It seems like Zwift has a made a minor misstep with thos event with reports of server crashes, overcrowding, not enough time slots to suit the entire globe. My experience was I joined one of the new rides the posted that start 5 minutes after the original and they failed to hide the 4000 people that were on the earlier ride. It kind of screwed up our group because you couldn’t tell who was in your group and it was a double draft event and you didnt know who to draft off. Not to mention the constant stream of riders I passed. I think it’s an interesting example of how software companies are trying to do things quickly to meet the surge in demand and opportunity to grow their membership during the quarantine. Trainerroad group rides is another example, perhaps one executed better than this event but there are other successes and failures from other companies. Perhaps we should prepare to be pleasantly surprised and disappointed frequently in the near future.
Well, this event was announced over a month ago. At that time, we had not seen the massive surge in Zwift use that started roughly 2 weeks ago.
Perhaps they should have anticipated this based on the recent surge, but hindsight is 20/20, and we have no way to know the precise reason for the issues.
They adapted quickly by adding a second group (D, starting 5 mins later than the original E groups), to help spread the load and get group size down.
I recommend looking at the events again and consider the D group, as they are still much smaller and should be a more “normal” fondo experience.
Not to mention they added several more start times that were more US friendly times.
So, despite my gripes with Zwift management, they are moving very quickly to address these issues.
My ride at 7PM last night went perfectly, and I expect my 10:05 ride in a bit will go great too.
My experience was fine. Pretty impressed actually that there were no real technical issues given the number of people involved. Only terribly minor quibble was that when filtering the "Zwifters near me " tab to show people that I follow it gave no results even though quite a few friends and team mates finished within a few minutes either side of me. Guess that function only searches the nearest 100 riders or something which 99% of the time would be plenty.
Multiple waves and no idea who was in which sounds like a pretty typical real life gran fondo experience to me!
I ride stage 1 at 5pm UK time, got to the radio masts but then kickr brake didn’t release and the rest of the route was basically still a climb. I think this was a Zwift issue but cautious to point blame.
This morning I rode stage 2 at the 10am start time, no issues however I was also doing a TR workout so Zwift wasn’t controlling anything. Towards the top of the Alpe graphics went a little glitchy but overall I’ve been impressed with the stability given the sudden surge in usage. Don’t forget your internet connectivity has a big impact as well - everyone is at home and internet usage has grown putting increased load on networks. My advice is lower graphics settings, this will definitely help, and when. It riding in events chose an alternative world. There are now two available per day, plus the ability to choose your own world using the hack on mac/pc to manually specify a world.
I did the D group and the way they implemented the D group was flawed because they didnt hide the E group like they should have. It didnt crash but the group dynamics were ruined. I did the E group yesterday and even though there were 4000 users it didnt crash. I think the intentions were good with the D group but the execution stunk for me.
Mine was very glitchy at the start yesterday but cleared up pretty quickly when things started to spread out. Today’s was 95% fine. As my first big Zwift event, I had a good time.
How was it ruined?
I rode 10 am MDT with 4 friends, and TR GW side loaded for chat. Both were flawless for me. I have an advanced gaming rig, so it never flinches, even at 4k display.
I think many of the issues people have often roll down to equipment or internet issues. Surely, Zwift had problems yesterday and worked to address them. All I know is the my two rides (with 1k riders in one, and just under 2k in the 2and were perfect.
I did the D today. I was in the top 180 or so for the majority of the ride until the final sections on AdZ where I fell back.
We ended up catching the tail of the E group. There were probably almost 5k riders in that group, so its inevitable the two would overlap. The drafting is nearly constant when you get over 1k riders, especially on a relatively short ride like the one today. I don’t see that as a problem, but more of the Fondo experience that I like from the Zwift experience.
I tried to ride it twice. First time I got disconnected when it started. Second time I was unable to log in…
Find that 99% of issues are down to the users hardware and internet connection. In the current climate it might not be the internet connection in your home but the backend, to your local exchange etc.
Also believe Zwift only shows you your nearest 100 riders, your computer has to plot them and and display them, depending on your display rate I guess would then depending on the rate of update and computing power, was half listening the the zwift cats and one of the developers was talking about it.
I myself yesterday and today had no issues apart from being 10km in and it looking as busy as normal starts do!
One other thing was when I joined, it took some 2 minutes to transfer me to the start line. Just a case of being very patient and allowing time for the servers to do their stuff.
The ones I signed up for were the 1500 CEST (7k) and the 1800 CEST (I think 7 or 8k riders signed up), both yesterday. Some ISP trouble in the area as well, but with those user numbers, I’m not surprised or mad that it didn’t work. I’m just happy I don’t have to work on their servers at the current moment and deal with the load spikes :-).
Rig I used was a Mac Pro, hex core, 16 gigs ram and 4 gig vram, might be getting a bit long in the tooth but should handle the load fine ;-). For the 1800 CEST ride there were routing issues in Germany, I couln’t get in with the Mac, the iPad, an apple TV and a Pixel 3a. I could get in when I switched the Pixel to data…
I’m somewhat used to it here now. I’m a teacher and we’ve been on lockdown for 3 weeks. The official online platforms for homeschooling went down the first day at 8am and had quite a few difficulties during the first two weeks. School’s homepage went down quite a few times due to the load and the traffic. But as long as that’s all that is going wrong at the moment, I’m happy :-). Rode outside today, awesome weather…
I had problems earlier today with my ANT signal. It went crazy!!! So lost my original start time.
Later I turned off my cellphones, edge and it worked fine.
I started with the E group and no problem with an OK laptop.
Tried to enter the 6am (Pacific Time) ride this morning in the E group, was lined up and in the corral with 10 minutes to go, warming up. Countdown to zero, everyone starts riding and then I got dropped. Tried to quickly get into the D group, was on the line, started rolling, got dropped.
Frustrated, but wanting to do the stage, came back at 8:30 for the 9am stage, did the exact same thing, even trying to get into the 9:05am I was in and rolling and it crashed.
Finally gave up and just rode the Tour of Fire and Ice on my own. Bummer to not complete the whole Haute Route, though.
Never have any issues with Zwift on the iPad set up I use, except on massively attended rides/races. iPad is a few years old, but haven’t had any issues, even with multiple users of the WiFi at home on at the same time.
But this morning, I was the only one awake and still had issues. Suggestions?
I haven’t signed up for TR yet due to my usual hard efforts taking place as a high school cross country and track coach that runs every workout with the athletes and am usually spent by the time I’d work in my own TR workout regimen. So Zwift has filled the void, even if it is “noodling” as it’s often referred to on the Ask podcast - for me it has been saddle time, and that is what has mattered.
But if this massive increase in athlete numbers is going to affect Zwift, then TR may be my new focus since I cannot coach right now.
Suggestions as to Zwift problem solutions or a shift to TR? Any advice is most appreciated.
If the issues are Zwift issues and not ipad/trainer/network issues at your end, then I would guess they’re likely to be caused by the number of people in the Haute Route events, so you shouldn’t have any problems doing smaller events, group or solo rides.
I think TR is head and shoulders above Zwift for structured training plans. Conversely I think Zwift is head and shoulders above TR if you want social interaction (even with the new TR Group Workout feature), racing or an immersive environment. So really depends what your priorities are. I normally get my structure from TR and everything else from outdoor racing and group rides, so never felt the need to pay for Zwift as well. With outdoor riding currently off the cards where I live, am signed up to both Zwift and TR and really enjoying both.
Weirdly parallel story from me. Teacher in Central Europe too and all of our digital platforms ground to a halt for the first few days because of increased load. All internet here is waaay dialled back so I’m impressed Zwift is handling that much load at a time like this.
Had no issues this morning on the 8AM CET event with nearly 5000 riders, running a not great PC but maybe the keys are - wired connection via powerline adapter and running at 720p graphics. Couple of ant+ dropouts but hard to pinpoint blame for these, overall experience was ok.
Finished stage 3 with no issues other than a Kickr power drop at the worst possible moment on the tower climb while holding off a friend 
I had an amazing event, raced all 3 stages, hit all time prs in each one and shocked myself in how I could handle 3 hard days in a row.
That’s the stuff I love about these events. Having 3 close friends chatting via TR GW was also super cool and entertaining. Constant ribbing and encouragement all the way. TR and Z blended to good results again.
Congratulations to all those that managed to complete, I did first two stages but called it a day before starting third, knee pain etc, I need a few days off. Wanted to do the stage more than ever but head ruled for once. Hope the majority for through without and glitches and Zwift held up for you, well done again!
Thanks for the feedback. Had issues again this morning, so I am feeling it is probably more my set-up combined with the massive Zwift numbers for major organized events right now (like these last two HR stages at popular times - didn’t have issues with the TdW that just ended, nor with smaller races, so I’ll stick with those for now). And thanks for the opinion on TR for structured plans. May add it in to the routine until more outside riding is possible.
I have never had any issues w/ Zwift but the last two days have been challenging.
Yesterday I did the 3R Endurance ride @ 9:02 Central time. 100k ride, +500 riders. Was in the front group, no issues when after ~10 minutes, everyone around me disappeared. Still showed me in the ride, but I was literally alone with “—“ listed as my placing. Ride repopulated after about 3 minutes, but even though I kept roughly my same power, I had dropped back to ~110th because I had lost the draft of the pack. Chased for awhile, caught one group and worked way back up to Top 50. Same problem occurred but only plastic a minute or so and when it came back, I was still at the back of my group. After the third occurenr, the ride never repopulated after 5+ minutes, so I quit the event. Then even when freeriding, the problem occurred again.
Today, I did the 3R ride again (same time), but was going for 162km / 100 miles. Zwift froze and crashed at 98.5 miles…I was NOT happy. 
. Insult to injury, the ride never uploaded to Strava and I can’t get into the file through MyZwift to download it manually.
Again, I’ve never had any issue with Zwift rides and was using the same connection as always.