JD on EP

Hey JD, thanks for the comment.

On the Adobe site, a quite strange bug occurs in Opera 9 Beta 2: scroll bars all along the bottom. The cause is having the top menu drop-downs set to be a few thousand pixels off the left side. Kind of quirky ;)

Hi - i just tested the uk version of the Adobe store (comparing it to the Danish version, witch is still the old version). The store page came up 2 times on one page - side by side. (I'have a screenshot).
Im on win2000, firefox1.5.02 screenresulotion 1600*1200.

Othervise i like the Flash (Flex?) store very much- and hope the danish version vill be implemented soon.

Nothing too controversial there. It's like the old macromedia.com in a lot of ways. There are a few character encoding issues in there (dampersands) and the odd iffy BR element, which could use a quick fix up.

The only major problem I spotted was increasing the text size by just one notch caused some of the content to overlap and become unreadable.

I like the new site, although I am finding broken links here and there.

The window version of FF lets open new tabs with the mouse scroll wheel ;)

Adobe's slow Web site merged with Macromedia's slow Web site equals slow-times-two. Macromedia's old site was a pain to use ever since they switched to their Flash menu bar and Flash-based Macromedia Exchange. Adobe Exchange was always so slow for me I had to *really* want something to put up with it.

[jd sez: Is the site slow for you now? any particular page, any particular viewer, so we can try to replicate it? (I don't think the Exchanges have changed yet, although the menuing system is clearly new.[]

I can't log into the site with Camino. The web site doesn't support Firefox either according to their site requirements page (which reads "Macromedia.com Site Requirements").

I have not had any luck with the new adobe/macromedia site since they blended the 2 areas. I have found that if you refresh the page you are loading that it does seem to come in quicker the s4econd time, but other then that the new slow site is an embarrassment to all who proclaim to be web developers at adobe. It is currently unusable. I thought it was a one off deal, but its everytime i go there on every type of broweser i use (FF and IE6 and IE7). I've had faster dial up experiences.

[jd sez: Site feedback is best directed at the feedback widget on each page, but one thing I think they'd want to know there is whether, when testing multiple browsers, you also tested multiple connections too... some ISPs cache content, for instance, so new requests may have a long first-time cost. For what it's worth, the new site is faster to load on both my high-speed and dial-up connections, so it would be good to find what's different here.]

Same feeling here... Since the merged website is available, this is really slow. First I thought that for the flex beta3 realease day, that was producing too much traffic, but yesterday, and today, it's still pretty slow. It makes me remember of the infamous netscape message "stalled" while waiting for the content to show up... BTW the connection I am using is really fast and I have the same result with FF and IE.

I cant beleive a company like adobe/macromedia wouldnt notice their slow website problem. its unbeleivably slow, you cant do anything with it.

[jd sez: I believe you are noticing slowness. However, I and most others are not. That's why I asked earlier here for info which would help others see the problem too, such as particular pages and actions on that page, your browser versioning, other things about your environment. Such info might help others see the same problem.]

I agree with "slow-times-two" and you can also put uninspiring in that equation. Both sites were dull and now it's a meld of the masters of yawn.

[jd sez: Another reminder... if you can specify a page action and viewing environment we might be able to help.]

Tried to connect to www.adobe.com (the homepage) both using Firefox 1.5.0.3 and Safari 2.0.3 using Mac OS X 10.4.6 and it's taking about a minute before the page downloads.

[jd sez: Does "page downloads" mean before any content appears, or before the video starts to play, or before your browser status bar moves off "Connecting to adobe.com", or...? And could this be a dialup, or ISP or other complication...? And do you see this on first contact, or also on refresh, or...?]

Lennert

At our office (in Amsterdam) we have an 8 Mb connection. Content dribbles in very slowly. Video appears after about 45 seconds and then it takes another 15 seconds before it finishes. Refresh is much faster. Only 5-10 seconds.

The adobe.com site is taking a hell lot of time to come up in IE7 in WinVistaBeta2. I don't know if it is a WinVistaB2 problem or not. Even in Firefox 1.5.04 in WinVistaB2 the same problem is there. I am on a 256 kbps connection and other sites are coming up fast.

Jesus H. Christ! I've been trying to download flashplayer 8 on adobe's website for the fast two days. It will download the first 46k or so and just hang there. This is flashplayer for mozilla, safari, and compuserve. I've been trying to find a 3rd party page with it on there, but no luck.

[jd sez: It's single-source on the web. But we're completing installation of four to five million each day. I don't know offhand of any roadblocks. For this, and for the random "it's slow" posts, a good first step is to do a traceroute, so you can see how the content is actually reaching you.]

Having problems with updating flash
can't even open the adobe page/macro
is it because I am still on dial up
if I do a getflash I get a message that at 99%
"an error has occured while downloading the installer"
any hints or tips

There are too many sites that now show me the magic red "X" when I go to them!!

Thanks in advance for any help

Sue

The Adobe.com website is slow for me as well. On the whole that is. (also from The Netherlands Europe)

tracert tells me the following:

tracert www.adobe.com

Bezig met het traceren van de route naar www.wip3.adobe.com [192.150.18.61]
via maximaal 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms this.is.me
2 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 152.161.29.53
3 2 ms 2 ms 1 ms 152.161.81.118
4 * * * Time-out bij opdracht.
5 * * * Time-out bij

etc

ps. Nice improvement of the website(s) bye the way...best of both

Thanks -- just another reminder, that if you've got a complete problem report (browser brand/version/platform, which page, length of time, your connection route to adobe.com), then that "Please give us feedback!" widget on every page of the new site would get that info directly to people who are trying to reproduce problems, thanks.

Jeeze, it's been slow as heck the last week or two... I'm running IE7 on Windows Vista Beta 2, but it's the same on my wife's machine where she is running XP SP2 w/ IE6.

Here is a traceroute showing the problem is at Adobe's end:

Tracing route to adobe.com [192.150.14.120]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms

[jd sez: I hope you sent this to the web team via the feedback widget on each page, because I haven't relayed it.]

I am having huge problems with the Adobe site. My mouse just FREEZES once the page starts to load.
I LOVED Macromedia and it never let me down. Navigating the new Adobe site is almost imposible.
I have a 2Mbps connection but while web life is usually a breeze, since updating my Flash and Shockwave with Adobe, Flash content causes no end of problems. The Adobe site is my prime example.
I have done all I can. Reinstalling Flash wasn't helpful at all and that is the site's only idea. I have tried everything. Can anyone help?

[jd sez: It's hard to tell from here, because we know nothing about your operating system, browser, configuration, how you're seeing the problem, and the rest. You write in passing "since updating", which might mean that it started happening after a recent update, and if so then trying the Player test page first, restarting the system if you haven't done so already, is a straightforward first step diagnostic.]

Thanks, I'll try but I don't think so.
:0(

Thank God I've found someone else having the same sort of problems with the Adobe website. I have been trying for several days to download Dreamweaver and most of the time the site freezes before the Downloads page comes up, or freezes at various other points, or else goes into some sort of skeleton mode which I am not familiar with (where you just get a list of webpages). Using XP Pro SP2 IE 7.0.5700.6 Richard

[jd sez: Your problem sounds quite different, though. Please check for download managers or damaged caches, and try with a browser that's not in beta. One-on-one tech support is usually available just for purchased software, but it would be worth a try if that odd symptom doesn't resolve with the above top steps.]

Grrr!

Why, in the name of all thats holy, am I having to put up with the Flash 8 plug-in downloading at 150 BYTES/sec?

Someone sort out the adobe site soon, I can't be spending hours downloading a 1MB file. I could download a 700MB video faster than this!

James

PS. And don't say its my computer's fault, I've tried every possible thing and updated all that needs updating. The blame lies solely and wholely with you, Adobe.

We changed browsers from explorer to firefox. Anything needing Flash does not work and I am unable to download the necessary plugins or even the agreement from adobe. The server goes to timeout before the Adobe home site can load up. Now what???

[jd sez: I'm not sure. Are you saying that you can't seem to install Adobe Flash Player in Firefox 2.0 for Windows XP? If so, can you visit other pages on the Adobe site normally right now?]

I have wound up on this site because I googled "adobe website unusable." JD, I see your notes after all these comments. I think Adobe should be bending backwards to figure out what is wrong with their site - or why it won't work for some people. This comment right here that you made - [jd sez: I hope you sent this to the web team via the feedback widget on each page, because I haven't relayed it.] - why not relay it? [jd sez: Because I was at home, in the rush to work, and didn't invest time in possibly reduplicating work in an incomplete message. I've been pursuing it otherwise, without hitting that webform on this one message.] If you work for
Adobe, I would think you would have a vested interest that they not lose business! I, personally can only get pages to load periodically, and it takes at least 10 minutes, and then if I click a link on the page it hangs. I haven't been able to successfully complete 2 steps, so how can a person send feedback via a link on the page? That is not a helpful answer. I just resorted to placing a long distance phone call completely across the country to the corporate office, and was given an 800 number with the warning that there might be long hold times. The operator didn't sound convinced that I would get through. I have been a Photoshop user since version 3, and I have a new camera and Photoshop CS2 and want to get the raw plugin for my new camera. I've been trying since Christmas and it is now January 5th! How pathetic is that? It has just occurred to me that I was able to download CS2 a few months ago. I wonder if I've upgraded Firefox since then - or added a plugin. I do know that IE7 is new on my system since then.

I have also been a Macromedia user for a long time (started with Director v4), and I recognize your name from user groups I've looked at over the years.

For what it's worth, in case you decide it's worth passing on information, I have tried using FF 1.5.0.9. Flash version is Shockwave Flash 8.0 r22. I would be happy to send you more information to try and track things down. I also tried using IE v7. Same issues. It happens on ANY adobe.com page.

This is EXTREMELY frustrating to users who love your products and want to be loyal! Customer service, please! Care about us who are at a complete level of frustration! I have no problems surfing the rest of the web and I am on a DSL connection.

BTW, the 800 number just went dead on me.

Respectfully,
Chris

I've been unable to get to the adobe site for days now. It just hangs when I try to open www.adobe.com. This is the only site I'm having problems with. I'm trying to do flash development and I can't get to adobe to test the player recognition code. I have Comcast broadband and none of my 4 systems will connect to Adobe. Comcast threw their hands up in the air and gave me the Adobe 800 number which isn't active on the weekends. Help!!!!

[jd sez: I'll be able to pursue this face-to-face with others tomorrow, but can you tell me if you had any indication from the support rep that they had similar reports from other Comcast customers? That would be a good first step in troubleshooting, that "some or all connections" test.]

I'm so glad i've found this site. I've been trying to get a fix for my "disappering FTP settings" in DW8 and I cannot get on the the Adobe site. I know there is a fix, however I can't download anything or email anyone about it because it takes over 22 minutes for one page to load, then it only half loads. I'm so beyond frustrated and my work is being affected because I keep losing all of my client FTP information. I'm using Comcast as well, and it is the only site that hangs in both IE7 and Firefox. One of my fellow designers in Vermont is also experiencing this problem; she is not a Comcast user. I had emailed her to see if it was just me (she's experiencing both the FTP issue and the non-working Adobe Web site issue). We've used these products for over 7 years and we're losing faith. I hope this can be resolved in the very near future.

I'm having the same problem, Comcast IE6 and Firefox. Can't load Adobe web site.

[jd sez: This is a *way* old thread... isn't the best way to try for interactive support. But the multiple citations of "comcast" here seem to indicate a breaking problem. Have you used the feedback widget available on nearly every page of the site itself yet? That's the fastest way to reach the web team... I'll ferry the message along face-to-face tomorrow, but I don't think anyone from the web team would be looking at this old blog entry tonight....]

I have been trying to download Acroread from the Adobe web site (http://www.adobe.com/) for the past two days, without any luck. Each page, beginning with the home page, slowly dribbles into my web browser (IE 6 and Firefox behave identically). Eventually the web page:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

times out. All other web sites download at reasonable speeds on my 5 Mb/s FiOS connection.

This is a tracert from this morning (2/8/07):

C:\Documents and Settings\andy> tracert www.adobe.com

Tracing route to www.wip3.adobe.com [192.150.18.60]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms [jd sez: Could I ask you to bring this directly to the web team? The "site feedback" widget on most pages can bring you to the best form, although weblogs of the Adobe.com web team could also work better than this general weblog would. (They're particularly interested in geographic location.)]

Will do. I also asked Verizon FiOS Tech Support to open on ticket on this. I expect to hear from them by tomorrow (2/9/07).

i haven't been able to get onto the adobe site for the last couple of weeks with either firefox or safari 2.0.4. i get a message that the server has stopped responding.
what gives?

[jd sez: Have you read the above? It tells of simple ways to move forward.]

Short term fix...

It would appear, that the issues that many of you have been experiencing when visiting the Adobe website, namely your browsers locking-up and becoming unresponsive, is related to tabs being present within the browser interface.

If you visit the Adobe site, tab-free, the problems cease to exist. To be clear, I want to make the point that you don't necessarily need to have multiple tabs present to for the issue occur. A single tab will trigger the bug.

By default, most (if not all) tabbed browsers are configured by default to always show a tab, even if there is only one page currently loaded.

The short term fix for FireFox, is to select "Tools", "Options", select "Tabs", then uncheck the "Always Show Tabs" check box, then click "OK". I've only tested this in FireFox, but in theory, this fix should work for any tabbed browser.

Now, when visiting the Adobe website, be sure that you only open one page, per browser window. This will prevent tabs from being invoked. This should allow you to navigate the Adobe website trouble-free.

If you have the need to open multiple links, that's fine, however you must use open each link in a new browser window.

Hope this info helps...

-Best

Danny

Danny,

thanks for the tip. I just wish it would work, but unfortunately, that's not the answer, using any version of XP (pro, home, media). Not one of our pc's can connect to Adobe.com

I've tried using Firefox 2.0.x with no add on's enabled, with no tabs visible, etc. and it just doesn't work. It still takes 10-20 minutes to get a single malformed page from adobes servers.

IE, which is typical MS software and a poor browser at best, won't even connect. Period. It doesn't have the ability to ever display an Adobe page. Not a single one.

Running Tracert/Iptrace produces long (> 100ms) hops getting to Adobe. The most frustrating part is Adobe's complete indifference. I've encountered no other sites presenting similar issue (assuming the server is up) so it's clear that the fault does NOT lie with either Firefox or IE.

It's Adobe's fault and ostensibly they're doing nothing to correct it. These problems are getting better, to the contrary they've only gotten worse over time. I could get to Adobe in January, albeit very slowly, but now that limited access has gone to effectively none. No access.

I'm simply not impressed.

[jd sez: I wish I could help, but like I said many times above, you're in the wrong place. There's a bunch of diagnostics and better routings up above.]

I almost forgot, this little tidbit from a previous post should crack everyone up...

[jd sez: Could I ask you to bring this directly to the web team? The "site feedback" widget on most pages can bring you to the best form, although weblogs of the Adobe.com web team could also work better than this general weblog would. (They're particularly interested in geographic location.)]

That's crazy! It's like something out of a Kafka novel. Surely you're joking.... Right?

If you're phone is broken, you want people to just call the phone company and schedule service. Right? How the heck are people supposed to get to the web team if they can't even get to the web site?

Jeez... What on earth are those people at Adobe thinking? Oh, I forgot, they're not thinking about this....

[jd sez: And posting incomplete complaints here instead brings you closer to your goal... how?]

I have had the same issue with Adobe's site for some time. Obviously "JD" does not have the ability to do anything about this. He is not replying to any posts that have complete details about the problem, but complains about the incomplete ones. I am trying alternate methods of resolution and will post any findings here. Dru-

[jd sez: Contact the web team, as described above. I am not in a position to troubleshoot reports, which is why I keep advising that you contact the people who are.

Sorry JD, just venting because this is starting to become serious for me. I have to register software before it times out and I'm completely stuck.

All I get is another round of denials from Adobe phone personnel, and even after submitting info to David Hatch nothing has happened. Using an Adobe web page is out of the question for me. I can't get them to display......

This is on top of the unfinished software I just paid for (Adobe LR v 1.0). Is there a "real" LR product or v2.0 available yet? :)

The layout seems fine, but needs a lot of navigation. It's slowness makes navigation too frustrating. The inability to open tabs (scroll-wheel click in Firefox) compounds it, because you then have to back-track. More waiting.

The Adobe website is slow, unbelievably slow. It's hard to imagine a worse advertisment for Flash... if Adobe/Macromedia can't make it work, who can? Almost unusable - that's why I googled about it, and found this blog. I'm not the only one!

NOTE: Flash works fine for me in games, etc.

I'm guessing (and it is a guess) that the big problem is that Flash pages are not cached like normal pages (and are bigger).

I mean, html is a simple, proven way to do simple webpages. It works well. Quite popular. So why, oh why does Adobe have to do everything with Flash? Just embed Flash when and where you need it. Just because they bought the company doesn't mean they have to be pwned by Flash.

I'm using:
Windows XP sp2
Firefox 1.5.0.9

PS: just noticed this blog is a year old - May 200*6*, not May 2007. Oh well.

PPS: I think Adobe has done some amazingly cool stuff (eg: ps), and Macromedia's Flash delivers what Java applets promised. I bash only the website.

The adobe.com website hardly ever loads for me. I usually get a The connection has timed out message. Its very annoying as I want to download some plugins and I have to just waste time trying until it finally works. I am in the UK.

[jd sez: I don't think anyone on the web team will find this late comment here. Using the diagnostics and feedback routes described above would have better results.]

I found my way here after months of not being able to get onto the adobe.com website.
I was mostly getting 404 errors, and trace route timeouts. At best I was occasionally able to load the home page but just seeing the bare bones text layout (no CSS styling) but even then still unable to access any sub pages on the site anyway.

I just resolved my problem, so thought I'd come back and mention my solution in case it helps other people who google there way here with the same problem.

I'm using WinXP. The cause for me was a failed DNS server. I saw it when I ran ipconfig/all in my via the Command Prompt. The two other DNS servers showing there were fine.

So just this one failed DNS was preventing me from accessing adobe.com. I don't know why adobe was the only site affected by it, but there you go.

Anyway, I went into my network connection properties and edited my TCP/IP settings by specifying the primary and secondary DNS servers (I used those other two that showed up as okay when I ran ipconfig/all) - it was previously set to "Obtain DNS server address automatically".

After that, no problem accessing the adobe.com website. Hope that helps someone.

Well for a blog that is still going over a year old, i will add that it is still absolutely horrible. Yeah, i may be running Vista, but it still sucks. I had to reload the login page for my products 5 times before it would even let me type in their boxes.

I agree it's really slow. it also just crashed safari. They need to get rid of all the visual content until the speed is fixed.

The site is unbearably slow. I am watching other poorly designed sites load next to it at 10 X the speed. I use firefox with a mac. Its not the browser its not the laptop , it adobes poorly designed site. What annoys me is I am trying to look at the products I HAVE PUrchased at their store. I cant even log in. And bfore you say use the feedback IT TIMES OUT ALOS. No news is good news ? poor poor showing from adobe but I guess its what we have come to expect. Second rate company that talk the talk but hve no idea how to walk the walk.

[jd sez: If you've got a problem, we want to fix it. From your description, though, I can't. That's why the feedback routes described above make more of a difference.]

JD has a real bad time on this page - lay off the guy!

Oh, btw, the tip about tabbed browsing does seem to work.

For example, I've tried three times to even start downloading the flash player, and every time it starts to render this page

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/flash/trigger/en/0/

and then nothing happens, even if you give it 15 or 20 minutes.

[jd sez: No offense, but you realize that 12 million people each day easily do what you say cannot be done, right? I believe it's not loading for you, but I can't guess what might be different in your environment. Such projection as "the cause is out there" can be ruinous.]

Truly pathetic; is there another company that distributes a flash player, that has a working web site?