Ask HN: Is Facebook having serious database inconsistency problems?

Posted by stefanobernardi on Tuesday April 19, 2011 @04:53PM
from the ask-hn dept.

Lately Facebook groups have become close to unusable due to comments and posts appearing and disappearing randomly. This looks like major db inconsistency / cache problems to me. Is this the case? And, if so, is it due just to their scale or to new development strategies gone wrong.

p.s. I noticed this only in the groups product.

( 6 comments | 14 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: Is Facebook having serious database inconsistency... by sek on Tuesday April 19, 2011 @05:32PM (#2464319)

I had the experience that some private messages disappeared, the people i send those never got them. It happend more than once where i am sure about it. Maybe i did something wrong but there is no way to find out.

Since then i never send important messages any more over facebook. There is no way you can be sure they got the messages or can find out why they don't got them. E-Mail feels less like a black box.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is Facebook having serious database inconsistency... by stefanobernardi on Tuesday April 19, 2011 @06:10PM (#2464438)

I've never had those problems, but it could very well be that I never actually knew about them and just assumed people would not reply to me or assume they got my message.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Is Facebook having serious database inconsistency... by kajjinai on Wednesday April 20, 2011 @06:22AM (#2466015)

I have seen one other strange behavior. My wife and I use the same laptop. She had logged into FB. When I was using it, i signed out of her account and signed into my account. I then saw some posts from my wife's friends who are not my friends. Strange.

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Re:Ask HN: Is Facebook having serious database inconsistency... by terryjsmith on Tuesday April 19, 2011 @05:08PM (#2464236)

I think a database inconsistency is unlikely, though possible, I imagine they would be very on top of that. It is more likely a caching or replication issue (maybe to do with their new data center -- entirely speculation).

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Re:Ask HN: Is Facebook having serious database inconsistency... by surendra_sedhai on Wednesday April 20, 2011 @05:44AM (#2465935)

I am also facing the same issue. Number of facebook likes for my sites is also inconsistent. Change in the number is not that significant, however, the inconsistency problem is there.

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Re:Ask HN: Is Facebook having serious database inconsistency... by laxk on Tuesday April 19, 2011 @11:41PM (#2465169)

Confirm. I have same issues with groups.

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