Wednesday, July 28th, 2010, the area our servers are stored, experienced a large scale power surge. At this time we do not know if this caused the server crash or some other unrelated event. We assure you that StruCalc technicians are working night and day to restore service as soon as possible. 100% uptime is impossible to guarantee and we take pride in the fact that to this date we have had only two days of downtime in the almost two years that StruCalc 8.0 has been online.
In the meantime, let me answer some general questions that our tech support staff is receiving:
1. Does this mean I cannot access my software or projects while your servers are down?
Absolutely not! StruCalc was developed with full knowledge that this type of even may occur. StruCalc retains a 30 day license on your local machine in case your internet or our servers go down. In this case when you open StruCalc you will see a variation of this picture -
Simply click the “Click Here If You Agree” link and continue using StruCalc as usual.
2. When I run StruCalc it says my license is expired!
Some users may be seeing the picture below -
Unfortunately, this means your computer was not connected to the internet in the last 30 days and therefore can not run off its license. Rest assured that StruCalc technicians will contact you as soon as you can begin to use your license.
In the worst cases, those being where user’s were not connected to the internet in the first place, users may be required to be sent a new serial number and download a patch in the coming week to restore there service. This will be as painless as the original installation was.
3. I have ordered StruCalc 8.0 or am trying to register a free trial and can not open the software?
During the server downtime event no new orders can be processed or free trials registered. We will release new purchases as soon as possible and if you were in the middle of a free trial or were trying to download a free trial, please contact our sales line at the number below for a free extension to a 30 day free trial as soon as the servers are online.
We are truly sorry for anyone experiencing a disruption of services. New management is taking drastic steps to ensure that in the future downtime like this will be less painful for every one of our users and ensure that the length of the downtime is guaranteed not to last as long as this.
Adam Wilson
President
StruCalc, Inc.
1-800-279-1353
[...] servers are currently experiencing limited downtime that may affect some users. Please click here to see if this is affecting you. StruCalc technicians are working around the clock to restore [...]
Still cannot use Strucalc 8 (8/1/10 12:45 PDT)…please advise. Thanks.
As of 12:00AM 8/1/2010 PDT the data center had reported that systems would be up within 1-3 days. We do not have more information at this time.
Please help. My license now expires in 2 days. Will this issue be resolved in time?
Still no service 8/4/10. What’s up?
To all users,
The data recovery service we contracted to rebuild our servers failed to meet the deadline last night. At this time we can guarantee the servers will be up Monday morning by 8am PST because we have begun rebuilding them ourselves. We are extremely sorry for the inconveniences that users are experiencing and promise drastic security changes to StruCalc so this does not happen again.
This will include, but not be limited to, giving users the option to disable StruCalc from having to access the internet every time it opens, as long as the license has been previously registered.
I hope this allays anyone’s worry, we are working night and day to restore service. If any user would like a personalized reponse please feel free to email me adam@strucalc.com
As of tonight the server is back up and running in TEST mode. This means that the server will be coming online off and on while it is tested. We highly recommend NOT trying to open your StruCalc license while we are in this phase.
You will not experience any software or data loss if you do receive a connection, however, while in TEST mode it is possible that your StruCalc license will clear itself. This will require you to re-authorize your license when the server comes online permanently. This will only be a slight inconvenience of reconnecting your license to the server so don’t worry if this happens to you.
We can report that the servers are looking great and we are on schedule to be online Monday morning at 8AM PST. Please do not call the tech support line unless you have an engineering question they will only refer you to this post.
Thank you all for your patience and the warm wishes we have received from so many users. We can only say it’s great to have such a strong community and that we will soon have the software returned to normal so we can start implementing the relaxation of licensing issues that was discussed above.
I am in major need of your software! Yikes….. hope you are able to provide the free trial soon so I can use it and then try to convince my boss to purchase it! So you will be extending the free trial to 30 days though/ That is fabulous!
I would prefer either a usb dongle lock or some other type of license lock. I understand you need something in this world of piracy, but another solution is needed.
StruCalc’s internal servers and systems have been rebuilt and successfully passed testing today. For anyone keeping an eye on things StruCalc will be restored to full service by 8AM PST Monday, August 9th, 2010
Edward we experimented with usb locks, the majority of our users did not want to implement this technology, I think the new system we have promised, that is already under development, will be a major improvement to both initial unlocking, registering free trials, and extended usability for our long term users. I will be providing more detail next week on how the new ownership of StruCalc will be ensuring its customer’s that a week of downtime is as unacceptable to us as it is to you.
Lyndsie thank you for your interest. Please call our sales line after you register a free trial on Monday and request a 30 day extension, they will be more than happy to get it for you. There number is 1-800-279-1353.
StruCalc has been returned to full service. Any user who had a license expire should be able to simply restart the program and it will open. If it doesn’t click the Renew Now button. For anyone experiencing difficulties or that needs assistance please call our sales line 1-800-279-1353.
Thank you everyone please watch for new information coming soon about the planned upgrades and new services we will be providing for free to our current users to ensure no one has this problem in the future.