Repetitive search shutdowns, or timeouts

[TimePeace]

I was reading a post here regarding finding best prices/points requirements, and it was noted that in searching for best buckets, after a certain number of consecutive searches the system shut down for an unspecified period of time.

Does this happen for all requests, or only for the same repeated departure/destination stations? And do we know how long the shutdown lasts for a given user?

I was searching the same trip repeatedly a few nights ago, with different dates, and after a while I got an error message in red saying something like "an unspecified system error has occurred" .

I wonder if this function somehow led to the demise of Amsnag? Obviously I am looking for my best deals...

Thanks,
David

 

[zephyr17]

I was reading a post here regarding finding best prices/points requirements, and it was noted that in searching for best buckets, after a certain number of consecutive searches the system shut down for an unspecified period of time.

Does this happen for all requests, or only for the same repeated departure/destination stations? And do we know how long the shutdown lasts for a given user?

I was searching the same trip repeatedly a few nights ago, with different dates, and after a while I got an error message in red saying something like "an unspecified system error has occurred" .

I wonder if this function somehow led to the demise of Amsnag? Obviously I am looking for my best deals...

Thanks,
David

Once it kicks in, it is for all requests.

It takes at least several hours to clear. Once it happens, I give up and start over the next day.

Amsnag died pretty much due to Amtrak rewriting the website to a more modern AJAX style dynamic approach where more of the formatting is done on the client/browser side rather than returning static pages. That made the HTML parsing method on the returned pages that Amsnag used to gather data useless. The website now makes an API call on the browser end directly and then destructively consumes the API return in formatting the display. The data is never sitting in the clear on the client waiting to be parsed like it was under the old approach. There are several reasons to have done this, including automatically tailoring the display to the device being used and reducing calls between the thr browser and the server. Disabling Amsnag was collateral damage, not the objective.

It would take a much deeper hack, like somehow independently invoking Amtrak's internal API, to recreate Amsnag's functionality.

 

[TimePeace]

Thanks. I understand some of that .