Authentication gace period?

[Cloudhopper]

HI,

i just ran into the issue, where the auth server wouldn't respond to the login attempt from my client.
It took 45 minutes from starting the program to actually authenticating with the server and before i could start to use the program.

Wouldn't it be an interesting idea to introduce a grace period to this authentication?
Like VMware does it, after a new ESX host has contacted the licensing server, it can run normally for 14 days if the license server is down for whatever reason.

I think something like this would be very nice for altbinz, once you donated and have authenticated for the first time it will log in every time you start the program, however if the server is unavailable the program will run for a certain amount of time (14 days? whatever) and if authentication is not possible during that time, it just stops working.

Just an idea i came across while waiting for altbinz to start working again

Thanks for reading!

[d4f0rc3]

+1 I had that issue several times and it is annoying every time, to wait for a response from the server.

[necrocowboy]

+1

I've had this a few times and I did question / suggest this when the authentication was first introduced as it's a PITA not being able to download using alt.binz just because there is an issue with the authentication.

My suggestion would be to cache a successful login for 24 hours and that should avoid any future issues - will still require a valid forum account to authenticate so wouldn't affect the reason it was introduced.  [Think Local V Roaming profiles in Windows]

NC

[networkn]

+1 for this, but I have already discussed with this rdl and he wasn't keen so I wouldn't hold my breath.

He has suggested the alternative which is that a second server be brought online as redundancy. This should
resolve the issue somewhat, personally I'll stick with my non auth version till I must upgrade.

[Cloudhopper]

+1 for this, but I have already discussed with this rdl and he wasn't keen so I wouldn't hold my breath.

Oh i can understand RDL, auth was introduced as an anti-piracy measure and if i would be in that position i'd assume that a grace would weaken my measurements to protect my property.
But to disable Contributors to use the program they support, even temporarily, from using the program isn't good either. It might even scare new Contributors away.

There is always two sides to a story and i just wanted to bring this up because i had the feeling i'm not alone with this request.

[Hecks]

There *will* be a backup server, this was decided a while ago, and it will be implemented in the next version, which I gather is coming soon.

[Rdl]

Backup authentication server added. End of discussion about grace period, protection and similar things.