Site is unusable

[Jason Gewehr]

Last time I logged into the site it was so slow that it was completely unusable. That was about a month ago. I logged in this morning and again it is so slow that is completely unusable. I click on any page and it just spins and spins and spins. If this was the first time I had seen this then ok maybe it’s just a one time thing, but I have seen slowdowns like this intermittently over the last year of preparing for exams and it seems to have gotten worse. What is going on?

[ryanwhalley]

same issue. seems that after the morning time (UK timezone), the response time skyrockets and makes the site unusable. Not intermittent either, seems to happen around the same time every day. If I don’t get my day of study done in the morning, I’m out of luck. Very disappointing.

[mcw]

Seeing the same thing today. I started using tutorials dojo over the holidays and didn’t see problems before this. But today I’m trying to take a practice exam and it takes a long time, 30 seconds to a minute, to check an answer (although when I save and close the next question comes up quickly). This is happening on a laptop and a phone, neither of which is having any apparent trouble with other sites, so seems to be specific to tutorials dojo.

[JR-TutorialsDojo]

Hello,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We apologize for the inconvenience you’re experiencing with our site.

Could you please let us know if you are still experiencing this issue?

Best Regards,
JR @ Tutorials Dojo

[Tutorials-Dojo]

Hi Jason, Ryan and MCW,

Following up on JR’s message last Friday. Our learning portal had site maintenance back on January 9, which caused a significant latency for a couple of hours. The issue has been resolved within the day as well.

You can visit our public status page for more information.

http://status.tutorialsdojo.com/

Kindly let us know if you are still experiencing any issues.

Cheers,

Jon Bonso

[Aiqing]

Seeing similar issue multiple times, especially recently.

[Tutorials-Dojo]

Hi Aiqing,

Thank you for reaching out. May we know which exactly you are having issues with?

You can see in our public online monitoring that we didn’t have any significant outages for the past few days:

http://status.tutorialsdojo.com/

Can you kindly share which course or quiz you’re having issues with so we can check? We’ll be waiting for your reply.

Cheers,
Jon Bonso

[Aiqing]

Security specialty. Also saw error while in the middle of the practice test in addition to being very slow. Also why can’t I find my own review of the course?

[JR-TutorialsDojo]

Hello Aiqing,

Thank you for the response.

Could you please provide the specific error message you’re encountering? This will help us investigate the issue more effectively.

Regards,
JR @ Tutorials Dojo

[Aiqing]

[JR-TutorialsDojo]

Hello Aiqing,

Thank you for getting back to us.

We will take action to prevent this from happening again.

Best regards,
JR @ Tutorials Dojo

[Aiqing]

The web site for the Security Specialty test has a few issues. 1. Timer for timed test was not working when I tried, it set one hour for 65 questions, and ran so fast I can’t complete the test. 2. Can’t review past test results, has to start test all over again each time. 3. Completed tests are not marked as completed, even it shows the test result at one place, for example finished all four timed test, only the first one marked as completed. 4. Site is very slow some times.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 2 weeks ago by  Aiqing.

[Aiqing]

[Tutorials-Dojo]

Hi Aiqing,

Let us address the issues you mentioned here:

1. Timer for timed test was not working when I tried, it set one hour for 65 questions, and ran so fast I can’t complete the test.

• Please see the provided screenshot. All our timed mode test is set to 2 hours and 50 minutes which complies with the official time limit provided by AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/certification/certified-security-specialty/
• It is possible that you might have run an exam and left it idle, which has caused it to show a 1 hour time limit once you got back at it.

2. Can’t review past test results, has to start test all over again each time.

• The screenshot you just shared shows that you can review the past test results. You can view your past tests on your “My Dashboard” page as well as in the Course page as seen in your screenshot. We explicitly added a lot of labels and an instruction page on how to review your past results. Just click the “View” icon to see the detailed info.

3. Completed tests are not marked as completed, even it shows the test result at one place, for example finished all four timed test, only the first one marked as completed.

• A “completed” test is different from a “passed” test. We only mark a test as truly completed if you achieved a passing score. On your screenshot, you only achieved 72% instead of 75% which is the passing mark for the SCS-C02 exam.

4. Site is very slow sometimes.

• Can you kindly share which part of the site is slow? Is it on the loading of the questions? Is it on the Review-mode? In the Timed-mode? We want to pinpoint what’s causing this slow behavior or latency on your end.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Tutorials Dojo Team

[Aiqing]

When I say “Can’t view past test results” I mean I can’t see correct and wrongs answers with explanation for each question when I come back later again, not just the test score nor right after the test. Tests provided by other vendors all have this functionality. It should be easily accessible and obvious, if everyone has to read your instruction page to know how to access it, it needs the change then.

Completed test is finished/completed test regardless the score, why does it have to be passed? It is counter intuitive. If you think it should be passed, you can say it is passed not passed.

Timer malfunction and slowness is what I actually experienced when I tried, I did not take the screenshot nor made the note at the time.

PS. Just because my review is a 3 star, it can’t be approved and show up? If so, your review of 4.9 is not trust worthy, it should be all inclusive, good, bad and in between.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by  Aiqing.

[JR-TutorialsDojo]

Hello Aiqing,

Thank you for reaching out with your concerns.

1. Viewing Past Test Results: To see the correct and incorrect answers along with explanations, simply click on “View result.” Please refer to the attached screenshot.

2. Test Completion Status: Our system is designed to track your progress efficiently. However, if you think this needs to be more intuitive, we appreciate your feedback and will consider it for future updates.

3. Timer Malfunction: The timer issue you experienced might be due to saved progress on a particular item, which resumes when you continue the quiz.

4. Slowness: We are taking necessary actions to prevent it from happening again. Your experience is important to us, and we are committed to improving it.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Best regards,
JR @ Tutorials Dojo

[Tutorials-Dojo]

Hi Aiqing,

We actually replied to your inquiries last September 1. It seems like you have certain remarks here and concerns over why your review was not published.

Last September 1, we responded to your inquiries and asked for extra information on the issues you experienced. In addition to what our staff member (JR-TutorialsDojo) mentioned, please see below our response to your comments:

Can’t review past test results, has to start test all over again each time.

The past test results are already in TWO places:

– My Dashboard page

– My Course page

Moreover, there’s also an informational GIF image right after every quiz that shows how you can access your past test results, apart from the short instruction page we added. There’s also an FAQ page on the left-

So on our count, that’s a total of 5 places where you can get the information on how to view your past test results.

We can definitely add a 6th item to help you see your previous exam results but do take note that you, and almost all of our users, can definitely review your past test results.

Completed test is finished/completed test regardless the score, why does it have to be passed? It is counter intuitive. If you think it should be passed, you can say it is passed not passed.

– We do NOT concur that it is counter-intuitive. Most Learning Management Systems(LMS) use this technique to ensure that the learners finish/complete/pass the assessment part of the course before actually tagging the section as completed, and the test scores are used as the basis for this. Even the courses on the official AWS SkillBuilder site also have this configuration of not tagging a lesson as “complete” if the user doesn’t pass the quiz.

– The AWS certification exams are quite difficult, and one way to increase your chances of passing is to take several practice exams. We do have requests from our users to have this kind of setup to ensure that they have completed AND passed their practice tests before they take the actual exam.

– We appreciate your feedback, but we won’t change the entire learning strategy because of a single comment like this, especially when the majority of our users are in favor. The goal is to help you pass the exam and not give a false impression that you merely “completed” an exam without actually passing the entire assessment.

– That false impression of having “completed” the course without passing the practice exams would be a recipe for disaster to most exam takers, especially the ones who are taking the Professional and Specialty level exam so no, we won’t change this system behaviour.

Timer malfunction and slowness is what I actually experienced when I tried, I did not take the screenshot nor made the note at the time

Regarding the Timer “Malfunction”:

– That’s not a malfunction. When you take a Timed-mode exam, we do have a Save/Resume capability which allows you to resume your exam with the remaining time you have in your previous test. You see a trimmed amount of time because you have resumed a previously taken exam with a reduced time so therefore, it is not a malfunction/bug and no issues here.

Regarding the Slowness:

– There are many reasons why a site could be slow. It can also be your own Internet connection or a network issue in your region. Of course, it could be on our side as well, which is why we asked you for the time when the sluggish performance occurred and in which quiz.

– Take note that in a Timed-mode test, the quiz data is loaded in your local browser. So if you see a slow performance on a Timed-mode test, that requires debugging on your local browser as to what’s causing the poor performance, considering that the quiz data is already in your browser.

Review Not Being Published

Regarding your review, we do hold the right to unpublish biased and unfair comments/reviews on our platform. Here’s the review you submitted on our SCS-C02 practice exam:

There are a few issues with the test:

1. Timing for timed test is not working when I tried.

2. Can’t review past test results.

3. Completed tests are not marked as completed.

4. Site is very slow some times.

5. Can’t see my own review, why?

For example, item #1 was actually working based on your user activity. Item #2 is quite ambiguous since you can definitely review your past test results on your My Dashboard and Course pages. As mentioned above, there are 5 places in our portal where you can view your past exam attempts. Item #3 is not even a bug (quizzes must be passed before being tagged as completed) as it is a design of our system that’s the same format with the AWS Skill Builder and other learning platforms. Item #4 has no basis sas you haven’t shared the specific times where it was slow and could also be caused by a myriad of factors.

Let us know if you need further assistance by creating a new thread in this forum. We have already established that there’s no issue with the platform per se. The Tutorials Dojo team is dedicated to help you pass your AWS exam on your first try!

Regards,

Jon Bonso @ Tutorials Dojo

[Tutorials-Dojo]

Locking this thread for now, as most of the recent comments here are reporting a set of different issues that require clarification.

Please create a new thread so we can assist you better.