Stop having weekly maintenance during US primetime

[Wiawyr]

What it says on the tin. Tuesday 7pm EDT, 6pm CDT, 5pm MDT, 4pm PDT. 5-15 minute disconnect at a really inconvenient time. There has to be a better time for this, like 5am Monday morning, anything but right now.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Been this way forever. Easier to do it before they leave work.

5am here is prime time somewhere. You're only making it annoying for someone else and Valve employees don't want to be up that early.

[Spawn of Totoro]

You are forgetting the other side of the world. They are also Valve's customers.

Valve chose a time that would effect the least amount of people.

[Gwarsbane]

No matter what time they have it, someone is always going to ticked off about it. They do it at that time because they are in the office then just in case anything happens during it and it will effect the least amount of people.

Its been the same time and day since the start of steam as far as I can remember, its not going to change just because you or even a few others want it to.

Again its going to tick off people no matter when it is.

[Zekiran]

You know when maintenance is.


Thus: you as a grown person can figure out how to work around this.

[Wiawyr]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

You are forgetting the other side of the world. They are also Valve's customers.

Valve chose a time that would effect the least amount of people.

Not at all. My post is asking for a better time, not telling Valve to set it at a specific time. There's got to be a better time for it than US primetime. Hell, even Skyforge, a Russian-made MMO, had their weekly maintenance at 3am EDT on Wednesdays, and they're on that other side of the world you think I forgot about.

The other posters, "It's been this way forever", yeah no ♥♥♥♥, I've used Steam for 15 years, and it's been an inconvenience nearly every single time it's happened in the last 10. Saying "It's going to inconvenience someone so it won't change" does nothing about the inconvenience I am experiencing, so I'll post a suggestion about it if that's alright.

[Satoru]

Note 'better for me' is not 'better time'

Numercially right now is the 'best' time because

1) Least number of total users globally

https://store.steampowered.com/stats/

2) Availablity of full IT staff to deal with upgrades

Again 'make it convenient for me' not 'a better time'

Steam does maintenance now because THIS IS THE BEST TIME to do it.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Not at all. My post is asking for a better time, not telling Valve to set it at a specific time. There's got to be a better time for it than US primetime. Hell, even Skyforge, a Russian-made MMO, had their weekly maintenance at 3am EDT on Wednesdays, and they're on that other side of the world you think I forgot about.

And they chose the time when they had the fewest users.

Valve looks at their statistics and metrics. That is how they decide what time to do maintenance. They chose what they found would cause the least disruption for their users, overall.

[Wiawyr]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Note 'better for me' is not 'better time'

You're right, which is why I didn't say "better for me".

Originally posted by Satoru:

Numercially right now is the 'best' time because

1) Least number of total users globally

https://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Thanks for the link, unfortunately it proves you wrong. The lowest number of users occurs at 2am EDT, and is clearly visible on that graph. Immediately before the maintenance time, there were 1 million more users on than during the lowest period. You might want to check that your argument actually matches the facts you're presenting, because you're just agreeing with me.

Originally posted by Satoru:

2) Availablity of full IT staff to deal with upgrades

It's weekly maintenance, not upgrades, and I've worked at and know of any number of businesses that keep IT staff on-call 'round the clock because they can't afford to have downtime. For a company to not have that in place would be the oddity. If it takes their entire IT staff to reboot the servers, run a backup script, etc. then that's something that could be improved to benefit many areas.

Originally posted by Satoru:

Again 'make it convenient for me' not 'a better time'

Not sure what you think you're saying here.

Originally posted by Satoru:

Steam does maintenance now because THIS IS THE BEST TIME to do it.

Your posted source disagrees with you. Thank you for supporting my suggestion.

[Wiawyr]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Not at all. My post is asking for a better time, not telling Valve to set it at a specific time. There's got to be a better time for it than US primetime. Hell, even Skyforge, a Russian-made MMO, had their weekly maintenance at 3am EDT on Wednesdays, and they're on that other side of the world you think I forgot about.

And they chose the time when they had the fewest users.

Valve looks at their statistics and metrics. That is how they decide what time to do maintenance. They chose what they found would cause the least disruption for their users, overall.

Obviously not, according to the graph that the poster above you posted. The fewest users occurs at 2am EDT, not 7pm EDT.

Check it yourself if you like. https://store.steampowered.com/stats/

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Obviously not, according to the graph that the poster above you posted. The fewest users occurs at 2am EDT, not 7pm EDT.

Check it yourself if you like. https://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Fewest users on Steam overall does not mean fewest users actively using Steam or a part of it's service.

There is more to the metrics then just the most or least users logged into the client at any given time. Hence why I stated "They chose what they found would cause the least disruption for their users, overall."

[Gwarsbane]

And at 2 am EDT the people that are needed to take care of the server if anything happens during the update are gone home and had been for hours.

7pm EDT is 4pm PST which is where Valve is located.

[wuddih]

gosh.
user numbers are low and Valve is still in the office.
you really wanna mimimimi about this?

[Wiawyr]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

Obviously not, according to the graph that the poster above you posted. The fewest users occurs at 2am EDT, not 7pm EDT.

Check it yourself if you like. https://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Fewest users on Steam overall does not mean fewest users actively using Steam or a part of it's service.

The posted link shows a graph of "Steam users logged in". If you have a different source which supports your interpretation of "users", then I would be interested in reading it. But from the information presented, it doesn't seem like 7pm EDT is the time with the lowest users. There might be other factors involved, certainly, but since you're using this as their reason, it doesn't match up.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

The posted link shows a graph of "Steam users logged in". If you have a different source which supports your interpretation of "users", then I would be interested in reading it. But from the information presented, it doesn't seem like 7pm EDT is the time with the lowest users. There might be other factors involved, certainly, but since you're using this as their reason, it doesn't match up.

We don't have access to Valve's metrics and statistics. I suggest re-reading my posts.

Valve even has a FAQ page about their maintenance times.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7366-ETYS-5919

As I and everyone keeps saying, there are many factors to consider.

[Wiawyr]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

The posted link shows a graph of "Steam users logged in". If you have a different source which supports your interpretation of "users", then I would be interested in reading it. But from the information presented, it doesn't seem like 7pm EDT is the time with the lowest users. There might be other factors involved, certainly, but since you're using this as their reason, it doesn't match up.

We don't have access to Valve's metrics and statistics. I suggest re-reading my posts.

I did. You said, "Valve chose a time that would effect the least amount of people.", which the link you posted disproves. You said, "And they chose the time when they had the fewest users.", which both links posted in the thread disproved. You said, "They chose what they found would cause the least disruption for their users, overall." which both links posted in the thread disproved. Perhaps you should re-read your posts as well; I don't think you said what you think you're saying.

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Valve even has a FAQ page about their maintenance times.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7366-ETYS-5919

Neat, it basically says they do it because that's when they have staff on hand. For a global service. So for the other 16 hours of the day, the global service is just flying on a wing and prayer with some on-call IT staff in case something very bad happens. Of course it's a few more people than that, but simultaneously saying "it's a global service" and "we can only do this during a US business day's work hours" somewhat works against itself for an argument that it can never change.

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

As I and everyone keeps saying, there are many factors to consider.

You're right! I even said that:

Originally posted by Wiawyr:

The posted link shows a graph of "Steam users logged in". If you have a different source which supports your interpretation of "users", then I would be interested in reading it. But from the information presented, it doesn't seem like 7pm EDT is the time with the lowest users. There might be other factors involved, certainly, but since you're using this as their reason, it doesn't match up.

So it comes down to that's when they have staff on-hand to do it, and everyone saying "that's the time with fewest users/fewest people using services/disrupts the fewest people" is factually wrong per the sources posted in the thread. I'm certainly not expecting them to shift the entire IT staff's schedule just because I find the maintenance time convenient, but then, no suggestion ever floats just because one person says it. Other people undoubtedly find it inconvenient and frustrating as well, and nothing is ever set in stone.