Sunday Login Issues

[ChiTwn]

I cannot be the only one that had login issues 15 mins before kickoff yesterday. What was the issue? Is it fixed?

Greg,

What is the protocol if this happens again? Do we all just email you with our lineup changes?

[Greg Ambrosius]

I cannot be the only one that had login issues 15 mins before kickoff yesterday. What was the issue? Is it fixed?

Greg,

What is the protocol if this happens again? Do we all just email you with our lineup changes?

The site went down 11 minutes before kickoff and was slowing down 4-5 minutes before that. We alerted IT and got the site back up by 1:15 pm ET, but it was too late to help anyone with late changes. No changes were made, whether folks emailed us their changes or not because it would be unfair to those who didn't have the chance to do the same thing. In fact, I was telling folks to keep refreshing because we haven't had an issue with the site before kickoff in all of our years.

This was something that should NOT have happened and will not happen again. Yes, we've corrected the issue and increased the server space so much that this will never happen again. The protocol is on us: Don't EVER let this happen again.

We apologize and we know some people were unable to make last minute moves because of this. Legally, we couldn't make any changes after kickoff, so everyone suffered the consequences. Thankfully there were only five early games and that mitigated the need for multiple changes, but yes, we do know it affected some owners. It can't happen again.

Thanks to everyone who alerted us at 12:45 pm ET and we apologize that the fix didn't happen until after kickoff. Email and text responses were helpful and we don't expect this to ever happen again. Sorry everyone.

[Coltsfan]

I agree with you decision Greg. But I have always wondered "what if" there was a devastating storm that knocked out power and cell towers in a large area of the US. Would the NFFC run with whatever last lineup is that was submitted? I've always been curious and would like to know beforehand just in case.


Wayne

[Greg Ambrosius]

I agree with you decision Greg. But I have always wondered "what if" there was a devastating storm that knocked out power and cell towers in a large area of the US. Would the NFFC run with whatever last lineup is that was submitted? I've always been curious and would like to know beforehand just in case.


Wayne

I would say yes, Wayne. We couldn't roll back deadlines because certain areas of the country had outages. In football, always make your changes well in advance if possible and tweak last minute where needed. As we all know, shit can happen with your service or even our service, so do your best to be prepared in advance with your FAAB bids and Set Lineup decisions.

This one was on us and we've rectified it. Sorry again from all of us here.

[larrygold33]

I preface my comment with my general view that the NFFC in every way possible provides the best season long experience vs. industry competitors & has for a long time. NFFC gets 75% of my SZN business because they have adapted best to an ever changing industry, had superior customer service, & just checked every possible box with respect to full season fantasy.

With that said, I respectfully disagree with how this played out. Of course I understand that glitches happen & solutions are often tricky. But, as many likely did/do, I do a run through & edit lineups a half hour before 1pm especially. This week (Week 10) is a particularly tricky week as it presents us with many more lineups to set with the cutline transition away from best ball. I, as many likely did, recognized a problem & contacted admin that lineup changes needing updating were unavailable. Given that the setting of starting lineups was compromised for all, why is the solution to not have the week run as best ball? This solution would be a fair solution to all & completely eliminate the fact that some lineups were compromised. In my view the key element is the timing. Last minute news & reports drive lineup decisions & best ball format makes it as if the outage never happened. Just my 2c. Still love you guys but so salty over this as it quite possibly means the difference between advancing & elimination.

[Sack]

Like many: I was also comprised in setting the lineups late last week. Many of us, wait until that last bit of news to make our final
lineup decisions. ( More times than not - regretting those final changes )

I agree with how it was handled and will ALWAYS trust Greg and the NFFC with there handling of something unexpected. From day #1,
everything is done fair and square.

This suggestions: "Given that the setting of starting lineups was compromised for all, why is the solution to not have the week run as best ball?"
should be written into the rules, IMO, for future seasons. Again, my 100% trust in Greg and the NFFC to deem what constitutes "compromised".

[Greg Ambrosius]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Yeah, we know that the Cutline likely had the most people affected by our tech issue as everyone was setting their starting lineups for the first time. Plus those are tougher decisions with 26-man rosters. We totally understand.

But there was no good solution to contact everyone or to legally change the rules for that week only or any other decision. The five early games were off and running and thankfully the first round consists of a 3-week elimination round. But every point counts and every decision is critical, which is why everyone needs every minute of the deadline. We get it.

We apologize and we are committed to make sure it never happens again. And the steps we put in place should alleviate this issue again. Thanks all and continued good luck.

[eliasond]

When I heard the news out of Detroit late Sunday morning that Swift was going to start I decided to get him in the starting lineup for 1 of my teams that did not already have him in there. But alas I could not due to the server problems. Anyways that is water under the bridge and nothing we can do about it now.

However, I would like to offer a suggestion that you allow emailed lineup changes in future weeks if there is a technical problem again. This or something like it is actually allowed under the official contest rules. Under section "Internet/Technology Problems; Tampering" it states in the event of "technical failures" or other problems that the NFFC reserves the right to "modify" the Contest, among other remedies.

I just wanted to point this out as a legally acceptable option should you choose to go that route.

[larrygold33]

When I heard the news out of Detroit late Sunday morning that Swift was going to start I decided to get him in the starting lineup for 1 of my teams that did not already have him in there. But alas I could not due to the server problems. Anyways that is water under the bridge and nothing we can do about it now.

However, I would like to offer a suggestion that you allow emailed lineup changes in future weeks if there is a technical problem again. This or something like it is actually allowed under the official contest rules. Under section "Internet/Technology Problems; Tampering" it states in the event of "technical failures" or other problems that the NFFC reserves the right to "modify" the Contest, among other remedies.

I just wanted to point this out as a legally acceptable option should you choose to go that route.

THIS ^^
It really should not be water under the bridge. Per the above, a 'modification' to best ball format for week 10 should (should of) definitely be on the table, and in reality, the default. As is, our lineups were compromised. Any solution would be better than the current of doing nothing/ everyone is out of luck. If not best ball format, at the very least, anyone who logged in during the down time AND contacted admin with changes should get their preferred lineup. As Greg referenced above in thread, this has never happened before, so I'm not sure how an immediate decision in the case was made to do nothing in real time as the site was down. We're talking significant points here & potentially impactful to final payouts. I also was feverishly trying to get Swift in my lineups at 12:50. Tried desktop, then phone, then finally emailed prior to 1. Not being able to because of tech issue is a big deal. Not looking to pour salt in the wound here, just looking for reasonable conversation/discussion as to why we're not looking for a fair decision as opposed to doing nothing. Doing nothing is surely the easiest least complicated course of action, but IMO cannot be the most optimal one. Sorry to ruffle feathers, but am just frustrated.

[Greg Ambrosius]

When I heard the news out of Detroit late Sunday morning that Swift was going to start I decided to get him in the starting lineup for 1 of my teams that did not already have him in there. But alas I could not due to the server problems. Anyways that is water under the bridge and nothing we can do about it now.

However, I would like to offer a suggestion that you allow emailed lineup changes in future weeks if there is a technical problem again. This or something like it is actually allowed under the official contest rules. Under section "Internet/Technology Problems; Tampering" it states in the event of "technical failures" or other problems that the NFFC reserves the right to "modify" the Contest, among other remedies.

I just wanted to point this out as a legally acceptable option should you choose to go that route.

Daren, so this happened 11 minutes before kickoff and yes we did get maybe a handful of emails that gave us their lineup changes or even complete lineups. I'd say 4-5 examples. The rest of the emails or Help tickets were alerting us that the site was down without any instructions on changes they were trying to make. By kickoff we had to decide whether to enter those 4-5 new rosters or contact everyone who just alerted us about the site down to see what changes they wanted now that games were already started. Or we had to decide if we should keep rosters intact as they were at 12:49 pm ET. Again, the site didn't come back up until 1:15 pm ET, so game results were already happening.

We don't believe everyone who had an issue with the system contacted us via email or text and thus it wouldn't have been fair to those owners to correct some lineups and not every single lineup that was affected. If we were contacted two hours later after games started by someone who said they heard we were making changes, were we then supposed to take their word for it that they wanted lineup changes and make those? Well after kickoff? The timing of this made it impossible to make sure everyone affected was taken care of and that our decision was even legal per our rules.

There are a range of choices we could have made and none of them would have alleviated the problem or solved this problem. We chose to keep lineups intact as they were at 12:49 and we know that may have affected some last minute lineup decisions. I'll take the criticism for that and take the blame for the tech outage, but we are sticking with that decision. Thanks for the good ideas, though.