Kilg.us – Fantasy Stat Tracker …Tracker

Over the last couple weeks, I have received numerous emails from people having trouble signing-in to their accounts. With a little digging I was able to find a consistent theme: they were all using Internet Explorer 8 or 9.

Specifically what was happening was that a person would type their existing username into the sign-in form and would then be prompted to create an account. As everyone is probably aware, Kilg.us uses the same form for logging in and signing up. If you enter an existing username, it asks you to log-in. If you enter a username that doesn’t exist, it asks you to sign-up.

To manage this functionality, Kilg.us generates an AJAX request after you enter your username then move focus to the password field. This is creates a “change” event on the username field. When that event happens, Kilg.us asks the database whether the username you entered exists. The database returns a response in the form of XML. The XML has one message: the username is valid (it exists in the database) or it is invalid (it doesn’t exist in the database).

Once the XML response is returned, some JavaScript parses it to read whether it says “valid” or “invalid”. If the value is “invalid” the form asks you to create an account. The JavaScript to read this follows standard practices to navigate the document object model (DOM) and find the value in question. This works in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Konqueror, Mobile Safari, Opera, Android Browser, Blackberry Browser, etc., etc. Apparently, how Internet Explorer handles the XML is different. It doesn’t create all the parameters that the standard approach would.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

What I ultimately found is that Internet Explorer will parse the value out and save it in a “text” parameter for the XML object. Rather than navigating the DOM in a standard fashion, I’m now taking a shortcut and checking if that “text” parameter exists on the XML object. If it does, I read it in as the returned value. If it doesn’t (obviously, all the other browsers to generate this rogue parameter), I continue to navigate the tree and get the value in the proper manner. This only works because the only value of the XML is the “valid” or “invalid” message.

The end result: the log-in/sign-up form logic should now be working again in IE. And still working in every other browser. If you find that not to be the case, please let me know (comment, email, Facebook, Tweet).

Now that Kilg.us is migrated and–seemingly–stable, I can actually make some improvements!

First up are some stats additions. The easiest request was to include total bases. Because this is calculated based on data we already have, I was able to implement it pretty quickly. To enable Total Bases for any of your teams, visit the “Select Stats” page for that team. You will see a checkbox for “TB.” Checking that box and saving your changes should add a TB column right after strikeouts.

The most commonly requested stats that Kilg.us does not currently have are games played. While this data isn’t conveniently available in the MLB XML data Kilg.us uses, I think I have determined a way to deduce whether a player has played in the day’s game(s) or not. That will take significantly more effort, though, so it will have to wait. Perhaps this weekend I’ll find some time.

I have moved Kilg.us back to referencing the database on the new servers. Once again, things seem to be going well. Hopefully that will still be the case in a couple hours!

I did not attempt to copy over the old database. There is a lot of complexity involved in merging databases and I just didn’t have the patience after yesterday. As a result, if you added or removed players, moved them on or off the bench, or manipulated a team or your account in the last 24 hours, those changes will be lost. You will need to re-apply any changes.

To the couple people that signed up for Kilg.us today–I’m sorry, but you’ll need to do it again! I promise this isn’t a regular occurrence. In fact, I’ve never deleted an account before!

The only outstanding issue that I am aware of from the migration is the appearance of players that are not on the bench. They are rendering as gray and “benched” right now, but the team is still calculating their stats in totals. I’m working on that now and assume it will be a quick fix.

If you notice any other anomalies, please comment here, email me, or post to Facebook or Twitter (@kilgustracker).

**UPDATE 10:40PM**

It appears that batter stats are being collected properly for individuals, but tallied improperly for teams.

It appears that pitcher stats are not being collected properly for individuals, but tallies are correct for teams (based on day-old data).

Still investigating.

**UPDATE 11:19PM**

The culprits seem to be the stored procedures that Kilg.us tries to use for storing stats. All the procedures seem to be failing with the move to the new server. Luckily, Kilg.us included fallback string concatenation mechanisms for exactly this situation. I have disabled all the stored procedure calls and everything now seems to be working.

I’m a little tepid to call the Kilg.us migration a success, but things seem to have worked. The site, blog, databases, scheduled processes, accounts, teams, stats…they’re all moved over. And as best I can tell, they are all working. I’ll be keeping a very close eye on things through the week in case anything goes awry, but we seem to be in good shape for now. If you notice any odd behavior, errors, or encounter problems PLEASE comment here, post to Facebook or Twitter, or send me an email so I can get to the root of things.

Now that the migration is complete, I’ll also finally get to some upgrades! First on the list are some new statistical categories. Please keep in mind that Kilg.us uses a free data source from MLB that only offers limited information. I pull as much out of that source as I can, but some stats just aren’t available. Also on the list is some tweaking to the sign-up/log-in form. I have been receiving quite a few emails about issues with it, most specifically with Internet Explorer 8. If you encounter problem signing-up or logging-in in the meantime, try a browser other than IE8.

Just for fun: Kilg.us now manages over 2300 teams for more than 1300 users! And with the new hosting infrastructure, my testing is showing 3-4 second rendering times for team stat pages compared to 13-23 seconds at the old host. Light speed!

I hope you all continue to enjoy using Kilg.us. Our new hosting should make your stat tracking experience faster and better than ever!

I intended to migrate Kilg.us to its new servers tomorrow, May 3. If all goes well, the limiting factor on how long Kilg.us will be down is the domain transfer. This can take up to 48 hours, but will go through in 1-3 hours for most people. I intend to take Kilg.us off-line as soon as I get home from work tomorrow (~6pm mountain time). With this approach, I expect the migration and any subsequent troubleshooting should be finished tomorrow night.

Please check Facebook and Twitter (@kilgustracker) for updates on the migration.

I got a couple emails yesterday that some daily boxscore email stats were incorrect. Looking into the matter, it was immediately obvious what had happen. As I worked on the transition of Kilg.us to its new servers, I had accidentally left a database connection pointing to the new dev database, instead of the old, production database. As such, the stats weren’t up-to-date when the daily emails were generated. I simply pointed the connection back to the correct database and figured all was well.

This morning there have again been reports of incorrect stats. I double-checked that the database connection was pointing to the correct IP address–it was. Then I remembered one of the many reasons I’m moving Kilg.us: the hosting company uses a non-standard port for database connections! Why? Who the hell knows. But I had forgotten to explicitly change back to their port. I’ve done that now. I’ve tested the connection. All seems to be well.

On the migration topic, Kilg.us is up and fully functional on its new servers. I’m testing manually with day-to-day usage to try to identify any aspects or configurations I may have missed. Right now, my simple tests are showing that Kilg.us runs between 2.2 and 5 times as fast on the new servers (adjusting as best I can for load considerations). I’m working on some minor changes that will decrease the bandwidth Kilg.us requires because the new servers are billed by data transfer. I’ll give at least 24 hours notice before I make the migration. Depending on how quickly the domain propagates, Kilg.us may be down for some of you for up to 24 hours during the migration. More details to come.

By now, everyone should have received their daily boxscores. If not, please comment below.

We were not without bumps, unfortunately. That I am aware of so far:

• As many a 50 boxscores were sent out multiple times (apologies!)
• The public SMTP I tried to use apparently uses a 24-hour window (rather than a day) for its quotas

The duplicate boxscores was just a goof by me. Last night as I was running my final tests, I commented-out the line that removes an email from the queue after sending because I didn’t want to keep re-entering data into the system before each test. I forgot to un-comment that line when I was done. Because of that, when the system pulled the first 50 boxscores to send, it still left them in the queue. When it went to pull the next 50, it returned the same group. I noticed this after a few times through the process, so hopefully everyone that got duplicates only saw a trickle–not a deluge–of them.

The SMTP issue is frustrating. In my testing, I was able to generate the full list of emails. I assumed the quota would reset at midnight. Apparently that wasn’t the case. So hundreds last night plus hundreds this morning meant the sending account was locked out mid-process. To resolve this, I used one of my personal accounts to complete the send. Many of you will have seen messages come from “matthew@encoredigitalmedia.com” rather than Kilg.us. I figured this was better than making you miss a day’s boxscore.

I have spent most of the last two days trying to get a dedicated Kilg.us SMTP server up and running so I don’t need to worry about stupid quotas and such. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no experience with setting up SMTP and have had just about zero success–hence the use of a public SMTP to get this moving. If anyone knows SMTP and can offer a helping hand, I would be greatly appreciative! Get in touch by email (admin@kilg.us), comment here, or on Twitter (@kilgustracker) or Facebook.

All that said, I think all emails should have been delivered and I have received feedback from some people whose emails weren’t rendering properly before that they look good now. All in all, I’m going to call this one a draw. I’ll keep plugging away today in hopes of a perfect push tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning Kilg.us will use a entirely new process for generating and sending daily boxscore emails! So let’s all cross our fingers and hope it works…

I have spent all of this week re-designing and re-building how emails are generated, stored, and sent. Suffice to say, the new system is significantly more complex than the old one. When I’ve had a chance to breath and am not so tired, I’ll go into more detail on how it works.

My expectations of the new system are that it will:

• Scale to accommodate as many users/emails as desired (the old system failed in the 200-300 range)
• Allow of future portability if Kilg.us needs to change hosting
• Implement all components to identify HTML vs. Text email so boxscores render properly on all clients
• Allow for side-by-side HTML and Text versions (text version is forthcoming)
• Provide redundancy of data, so if the process fails it can be re-started without losing a day’s data
• Reduce likelihood of Kilg.us mail servers being identified as SPAM and black-listed
• Lower computation overhead

It sounds almost too good to be true! Tomorrow’s push will be the first full run trying to send out to everyone’s unique addresses. All the testing so far has been delivering to a kilg.us address (or small tests to outside domains). I’ll be keeping an eye on things in the morning to try to ensure everything goes smoothly. If you do not receive your normal boxscore in an acceptably legible format, please post comments here with details (DETAILS–without them I can’t do anything–what email client, what team name, what was wrong, screenshots, any little detail).

I’ve been frantically working away on a new email system for Kilg.us the last couple days. The goal is to streamline the process, reduce execution time, reduce likelihood for failure, and improve the quality of the email delivered to your inbox. I’m about 20 hours into the effort, but spent 6 hours going in circles last night…very frustrating. As is often the case, I slept on it and have some new ideas this morning, so I’m again optimistic that I’ll be rolling it out in the coming days. Check back for updates.

In the mean time, a number of people have been reporting that their emails are not being displayed as HTML in their email clients. I haven’t tried to troubleshoot this as I am replacing the system anyway. If you are experiencing this, it wouldn’t hurt to comment with what email client you use (Thunderbird, Outlook, Gmail, iPhone Mail, etc.). We might notice a pattern and be able to share some advice with one another.

As far as I know, emails have gone out properly for three straight days now. If you’re not seeing them, leave a comment, ping me on twitter (@kilgustracker), or shoot me an email (admin@kilg.us).