I'm going to punch LEED-Online in the face!

I don't know if you've experienced similar issues in the past week or so, but I haven't been able to log into any of my projects, much less edit them, in at least a week. I can sign in (only took 44 seconds on my last attempt), then I click on the project, and then everyone's favorite "Please be patient while we process your request. This may take up to three minutes" box pops up. I especially despise the furiously unhelpful tracking bar that scrolls along the bottom of the box that has no real connection to the amount of time I need to wait for the next page to load.

LEED Hell

that's seven minutes, not seven seconds

After just over seven minutes I get a page telling me that "this page cannot be loaded" or something about a server error that I don't understand.

The last time I was able to do anything was to setup a new project, and the simple act of assigning roles for each credit took over 1 hour and 13 minutes (yes... I timed that too). Any of you experiencing similar problems or should I talk to my IT department?

Hopefully the "significant enhancements to LEED Online" mentioned with the release of the LEED 2009 draft will help to solve some of these issues.

Finally, a big thanks to the fine folks over at www.online-stopwatch.com for their help making this post possible.

20 comments:

Dave Low said...

YES!

I am having the exact same problem - I can get to my project selection screen but no further. There was one day last week when it was fine - so I know it is not a problem on my end. I have called them for the last week and they continue to say it is slow because of the number of users. I essentially can't work on projects now. I'm ready to call and start trying to find someone higher up on the food chain at USGBC to complain to - I know they are a non-profit - but we pay to register these projects so we should have some recourse as "customers"

joelmckellar said...

Thanks for sharing... It's somehow good to know I'm not the only one.

jlloyd said...

I am having the same issues with access. Plus what is killing me is we submitted our project for design review about a month ago. Granted they are experiencing a backlog, but how am I suppose to respond to their comments if I can not access my project.

no meato burrito said...

Same here. It was happening to me a over few days last week. I got through to my project after SEVERAL tries, but later that day had the same problem. In general, the LEEDonline server is painfully slow, but this was obviously a technical problem on their end.

Anonymous said...

LEED Online has always been remarkably slow for me. Recently, yes, it's been worse. Just pulling down the templates has taken me a whole day or better.

Ashley said...

I am having the same problem, and keep asking our IT guy to fix *our* server. Ooops. Does anyone have the contact info for the tech dept. at the USGBC? Perhaps if they get a lot of complaints at once, something will be done.

Dave Low said...

I've called several times but have never gotten very far and certainly not to the tech department. They realize it is a problem - not sure they have done anything yet. Maybe a few more posts here and we can file an official complaint of some sort (not sure how we would do that) They have told me it has to do with amount of people using it - which makes sense as I have had better luck late in the evening west coast time - last night it worked for me - today it doesn't

Anonymous said...

Yep--same here.

Diana said...

Today was the first day this week LOL was reasonable. I have found that leaving LOL work to evenings at home is a good alternative if you're willing to pay the price of work at home.

joelmckellar said...

I found it was working reasonably well, if slow, yesterday, and haven't needed to work on it today yet. I also noticed that late afternoon/evening seemed to be quicker.

Anonymous said...

Online processing speed does seem connected to the clock. I've experienced a significant sloooooooowdown about 9am EDT and a reciprocal acceleration about 8pm EDT. That translates to 6am PDT and 5pm PDT.

I'm glad to discover this online community. We can -here- become for an influential voice for online service improvements.

Like many others I've written constructive criticism [leedinfo@usgbc.org] but can only wonder what effect that has; no informative response returns.

Our American Republic was built around oratory in the town square. Perhaps a website can be moved by community blogging once united.

Dave Low said...

On again, off again.....worked Thursday morning but not Thursday afternoon. Maybe someone who is better with systems etc can help me. When it is slow - I can't even get into it the templates - I get the error message that my browser "cannot display the page." I can look at specific points just not do anything with them. Even when it is slow I would like to get into it. Any ideas? Is there some setting on my end that things time out after a certain amount of waiting?

Diana said...

Hey Dave, there nothing that will increase the speed of LOL that I have found. When its slow, its slow - at least that's my experience over the last 1 1/2 years. Remember never to leave your work in LOL to the last minute or you will be very stressed out.
I suspect some relief will be had when LEED 2009 comes out, but I'm not sure.

Anonymous said...

USGBC is definitely aware of the problem. I've heard they hope to have it fixed next week sometime. Let's cross our fingers - I'm tired of working in the evening, too!

Anonymous said...

It's Friday morning and it is suppose to be my day off. What am I doing?..... up at 6am eastern time trying to work in the project's LEED on-Line site. It is now 11am and after 2 very long calls to USGBC we finally have the situation semi resolved. GEEZ, what a high hurdle.

This system has just got to get better.

While the folks at USGBC are super nice and bend over backwards to help, this is my company's money/my time that is being wasted.

Didn't we hear that the LEED On-Line would be faster at last year's GreenBuild?

Dave Low said...

Friday morning (west coast ) and it's working fine for me this morning? Strange.....

I agree with the previous post - USGBC is very helpful and nice - but they do need to make sure things improve - we'll keep our fingers crossed...

Rick Fedrizzi said...

To all of you I would like to offer my sincere apology for your lost time and frustration with the system.
USGBC has experience unprecedented growth in LEED registrations while simultaneously developing the next generation LEED Online 3... Our systems have most definitely felt the strain. I offer that not as an excuse, but only to let you know that we are working around the clock to improve the effectiveness of the overall system and experience for you, the user.
Thank you very much for your patience,
Rick Fedrizzi, CEO
USGBC

MrGreenJeans said...

The USGBC uses the same webservers for the LEED AP Exam registrations (and other USGBC web presences)that they do for LEED-Online resulting in low bandwidth for LEED-Online when other parts of the website are overloaded. The weeks you were having problems was the last 2 weeks of the LEED-EB exam registration, so demand for that part of the website was unbelievably high. This is at least what the USGBC told me when I contacted them. Hopefully they are working on it so it doesn't continue to be a problem...

Dave Low said...

Rick- Thanks a lot for weighing in on this - means a lot that USGBC is on top of the issues. Things have been back to normal this week - sounds like exam registration might have been the culprit.

Anonymous said...

October 29th at Noon Eastern Time, Can't get into templates. Get a server error.