Server Issues

[Michelle Blair]

Good Morning,

I have students working with App Inventor (have been using for over a week) and today many of them are having issues. They are using Chromebooks, but everything has been going smoothly until today. Today, some of them have no problems, some of them are saying the program is very slow, and some of them are having trouble scanning (and getting it to work). Also, several have Not Secure messages in their browsers. I have not seen this before. Was wondering if anyone else was experiencing problems today.  

[SteveJG]

Not experiencing this using Win10.

 some of them have no problems  .. Great.  Just checked the build servers and they appear to be working normally.  The issues others have may be related to their project size or content.

some of them are saying the program is very slow  ... depending on how complex their code is, how many large images or sound files they load etc. , loading Projects will become slow.  Any common characteristics in the Projects of the students having 'slow' issues?  Lots of graphics for instance.  What part is slow?  Loading the Project or the device updating it's screen after the student makes a change in a visible object.

, and some of them are having trouble scanning (and getting it to work).   Sometimes this is a matter of cleaning the device's camera lens.  Really.  or a matter of slightly tilting the device while scanning a stubborn QR code.

Also, several have Not Secure messages in their browsers.   Chrome recently has decided that because the AI2 site allows automatic downloading  etc..  The user sees 

1. 
   
2. To check a site's security, to the left of the web address, look at the security status:
   •  Secure
   •  Info or Not secure
   •  Not secure or Dangerous
3. To see the site's details and permissions, select the icon. You'll see a summary of how private Chrome thinks the connection is.

This is probably a security feature of the latest Chrome.  Does this only happen on Chrome?  Someone from MIT may comment on this.   Your post has been flagged.

Some of what you experience may be due to your local school network experiencing a heavy load.  Others streaming video or many students active.  We don't know.  What I know is no issues with Win10 Pc at the moment.

Provide a little more information and someone might provide a better analysis..

Regards,

Steve

[Michelle Blair]

They are just doing their first app, which is the I Have A Dream tutorial (very few blocks). When they click on a project, they get a white screen. It remains that way for a while. Eventually it might load or might not. Also, when they scan onto a tablet, it just says "loading" on the Chromebook, but it does not ever end up on the tablet. Thanks!

[SteveJG]

The not secure message also appears on Firefox.  https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/insecure-password-warning-firefox?as=u&utm_source=inproduct   explains that this is due to them providing more security and appears because the site uses a log-in password.

[Evan Patton]

The site ai2.appinventor.mit.edu doesn't actually use a password (login is handled by login.appinventor.mit.edu), but Chrome and Firefox get grumpy because the PasswordTextbox is simulated using an password input, so even though it doesn't do anything it still is flagged.

Regarding the warning about the site being not secure, this warning should not affect the ability of anyone to use App Inventor at this time. We need to use HTTP at present because that is how the browser talks to companion. HTTPS would require every phone/tablet to have its own domain name and trusted SSL certificate, which is not feasible. We are working on an alternate solution to this problem so that in the future we can support App Inventor over HTTPS, delivery date TBD.

Regards,

Evan