ATR Out of order

[midnight]

ATR isn't pulling in RacingChannel tonight---it says no lines or scratch lists are avaiable. Racingchannel is up and running, though, and its pages are working. No clue what's wrong.

[Rick]

I can't get it either.

Have to wait for Gary.

One thing you can try to get to the other list is to download ATRpro and run it. You could probably get the S list but you won't get the scratches.

[midnight]

ATR Pro (not for HTR) just hangs when waiting for the S List. My main use for ATR Pro for HTR is the scratches. I don't really follow the tote.

A friend who uses E-Horse Arbitrage (another tote program somewhat like ATR) said his program couldn't get in either, so apparently it has something to do with Racingchannel.

[qhrick]

Check the thread from another board, seems that the Racing Channel is blocking IP addresses..

http://www.majorwager.com/fusetalk/messageview.cfm?catid=9&threadid=74540

-rick

[km]

Everyone is having the same problem with ATR + RacingChannel.

Apparently RacingChannel has decided to block the IP address of anyone that is using a 3rd party odds utility (such as ATR that re-packages the tote info). Since RacingChannel is a free Internet service, I'm not sure why this is an issue. ATR usage does not deprive them of any revenue. Maybe Pizzaman will have to contact them and find out why they took this action; perhaps it was not related to ATR but for some other reason that caused them to put up a roadblock.

[DK's Magician]

I am the MW poster who's IP# was blocked early this past week, subsequently the program nor some of the others do not work at all.


I regret sending Handel the link, however I have been dealing with the guy for over 20yrs and did not expect this reaction.

I will not stand for this from their end, it is discriminatory to single out certain individuals. I know for 100% fact the one big syndicate that uses Philly's hub uses a similar program.

This may have started out as an effort to block some of the offshores from pulling their data in their software platforms, but now has degenerated into the track once again making the playing field unfair.

It took Pinny decades to bring the small guy in line with the whales in regards to rebates, we are already behind some of the software being used, now even our simple needs are being blocked. Blatant discrimination IMHO, and racingchannel happens to be located in my home state, failure of them to rectify the situation will lead me down a path, starting with the racing commision in Harrisburg and ending if need be in a courthouse.

My apologies to anyone or anything that may have been adversely affected by my actions regarding this matter thus far, my intent is nothing more than to be able to have the same access everyone else has.

DK

BTW I noticed last night that supertote now has a pop up inquiry box that you must answer before continuuing, i assume this is why ATR would not pull fr their site last night, I assume the racingchannel probelm is an internal scrip they wrote to block us.

[midnight]

I'm not a coder/programmer, but I'm guessing the website is now asking for an environment check and seeing what "browser" is being used. The other possibility is that it's asking the program to accept a cookie. Either is easy to overcome by simply coding the application to do what is asked of it. The problem is that there are also more complex ways for them to thwart bots.

[km]

Seems to be working ok today (Sat 11am PST). Maybe DK got them to relent.

[midnight]

The email they returned me said that they had indeed blocked the bots from accessing the site, but in doing so, they blocked a lot of their customers. Their decision was to remove the block for the time being.



Earlier today we were testing out a method to block users who were abusing
the website and causing undue load on our servers. This also managed to
block a good deal of our customers, so we have turned off this blocking, for
now.


We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused,


Webmaster@racingchannel.com