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dv lottery 2021 website not working

reyson said:
Let's see by simple logic forgetting from where you try to fill out the application because the location does not really matter and it is true but: there is a certain thing if you are trying 24 hours and 24 hours the system is continuously rejecting the connection even after filling 2 Full pages is somewhat frustrating. I know that the traffic in the last days of the process is greater but there are people who have been with this problem for several days. In the end I just wanted to comment with the encouragement of everyone trying to share experiences and see any suggestions. Thank you either way.
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Yes, I understand exactly how frustrating this is because it happened to me one year, I left it to near the end of the period to apply and ended up not being able to submit anything by the close as the website just kept hanging/resetting the connection. I learnt my lesson that year and have warned about that since, there is not much else one can do. Yes we can encourage you to keep on trying so please do... but that’s not really “practical” advice.

The number of applicants is big.... last year there were almost 14.7 million individual entrants. I can’t say for certain but judging by human nature I would expect that the crunch periods are the few days after entries open and the few days before it closes. So yeah, a few million people all trying the same time probably leads to server issues. Someone above said they were a web server professional, I wonder (I genuinely don’t know) how many websites get that kind of traffic at once (world cup cricket maybe but that doesn’t require submission of anything?)
The year I was unsuccessful applying, DV2012, there were still 14.8 million successful entrants... so it clearly wasn't a general website issue.
 
Hi, i just submitted after trying for4 hours. So the only thing that worked for me was to reduce the size of picture. Not the pixels but the actual file size. I used chrome in incognoto mode and cleared cache before every attempt till i was able to succeed
Total pictures i had to upload was 4 and the total size of all were approximately 110kb
Hope it helps someone looking for information
Cheers
 
OnTheGo said:
Also, do a hard refresh! This may or may not help, if and when the issue is just the heavy load on the server...which is the same every year at the beginning and the end of the entry period.
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Thanks for the link and it worked for me, I used chrome on windows and I pressed F12 when filling up the form and it worked.
 
Jerry007 said:
O
i Used chrome to update my info as well as upload my photos, which it did and i submitted the entry as well. That is my experience.
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I also used Chrome for whole process of entry as well as photo tool. Just my experience too.
 
I found the issue. Your first foto should be less than 100kb and MOST important - SUM of other relatives fotos also should be less than 100Kb.
 
I just helped another friend submit his entry . And it worked at first try .
I used Microsoft edge on my cellphone , his photo is only 21Kb , and I put his infos as quick as I could . So it's still possible , good luck everyone .
 
I had the same problem , just use Google Chrome and fill out all information in 1st page if you got error just use back button in Chrome you will see all information still filled keep press continue tel you have the 2nd page, Good Luck all..
 
mghorba said:
I tried filling out the form and after filling the first page, which includes picture selection, pressing continue causes the website to return an error. I tried on several different computers and I get the same error.

The requested URL was rejected. Please consult with your administrator.
Your support ID is: 8040091968453365594
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The website is choosing some people and locking others out. I don’t know what criteria is used. I couldn’t apply for a week. My wife and sister in law did it in minutes- same laptop and internet.
 
Mukinya said:
The website is choosing some people and locking others out. I don’t know what criteria is used. I couldn’t apply for a week. My wife and sister in law did it in minutes- same laptop and internet.
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Complete BS!
 
Just made this account because I wanted to say, yeah it was extremely dumb of me to leave the entry this late. The site is glitching like crazy and I was getting multiple server errors no matter which browser I used or what I did.

So very dumb, not to self: do not do this again.

I submitted my application 3/4 times but every time I just got server errors on chrome. I saw one of the comments on this thread saying that we should try make the picture smaller. I checked on the state.gov website for the picture requirements and it said they should be under 200kb. Mine was 150kb I think, but I literally had nothing else to try and no matter what I did - it did seem to make a difference, I kept on getting server error.

So I decided to run it through some lossy compression and I ended up using compressor.io to compress my 150kb image. It went from 150kb to 30kb. The dimensions stayed the same (still 600 x 600) and I couldn't really see any difference in the quality unless I zoomed in. I tried submitting the application with the 30kb image while basically biting my nails and: It worked! I finally got to the next step and then got my confirmation number. I don't know if this was actually because of my image being smaller, or pure coincidence but if you are getting these server errors it couldn't hurt to try. I would have much rather submitted the higher quality image, but considering they are visually not different and that I would rather be in the lottery with a slightly smaller picture than not in the lottery at all, I think its a good option.

Really the biggest lesson from this is that I am nevcer leaving it this late again.

Good luck to everyone, see you on the other side :)

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TLDR:

If the dv2021 website isn't working for you try using compressor.io or some other "new" image optimisation method that doesn't visually change your image, to get your image smaller. It worked for me. But it could also have been a coincidence.

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Edit: I can't post links because this website thinks I am posting spam, but compressor.io is a link to a wesbite. Just paste it in your url bar.

Other resources that might work:

imagecompressor.com/
imageoptim.com/versions
developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/optimizing-content-efficiency/image-optimization
 
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I should have come back here and checked. Continuous error and i thought it was due to heavy traffic on the site...thought my 100kb pics would have been fine.

I've another problem now, i managed to submit AFTER the deadline (as i just use Chrome and kept refreshing on page 1). System gave me confirmation number and all but the it states that submission was done on Nov 5, 12:07pm...have a feeling that my application will be thrown out from the draw..

Any of u guys come across this before? (and i know, my fault waiting till the very last day to submit :(
 
No one can accurately answer this for you other than the people administrating this program. What ever corner cases they have might be treated differently from what we, here, can share.

Best to just wait and see in May.
 
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