adding to bug database. This is probably just a side effect of the changes Doug had to quickly make to prevent the deadly slowdown we had.
July 17th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Great update guys, and a much needed one in light of the super slow loading time experienced before the update. This is an amazingly great service and I look forward to using it for a long time. Thanks and cheers for a job well done!
July 17th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Good deal on the update guys. You all are doing an amazing job with Newshutch.
As feeds are updated, they are supposed to populate on the bottom of the feed list on the left-hand side of the page? This, as opposed to the feed list remaining in alphabetical order even if a feed is updated?
Just trying to wrap my head around how things work, so I know exactly what to expect?
July 17th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
Aaron, yeah it looks like that is a bug I introduced. I think I know what is happening…and if so that should be fixed very soon!
Scott, you’ve got it right. When a feed has been updated it will appear at the bottom of the category it’s in.
Thanks for the props!
July 18th, 2006 at 1:06 am
I love Newshutch. This is my new default feed-reader. I can finally live without Thunderbird!
July 18th, 2006 at 10:59 am
Hi All, the refresh bug that Aaron was talking about has been fixed in a small update last night. Ah the joys of regression bugs
In any case, enjoy!
July 18th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
I love newshutch, but I only have one complaint/suggestion: it would be nice to be able to sort feeds in order of most unread items.
Other sorts would be nice as well, but I know this site is new - it’ll take time. Just wanted to raise the point.
Other than that - I -love- this site! I went from Bloglines to here, and I plan on staying!
July 18th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
I went from Newsvibes to here. And I am also planning to stay here. The only thing that prevent me from deleting Newsvibes is a Gmail-reader. But I have patience. Keep it up this way!
July 19th, 2006 at 2:55 am
Well… coming from Bloglines, I must say the lack of speed is really annoying. E.g., it is now 10:50AM, GMT (i.e., 5:50 in New York); posts from Wired (5) and CNN (25) take ages (I haven’t been able to read one…) to show…
JB
July 19th, 2006 at 6:41 am
I now have a bug where one feed shows an unread news item, but when I click on that feed it says there are no unread items. Trying to mark all read doesn’t clear the unread item, so consequently, that feed is constantly showing up in the sidebar. I have tried logging out and back in to see if it was tied to my session or something funky like that, but that didn’t resolve the problem.
July 19th, 2006 at 8:18 am
JB, sorry about the slowdown. That should be resolved when our new server is up.
Aaron, what feed is giving you trouble? I’ve seen malformed or incorrectly parsed feeds make entries prevent themselves from being marked read.
July 19th, 2006 at 8:28 am
I actually have two now:
http://www.andyrutledge.com/feeds/arfeed.xml
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TraderMike
Many thanks for tracking the bugs down. You have my continued support.
July 19th, 2006 at 9:41 am
Aaron,
I can’t duplicate your bug. I think what’s happening is that one of the entries may have been malformed xml (that is no longer in the feed) and it couldn’t be marked as read. This problem may go away when “mark everything as read” comes back.
An interim solution may be to delete those feeds and then re-add them.
I have a similar issue with a feed item. It has some funky embed which make the item unable to be marked read.
Anyone else have “stuck” feeds or items?
July 19th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Nathan:
I have deleted both feeds and re-subscribed to them. Both feeds remain a problem (2 items are always unread in the Trader Mike feed and one in the Design View feed).
On a related note: When you add a new feed, it doesn’t show up in the “Manage” tab unless you perform another action in that tab, which will then cause that data to refresh.
The feed issues are a small annoyance. I’d just recommend filing them with your next batch of feature updates and bug fixes. I doubt anyone else who has the same issues will run for the door because of a couple stuck news items.
July 19th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Nathan: I had a problem with a feed that had like 390 items in it (Boing Boing’s feed). It would stick and cause my browser to freeze. Sounds like you are on it though?
Aside from small annoyances of a new and in-development app, this is great, something I’ve been waiting for. Thanks for doing it!
July 19th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Aaron,
Everything (category dropdowns, unread items, manage feed lists, etc…) used to be always updated on the fly. We had to temporarily disable certain features in order to cache more things. This will all be resolved when we get our new server. Thanks for all your feedback
July 19th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Matt H,
Did it feel like the problem was caused by your browser or by a Newshutch hang, or both? What browser/OS are you using?