Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Thursday, May 3, 2007 at 1:08 PM PT

 

Joost Is Error-Prone

Apologies to all of you who’ve requested invites to Joost. We’d love to let you into the service, but over the past few days we have had trouble launching the application ourselves. I’d had no problems running earlier versions, but these days can’t even get the thing to start.

First I was getting an error message saying the software was “Unable to connect to network.” Now I’m hung on a screen saying “Channels pre-installed successfully.” And Om is seeing something saying “An unknown error occurred, sorry.”

We are both on Intel Macs. There seem to be plenty of people experiencing similar problems on various types of machines, many contributing to an enormous Joost forum thread under the header “I can’t get the application to run. What do I do?” I don’t see much in the way of useful responses from Joost itself.

Update: Joost CEO Fredrik de Wahl writes in to apologize and say the company is having trouble coping with demand. He promises to fix the issue.

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Comments & Trackbacks

  1. You can fix it but you need to uninstall and re-install Joost using something like AppZapper to remove all the preference files.

    It was a pain in the ass but it’s actually a bug to do with the channel acquisition system when it starts up.

    OsakanOne on May 3rd, 2007 at 1:25 pm - Permalink

  2. Thanks, I will try that out. I have deleted and downloaded and restarted so many times at this point!

    Liz Gannes on May 3rd, 2007 at 1:29 pm - Permalink

  3. OK that worked, but I ended up having to pay $12.95 for AppZapper. Now that I’m in the new release of Joost, you can’t invite people except for when you’re in full-screen mode. So this looks like it’ll be slow going.

    Liz Gannes on May 3rd, 2007 at 1:50 pm - Permalink

  4. Yes, we’re a bit red-faced today.

    As you’ve pointed out, we’re having some problems….. We’ve been flooded with demand, which is fabulous and ultimately will make the system stronger, but since it’s unaccustomed to this level of usage it’s stumbling a bit, whereas we’d like it to be sprinting. We regret that you’re not getting you should right now, but we’re getting an incredible look at the system at work (… and more importantly what’s not working) so that we can reduce the likelihood of this happening again.

    We’ll post again when the issue is fixed.

    Thanks for your patience…..we’re getting there.

    Cheers,
    Fredrik, CEO of Joost

    Fredrik de Wahl on May 3rd, 2007 at 2:29 pm - Permalink

  5. Thanks Fredrik, appreciate the note.

    Liz Gannes on May 3rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm - Permalink

  6. A lot of people are probably installing Joost at work and Joost is very un-firewall friendly. It uses protocols and ports that are routinely blocked. I work at a media company that’s partnered with Joost and we can’t use it at work.

    Mitchell Cardwell on May 3rd, 2007 at 3:15 pm - Permalink

  7. Big mistake rushing out a service that doesnt work…I for one am not impressed but the errors I was met with…

    I think this one is being driven more by PR machines than real value-add…too bad !

    medialives on May 3rd, 2007 at 3:32 pm - Permalink

  8. [...] Intel-Mac users are having Joost problems which is showing some strange error messages, reports NewTeeVee. After loading the software, many folks, including me, have not been able to log into the service. [...]

    GigaOM » Intel-Mac users having Joost problems on May 3rd, 2007 at 4:17 pm - Permalink

  9. What’s up with everyone being so harsh, and so quick to judge, a service that is in beta? They’ve been very clear and up-front about the fact that the service is not ready for prime-time yet, and there will be bugs, and that the whole point of this stage is exactly to find those bugs, experience them, and deal with them. Everyone chill out and give them a break!

    Avi Flax on May 3rd, 2007 at 7:21 pm - Permalink

  10. [...] many folks, including me, have not been able to log into the service. Joost CEO Fredrik de Wahl in NTV comments writes, “Yes, we’re a bit red-faced today.” The problems are associated with too many people signing [...]

    Did we overdo our Joost inviting? « OneManStartup on May 3rd, 2007 at 9:59 pm - Permalink

  11. i experienced the same. When I email the support team, only the engine replied me…..

    SELaplana on May 3rd, 2007 at 10:56 pm - Permalink

  12. [...] Joost is Error Prone [NewTeeVee] tr { border: 0px } td { cellborder: 10px} table { border: 1px solid black } [...]

    Joost, She Is Dying on May 4th, 2007 at 7:18 am - Permalink

  13. I have quite a few joost invites, hit me up Liz, and I can get them your way.

    E.T.Cook on May 4th, 2007 at 7:56 am - Permalink

  14. I’ve had loads of trouble with the service too, needing to uninstall and reinstall several times. True, it’s a beta service, but Joost hasn’t exactly been quiet about it. Joost has lined up 32 advertisers and has signed deals with major content providers and continues to issue press releases about each deal. So it seems natural the service would come under greater scrutiny when it doesn’t work, and frankly, it doesn’t work well.

    Daisy Whitney on May 4th, 2007 at 8:02 am - Permalink

  15. Remember Joost is still in limited invite only BETA for a reason and there are bound to be errors in a servive that is its still being activly developed and bugs are found on a daily basis as the Joost developers optimise the code in the client and backend services and try roll out new features.

    Because Joost is Hybrid p2p they may have scaling issues and they still use standard HTTP for the long tail servers that might be getting slammed to top up bandwidth needed to serve the streams with the influx of new users now the BETA been expanded .

    Please understand this is part of the whole BETA process and the best way for users to help the developers out is to make sure you submit bug reports and feature requests [

    Matt Hendry on May 4th, 2007 at 8:25 am - Permalink

  16. Does anyone have an extra Joost invite they wouldn’t mind giving away. I need one. Thanks,

    routeip on May 5th, 2007 at 10:01 am - Permalink

  17. Matt I have several invites…

    Ray on May 5th, 2007 at 6:18 pm - Permalink

  18. Do these problems show up on all platforms or just OS X? Most of the posts I have seen seem to point toward a Mac client issue, although I haven’t read the thread linked in this article.

    On a separate note a couple people said they had extra invites, if you still have any left can I get one?

    Thanks,

    Wayne

    Wayne@knownGood.com

    Wayne on May 6th, 2007 at 9:56 am - Permalink

  19. Joost growing pains… Wonder if there will be a linux client after all this?

    Akshun J on May 7th, 2007 at 3:58 am - Permalink

  20. [...] include “Unable to connect to network” or “An unknown error occurred, sorry” and the Joost [...]

    Joost Beta Faces Problems « inbabble.com on May 7th, 2007 at 9:48 am - Permalink

  21. [...] company says its server situation has improved since last week. It’s still a bit buggy on our end, but [...]

    NewTeeVee » Get your Joost Invites Now… Almost Unlimited on May 7th, 2007 at 1:13 pm - Permalink

  22. [...] improve performance in a asymmetric world is to deploy network-based server resources, aka a CDN! Joost is a big victim of this [...]

    Getting Hitched: Traditional CDN and P2P architectures « on May 25th, 2007 at 9:51 am - Permalink

  23. the manufacturer should fix the bugz on Joost

    CareBear on December 9th, 2007 at 8:25 am - Permalink

  24. [...] 8, the site has been down on a daily basis, for a total of more than five hours. We’ve had technical difficulties with Joost in the past, and the company recently fired its CTO, but what seems to be [...]

    Joost Site Experiencing ‘Unprecedented’ Downtime « NewTeeVee on February 22nd, 2008 at 8:52 am - Permalink

  25. just call the service center as many times as you can

    Heike on June 27th, 2008 at 8:13 pm - Permalink

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