Services unavailable since several days.

[Steve]

Firstly thanks for an excellent service.

During the past few days it takes several minutes to connect to
Geonames, if at all. I am using the SRTM JSON and the weather JSON
data but I have tried other sevices from the links in the webservice
overview at http://www.geonames.org/export/ws-overview.html and the
result is the same. I thought that I would wait until after the
weekend and see if it's fixed on Monday but the problem is still
there.

Any idea when the service might be restored to normal?

Regards,

Steve.

[Marc Wick]

The servers have been overloaded by too many requests in the last days
and since yesterday evening it has become even worse. We have started to
block some applications that cause far too many requests.

Marc

[Steve]

On Jan 20, 6:19 am, Marc Wick <m...@geonames.org> wrote:
> The servers have been overloaded by too many requests in the last days
> and since yesterday evening it has become even worse. We have started to
> block some applications that cause far too many requests.
>

I am using the SRTM3 JSON service and requesting on average about 100
requests from a javascript loop about 10 - 20 times a day. As SRTM3
requests only count as 0.2 credits per request I am easily inside the
50000 credit limit. I hope that I am not one of the bad boys.

What kind of applications are overloading the servers? Are they over
the credit limit?

Regards,

Steve.
>
> Stevewrote:

> > Firstly thanks for an excellent service.
>
> > During the past few days it takes several minutes to connect to
> > Geonames, if at all. I am using the SRTM JSON and the weather JSON
> > data but I have tried other sevices from the links in the webservice

> > overview athttp://www.geonames.org/export/ws-overview.htmland the

[RsH]

I am using RouteConverter from here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and I
keep getting:

"The host did not accept the connection within timeout of 15000 ms"

every time I try... So why, when I am signing on for the first time
today, can I not even get connected to the server? If I cannot connect
to the server there is no way I can download elevations or location
names, which is all I am trying to do in mp GPX track data.

Are you blocking RouteConverter? If not, WHY this timeout? What amount
of overhead have you added in permitting or denying connections? What
should be allowed as the timeout if 15000 ms from my home in Canada to
your server is too short a timeout period?


RsH
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Jan 20, 12:19 am, Marc Wick <m...@geonames.org> wrote:
> The servers have been overloaded by too many requests in the last days
> and since yesterday evening it has become even worse. We have started to
> block some applications that cause far too many requests.
>
> Marc
>
> Steve wrote:
> > Firstly thanks for an excellent service.
>
> > During the past few days it takes several minutes to connect to
> > Geonames, if at all. I am using the SRTM JSON and the weather JSON
> > data but I have tried other sevices from the links in the webservice

> > overview athttp://www.geonames.org/export/ws-overview.htmland the

[Marc Wick]

An iphone application called iMob is causing the problems and has the
effect of a DDOS attack. I am trying to get in touch with the developers
to get them to remove this geolocation feature from their application.

Marc

[Marc Wick]

Don't worry RsH. We are not blocking you and you are not the only one
currently affected by the problem.

Marc

[Zach Holt]

Marc,

I'm considering developing an iPhone app that does geolocation. Would
you say that geonames is not a good option for that kind of
application? I'd hate to generate similar problems.

Thanks,
Zach

On Jan 20, 2009, at 1:02 PM, Marc Wick wrote:

>
> An iphone application

[Carey Gister]

Hi Zach,

I use geonames for a commercial application that has strict quality of
service metrics. I use the commercial geonames service and I am a very
satisfied customer. I think that if you require a reliable quality of
service you should use the commercial geonames service.

http://www.geonames.org/services.html

Carey

[Zach Holt]

Carey,

Thank you for that info. Is your commercial application subscription
based? If not, how did you come up with a price for it? Especially
with an iPhone app that users expect to pay < $5 for, I'm concerned
about not charging enough to cover all of a given user's as well as
all users' use of the commercial geonames service.

My application would have a slightly different profile from yours, I
think. I am less concerned about the individual end user's quality of
service than I am about the combined experience of all users. So I
don't need 99.9% (or whatever) availability, but neither do I want to
cause or experience response times like the public service has had the
past few days.

Thanks again,
Zach

[Carey Gister]

Zach,

Our service is not subscription based. We have another revenue model. I
recently purchased 1 million credits for about 80 Euros. I think that will
last me for some time. At your pricing, that would be about 20 sales.
Given that geonames incurs costs in its operation and, I am sure, you want
to ensure your customers the best possible experience, I think that using
the commercial service is a win-win proposition.