Why does maintenance take so long?

Sargus · May 2023

Tomorrow 9th of May is maintenance and if I am right it's going to take about 9 hours! Or am I wrong? 4 to 6 hours is common in this game.
I have played several online games and there the maintenance takes from 1 to 2 hours except when new expansions are pushed out, then it can take from 3 to 6 hours. So, what is the problem here?

Tandor · May 2023

It's explained in the Maintenance Announcements section of the forum.

ghastley · May 2023

In short: this is for a hardware change, not the usual software one.

Hoghorn · May 2023

check out this thread https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/633134/maintenance-on-all-megaservers-may-9-3am-edt-9am-cest

thejadefalcon · May 2023

Absolutely no idea why ZOS is just completely incapable of having maintenance on any other day. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

virtus753 · May 2023

thejadefalcon wrote: »

Absolutely no idea why ZOS is just completely incapable of having maintenance on any other day. [snip]

They intentionally moved swap from a weekend to a time when fewer players could and would be on and when ZOS employees were on hand to prevent the kind of catastrophes that were occurring on PC-EU and the long delays even on PC-NA. We might not like it, but the fact remains that it is much better for the server if we are not around for flip but ZOS employees are.

They are not being malicious towards trader guilds. They are trying to ensure traders can flip in as much peace and quiet as possible. Since we now have the ability to place 10 bids instead of just one, it is much less necessary to be online at the moment of. While I remember the need to be on for it, having one bid only is not something I miss, nor is having to wait 20+ minutes to see if the flip went through or if it outright failed due to server issues.

[edited to remove quote]

thejadefalcon · May 2023

virtus753 wrote: »

thejadefalcon wrote: »

Absolutely no idea why ZOS is just completely incapable of having maintenance on any other day. [snip]

They intentionally moved swap from a weekend to a time when fewer players could and would be on and when ZOS employees were on hand to prevent the kind of catastrophes that were occurring on PC-EU and the long delays even on PC-NA. We might not like it, but the fact remains that it is much better for the server if we are not around for flip but ZOS employees are.

They are not being malicious towards trader guilds. They are trying to ensure traders can flip in as much peace and quiet as possible. Since we now have the ability to place 10 bids instead of just one, it is much less necessary to be online at the moment of. While I remember the need to be on for it, having one bid only is not something I miss, nor is having to wait 20+ minutes to see if the flip went through or if it outright failed due to server issues.

[edited to remove quote]

I have no issue with the move from Sunday. That is completely irrelevant. I have no issue with the increased amount of bids. That is also completely irrelevant.

What the problem is is that there are literally six other days in the week to schedule a 9 hour maintenance for. Why does it ALWAYS end up on the ONE day of the week trading guilds need to actually do things?

I'd say more about how this affects traders, particularly smaller guilds who may not have the funds to get consistent traders, but I'm sure ZOS_Icy would show up before I could blink to call it bashing.

DragonRacer · May 2023

“Bashing” has a very wide definition lately, I’ve noticed.

A joke about too much coffee was considered bashing yesterday, which was rather eye-opening.

Tandor · May 2023

I'd like to think it was moved from Monday this week because for the UK at least that was a public holiday.

xclassgaming · May 2023

I hope they give us a more detailred post/response about the actual changes in the near future, as a techy, i'm quite interested in what they are doing.

Hapexamendios · May 2023

At least it isn't during an event.

twev · May 2023

"Why does maintenance take so long? "

Because it takes a long time for the white-out to dry on the HDD platters during maintenance.

Daoin · May 2023

i asked the same earlier in discord, i think they are working on the PTS too, and the upcoming stuff so not just a routine one

RodneyRegis · May 2023

Sheesh.

OP asks why maintenance takes so long every week.

Everybody replies that this maintenance is longer than usual.

ProudMary · May 2023

Probably assigning a bit more server resources to Cyrodiil for the upcoming MYM event on Thursday.

Elsonso · May 2023

Sargus wrote: »

I have played several online games and there the maintenance takes from 1 to 2 hours except when new expansions are pushed out, then it can take from 3 to 6 hours. So, what is the problem here?

If I had to guess, when ZOS does maintenance on the megaserver, they are doing it across the whole megaserver. They might back everything up, and maybe run some maintenance/cleanup jobs. If there is a patch or update, that has to be installed, configured, and tested. When all of that is done, they have to start up everything, probably in a specific order. Finally, someone from QA probably checks to make sure that the game is working.

The megaserver is quite large (based on pictures) and I am sure we are talking terabytes of data that is being moved around and updated. Obviously, ZOS Is not using spare hardware they can swap in and out to shorten the time, and other games may not perform their maintenance across the entire server, or may have smaller or distributed servers.

Just guessing, but it is probably as short as they are comfortable making it.

Xandreia_ · May 2023

Every single week this post is here, maintenance is every week or every other week, this game unlike some others has alot of problems, alot of bugs and alot of things that are broken. I would personally take the long maintenance so the game can be made playable. Since you are on the forums you can see the banner with times and dates. There is no reason to constantly have these "why is there maintenance" posts every single week! [snip]

[edited for baiting]

ZOS_Volpe · May 2023

Hi there,

Since the question has been answered and the thread has derailed, we are going to go ahead and close this thread. When making future posts, we would like everyone to keep the posts on the subject at hand, as well as keeping things civil and constructive.

Please feel free to to check out this link for information regarding the maintenance for May 9, 2023.

Thank you for your understanding.