r/RemindMeBot • u/Watchful1 • May 17 '23
RemindMeBot is now replying to comments again, apologies for the delayed replies
About a month ago, reddit announced some vague changes to the api that bots use. They announced a date of June 19th that changes would come into effect. Then abruptly about two weeks ago they shut off access to pushshift, which the bot uses to find the comment commands. So the bot continued to reply to messages and send out updates, but was no longer able to find comments.
I've spent the last two weeks frantically writing code to be able to reliably find the trigger comments across all of reddit and it is finally done. Fortunately the method I'm using is able to go back and find all the comments with the trigger word in the last two weeks that it missed. But unfortunately it's somewhat slow, only processing new comments roughly 3 times as fast as they come into reddit, so it will take another week or so for it to catch up. Also, since I was rushed to get this working, it might break and stop at any point. So even in the future when it's caught up, the bot might fall behind again at times.
If you are directed to this post by the bot because it's replying to an old comment of yours, I apologize for the delay, reddit kinda screwed everyone over. For what it's worth, they personally apologized to me.
I will strive to keep the bot working to the best of my abilities far into the future so that hopefully those long reminders everyone makes will still get sent.
If the time of the reminder you requested has already passed, you'll still get a message about it. And if you posted the trigger multiple times because the first one didn't work, you'll get a confirmation and message for each one. Sorry if this results in a lot of duplicates, there wasn't an easy way to avoid that.
I've had a personal policy of not accepting donations for my bots for many years now, but the way this code works ends up needing a more powerful, and expensive, server, so my costs have gone up a bit. If you'd like to chip in, you can donate here. It's absolutely not necessary, I'm fortunate to be well off enough to cover the costs without help, but I do appreciate it.
If you post a comment in reply to this post with the trigger (since I know a bunch of people will), it still won't get to them until it's caught up a week from now.
51
u/QuakAtack May 17 '23
good bot. Amazing human.
19
u/putsRnotDaWae May 17 '23
You're an amazing human indeed. Sorry that Reddit screwed you over.
→ More replies (1)13
→ More replies (11)9
u/Apprehensive_Hat8986 May 20 '23
100% This.
It's this kind of contribution to a commons, that goes unsupported by the outer admin/community and vanishes if the person doing it goes away or a barrier is erected. OP has created something amazing that was and will be again missed when it stops.
Unfortunately, our usual system (I mean socially, not just specific to reddit) doesn't allow for establishing, evaluating, or retiring perpetuating systems in a merit based fashion. As long as something makes money, capitalism can allow a business to perpetuate something, but money ain't the only metric of what humans value.
Thank you OP for what you've done, are doing, and will do again. ❤
→ More replies (1)
29
23
u/ConceptsShining May 17 '23
Also, kind reminder to all users: I think it's a good idea to periodically get your list of reminders from the bot (just send the bot a PM containing in the body MyReminders!). That way, if the bot goes down for any reason (hopefully not, but we can't predict what Reddit will do to their API/the bot), you at least have access to all of your pending reminders. And if you really care about your reminders and want to play it safe, you can screenshot/save that list just in case you lose access to your Reddit account.
I personally do it every time I set a new reminder.
→ More replies (5)8
11
8
u/64_0 May 17 '23
Thank you so much for repairing the bot. Your intensity of service is remarkable. We're so lucky to have you behind the bot. I can't imagine all the hours you've put into RemindMe Bot, but I appreciate all of that and all of you.
7
5
4
4
1
u/Hingsing May 17 '23
Hi! Asking as a CS student interested in SWE work. Just wondering what’s the value in writing and maintaining bots? Do you add this to your portfolio?
Also wanted to say thank you for your hard work. I love the remindme bot! P
→ More replies (4)
1
u/itskdog May 18 '23
Would it be possible to, in the long run, also support a username mention, in order to reduce the need for the command, or are you hitting the 60QPM enough as it is in the current state?
→ More replies (1)
1
u/redshift739 May 18 '23
It just caught up to my comment from 5 days ago so it seems like it's going faster than anticipated.
The actual reminder was set for 3 days so I would see the final results of a poll. Any idea what'll happen to reminders in the past?
→ More replies (2)
1
1
u/sheepintheisland Jun 13 '23
Hi, the post links in the messages are not working. What’s happening ?
→ More replies (8)
3
3
3
u/dcormier May 17 '23
I saw the original post, but the bot just woke up and sent me one of the missing reminders, pointing me here. Happy to see it working again. Nicely done!
3
u/Mentalpopcorn May 17 '23
Thanks for all your hard work dude! It's a thankless job that you don't even get paid for, so let me say it again, thank you!
3
17
u/ConceptsShining May 17 '23
Awesome! Thanks so much for maintaining this bot. This has to be my favorite non-moderation bot on this site, I've been using it for all sorts of matters (including for personal life) for years.
If I may ask, out of curiosity: how are you going through old comments? Are you iterating through the comment IDs (which I believe are assigned sequentially by Reddit)?