Server issues

[TinSoldier]

I wasn't necessarily checking for the latest comic, but I was a bit put out by the non-availability of the forums for about two hours or so.

I hope the situation gets resolved. To me, the forums and the comic go hand in hand. I would not want to have the one without the other.

[Ego Slayer]

I'm just furious at who ever had the audacity to refresh the page lastnight. We could have gotten the comic and the forums back if there hadn't been so many people viewing the site.

[Renegade Paladin]

A lot of people had the audacity, no doubt, because no single person could overload a server, even a Geocities one, which this isn't. I purposefully stopped moving around the site last night to do my part in keeping server congestion down, but evidently there was more traffic than ever.

[Ego Slayer]

I mean it was in everyone's best interests to NOT refresh the page for a meager 20 minute. ::)

[Renegade Paladin]

Yes, I grasp the concept. ;)

Speaking of server issues, I'm getting a lot of errors telling me that the server's overloaded, so I'm going to go away for a few hours. I recommend a lot of other people do the same.

[Ego Slayer]

I'm getting them too but with the Town, SMBG, and the IC/OOC I think we're doomed to constant refreshing and posting.

[Xerillum]

I've noticed that there seems to be a massive surge in posting, because I've been frequently getting "server load exceeded" or something like that.

[Ego Slayer]

It's probably because I'm now deleting PM's. ;)

Heheheh...

Anyway, I'd just ignore that message if I were you. I got the same kind on a private proboards site when I was the only one logged in. Don't believe them. ::)

[Renegade Paladin]

Yeah, well the site was just down on a pretty much continuous basis for about four hours, so I somehow don't think the server errors are bluffing.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Anyway, I'd just ignore that message if I were you. I got the same kind on a private proboards site when I was the only one logged in. Don't believe them. ::)
1.) Uh, I'm not very familiar with ProBoards, but as near as I can tell, all the ProBoards forums are hosted upon servers run by ProBoards. So there could certainly be too many people logged onto the server but only one in your particular forum. It's a server issue, not a single-forum issue.

2.) When was the last time you were the only one on this forum?

[The Giant]

As near as I can tell (based on what's been told to me), our server host made some "changes" to improve performance. And by "improve performance", I mean, "save them money at the expense of our functionality". That means that even normal mid-Saturday traffic is causing it to spit back "Server Load is Too High" messages all over the place.

We are considering all available solutions. And by that, I mean, "researching new hosting". To me, the site going down randomly and running slow the rest of the time is 100% unacceptable, and I aim to see that it doesn't happen anymore, even if that means switching servers.

[TinSoldier]

Thanks, Giant.

For me, as much as I love the comic, having the forums is a value-added proposition. I doubt that I would read the comic as much if it wasn't for the forums and thecool people who post here.

I was a little upset that I didn't even get server messages for most of today. I was getting "Timed out" messages from my browser.

To add insult to injury, another forum I frequent had a 24-hour outage as well.

To add even more insult to injury, I got "server load too high" messages while trying to preview this message >:(

[HempRope]

@Tin -- For me, the forums are what keep me coming to the comic. The comic drew me in, but the boards have me hooked for probably the next five years, at least. And the boards are certainly the thing that keeps me so loyal to the site that I even bought a product once! :o

@ Giant -- I appreciate your willingness to change so quickly, though I'm sure that your hosts doesn't. I know little about messageboards, but I don't feel like the administrations of most things now are so concernced for their users.
Of course, when someone you're paying renders half of your source of income effectively nonfunctional, I suppose drastic measures must be taken. But still, you're going for the quickest fix possible, and that wouldn't happen everywhere else. I think if you spent a week negotiating before looking to switch servers, you probably wouldn't lose much readership, so the promptness is impressive.
Er, don't take that as encouragement to negotiate for a week.

[The Giant]

Well, to be blunt, my inability to post last night's comic because the server was refusing https requests has a lot more to do with my ire than the message board's outage. I've been busting my proverbial hump to not be late with the comic since I returned from hiatus on September 1st, and last night was the first time I missed it, solely due to server issues. That's not cool.

[Jack Mann]

As near as I can tell (based on what's been told to me), our server host made some "changes" to improve performance. And by "improve performance", I mean, "save them money at the expense of our functionality".

Yet if we set them on fire, we'd go to prison.

[tape_measure]

not unless we can prove them to have committed crimes against humanity. Shouldn't be too hard right?

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Well, to be blunt, my inability to post last night's comic because the server was refusing https requests has a lot more to do with my ire than the message board's outage.
Yeah, that'd do it for me, too, if I were in your position.

Hope you have little trouble finding and an appropriate, uh, "available solution."

[tape_measure]

So have things be worked out? It seems like (after literally hours of typing and retyping posts) that the server is back on track and not hating me.

I don't think I can amass words that aren't expletives together that can exemplify my hatred of the messages I've been getting this weekend and today.

[Ego Slayer]

I don't think I can amass words that aren't expletives together that can exemplify my hatred of the messages I've been getting this weekend and today.

Ahh, that is the fancier way of saying how I feel about them. :P

[Shhalahr Windrider]

So have things be worked out? It seems like (after literally hours of typing and retyping posts) that the server is back on track and not hating me.
Nah. You just got lucky.

I got a "Server load too high" message about 30 seconds ago.

[Everyman]

Same here. It took about 20 minutes before I could get in and even try to type anything.

Who is the current provider, anyway? I might be able to locate some reliable choices (might be the operative word, there), but I'd like to go ahead and eliminate any previous and current choices first.

[Samiam303]

Nah. You just got lucky.

I got a "Server load too high" message about 30 seconds ago.
Honestly people, if we KNOW THAT WE'RE HAVING SERVER PROBLEMS, posting simply to say that you had an error message isn't going to do anything besides slow the server down.

[Sneak]

So have things be worked out? It seems like (after literally hours of typing and retyping posts) that the server is back on track and not hating me.



Nah. You just got lucky.

I got a "Server load too high" message about 30 seconds ago.



Honestly people, if we KNOW THAT WE'RE HAVING SERVER PROBLEMS, posting simply to say that you had an error message isn't going to do anything besides slow the server down.

Actually, Sam, his post had a valid point. Tape Measure thought that the server was fine again, and Shhalahr corrected him. Which you can see in the quote above.

Unlike your post, however, which WAS completely unnecessary and none too nice in the deliverance of your message.

If posting that we have a bug when we already know that we have a problem is wrong, then isn't posting that it's wrong to post that we have a bug when we already know know that we havea a problem...wrong? Er, maybe I phrased that wrong. Whatever, I'm sure you get what I'm saying.

Although technically, following my logic, my post is pointless too. So I'll just shut up now.

[hr]

EDIT: Oh, and are the error messages and the 'invisible bug' caused by the same thing or are they separate issues? The latter seems to be getting progressively worse, while the former seems to be staying at a relatively stable level of bad.

[tape_measure]

I posted due to my confusion.

exmple confusion:

This morning I log on, as per usual, and everythign seems fine....as per usual (meaning that the mornings seem to be the best time for me, work-wise and server-wise). Then, lo and behld, that ever familiar error posp up at me...yet again. So, I've decided to stop trying to hard and just let it works itself out. In doing so, i posted up a wuick blurb to my player's and DMs stating the pause to my games and yadda yadda. After writing, i hit copied and pasted it to Word, thinking I had found a very clever way around the problem of losing 30 mintues of writing.

And of course, the damn post stuck. Just when I think's down, it works fine. Then, when I get all bright eyed and hopefully, the server cruches my dreams of actually updating my games.

For some reaason I have Karma Police running through my head and I haven't really figured it out yet. [/sarcasm]

Post try: 1
EDIT: *eyetwitch* ...... of course it worked. OF COURSE!

[HempRope]

Actually, Sneak, I think Sam has a valid point. I saw Tape's post and thought, "D'oh, why'd he post that, it's slowing down the server! ...Oh, he didn't think it mattered any more."

I considered responding to him, but decided it would be a strain on the server, and didn't.

I saw Shhalar's post, and considered responding to him as Sam did, but considered that hypocritical.

And now you and I are both being hypocritical, and slowing down the server. I, actually, am probably the worst perpetrator, having thought al this out beforehand.

However, I decided... why not post to save the server when the reason I value the server is that I can post on it?

So there's my convoluted thought chain... dissect it as you wish. But let's not post asking if things have been fixed from now on, I assume RIch'll let us know when things are happy again.

[LadyGlutter]

I have a question:

What does "drastic measures" mean?

Should I be going ahead and looking for another place to host pbp games currently running? Should I go on and open and copy any threads that are dear to my heart into a document for fear they will suddenly disappear off the face of the playground? I think I'm going to do that anyway, but...


In other news, I have some ideas that may or may not help you guys.

1)That whole Post Count thing that we are forbidden to discuss? Maybe we should disable keeping up with it. Some people seem to have a goal of racking up posts sometimes.

2)Can we limit the number of minutes someone is logged in? Like at my bank account, I'm only allowed so many moments per session and then I'm logged out. I can come back in 30 minutes or so. Is that even feasible?

3)I know I've been shocked to see how clogged some peoples PM boxes are. Does that suck bandwidth to open a PM box with 499 PMs? Could we lower that number if yes?

4)Can you disable the search and "last posts" function altogether til the issue is resolved? I know Ray mentioned it was a big bandwidth hog.

[InaVegt]

As for too many PM's in your inbox, I have downloaded my entire inbox to my harddisk and deleted all of them, I can only encourage others to do the same (I had 467 IIRC)

[Ego Slayer]

Mind you I saved my inbox to an html file as suggested before deleting 100 messages and now I get a 500 error when trying to open my saved file. ::)

How often does anyone use the post searching feature anyway?

And whats this about the board running on "YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.3.1" and there's a new version?

[InaVegt]

You had to save it while you could see them, if you save it while you have the error it will of course save the error.

[Ego Slayer]

No, I saved it when I could see the. :P

[InaVegt]

Then it probably was only for a little while and it downloaded the error instead.

[Ego Slayer]

But.. but.. if I got my inbox open without error how could is save an error?

*kicks computer*

[InaVegt]

My computer downloaded it all over again, took a while as well (It downloaded it inlcuding all avatars and other pictures), so yours probably tried as well but got an error

[Rawhide]

Mind you I saved my inbox to an html file as suggested before deleting 100 messages and now I get a 500 error when trying to open my saved file. ::)

How often does anyone use the post searching feature anyway?

And whats this about the board running on "YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.3.1" and there's a new version?
Note: Always verify your save has worked before deleting them.

[KeiranHalcyon]

Glad to see the forums back up... well... kinda. I suppose I should type quickly, then....

I was never bothered by the "w00t 1st page" business, but I agree that it's a potential bandwidth sink and eliminating it should help around the times the comic tends to be posted (which I notice isn't now, and it's currently intermittent... hmm...). I considered it an almost endearing quirk of the community, actually. But alas.

As for the people providing your web hosting, my personal suggestion is to do what I thought you were doing all along: stop paying other people to host your website, get a server, and host it yourself. Then all you'd have to pay for is bandwidth. You certainly seem to have enough traffic to make it economically feasible.

Good luck with whatever solution you choose to pursue!

[Ego Slayer]

Anyone else think Mr. Burlew should remove the schedule for the posting of new comics. Maybe if there wouldn't be a billion people refreshing like mad when they're to be posted we wouldn't crash the site. If he just got them up whenever he can access the site we wouldn't have to worry about the refreshing problem.

[TinSoldier]

Anyone else think Mr. Burlew should remove the schedule for the posting of new comics. Maybe if there wouldn't be a billion people refreshing like mad when they're to be posted we wouldn't crash the site. If he just got them up whenever he can access the site we wouldn't have to worry about the refreshing problem.But I've been having problems at other times than when a comic is expected to be posted.

I'm pretty much going to stop using the forums until the problem is fixed. It's working okay now, but earlier today it wasn't.

[Ego Slayer]

He had to shut the forums down because he couldn't get on.. and people still refreshed the page waiting for him to post it.

[TinSoldier]

The forums seem to be working okay right now...

I think another bandwidth/cpu time/memory/whatever sucker isn't necessarily refreshes, but when you read a message and then go back to the root of a thread or the top of part of the message boards to check for the next thread.

I don't use the next thread/previous thread buttons, and I don't use the jump to dropdown very often. I click on the topic/thread heads to make sure I get only to unread threads. It has to reload the page everytime that I do so.

[HempRope]

I recommend your browser's back button when possible... and then just keep track opf where you've been. After you've been to each forum you're interested in, then refresh the home page. Or something. I'm not sure if I'm really addrressing what you mean.

[storybookknight]

Giant does have an IRC channel, right? That might help out in the short-term. As of the moment, the boards are moving okay... it's an off time, but still.

It's definitely true that the boards have been getting more traffic these days; especially with things like the Town - can't we find a chat room or two for these people?

*sigh* regardless, I do hope for the best, and hope this will encourage people to be patient when trying to post reactions to the comic.

[Ego Slayer]

I think the Town should just gets it's own separate Proboards link. ::)

[TinSoldier]

I recommend your browser's back button when possible... and then just keep track opf where you've been. After you've been to each forum you're interested in, then refresh the home page. Or something. I'm not sure if I'm really addrressing what you mean.Yes, that would work. I don't do it, but it would work.


Giant does have an IRC channel, right? That might help out in the short-term. As of the moment, the boards are moving okay... it's an off time, but still.No, I don't think that GitP has an IRC channel. I think that particular service is hosted elsewhere.

[NEO|Phyte]

Giant does have an IRC channel, right? That might help out in the short-term. As of the moment, the boards are moving okay... it's an off time, but still.

No official IRC channel to my knowledge, but I host an unofficial one (as you probably know ;) ).

I've considered inquiring about gaining official status, or at least a sticky on my thread, but I haven't, from a combination of laziness and the vague memory of a statement from the Giant saying that the forums are the only official GiantITP.com discussion medium.

[The Giant]

As for the people providing your web hosting, my personal suggestion is to do what I thought you were doing all along: stop paying other people to host your website, get a server, and host it yourself. Then all you'd have to pay for is bandwidth. You certainly seem to have enough traffic to make it economically feasible.

There's two reasons this won't work.

One, I do not have anywhere near the technical experience needed to manage a server. I can barely troubleshoot my Mac, and everything I know about Windows involves the ways in which it differs from Macs so that when I have a conversation with a PC user, I can remember to explain that my computer doesn't DO that. And as far as Linux, well, I think there's scarlet haberdashery involved, and maybe a puffin. So I would have to hire a full-time employee to manage the server, and if I'm doing that, why not just pay for dedicated hosting somewhere and not have to worry about payroll taxes?

And two, in my case, website traffic only loosely correlates to finances. I don't actually make ANY money off of the website, because I have no ads and no subscription services. Having more readers trickles down into having more book sales, but the fact of the matter is that traffic in no way makes anything more "economically feasible". Quite the opposite; I'm supporting a much larger community than on which I could ever hope to see a financial return. In fact, it's safe to say that only about 2% of my daily readership has ever bought anything from me in the three years I've run GiantITP.com.


Anyone else think Mr. Burlew should remove the schedule for the posting of new comics. Maybe if there wouldn't be a billion people refreshing like mad when they're to be posted we wouldn't crash the site. If he just got them up whenever he can access the site we wouldn't have to worry about the refreshing problem.

Yeah, 'cause that was so wildly popular this summer, I'll institute it full-time. No thanks.

--------------

I'll make a News post about this later, but until further notice, the Search function of the message board has been disabled. According to the webhost, searches account for a surprisingly large amount of our bandwidth and processor time due to the number of posts that must be examined. So until we either switch software, switch server hosts, or both, the Search link will remain nonfunctional.

[Blood]

Yeah, 'cause that was so wildly popular this summer, I'll institute it full-time. No thanks.
I can't say having a scheduled new comic in OotS every three days isn't awesome, but if it will cause people to stop refreshing, it sounds like it's worth it. What would you be losing from that anyway? Last time you did it people complained, so what. You said maybe 2% of the people that read the comic buy the stuff. Those people will stay.

Anyways, saw your news announcement, and I have to thank you. I always hated the people who shouted "First post!" every time...

Now to adress the server issues...I can only hope they are resolved soon. I'm no computer technician, so I'm too stupid to understand the main problem. I just hope you guys can get rid of 'em with minimal work. ;D

[KeiranHalcyon]

Well, those are decent reasons, and even if I'm not happy about the answer, I'm happy to have gotten an answer. It does beg the question though of where the money does come from, though. If the answer is "2% of the readers," well, that requires a lot of readers.


Yeah, 'cause that was so wildly popular this summer, I'll institute it full-time. No thanks.
I think the idea here is that it would still update 3 times a week, just not on a set schedule, so that people can't predict when the updates will occur. (I think it was the scarcity of updates rather than the lack of a fixed schedule that was unpopular. But I could be wrong.)

But anyway, I look forward to "sometime on or after the 22nd." Bravo on the decision to migrate; sometimes companies just don't get it until they start losing customers.

[tape_measure]

------------------Discalimer---------------
The folowing question may sound silly, but I thought it pertinent to the topic.

When the site switches, will the name of the cite remain the same?

If no, will there be redirection (mirror or whatever it's called) or something all the lines of "hey the site's here (insert web address)"?

ok, so it was two questions. I think that puts me at the limit for today.

[Ego Slayer]

I'm not quite understanding what they're doing. Are all threads, PM's, etc still going to exist but just in case something goes wrong it's a good idea to copy them? Correcto?

I'd also like to add that I am thoroughly amused by the current amounts of posts one can search for. ;D

[Rawhide]

The name will remain the same, www.giantitp.com. However, there will be a period where many DNS servers will point to the old server. The site will be completely mirrored and the forums down for the upgrade, so that won't bother anyone at any rate.

The forum will need to be upgraded and the data imported, this always imposes a risk, but, due to the database errors, there is an even greater risk. Not to mention that it looks like we may need to do a two step upgrade (upgrade to the latest YaBB first).

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Will the search features be re-implemented at any time before the switch? I know those functions are huge and inefficient and the source of practically all the problems here, but it's gonna be difficult to help track down those messages I want to save without them.

[Lilly]

Will the search features be re-implemented at any time before the switch? I know those functions are huge and inefficient and the source of practically all the problems here, but it's gonna be difficult to help track down those messages I want to save without them.

I don't know if it affects our server or not, but google does have an advanced search where you can search a specific domain name.

[HempRope]

Well, you can still use the search last posts function... and Ego's right, they are funny amoutns you can search for. But let's not publicize it, it might get people searching.

I wanna know... are any onld threads going to be purposefully jettisoned during the transfer?

[WampaX]

I wanna know... are any onld threads going to be purposefully jettisoned during the transfer?

No. We will try to keep as much of the playground intact as we can. Wether this is feasable or not once the process begins, we will see.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

I don't know if it affects our server or not, but google does have an advanced search where you can search a specific domain name.
Okay. On a Test Run, Google returned 174 results for "Stilton Bearded Cheese." Is there any way to verify how many times that phrase has actually been used on this board so that I may compare results?


Well, you can still use the search last posts function... and Ego's right, they are funny amoutns you can search for. But let's not publicize it, it might get people searching.
Problem there is that it now goes only so far as the "last 2000" posts. So I won't be able to search my first 850+.

[LadyGlutter]

To be honest, I'm rather shocked at that many people using the Search function anyway. It very rarely worked properly for me. I'm guessing Google is more accurate. ::)

[Ego Slayer]

... I probably was the one who broke the site when I tried to search ALL of Bookman's posts... more than once.

I swear I'll never try that again.;D

[Samiam303]

So.. people got their torches and pitchforks ready? :P

Seriously though.. WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT?
I don't think it's humanly possible to read through THAT MANY POSTS.. :O

[Ego Slayer]

Oh comon, 12k+ posts is NOTHING. :P

Please, just don't ask why I'd want to do that. He said it made his computer go insane or something when he tried so I was like "Oh, sweet, I'm gonna try... like 6 times" ;D

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Ya shoulda tried El Jaspero's posts. ;)

[Ego Slayer]

I wish you could just search the first like X amount of posts, too. I'd love to know what his first post was. Anyone wanna take bets on Stabbity Death? ;)

Does it actually take up, whatever it take up to search posts, if the attempt fails?

[Alarra]

Ya shoulda tried El Jaspero's posts. ;)

I'm sure I was a major drain on the server....cause I've done this....more than once.

[HempRope]

I think there was a thread in FB for a minute about people's first posts. It got everyone who didn't remember looking up all of their posts. And of course the people who didn't remember were the ones who had the highest post counts.

I was among a number of titans who went and looked up all of their posts... ::)

[Ego Slayer]

Who initiated that thread.. of wait, I think that was ME. :D

Heh...

[LadyGlutter]

So you did, indeed, break the website.

[Ego Slayer]

I did! Shweeet!

Oh, yeah.. Heheh, that's not a good thing. :P

[El Jaspero, the Pirate King]

I'm sure I was a major drain on the server....cause I've done this....more than once.

Are you serious? What sort of madness would drive one to do that?

Though I will admit that I, too, have wondered at times what my first post was. I really have no idea, though I'm pretty darn sure I never posted in the "Welcome New Members" thread. I'd better get around to that one of these days...

[Blood]

I remember my first post. It was in the Order of the Stick forum, and I was posting in some thread about Nale and his intentions for Elan...or something like that.

Hurrah for off-topicness!