A troubleshooting guide to ticket-booking problems

papillon

This is a summary on the problems encountered by quite a few people trying to book tickets on the website of the Indian Railways. Most of it has already been mentioned in one or the other thread, but I think nobody can be expected to read through 50 or 80 pages to maybe find the specific solution which might apply to his problem.

Let's start with the basics.

Booking tickets is possible on the following sites:
www.irctc.co.in (the official site)
www.cleartrip.com (an agency which charges a few rupees commission)
Another possibility is the Thomas Cook-website, although I cannot give any specific information about this site.

The first step in any case is to register as a user, a relatively simple procedure. Explanations can be found under the following link:
http://www.indiamike.com/india/india...s-guide-t4305/, although the initial text does not mention the choice of e-tickets which were introduced some time later.

After registration you can proceed to book tickets. This procedure is also quite easy. Explanations you will find somewhere in this forum (sorry, don't have the time to look for the link) or on www.seat61.com/India.htm

When booking tickets, you have to use so-called “gateways”, banks that process your order, or better said, the following monetary transaction.
Once you get to the site displaying the gateways, you will find several segments. When booking e-tickets, the upper segment is the one to choose, the one which deals with transactions where debit-/credit-cards are involved (I think it's the upper segment – I deleted my screenshots a couple of days ago). Here you can choose between several banks; AXIS is reportedly a reliable choice, offering e.g. no problems at all, but you may try other banks also. Citibank is no longer available, if I'm well informed.

At any one of these stages when trying to book the tickets, many people get into trouble, as they are confronted with a variety of error messages (which I won't mention, as their content isn't really important).

First a few general explanations: the website of the Indian Railways is one of the most frequented on earth, concerning the amount of transactions. 14 million people travel daily by train (of course probably only a minor part uses internet to buy the tickets). Yet, compared to this number, relatively few users have trouble booking tickets. This allows the conclusion, that the problem is basically on their side and not caused by any failure of the system. I don't want to exclude the latter, but the breakdown of a server wouldn't be a privilege of Indian Railways. It is something quite common in our world. It would explain a momentary problem, but not the impossibility of booking tickets during deveral days.

If you want to book tickets, you should have some restrictions in mind: it is for example not possible to book tickets more than 60 resp. 90 days ahead of departure. For more detailed information please check threads in this forum or www.seat61.com/India.htm

Another problem could be that you try to book at the wrong time. Booking tickets is possible from 5.00 – 23.30 h IST (Indian Standard Time). If booking from other countries/continents, check if you are trying it within this timeframe.
According to 'seat61' the booking site is less frequented after about 18.00 h IST. So if you have difficulties establishing connection or if it breaks down often, you might have hit the site at its busiest moment. Check the time difference and try it in the less frequented hours.

Let's now proceed to the hardcore cases...

You have registered correctly and try to book tickets, but at some stage of the procedure an error message appears and the process stalls. There are basically two points which cause the problem: your PC or your bank.

Let's start with your PC...

(First a general remark: if – after reading the following explanations – you don't really know what I'm talking about, you shouldn't start freaking out. You have not got a disease... don't be shy and ask someone who knows a little bit more about computers to help you – a colleague, a friend, maybe your kids who you started to hate because they spend hours and hours in front of the screen... they might be useful at this moment...)

Before you try to book your tickets, or after several failures, “prepare” your PC.
First of all there are some basic settings recomendations for your browser which you find here:
http://www.irctc.co.in/browser.html
You will find informations about the necessary settings for the most common browsers: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, ...
Definitely check these recomendations!

Additionally consider the following points:
Data transfer could be reduced by your firewall. Depending on your Operating System there might be several security degrees. Check if your firewall is put at "high" protection. Reduce the protection degree, to 'medium' or maybe just for this operation to 'low'.

Some basic points:
Cookies must be ENABLED.
The same applies to Java-scripts: they must be ENABLED.
In this context: do you have any add-ons for your browser? As an example, for the new Firefox there's one available that blocks Java-scripts. If you have something similar installed, this should definitely be DISABLED.

An additional step to make sure: you could first check that cookies are enabled. Then delete all cookies and restart your PC before attempting to go through the booking process.

Another option if encountering problems: try different browsers. If you use only Internet Explorer, then you should download (and use for the rest of your life) the Mozilla Firefox, because it's faster and much more secure anyway.

If you still get the error messages, then perform the so-called cross-test: just try it from another PC.

If following these recomendations, then with a high probability you should be able to book the desired tickets. If you still can't, then – again, with a certain probability - at least you may exclude your PC as cause of the problem.

Some additional remarks:

An antivirus program probably does not have any influence on the process, unless you use one that allows different protection levels. If this is the case, then reduce the protection level, if put on 'high'.
A remote possibility could be that someone uses TWO antivirus programs. As far as I know, this is senseless anyway, as this simply does not mean double protection. But it slows down the working speed of the PC, which could be responsible for the eventual breakdown of the connection during the booking process.

Another (maybe not so) remote possibility for one or the other user could be that a PC has been highjacked. According to different estimates, between 10 and 30 % of all Pcs worldwide are zombie-PCs (30 % seems really high, but I honestly read this figure somewhere). This means that an intruder has taken control of your PC. These PCs will mainly be used for sending spam mails. Users of such PCs have hardly any possibility of detecting this, the only thing they notice is that their PC is working very slowly, with the consequence of the connection breaking down all the time. (I once was witnessing this, the intrusion actually had been detected, but this guy wasn't even able to access any website, while a huge amount of mails was sent through his PC.) Again, this is not a primary issue, but I would not exclude that among the many users who report problems when trying to book, a few are actually working with a zombie-PC.

Another not so dramatic point: you haven't tried it with your private PC, but at work. Then your PC could be part of a network. This means that there are security measures implemented which prevent unlimited data exchange. In simple words: you cannot do what you want. This may be a pretty hopeless case, because even if the admin is a good friend of you, one of the last things on earth he/she will do is to change the security settings just to enable you to book a damned ticket for a train ride in India...


Ok, after crossing this obscure universe called computers there comes the second point which might drive you to desperation when you want nothing more than to buy a train ticket: your bank.
I must admit that the following is not based on facts so far (no time to research), but more on guessing and conclusions. Let me just explain my case, which is a good example...

I tried the booking during 4 or 5 days. Very often I came to the gateway-page, chose a bank (I tried more than just one), entered my card-details and was then redirected to my banks' website. I entered security codes, the confirmation process started, but after some seconds a message was displayed telling me that the transaction could not be carried out. I tried it both with Visa- and Mastercards. I called my banks' hotline and later I went to inquire personally, only to receive the reply that everything was alright with my cards.
After my mailbox got stuffed with I don't know how many negative replies from irctc, I was fed up and asked my sister in Switzerland to try the booking for me. I mailed her all the browser stuff, which she didn't even consider. She never had any trouble with her browser, so “never change a winning team” (a comment that sounded strange and suspicious, because she never ever had shown any interest in football). Anyway, within a matter of minutes I received the confirmation emails from irctc, even faster than my sisters' mails telling me that everything had gone just fine and without any problems.

The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that there are security barriers on the side of my bank which made the booking impossible. Measures against credit card fraud are everywhere regularly implemented, and these could lead to certain restrictions:
- transactions might only be allowed in major currencies, Euro, English Pounds, US- or whatever dollars, Swiss Franks, currencies of Nordic countries who are not part of the Euro-zone. Just as an example...
transactions could be limited to a number of “reliable” countries, or if this sounds too strange in the age of globalization, transactions could be possible only with certain banks from these countries.

I would like to repeat that these are only guessings and not proven facts. But in my case I have no other explanation and the same might apply for other cases involving other banks, too. The problem is that employees behind the counter, trained in everyday tasks, might not even know about that. All depending on the banks size and their international connections.

(Maybe one of the readers of this post works in a bank and could try to provide some additional information?)

Anyway, if someone encounters a similar problem, the only way to get around it is – again - the cross-test: try it with another bank. Ask someone from your family, a friend, or whoever...


Well, this post has grown longer than intended, but I think it gives a fairly complete summary of the most common issues and their solutions. If the recomended measures and actions are applied, most people should be able to perform the “task” of booking their train tickets.

I would like to mention that I am definitely not a software engineer or computer specialist, although I'm working in this sector. The above mentioned issues are based on a mixture of basic knowledge, observations and the following conclusions. People with better knowledge than mine (this is not so difficult) might be able to contribute more and more accurate descriptions and recomendations... I'm sure they're well appreciated to do so.

One point before I stop: someone mentioned in a thread on this forum that a page like irctc must be any webmasters nightmare. I guess this is the best way to describe it. This system is a great achievement... let's simply look at it from this side... If it is not always easy, well, that's India. Would anyone travel there, if this country would be as boring, or should I say predictable, as our western countries...?

Anyway, hope this post helps some of you...
Have a good time

Micha

P.S. I won't be able to reply to questions, comments and curses in the following days. Tomorrow I'll hop on a plane, and after a short stopover in the far north, I'll arrive in Mumbai early monday morning. Six hours later I'll be on the Netravati Express, which brings me over 1600 kms down to Cochi, 2nd class sleeper, of course, with a ticket which I myself was not able to book.
That's the last advice: never give up !

steven_ber

Wow Micha, very useful thread, thanks for taking the time to help others.

Enjoy your trip.

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