Our Very Own OCUK Branded Steam Sig Generator

Have been thrashing around with this for a while, I have checked that my steam profile is viewable by anyone on interweb so what have I done wrong? I want to keep the photo on the left and have the level thing in the middle what decides on the right hand pic etc am lost :(
 
To those wondering what "the trick" is... remember the Steam API only polls about once every 10 minutes so if you make any kind of change at all you'll have to wait anything up to 10 minutes before you see the effects (and likewise if you start or stop playing a game your status in the sig won't change until up to 10 minutes again)
 
About the actuality of the data, here is an entry from the FAQ of the new webpage, which will go live end of October:

Q: How current is the data?
A: I had to find a middle between current data and loading time. So what the Server does is this:
  • First access: theme is generated, user has to wait until it is completely generated
  • Caching time is 10 minutes, that means every new access to the file in this time span sees the very same picture, nothing is regenerated
  • First access AFTER the cache time: The server hands out the old file, but at the same time generates a new image with current data. User does not wait, but sees old data
  • Above step is invalid if the image is older than 24 hours. In that case, the user has to wait until the new file is generated
  • Next access for 10 minutes will see the new generated file

I am really bad at writing documentation, even in my native language :)
I hope it helps, though.
 
Coolinger said:
About the actuality of the data, here is an entry from the FAQ of the new webpage, which will go live end of October:

**snip**

I am really bad at writing documentation, even in my native language :)
I hope it helps, though.
Click to expand...

Sounds perfectly clear to me (and probably in better English than a good 90% of native English speakers would manage :p)

I didn't realise it's your server caching the images (I just assumed that it generates them on-the-fly every time, but that the Steam API itself had the 10 minute refresh rate)
 
uncle_rufus said:
Sounds perfectly clear to me (and probably in better English than a good 90% of native English speakers would manage :p)

I didn't realise it's your server caching the images (I just assumed that it generates them on-the-fly every time, but that the Steam API itself had the 10 minute refresh rate)
Click to expand...

Thanks :)

I have more than 10'000 requests per hour, I even think I have to raise the caching time if the server load climbs too high...
 
It is a dedicated server hosted at Hetzner, a german hoster.
Hardware Specs:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz
16 GB DDR3 RAM

Software:
Ubuntu Precise LTS 64Bit
PHP 5.3.10-1ubuntu3.8
php-imagick 3.1.0
imagemagick 6.6.9.7
apache2-mpm-prefork 2.2.22

Load/Traffic:
20 TByte traffic per month free, 300GB used in September
System Load average: 5

I think this might be an entry for the new FAQ :)
 
Absolutely :) I was just wondering if you were running it on a little box at your house or something, and was going to suggest maybe looking at moving it to a hosting service (but it looks like you're a few steps ahead of me ;))
 
Hi all,
I just updated the caching method. Is this somehow understandable?


Q:How current is the data?
A:I had to find a middle between current data and loading time. So what the Server does is this:
  • First access: theme is generated, user has to wait until it is completely generated
  • Caching time is 5 to 20 minutes, with increasing probability of regenerating the theme as age of the signature grows: Probability is 0% after 5 minutes, and 100% after 20 minutes. Probability grows linear. A randomizer chooses if the signature is regenerated.
  • If the randomizer tells the server to regenerate the signature, it will be done AFTER the old signature is handed out to the user. Thus, no user has to wait for the image.
  • Above step is invalid if the image is older than 24 hours. In that case, the user has to wait until the new file is generated
  • This caching method was chosen because it ensures that popular signatures, which are accessed often will be more current than signatures which are accessed not so often. Also, it ensures that the cache will not become invalid after 10 minutes for all signatures, which had a big impact on server performance because some hundred signatures had to be regenerated at the same time every 10 minutes.
 
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