Store Server Overloaded Resulting in Missed Flash Sales Purchases

Your store website cannot handle the load for the flash sales, resulting in constantly missing out on the sale items.

I have sat here and 4x times tried to "Buy Now" and the server just spins, refreshes the page, and offers again.

This has happened every flash sale.

Very disappointing.

 

I'm not able to open the assetstore at all :-(

 

lmao yea same here, I think I was able to snatch one at 70% off, but since I can't open the store anymore I can't confirm if I get it or not.

It never went well when something like this happens, guess Unity didn't learn from the history.

 

Same boat. I didn't even know a sale was going on. I was just checking the forums to see if it was something major enough that someone official was posting a statement about it.

Oh well, I guess I'll try again tonight.

 

Exactly the same thing here. In 12 minutes since the sale started the page has only pulled up once. And then it went away immediately.

 

I've processed payment for my item TWICE now but I still haven't got it! Why even do these flash sales if they can't even handle it, this is exactly what happened last time too!!

 

Thanks guys for the confirmation. I guess it's all because some companies using bots to get assets automatically and that's overloading the server now.
It's not the first time. Exact thing happens last time as well but at least it wasn't completely down. Me too very disappointed at Unity

 

Got to the sales screen for two items, one completely crashed on purchase, the other one went through but now I can't even open the store to see if I actually got the one or not. Jeebus.

 

This is what happens when using shared host hahaha.
WHAT A SHAME!

 

I think I could buy one asset. But I couldn't get to the confirmation page. After that no page on the assetstore opens for me.

 

Whew! Got lucky I think. I was able to get the main webpage to open but not the assets individual page, thankfully the one I wanted was on the front page along with a little shopping cart icon that takes you straight to the purchase screen. Hopefully this helps at least one other person get what they want. <3

 

I also managed to snag one. The page pulled up unexpectedly and I clicked the first asset I had saved. It went through -- and now I'm wishing I had thought to pick the most expensive one on my list instead of just the first!

 

Glad you were able to grab one!

 

It seems to be working again now. The 80 percentages are gone, but 70% is still possible.

 

Crossing my fingers you get some goodies too, brah!

 

I did get 2 main choice at 80% but got another 2 at 70% by impulse because the store looks like crashing. A bit regretting it because now that it is back online, the 70% are at 800 copies each. Anyone know how many copies are available at 80%?

 

Glad you could get one!

Only 50 are offered at the 80% mark. I was able to grab 1x that I wanted at that.

 

I saw TopDown Engine had 50 copies at 80% at the start. Not sure if it's the same for all assets.

 

Well, 46 minutes after the flash sale began I've finally managed to grab all the assets I wanted. Got one at 80% and the others at 70%. Not bad all things considered (but that extra 10% would have been nice).

 

Looks like their redis cluster is refusing connections. Perhaps it isn't autoscaling up fast enough. I'd like to have a word with their capacity planning and SRE team :-D

 

Well I managed to snag a single asset once and have been trying to get to the store to load since as it is still not loading for me.

 

Well, I can open the homepage and that's about it.

 

Continue to have issues just opening the store, refusing to load existing assets, or losing cart for other non-Flash sale assets.

 

Ouch. Same experience.

 

Best part is it has gotten worse since the last major flash sales, not improved, even though the issues existed then too.

 

Weird thing is, some people are able to buy stuff cause it does mention copies been sold. How come some are able too and most people are not?

 

Anyone else noticed that - as a side effect - the store thinks that you don't own any assets anymore?

• https://assetstore.unity.com/account/assets

Edit: Seems to be fixed.

 

O great...I was able to get to the payment screen, pressed pay...it loads, i made the mistake to check another tab while it was loading, came back to the tab, all white and not working. Guess I missed out on that sale then, perfect. Don't even dare to press refresh in case it is paying and double charges.

 

Even when I'm able to make it to a product page it consistently shows nothing in my cart, even non-sale items I added yesterday. Unity, get your act together.

Gabe Newell: "Something something is almost always a service problem..."

 

Had the same problem, but later I got the confirmation by mail that I did get both assets. Hope it's the same for you?

Assestore is still/ again really wonky right now. My wishlists with assets are empty now, plus I have to reload many times untill I get the desired webpage.

What I don't get is that it's not the first time Unity has a sale like this and that the user experience is this bad... Is this really because of bots?

 

I mean has the number of people increased that are interested in Unity's flash sales? Most likely. Has that number increased enough to overwhelm their servers, or is it a ridiculous amount of automated requests? We can't say for sure without evidence though it sure seems like botting and scalping has gotten worse via many platforms for all kinds of products since Covid happened and the news of scalpers making money circulated.

 

True. Scalpers have become my nemesis. Still waiting for videocards to drop to normal prices!

Maybe some sort of "captcha" like protection on buying? Probably not standardized, because that will be circumvented easily.

Now I've "vented" enough, for now...

 

How exactly is someone supposed to scalp things from the Unity store?
You can trade or sell your assets; they are saved to your account.
If someone tried to sell a product from the Unity store the best they could so is send you the assets (without any legal right to use them.) The more I think about it, the more it just looks like a bad idea that would be hard AF to make any money from.

Bots I can believe, but not scalpers.