GoToMeeting outage Ruins MrExcel Webinar

I have to apologize to everyone. When we tried to sign in to the meeting at 11AM EDT today, there was a message that GoToMeeting.com was temporarily down. I sent out a note on Twitter (my userid is MrExcel) to keep trying and answered about 10 e-mails that I would keep trying.

Around 11:05 AM, we got in, and many of you were trying because the attendance count quickly shot up to 70, then over 100, finally about 130.

From there, the reports are varied. Some instantly had no audio. Some could watch for about five minutes. For me, everything locked up after 18 minutes.

I currently have 50+ messages in my inbox saying that you were kicked out of the event.

I am disappointed in Citrix's response. There was a new build that went live this morning that was unstable. The recording of the webinar was lost. They claimed that this has never happened in 2008, but a search of the web shows similar problems in August. Update from 10/31/08...after I pointed out to journalists a TWIT and InfoWeek the response, I received an excellent apology from Citrix, along with a credit for a half-a-year of GoToWebinar. They said that they were taking steps to ensure this never happens again.

Many ask if I will reschedule? I do want to test again before the 11/21/08 10th anniversary webinar. I might try it again, record it, and then post the recording. I would rather not waste the time of 100+ people again. Update, again from 10/31/2008: The recordings are now live at http://www.mrexcel.com/webinar.html