[Update 5 Jan 2012]
We’re pleased to update that the connection problems – that a small percentage of you have been facing – have been resolved.
It’s our responsibility to give everyone a reasonable account of what happened, but it’s quite a challenge given this topic requires a fair amount of technical knowledge. That being the case, we’ve provided the full tech explanation here (for the geeks), and a summarized version in the next paragraph.
Basically our new Domain Name System (DNS) service provider do not handle wildcard entries (using the *.something.com notation) well. This resulted in some of our domains failing to resolve on some DNS servers (notably if you’re using Google’s public DNS service). Only a small portion of our users were affected, and pretty intermittently as well. We are in contact with our service provider to find out why this happened, and why their system even accepted those wildcard entries if they were not handled well.
Now that we’ve resolved the issue, we’re in contact with customers who raised complaints of such behavior to explain the situation, and work out a resolution. If you have been affected as well, do write in to us at feedback at zopim dot com. We’d be glad to assist!
—-
Over the past couple of days, we’ve received a couple of reports of customers being unable to connect to Zopim since last Thursday, after we switched our domain name registrar as part of our anti-SOPA movement.
This is a common phenomenon known as DNS (domain name system) propagation delay, which typically happens after changes are made to DNS records.
Most users are unaffected by this. But if you are, you can try flushing your DNS records. The steps involved are as follows:
- Close all your internet browser windows.
- Flush your DNS cache (instructions can be found here).
- Restart your internet browser.
If the problem persists, please contact support at zopim dot com. We would need more information to diagnose the precise networking problem as it differs from case-to-case.
We really appreciate your patience on this!
Hi,
I don’t think it’s a DNS problem because it’s work fine with all browser (chrome, opera, safari) but not with Firefox on my Mac.
Hi Tanguy, it should have resolved itself, if not we’ll jump in and get it fixed. Thanks!
Hi all,
I have been unable to link to my Zopim dashboard for two days, but later this evening the link is now good and all is well.
Thanks all for your work on this issue.
Steve
It’s our duty =) Appreciate your understanding. We’ve updated the blog post with details of what happened.
Now please get back to working on a dashboard ap for ipad …..
thanks
hi Joel, with our beta HTML5 dashboard you can chat directly from Safari on the iPad
Do you want to give it a go? Email me qingru at zopim dot com 
I would love to give this a go on our new iPad. Please can you send me the details?
@Grant We’ve been progressively releasing the iPad compatible version of the widget to a big proportion of our users. Could you load your site on an iPad to see if the widget shows up?
Hi,
I’ve been facing intermittent loss of service. A couple of days ago it would load the login screen but wouldn’t actually complete the login. This morning I was woken to the disconnection error saying it is unable to reconnect, although everything else appears to work fine.
Not sure if my issues are related, but has only started happening more frequently than before.
Thanks,
Hey James, we spoke, and glad things are back to normal again. Thanks for the understanding!
FYI – At about 2am this morning both live chat systems mysteriously disconnected again! Everything else on my PC remained to keep a connection, in addition, when refreshing instead of joining an existing session it asked me to re-login.
Hope this helps with diagnosing, maybe my issue is different to the above?
Best,
James
I think your customer must come before your anti-SOPA movement. I believe you used Voxel.net before and have changed to using CloudFlare, which is the most overrated CDN service. They have been bad from the start. Zopim will only get bad DNS traffic from CluodFlare. Please think of your customer first not your personal our anti-SOPA movement.
CloudFlare is not good for business, as it blocks to much traffic.
@DG Whole-heartedly agree that customers come before any other agenda (eg. SOPA). Our service is still proudly hosted on Voxel.net, and we’re only using CloudFlare to CDN our static content. This move was independent of our anti-SOPA stance, and is an upgrade that we’ve been planning for a while.
We’re still closely monitoring the situation, but generally we’re seeing improved loading speeds due to their geographic distribution. We know some of the CloudFlare folks, and are working hand-in-hand to iron out any issues our customers are facing.
Thanks roystontay, but I have tested CloudFlare from day one when they first started. And it has not got better. Meaning there are to many user issues, as a lot of users get blocked. After you have changed to CloudFlare, almost every time (8 out of 10) I changing page, an object error to “cdn.zopim.com
I tell it like it is. CloudFlare may be good in theory, but not is does not work in practical.
I think CloudFlare is more a DNS Provider in a CDN Provider, as it looks like they using The Amazon Route 53 Global Network, not a real CDN network. If I am wrong, which CDN provider are they using, as I do not think they have built there own, as it cost to much and make no sense.
Cheers,
DG
We like Zopim, but some mac users including me, getting disconnected roughly 20-30 minutes after connecting, often while chatting with a customer. Not fun. It only changed after I upgraded to OSX Lion. Help, Thanks, Dave
@Dave thanks for bringing this up. if it occurs again, do contact our support team. we’d be glad to perform a remote troubleshooting session. Differing network conditions mean there are many reasons why connectivity is disconnected, and we’d love to investigate further.
Really!…Solved then why is service down on your own site and mine. You know I am just about ready to dispute the charge for your service or more, lack of service to my credit card company.
@Jeff We’d like to solve the issues you’re facing. We’ve reached out via email to you on 20th Apr but have yet to receive a reply. If you could drop an email to support at zopim dotcom, we’d have someone respond to your queries in double time.
If you feel more comfortable requesting for a refund instead, we’d be happy to do that for you. Write in to the same email address requesting it. It’s definitely not our intention to make money off disgruntled customers.
I have been incapable to weblink to my Zopim dash panel for two times, but later this night the weblink is now excellent and all is well.
Thanks all for your perform on this problem.
hi!
i have a disconnect-problem.
the connection-quality is every time in the red (1 bar) and all 2-3mins the connection will reset.
my internet connection (Austria) is fast enough (20mbit) and over LAN (no WLAN).
is there a solution for the connection-problems?
still not working for me as of 1-4-13 and I followed steps to flush dns
hi there, this is actually a pretty old post. if you’re still facing problems, feel free to live chat with us. our support team will be happy to work it through with you =)
I can’t use Zopim for the past 3 days. the zopim contacts on messenger disappeared as well. moreover, even when I logon to zopims dashboard and mark myself as online, it still shows offline on the website. something is very broken. I didnt change anything, it was working fine for months.
Hey Leo,
Sorry for getting back so slowly. Are these still happening? If they are could you please head over to our website (http://www.zopim.com) and have a chat with our agents. It would be the best way to get this resolved. This problem hasn’t been reported by other users so far so we hope it has been resolved.