dv lottery 2021 website not working

[cofi19a]

Well this was really funny for me. The same thing that happend to "Mukinya" happend to me. I tried refreshing the page and getting locked out for 2 hours, but a friend of mine (girl) did it in a few tries and in the last minutes, so no, it is not BS "Sm1smom"... It seems as tho some fat ass is sitting, drinking whiskey, and choosing based on the pics: "oh this girl is hot let her ip pass. Oh this one seems troublesome leave him blocked".

But on the serious side, if you know anything about computers you would know that different ip adressess dont matter neither does the country you are sending it from as all connections are routed to the same server. You would also assume that a website that has a .gov after the name has serious machinery behind it, also they can pull cpu power from other state owned computer centers if they didn't anticipate the amount of people trying to connect but thats highly unlikely as this is going on for years and they, of course, assumed that. So the first theory with the fat guy judging pics on the first glance seems most plausible for now.......... Oh yeah the image size theory is also (if true) a very sad image of their government services as you would also assume that an Official American document detailing the guide to image sizes would logically be correct...... And you dont need to over analyze whether to send a 150kb file or a 149kb file to be accepted... I mean common this is isnt an application for some student programming hackaton....

Even if they did have real problems with their servers, DDoS attacks or a powersure or I dont know what, a million things can happen, they should give people one more day to apply or two, depending on how long their servers were acting hectic, if they were "the good guys"... But that movie we are not going to watch of course.

The real lottery here was who was going to get trough the 404 screen... and Thats complete BS.

 

[TheKey]

I can guarantee that no human (other than system admins perhaps) are even batting an eye about the DV lottery entries. The website has other civics purposes, which are far more important than a foreign national’s DV entry.

Some people can access the site while others can’t, simply because of how computer networks work. If you make an HTTP request at the time a server has capacity, then your session will begin. Otherwise you get some error. Access to the website at high-volume times is based on whether your HTTP request coincides with availability.

 

[SusieQQQ]

Well this was really funny for me. The same thing that happend to "Mukinya" happend to me. I tried refreshing the page and getting locked out for 2 hours, but a friend of mine (girl) did it in a few tries and in the last minutes, so no, it is not BS "Sm1smom"... It seems as tho some fat ass is sitting, drinking whiskey, and choosing based on the pics: "oh this girl is hot let her ip pass. Oh this one seems troublesome leave him blocked".

But on the serious side, if you know anything about computers you would know that different ip adressess dont matter neither does the country you are sending it from as all connections are routed to the same server. You would also assume that a website that has a .gov after the name has serious machinery behind it, also they can pull cpu power from other state owned computer centers if they didn't anticipate the amount of people trying to connect but thats highly unlikely as this is going on for years and they, of course, assumed that. So the first theory with the fat guy judging pics on the first glance seems most plausible for now.......... Oh yeah the image size theory is also (if true) a very sad image of their government services as you would also assume that an Official American document detailing the guide to image sizes would logically be correct...... And you dont need to over analyze whether to send a 150kb file or a 149kb file to be accepted... I mean common this is isnt an application for some student programming hackaton....

Even if they did have real problems with their servers, DDoS attacks or a powersure or I dont know what, a million things can happen, they should give people one more day to apply or two, depending on how long their servers were acting hectic, if they were "the good guys"... But that movie we are not going to watch of course.

The real lottery here was who was going to get trough the 404 screen... and Thats complete BS.

Gee, that dude must be Superman to be judging the pics coming through from thousands of attempted entries a minute LOL

As for an extra day or two, you’ve had over a month to apply. Next year, apply earlier in the process.

 

[mrkebab]

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

most likely your application will be fine.
these web developers aren't that clever to filter edge cases.
Once they have generated the confirmation number, it's most likely final and your application is in the database.
stop worrying

 

[cofi19a]

I can guarantee that no human (other than system admins perhaps) are even batting an eye about the DV lottery entries. The website has other civics purposes, which are far more important than a foreign national’s DV entry.

Some people can access the site while others can’t, simply because of how computer networks work. If you make an HTTP request at the time a server has capacity, then your session will begin. Otherwise you get some error. Access to the website at high-volume times is based on whether your HTTP request coincides with availability.

As far as I see it the session began the moment I accessed the site, which did happen up until the moment you send your request. So how can your session begin then stop midway on an important page where you enter your personal info which you accessed after entering a captcha, so now you are given even more imprtance (bandwith) as a more more secure connection is now in place, and then it stops after clicking continue for some people and continues working for others (from the same country)?

 

[TheKey]

As far as I see it the session began the moment I accessed the site, which did happen up until the moment you send your request. So how can your session begin then stop midway on an important page where you enter your personal info which you accessed after entering a captcha, so now you are given even more imprtance (bandwith) as a more more secure connection is now in place, and then it stops after clicking continue for some people and continues working for others (from the same country)?

Because when you hit “continue” a NEW HTTP request is made to the server, together with your session cookie... Again, if you click “continue” that NEW HTTP request is subject to the same availability constraints as other people on the same website. The website hasn’t changed, only the page.

I could go on about how computer networks operate, but I think I’m past the textbook phase now.

 

[cofi19a]

Gee, that dude must be Superman to be judging the pics coming through from thousands of attempted entries a minute LOL

As for an extra day or two, you’ve had over a month to apply. Next year, apply earlier in the process.

Well the superman was intended to be a joke ofc.

As for your "apply next year" patronizing comment, people had this problem for weeks so yes a week more (assuming it works) to increase the deadline would be the only rational move.

 

[TheKey]

The DV lottery is not a legal right... Also, the instructions are always clear on last minute entries. Besides, you can’t even claim any financial loss/grievance because the whole entrance is free.

 

[TheKey]

...so @SusieQQQ was actually just giving a valid suggestion. It was in no way patronising.

 

[cofi19a]

@TheKey the thing you said with http requests does make sense, but it still doesn't explain why some people got weeks of request denials and some people didnt and even some got in the last minutes, this is all under the assumption that the government body organizing this expected more requests to the site then usual, which is obvious. It seems to me like a bug in the network which would entail a week long more entrie time assuming the bug is fixed.

I have not found any instructions, in the guided part of the application, that clearly told something about last minute entries and "overloaded website problems". The entry was crystal clear up until the moment you sent your application, where the trouble began. And the suggestion about sending earlier is real yes but i again stress the argument that a goverment website making a "lottery" would increase the bandwith of their site, and again they should give a week more to enter. And if the bug is the problem then they should fix it and again give a week more to enter.

 

[Sm1smom]

I have not found any instructions, in the guided part of the application, that clearly told something about last minute entries and "overloaded website problems". The entry was crystal clear up until the moment you sent your application, where the trouble began. And the suggestion about sending earlier is real yes but i again stress the argument that a goverment website making a "lottery" would increase the bandwith of their site, and again they should give a week more to enter. And if the bug is the problem then they should fix it and again give a week more to enter.

Happy to point you in the direction of where the instruction clearly talks about last minute registration attempt and it’s impact on the website:

Entry period
Applicants must submit entries for the DV-2021 program electronically at dvlottery.state.gov between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Wednesday, October 2, 2019, and noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5), Tuesday, November 5, 2019. Do not wait until the last week of the registration period to enter, as heavy demand may result in website delays.

DV 2021 Instructions - page 2 to be precise.

 

[cofi19a]

@Sm1smom
Ty mate you seem to know the subject matter. Yet It still doesn't say not to apply as you would be dc'd... It says "delays"... :S which is a cop out.
It also doesn't explain why lots of people got in the last second and lots of people didn't for weekS, wich obviously indicates a bug.

 

[Sm1smom]

@Sm1smom
Ty mate you seem to know the subject matter. Yet It still doesn't say not to apply as you would be dc'd... It says "delays"... :S which is a cop out.
It also doesn't explain why lots of people got in the last second and lots of people didn't for weekS, wich obviously indicates a bug.

Don’t you think it will be ridiculous for the instruction to say don’t bother applying in the last week, when the cutoff date is provided for precisely that?

Guess what? I give up!

 

[SusieQQQ]

Well the superman was intended to be a joke ofc.

As for your "apply next year" patronizing comment, people had this problem for weeks so yes a week more (assuming it works) to increase the deadline would be the only rational move.

Yet there will probably be nearly fifteen million valid individual entries this year, like always, which actually means it works just fine; and like the year that what happened to you this year happened to me. I learnt my lesson.... and didn’t wait too late the next year...and actually got selected the next year. Not the first or last time in history that websites glitch due to huge amounts of people trying to get in and no, the US does not owe anything extra to entrants in a lottery. You know...there’s a reason there is a 35 day entry period. And you know what...if do they add a week or two on guess what, everyone will still wait til the last few days and do it again. Because human nature.

 

[SaintNowa]

@TheKey the thing you said with http requests does make sense, but it still doesn't explain why some people got weeks of request denials and some people didnt and even some got in the last minutes, this is all under the assumption that the government body organizing this expected more requests to the site then usual, which is obvious. It seems to me like a bug in the network which would entail a week long more entrie time assuming the bug is fixed.

I have not found any instructions, in the guided part of the application, that clearly told something about last minute entries and "overloaded website problems". The entry was crystal clear up until the moment you sent your application, where the trouble began. And the suggestion about sending earlier is real yes but i again stress the argument that a goverment website making a "lottery" would increase the bandwith of their site, and again they should give a week more to enter. And if the bug is the problem then they should fix it and again give a week more to enter.

I searched through social media (twitter and facebook) for past application experiences in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and it seems the complaints are always the same during the last week and none of whose deadline was extended. I doubt they will extend this year seeing that millions of people already succeeded in their submissions but who knows.

 

[SusieQQQ]

Happy to point you in the direction of where the instruction clearly talks about last minute registration attempt and it’s impact on the website:

Entry period
Applicants must submit entries for the DV-2021 program electronically at dvlottery.state.gov between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Wednesday, October 2, 2019, and noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5), Tuesday, November 5, 2019. Do not wait until the last week of the registration period to enter, as heavy demand may result in website delays.

DV 2021 Instructions - page 2 to be precise.

Ah, I thought I’d remembered this somewhere official (I know we always say it here, but of course not many read here before entering). Thanks for posting it. Something we see every year manifesting in different ways... people just don’t read the instructions properly.

 

[SusieQQQ]

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

Not heard this before but I’d tend to think if you got a confirmation number you’re ok. The year I also waited to the last minute it just hung and then the application wasn’t available to do anymore. Anyway...good luck.

 

[TheKey]

@TheKey the thing you said with http requests does make sense, but it still doesn't explain why some people got weeks of request denials and some people didnt and even some got in the last minutes, this is all under the assumption that the government body organizing this expected more requests to the site then usual, which is obvious. It seems to me like a bug in the network which would entail a week long more entrie time assuming the bug is fixed.

I have not found any instructions, in the guided part of the application, that clearly told something about last minute entries and "overloaded website problems". The entry was crystal clear up until the moment you sent your application, where the trouble began. And the suggestion about sending earlier is real yes but i again stress the argument that a goverment website making a "lottery" would increase the bandwith of their site, and again they should give a week more to enter. And if the bug is the problem then they should fix it and again give a week more to enter.

Government websites are usually far from perfect. They’re functional, at best. Most governments don’t have access to funds to load-balance their websites, especially since it’s a not for-profit intuitive. Try explaining to your tax payers that you bought a more “powerful server” for the DV lottery.

 

[TheKey]

I’m on my 6th DV entry this year. I’ve never expected top-notch service from this website. The only time I’m ever been disappointed with the website is when it gives me the ever so common “NOT SELECTED.”

 

[SusieQQQ]

I’m on my 6th DV entry this year. I’ve never expected top-notch service from this website. The only time I’m ever been disappointed with the website is when it gives me the ever so common “NOT SELECTED.”

Hopefully in May you go on and have the same reaction I did in May ‘12, which was “wait, why are there so many words here?”