ActorAgeCheck – Blog Posts
-
Ongoing improvements
ActorAgeCheck has switched to an ongoing rollout of improvements. That is, improvements are rolled out one-by-one when they are production ready, rather than waiting for a full release like we have done in the past. More improvements will continue to be rolled out over time as we move towards the next major revision of the site. A non-exhaustive list of improvements are available below: There are more changes not listed here; however, this blog post is intended primarily to inform users on the ongoing rollout of improvements. The content update form and contact form should be made available in the…
-
Frontend performance improvements
A new frontend update has recently been released that greatly improves frontend/client side performance, particularly on pages with a lot of cast members or a lot of credits. This change improves performance when scrolling, hovering, or otherwise interacting with the page. This release also fixes several issues and focuses on improving overall efficiency for busy pages. This should greatly improve the performance for users across all devices. These changes can take a couple of weeks from this post to roll out to everyone. There’s nothing you need to do. You’ll receive the improved frontend automatically! Work will continue on optimizing…
-
[Resolved] Most Searched and other minor database issues
UPDATE (May 25, 2024): All issues mentioned in this post have been fully resolved. Thank you for your patience. UPDATE (May 13, 2024): The local database issue has been resolved, and performance should now be back to normal. However, there is still a minor upstream issue affecting popularity sorting, which may cause some unexpected behavior in certain areas of the site. Overall, most features are now working as intended. Just a quick heads-up: We are currently experiencing an upstream issue affecting some popularity results, mainly for less frequently viewed content, along with a local database issue. This is also impacting the “Most Searched”…
-
[Resolved] Temporary Issue: image serving and most searched
Update (March 31st, 2024): The “most searched” list functionality has been fully restored and is now working as intended. The image serving issue was resolved at the time this post was originally created. With the restoration of the “most searched” list, all issues mentioned in this notice have been resolved. Thank you for your patience, everyone! On March 30th 2024 shortly after 1AM Eastern, we experienced some issues On March 30th, 2024, shortly after 1 AM Eastern, we experienced issues with the website that affected two main areas: image serving and the “most searched” list. Image ServingDue to an internal experiment…
-
Redesign / What’s Next
The overhaul of the website that launched last year was an opportunity to build a version of the site that was able to grow and adapt new features over time. Another goal was to revamp and attempt to modernize the design that remained largely unchanged since 2013. Since its launch, we’ve seen record amounts of traffic to the site and received a lot of feedback about how we could improve. Last month, we upgraded the hardware that powers the site. This has lead to considerable performance gains and quicker responses times, even under peak times with heavy visitor numbers. We…
-
Contact Form Fixed
Quick Update: We’ve resolved an issue with the contact form that may have prevented successful submissions in some cases. Some browsers required the “Content URL” field to be populated with a fully qualified URL, even if no correction was being submitted. This issue was compounded by a recent change in the “Content URL” field, which now references a page identifier rather than a full URL. This discrepancy caused some browsers to block the form submission. While the browser behavior was correct, the recent change made the “Content URL” field non-compliant with its requirements. This issue has now been resolved. What You…
-
(Even More) Performance Improvements
Update on Performance Improvements On December 13, 2023, we implemented changes aimed at improving site performance for all users. Due to recent increased load, we have experienced some performance degradation over the past 24 hours. To address this, we have taken steps to enhance performance. Most users should notice improvements immediately, and all users should see benefits within the next few hours, depending on their location. Thank you for your continued support and patience as we work to ensure a fast and reliable experience on ActorAgeCheck. If you encounter any ongoing issues, please contact us—no one likes a slow-loading website,…
-
Oct 6 ’23 Downtime Update
On October 6, 2023, ActorAgeCheck underwent scheduled maintenance for backend configuration changes and updates, including a migration to a new server configuration. While we anticipated minimal downtime, unexpected issues arose during the process. What Happened: Resolution: We addressed these issues as quickly as possible: We are pleased to report that the website is now fully functional. We apologize for the longer-than-expected outage and appreciate your patience during this maintenance period. On the positive side: The website should now offer improved performance, and we have successfully rolled out the changes from Frontend 2.0.15 to all visitors. This update positions the website for future…
-
Performance Improvements
A core objective of our recent website overhaul was to improve performance and reduce the number of backend server calls per request. We successfully achieved this goal. However, the introduction of new features and increased word-of-mouth promotion has led to unprecedented levels of traffic, resulting in heavier loads, particularly during maintenance periods. To address this, we have implemented several software changes aimed at maintaining site speed and reliability, even during peak usage. These updates are now complete, and you should notice a significant improvement in the site’s responsiveness. We are also working on bringing new hardware online, if necessary, to…
-
Frontend Changelog 2.0.15
Update: 2.0.15 has been rolled out to 100% of visitors. An upcoming frontend version release (2.0.15) will be released shortly. A changelog will be made available after its release. It primarily focusses on accessibility, including the highly requested capability of selecting text throughout the site. Not being able to select text was a design choice picked for an improved UI and cleaner feel; however, this appears to be hindering the user experience. Features like copy, screen reading, translate, and other accessibility features are not available when text is not selectable across the site. 2.0.15 will add the capability to select…
-
An Introduction to the Blog
Welcome to the new ActorAgeCheck Blog! While the initial intention of this blog is to offer insight into the changes and development cycle of the blog; the plan is to eventually offer movie, TV show, and actor news. We receive a lot of great suggestions and feedback through our contact system. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to reply to every single suggestion, which makes it hard to determine when your suggestion has been added to the site. The hope is that this blog will shed some light on the development cycle and offer insights into the backend with details on how everything…
-
Changelog 2.0.0 – And Where We Started
Introducing a complete redesign, rewrite of core components, enhanced cloud caching, TV show support, an improved crowdsourcing system, and so much more! Quick note: This changelog was retrieved from the old Changelog page that used to be located on the help page. Several changes were never made public due to changes in posting methodology. We will bring the missing changelogs to the blog in due time. Completely redesigned: After a decade of only minor improvements to the original design… ActorAgeCheck has been completely redesigned with a new modern experience, shedding the old ‘blur’ style. Bringing the most important information to…
-
ActorAgeCheck Revamp Released
ActorAgeCheck has been completely redeveloped and redesigned for a more modern experience. Both the backend and the frontend bring new changes that come together to offer a faster, more reliable, and all around better experience. There are several quality of life improvements alongside major overhauls to the design to make the website far more useful. This change will help manage growth into the future (as the website now transfers TB’s of data and handles millions of requests). Why the redesign?ActorAgeCheck was released in 2013 as a side project of mine during school. It was a fun experiment that ended up…
-
ActorAgeCheck October Website Update
ActorAgeCheck has had a minor update to improve performance and prevent downtime in certain conditions. The image server has been slightly modified to prevent resource hogging in the event that the image database is failing to return image data timely. The site experienced an issue with its image database today which resulted in website timeouts or severe slowdowns (e.g. in some cases taking 30 seconds or longer to load a page). I have made some improvements to the image system to fail gracefully in the event that our image database is not returning images in a timely manner. This change…
-
ActorAgeCheck 1.0.40 website update
ActorAgeCheck.com recently went down for maintenance on January 28th 2021. This was to address some backend issues that were resulting cache data not being cleared from the server as frequently as it should be. This issue didn’t have any user facing impact, but the backend was not working as intended. Maintenance completed after a couple of hours and I continue to work on backend changes; however, I am confident that I can complete these changes without taking the site down for maintenance and without any major user impact. This update also: I will be performing these changes and optimizations over…
-
ActorAgeCheck 1.0.39 website update
ActorAgeCheck.com has received a minor update today to improve speed and functionality. A new version is still on the way, but this minor update has some large backend changes that should result in a much faster experience and will pave the way for future development. I hope everyone stays safe and healthy! This update:
-
ActorAgeCheck.com 1.0.38 website update
Update (November 6th 2019)As planned, the image subdomain has been completely disabled and will now show an error message. Please update your usage accordingly. I do not have any information at this time about whether it will return. The current iteration of ActorAgeCheck.com has received a minor update to assist with performance and responsiveness. It also fixes a few issues with images, along with adding some usability enhancements. This update: As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions on what I can do to improve ActorAgeCheck.com, please reach out to the team using the contact form on the site.…
-
ActorAgeCheck.com 1.0.37 website update
ActorAgeCheck.com has received a minor update today in preparation for the imminent revamp. This update fixes a few issues relating to HTTP to HTTPS redirection. This update:
-
ActorAgeCheck.com 1.0.36 website update
ActorAgeCheck.com has been updated to enhance the security and performance of the website. This update is a precursor to the new overhaul of the website, and has two goals: combat bots to improve performance by giving server power to those who need it (humans, i.e. you, the user), as well as server-side enhancements to the caching system. UPDATE (Feb 3 2019)Dynamic reCAPTCHA enabledA recent server side update has been pushed out that now automatically enables and disables reCAPTCHA as deemed necessary by the risk level determined by incoming connections. This means the entire reCAPTCHA system will be disabled unless suspicious activity is detected that…
-
ActorAgeCheck.com 1.0.35 website update
An update has been pushed out to ActorAgeCheck.com. This is a very minor update that mainly focuses on server-side adjustments to the caching system to improve response time and ensures users are not waiting too long for a response. An overhaul is still planned and I should have more details about that shortly. This update:
-
ActorAgeCheck 1.0.34 website update
An update has been pushed out to ActorAgeCheck.com. This update made some changes to the core foundation of the website and its backend in preparations for a big overhaul that I first mentioned in the last website update. Since the last update, I’ve made progress on all the items I had previously mentioned, including the full deprecation of the old image subdomain. Todays update consists primarily of backend overhauls in preparation for a completely redesigned and vastly improved version of the site. These changes are mostly on the backend; however, since the current iteration of the website is able to…
-
ActorAgeCheck 1.0.33 website update
An update has been pushed out to ActorAgeCheck.com. While I am planning an overhaul of the entire website, I’ve gone ahead and released a maintenance update to improve the performance and reliability of data on the website. Additionally, this maintenance update includes various server-side enhancements that will carry over into the new overhauled website. I’ll post more on the brand new overhauled version shortly. This maintenance update (1.0.33) includes: HTTPS is now enabled and forced on all domains. Non-HTTPS links will push users to the equivalent HTTPS page. Images are now served by the image subdomain by default on most pages. Some…