The very first moment someone uses FirstSales — creating an account or signing in — is the worst possible time for an error. We tracked down and fixed an intermittent "unable to reach the server" message that could appear during exactly that moment.
What was happening
Under certain timing conditions, a network connection could be closed at one layer of our infrastructure a fraction of a second before another layer expected it to still be open. When a request landed in that narrow window, it failed — and to the person on the other end it looked like the server was unreachable, even though the service was healthy. Because it depended on precise timing, it was intermittent and frustratingly hard to predict: a refresh would often work, which made it easy to dismiss but no less annoying when it struck during sign-up.
The fix
We adjusted how long connections are held open so that the lower layers always keep a connection alive comfortably longer than the layers above them expect. With the timing windows aligned, there's no longer a gap where a request can arrive at a connection that's already been closed. Requests that used to fall through that crack now complete normally.
What you'll notice
Signing up and signing in are simply steadier. The intermittent error should no longer appear, and the occasional "try refreshing" workaround is no longer needed. For most people this is invisible — which is the point — but for anyone who hit the error at the worst possible moment, it's gone.
Why it matters
Reliability at the front door sets the tone for everything that follows. A flaky sign-up doesn't just cost one session; it costs confidence, and sometimes it costs the account entirely, before anyone has seen what the product can do. Fixing this kind of timing issue is unglamorous work with no new screen to show for it — but it's exactly the sort of quiet dependability that makes a tool feel trustworthy. The best outcome here is that you never think about it again.
We also added monitoring around this path specifically, so if anything like it ever begins to creep back, we see it before it becomes something you'd notice. Edge cases that depend on precise timing tend to hide until traffic is high, which is exactly when a stumble would hurt most — so this is the kind of fix we'd rather make once, thoroughly, than patch repeatedly. Signing in should feel instant and certain, every single time, and now it does.