Here’s my experience with the census release.
The census came online at 8 am on Thursday, 1 June at the LAC website.
By 8:30 am the site was overloaded and delivering only page load errors.
At 9 am still delivering page load errors. At 9:35 am delivering images, intermittantly page load errors.
At 9:50 am LAC Tweeted “The 1931 Census sure is a hit! Within one hour, we have received over 3600 hits.
Due to high levels of traffic, the web page is slower than usual. We appreciate your enthusiasm and patience!”
6:20 pm and LAC’s 1931 census webpage has a notice “Due to high levels of traffic, all our search engines, including the one for browsing the 1931 Census, are slower than usual. We appreciate your patience while navigating our website.”
In fact the website is delivering the message “Unable to open [object Object]: Error loading image at https://central-d.dev.bac-lac.gc.cal.item/?id=e011742967&app=census1931&op=img”
9 pm:Â No service loading images continues.
LAC would gain credibility if it acknowledged that since the first few hours in the morning there has been essentially no 1931 census service, instead of suggesting it’s just slower.
11 am: Finally, LAC Tweet “We’re solving some technical issues about access to the #1931Census. We’re as disappointed as you, and working tirelessly to restore access as soon as we can. Thanks for your patience.”
11 am:Â Ancestry.ca now have the 1931 Census of Canada as browse images. It’s free, just a free or paid account. https://www.ancestry.ca/search/collections/62640/.
Tip of the hat to Ken McKinlay who found a work around not involving Ancestry before their access became available.
I am trying to access at 520am this morning and it still doesn’t work.
Thanks for your update. I was searching for Shelburne village, Dufferin-Simcoe, Ontario, where I was born. As of last. Night, I only had page 6 downloaded. Not my area.
I don’t intend to try it until everything has calmed down. Whenever there is any new technology introduced on a website, this kind of chaos often happens. I will practise patience, not a gene I received in my family, but giving LAC time to resolve this seems prudent.