Nexus 4 available for purchase again today at 12pm PST | Hacker News Reader

Nexus 4 available for purchase again today at 12pm PST

play.google.com

52 pointsmelvinmt87 comments

This is one of the worst shopping experiences I have ever had. I have seen it come in stock several times now, but when I add it to my cart and try to proceed to checkout, I get "Due to high demand, your order could not be processed. Please try again later." This happens every time until eventually I get the dreaded "Oops, we had trouble processing your request. We're working on fixing the issue. Please try again later.", which means that they gave up and dumped it from your cart. (Edit: Actually, no they didn't, keep trying! If it comes back in stock, then spamming "Proceed" may work.)

Now I'm also getting it failing to add it to the cart to begin with, with the message "Oops, we had a problem with your request. Please try again.". At least this is better than two weeks ago where I would get very unprofessional-looking cookie errors. Edit: The icing on the cake (Add To Cart click): http://imgur.com/dHmOL

Google really needs to step up here. Forget missed sales opportunities; this is just reflecting very badly on them, period.

UPDATE:

Possibly the first real feedback from Google on all this: A message displayed at the top of the Play store reading "Google Play is currently experiencing very high traffic. Nexus 4 is not sold out and will still be available for purchase. Please try again shortly. Thank you for your patience." It was up for about five minutes and has since been removed. The Nexus 4 is now consistently in stock, but attempting to purchase it always results in "Due to high demand, your order could not be processed. Please try again later."

> This is one of the worst shopping experiences I have ever had.

Try "Devices on Google Play is not available in your country yet."

Point taken, but it's more like if you got an email saying "Devices on Google Play is available in your country starting at 12:00pm!" And then you went there it said "Devices on Google Play is not available in your country. Please check back soon."

What I did last time was click to "Proceed" from the cart, even if you get a "Oops, we had trouble processing your request" error and the button is no longer blue. Eventually I was able to order the phone that way, instead of refreshing the page which removes the item from your cart. This might not work this time around, but it's worth a shot.

I wish I had read that 15 min ago.

UPDATE: Nah, I tried that, Now I'm getting a popup "Due to high demand, your order could not be processed. Please try again later." UPDATE 2 : "Oops, we had trouble processing your request. We're working on fixing the issue. Please try again later."

I guess now you know for next time, since it doesn't look like Google is fixing the process.

... then later you realize you've ordered 578 nexus 4s... ><

This worked for me after about 5 minutes of clicking.

Nice. I'll be sure to post it as a reminder next time they go on sale.

I'm trying that now, but I think that would only have worked if it came back in stock. I think I had the bad luck to learn of this trick right as it sold out this time. I would be very mildly surprised if they stocked just as poorly this time around.

Worked for me as well about 30 minutes ago. Decided to try that instead of refreshing the info page on a whim.

After today, all Google interviews should start with: "So, how would you implement a shopping cart system?" Amazing that this can be this bad.

Google ought to pause its work on driver-less cars and magic glasses while it learns how to run a 1990's-style online retail store. The Google Play Store experience is shockingly poor.

This is absolutely pathetic. How is Google, of all companies, not able to handle load? And how did they manage to fail so fantastically not once, but twice, on the same product?

This has happened repeatedly with Google in the past- I think it was a Nexus phone back then, too. I've come to the very simple conclusion that they just don't care all that much about how the store performs under huge load. The phones will get sold one way or the other, and the real goal isn't to make money as a phone seller but to drive forward the state of mobile phones.

Dear Google,

You really need to fix your shit when it comes to selling hardware.

Despite being a huge Android/ChromeOS/etc fan, every interaction I've ever had that involved buying hardware (or in some cases, trying to buy hardware and failing) from the Play store was some level of painful ranging from minor annoyance to full-blown disaster.

I get that the Nexus 4 is supply constrained, I really do. In no way do I feel entitled to purchase one at any specific time. Being out of stock is no big deal and I'm normally a very patient person, but your inability to address the issue with any sort of useful public information and your lack of useful human customer support is inexcusable. Apple, Amazon... hell, even Microsoft... all make you look like a bunch of bumbling idiots when it comes to this stuff.

I'm basically done trying until you address the huge problems you have in this area.

I finally got mine. When you have successfully added the phone to your cart, use this

    var j = 0;var i = setInterval(function(){document.forms[1][1].click();j++;j>600 && clearInterval(i)}, 1000);

THIS. This absolutely works. To clarify, copy-paste this script in the address bar of the browser when you are on your cart's page. Don't forget to add javascript: in front of the one-liner.

This sort of hacking is why no one else can order it. :P

This worked for me. Thanks

Thank you for bringing several hours of frustration to an end

yup, that did it for me, thank you

It's an awesome phone, but not without it's problems. I bought mine on launch day and I'm already getting a replacement. I love the phone, but along with others I'm experiencing interference in the earpiece. We'll see if a new unit fixes it.

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=39936

Well, they haven't fixed the Play Store. Page currently alternating between "SOLD OUT" and "Add to cart" with subsequent refreshes; clicking the latter just goes to https://play.google.com/store/cart?costatus=INVALID_REQUEST (with an error message).

Alternative failure modes observed:

* page saying "Server Error".

* clicking "Add to cart" brings up the cart page without an error, but saying "Your cart is empty".

I was able to add it to my cart, but clicking "Proceed" did nothing. Refreshed the page and my cart is now empty :(

finally secured my 16GB Nexus 4. Tips / steps I picked up from various posts in this story:

- If you see "Sold out", just refresh. I had to refresh many times at certain points just to see "Add to cart"

- Sometimes the "Add to cart" just fails, go back to the product page and try adding it again.

- Once you have the item in your cart, don't click on "cart" again, because your can (and probably will) lose it.

- Even though "Proceed" is grayed out, you can (and should!) click it again freely.

- Make sure to use firefox developer web console, firebug, or something similar for your browser, so you can hit "proceed" as soon as the series of 3 http requests has returned. they looked like this for me (I had to enable "Log" under "Network" for firefox web console):

  [16:03:00.085] POST https://play.google.com/xhr/ce [HTTP/1.1 200 OK 70ms]
  [16:03:00.085] POST https://play.google.com/store/checkoutcart [HTTP/1.1 200 OK 450ms]
  [16:03:00.538] POST https://play.google.com/xhr/ce [HTTP/1.1 200 OK 59ms]

- You will see "Due to high traffic.." and "Oops! .." errors constantly. Don't give up :)

This worked for me on Chrome! It works!

Has anyone been able to buy this? I've added it cart like 20 times now. Half the times I get an error and it's not added, the other half I get an error when I click "proceed" and then it's automagically removed from my cart.

I was there at 12:00 and wasn't able to get it. So I wonder, has anyone actually been able to buy this?

Edit: 1hr later, still trying and still failing. I'm gonna give it an hour and then check again.

Edit 2: They just posted this: Google Play is currently experiencing very high traffic. Nexus 4 is not sold out and will still be available for purchase. Please try again shortly. Thank you for your patience. There is hope yet

Nope. I have been there for an hour, still can't buy it.

Just bought 2 phones after 2 hours of trying (12:00-14:05) with two browser windows open (chrome and firefox). I was hitting the page about 20 times a minute, and finally got through. This phone had better be the best thing ever...

Good luck.

I got an "Add to Cart" button (with 4-5 weeks to ship notice) once. When I clicked it, I got a cart error. This sucks.

Now it's in cart, but I can't checkout "Due to high volume". This has got to be the most botched product release of all time.

Cart Updated: The following items have been removed from your cart because they are currently unavailable.

    Nexus 4 (16GB)

AMAZING!

Look on the bright side, at least they told you. Mine just vanished with no explanation. :)

Mine too!

I literally just had the same thing happen to me, after much refreshing.

Why won't you just take my money Google?

As of 3:15 EST, the 16GB version switches from "Sold out" to "Add to cart" about once every two refreshes. Even when it's "in stock", adding it to your cart triggers an error.

The 8GB seems to be consistently in stock, advertising a 4-5 week shipping period. It is possible to add this one to your cart consistently.

EDIT: Now getting a generic Google server error page: "We're sorry, there was an error. Please try again later."

This script got me an 8GB phone just now (took 10 minutes). Simply paste into your console window (hit F12 and then ESC)

setInterval( function() { var buttons = document.getElementsByClassName( 'buy-button-price' ); for ( var i = 0; i < buttons.length; i++ ) { if ( buttons[i].value === 'Proceed' ) { buttons[i].click(); console.log("click") } } }, 2000);

This worked for me twice. I had two windows open in chrome (one incognito) with two different google accounts, one for the 16 GB, one for the 8 GB. The 8 GB went after about 7 minutes, the 16 GB took until about 15 minutes.

Now to cancel the 8 GB.

Thanks for the tip!

Either it sold out in a record 2 minutes which means that they never had enough to begin with, or it hasn't become available yet.

My clocks were still showing 2:59 when it went from 'sold out' to 'add to cart' and back to 'sold out', all within 60 seconds.

Now, almost every time I hit refresh, it flips between the two. I'm giving up for now.

EDIT: The trick from this comment http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4838782 worked for me after about 5 minutes of clicking.

An hour and fifteen minutes, I've been tying to purchase one item. This is time I'll never get back in my life. This is the first time I have tried to be an early adopter. I only found out about the Nexus4 several weeks back when I was ready to purchase the Galaxy Nexus, only to find out those were no longer available.

Google is their own worst enemy here with such a crappy check out process, I would not need to have several computers and browsers hitting their servers to get one Item. Why not let us pre order and send the darn thing when it comes in? Why open the ordering for a small window of time while we all eat bandwidth and time?

This is ridiculous. Now I've been at it for two and a half hours. If I did not see the device disappear from my cart a few dozen times, I may have just let it sit in my cart for a few hours before hitting "submit" a couple dozen times per minute over the past couple hours!

Who comes up with this sales model?

A banner at the top of the store now reads: "Google Play is currently experiencing very high traffic. Nexus 4 is not sold out and will still be available for purchase. Please try again shortly. Thank you for your patience."

Not sure whether "will still be available" means "today" or "one of these days"...

Update 14:05 PST now the banner is gone.

Nexus 4 sold out again today at 12:02pm PST

Unfortunately, you are probably going to be right! Anyone know which regions they are supposed to be available again? Sources?

i think this this was more of a fact than a prediction. It seems the nexus is sold out again.

I made that post before noon PST. So...Powerball time?

Exactly :)

US only, sadly. Let's hope Google knows there is demand in the other side of the planet aswell...

assuming their servers can even handle the load. seems like it takes 30+ mins to sell out (what normally would have sold out in 2) since they can't seem to figure out the scaling problem.

Has anyone actually been able to get an order through? I haven't heard of any success stories yet.

I was able to get one like 5 or so minutes ago. Took me a while and lots of phantom items in the shopping cart. But I already got the confirmation email.

Did you keep clicking the "Proceed" button when you're in the cart page?

This is a bad time of the year to have 4-5 week lead times before shipping. I can't be the only one hesitating to place an order for an expensive piece of electronics that might sit on my doorstep for a week while I'm elsewhere visiting family.

Notice the huge banner at the top of the Play Store now?

"Google Play is currently experiencing very high traffic. Nexus 4 is not sold out and will still be available for purchase. Please try again shortly. Thank you for your patience."

Notice in big red letters on the top of the page:

"Google Play is currently experiencing very high traffic. Nexus 4 is not sold out and will still be available for purchase. Please try again shortly. Thank you for your patience."

Curious question: They are not releasing this in Canada at the moment, but I can go through one of my US-based servers to add it to my cart. Assuming I ever get past the high-demand errors, does anyone know if I'll be allowed to ship it to Canada?

Keep in mind, both Canadian and US customers access the site via play.google.com. They are only determining your country based on IP (or something similar) and presenting a different experience.

I'm also curious about this. I had the same idea and spent probably 20 minutes going through a proxy of mine clicking the PROCEED button every few seconds, but eventually gave up.

If you're still looking to buy one and don't want to use the JS hacks, just tab over to the Proceed button and hold down the enter key (I'm guessing this starts making continuous ajax requests) - took me about 30-45 seconds of holding it down but the checkout/payment screen popped up.

HT: https://twitter.com/TomDanTheRock/status/273546858289303554

After over 2 and a half hours of trying to get my order through, I was finally able to place my order. Confirmation e-mail just came in. I wish that the process would have been a lot nicer.

No automation, like others did. Just did a lot of clicking the "Process" button with a few breaks every so often. I would click on the "Cart" link every now and then, just to verify that my cart didn't get cleared out like it was earlier today.

Looks like the system is available now, but I've noticed that the shipping lead time has increased from the 5-6 weeks (1pm) to 7-8 weeks (5pm)

Well, let's face it, the N4 is probably subsidized at Googles prices, so no wonder everyone wants one.

But Google, if you want to play this game, take a page from Amazons book. In comparison to my recent black friday experience there, the Play store handling of the demand is a piss poor disaster and wasting people's time. Certainly creating a lot of ill will and an organic DDOS at the moment.

I'm looking to upgrade from my Galaxy Nexus (the USB port is broken and it's annoying to charge the battery by pulling it out).

How big of a concern for people that its only HSPA+? I've only ever used HSPA+ so I'm not sure how much faster really is LTE. I know you can get 20mbs download speeds but realistically for page loads and browsing is it that much smoother of an experience?

I've had a checkout script running for 10 minutes with no luck despite the site says they are in stock. Just running into errors. I'll probably let it run for another 20 minutes before giving up.

This is unfortunate though as I was trying to use the Nexus as an opportunity to migrate off iOS.

EDIT: Finally got it after 1 hour of running the script.

It only leaves your cart if you refresh the page while the other page turns to 'out of stock'

So my advice is to not refresh the page. Keep 2 tabs open. If you get the 'there was a problem' message...go to the other tab and refresh THAT page until its back.

Then head back to the cart and continue pressing, "proceed"

it also takes the ajax roughly 3 seconds to run. So click every 3 seconds to ensure youre not cutting off a form submit that was going to take you to the ordering page.

also helps to have firebug open. It throws 3 posts. once they are done, hit the button again.

This worked for me:

Once the phone is in your basket, hit tab until the focus is on the proceed button. Then hold enter until finally it succeeds (took about 30s for me).

Now just a "6-7 week" wait for delivery. In other words, the phone can no longer be given as a Christmas present. Disastrous launch all round.

Was anyone able to buy it? I have being trying to since before 3pm. It just seems totally broken...

i got an 8gb. was around 3:03pmEST.

Went to cart, clicked "Proceed" .. got "too busy" error. Waited a few seconds, clicked again...same error. Waited a few seconds, clicked again, and it worked.

I got a 8gb. Must have lucked out. Im guessing they won't go back to 'sold out' for a while based on the shipping times.

I'm trying to get a 16gb one though so I can cancel my 8gb...and no luck. this is really awful.

For anyone who's still trying, I did a window.setInterval to click the "Proceed" button. Mine hasn't gone through yet, but better than constantly clicking :)

This is ridiculous. I can put one in my cart but can't check out? If this supply constraint is artificial, it's doing a great job of pissing me off.

Not sold out..Its available.. At least the 16 GB

It's in my cart, but clicking proceed gives an error...

edit: 5 times I've been to the last screen only to press 'Buy' and see another error.

Same here. I can get it in my cart, but can't checkout. It gives me an error, then it empties my cart. Apple must be having a good laugh at this

I got through the shopping cart and ordered an 8GB model about 5 minutes ago.

oh my God! i am sure I can make a better cart! :S 41 minutes, one second i get go to cart, other i get "please try again" i think i should give up! i have better things to do than buy the stupid phone!

Just out of curiosity, what language/platform is Google Play running on?

i just bought one nexus 4, 8 gb (without any hassels at all). that is almost 8 hrs after sales began.

so folks, its not yet sold out. you might wanna try to grab it again if you had failed to some while ago.

Has there been any word on how many have been available each time?

This worked for me after about 6 minutes of clicking. reply.

Time to order that LG Optimus G :)

What a joke Google!

Aaaaand it's gone.

Finally got through. Although I'm not keeping my hopes up as far as when they'll ship it.

Sold out...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com