Halfway through the match, we lost the ability to compile code - people who talked to the admins were told that the servers were experiencing load problems - a little later there was a broadcast about this matter. A bit later, testing became slow, and a couple of times my compile requests also timed out.
A bit of background about my position - I'd gotten off to a bad start on the 500 - while the C++ coders simply used the famous next_permutation() function and waltzed through it. Planning to write my own version for later matches now...Anyway, I came up with a workaround, and got to work on the 1000, which was around when the problems started.
A little later, my connection to the arena was lost - this used to be pretty routine earlier, but a few days ago my ISP finally decided to come to its senses and fix it. I wasn't expecting to see it again, so I was slightly bugged, but not too much - the fact that my 1000 had an odd bug wasn't helping either...
I logged back on, and noticed two things:
- Instead of the usual 5-10 people in the chat room when you enter, there were dozens - and more were pouring in every minute. The place was filled with urgent sounding messages in at least 5 languages.
- I went to click on Active Contests > Enter - and it was grayed out! My reaction is aptly summarized as: WTF??!! About a dozen other people expressed similar sentiments in exactly the same way...
A minute or so later, it started up again - unfortunately, I had chosen that very moment to head for the loo, not expecting the admins to fix things so soon. Of course, unlike some people, I didn't log off in sheer frustration...
Got back in, tried in vain to do the 1000, and then sat bored throughout most of the challenge phase.
Eventually the admins sent out a broadcast apologizing for the inconvenience. The good news was that they weren't going to rate this match - no prizes, no rating changes - zilch. Got an email a few minutes ago that said the same thing...
All in all, it was a very odd experience - definitely going down in TC history...
That wasn't all of it - after the match I was lurking in the arena and chatting with a friend, when I noticed that the System Testing readout was actually changing - they were testing again! The word was that there was something wrong with their solution of the Div 1 500 - causing widespread failures in systests...After that ended, it started again, about five mins later - as my friend commented - "Systests have gone into an infinite loop...."
Ah well, it's pouring outside and I've decided not to go to college...Time to do something useful...
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