New Server Now Online

[A.J]

Jeez, NW forum offline for a few, now its online again and pm facility is disabled, unable to view or reply to receipted pm's...whats happening??

Edited January 5, 2010 by ajpoolshark

[Neilsouth]

Yep forum unstable again , probably the amount of traffic... Think more pennies need to be put in the meter for this spell

[flagpole]

Well it's back up which is the most important thing!

[Paul]

It's not a lack of server power unfortunately, there's a feature or function somewhere which seems to be crashing the database when it gets hit a lot of times at once (ie thousands of times at once), and it's very hard to nail down what it is, hence the chopping back of all but the vital features.

[A.J]

It's not a lack of server power unfortunately, there's a feature or function somewhere which seems to be crashing the database when it gets hit a lot of times at once (ie thousands of times at once), and it's very hard to nail down what it is, hence the chopping back of all but the vital features.

Its all those members trying to hit my profile....damn, I'm popular...problem solved :lol:

or they're all trying to hit my link (wishful thinking!!!)

Edited January 5, 2010 by ajpoolshark

[Neilsouth]

Its all those members trying to hit my profile....damn, I'm popular...problem solved

or they're all trying to hit my link (wishful thinking!!!)

Down again , yeh it does seem to be a certain number then boom the forum crashs out...

[Mondy]

Jeez, what is going on? At least 20 mins trying to post; all previous efforts lost.

With total respect, this is not the first time this has happened over the months, even years - I don't actually know of any other site with a forum which crashes so often, or needs updating so much.

With NW extra, you must be raking it in. For a few more bucks, can't a server power both the forum and main site without any regular hitches?

[Paul]

As I've said above, it's not the server it's a config issue - these things can happen unfortunately. And Mondy, sites go down all the time, its a fact of life. In terms of updates, I think you'll find all forums need regular updates for upgrades or security reasons - we're using the largest commercial forum out there so when we upgrade so do thousands of others. And again, crash wise we're talking a handful in the last year!

The forum alone has it's own dedicated server which currently has dual quad core processors, 16gb of ram and copious amounts of disk space, so I'd suggest we've certainly invested in decent hardware....

And as for you taking 20 minutes trying to post and then losing it, have you heard of karma?

[A.J]

As I've said above, it's not the server it's a config issue - these things can happen unfortunately. And Mondy, sites go down all the time, its a fact of life. In terms of updates, I think you'll find all forums need regular updates for upgrades or security reasons - we're using the largest commercial forum out there so when we upgrade so do thousands of others. And again, crash wise we're talking a handful in the last year!

The forum alone has it's own dedicated server which currently has dual quad core processors, 16gb of ram and copious amounts of disk space, so I'd suggest we've certainly invested in decent hardware....

And as for you taking 20 minutes trying to post and then losing it, have you heard of karma

no worries from me Paul....That 20 mins allowed me to pause posting and drink 2 more bottles of Carlsberg Export

The moral of the story is that

"If Carlsberg could do weather forums, they'd be just like this forum"

[Paul]

Lol thanks Aaron.

What's frustrating is that I'm tinkering behind the scenes to fix the issue but the only way to test is to switch everything back on again which is what I did a few mins go and broke everything - so it's a case of either leaving the forum in it's cut back state until it's quiet again or risking it as I did earlier. I think I'll leave it alone now!

[pottyprof]

I think I'll leave it alone now!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr You brokeded it!!

New screwdriver set for Christmas Paul?

[Paul]

My diy technique involves hammers only, perhaps explains why I've now decided to leave the server for now.

[A.J]

My diy technique involves hammers only, perhaps explains why I've now decided to leave the server for now.

May I suggest a size 12 steel toe-capped boot...It worked wonders on my last computer....and the previous 70 that I had.....

[NorthNorfolkWeather]

My diy technique involves hammers only, perhaps explains why I've now decided to leave the server for now.

Is that known as the "Clarkson technique"?

As echo'd above, I think you are doing a sterling job, it's one of the problems with computers!!

What's the record for users online?

[Paul]

Lol thanks NNW, I think it probably is.

Record it at 1760 or so currently I think - it's been broken several times today.

[Cookie]

Lol thanks NNW, I think it probably is.

Record it at 1760 or so currently I think - it's been broken several times today.

did you ever think you see this day when your first started netweather up?

[NorthNorfolkWeather]

Lol thanks NNW, I think it probably is.

Record it at 1760 or so currently I think - it's been broken several times today.

Cheers Paul,

I would think that you are one of the people hoping that this spell ends, at least you'ld get some sleep :o

Hmmm, 1760 (or so) not bad, some serious banwidth being eaten there, let alone the webserver. All users consume resources and even Apache can't cope with everything

[Paul]

Yeh sleep and rest would be nice!

Sorry for the bump then, thought I'd sorted it, re-enabled the features and it went straight away - something very odd going on...

[Neilsouth]

Ahhhhhhh atleast with the downtime it halts the weather snow addiction for about 15mins each time

[Theresnoway]

Paul,

If I were you I would be having a conversation with Rackspace, that new server is not enough!

It is very frustrating to have downtime to the forum on a night like this. Surley it will ultimatley impact your advertising revenue!

Sorry for the tone of my post, just a little frustrated!

Regards

Dave

[NorthNorfolkWeather]

Yeh sleep and rest would be nice!

Sorry for the bump then, thought I'd sorted it, re-enabled the features and it went straight away - something very odd going on...

That's one of the problems with PHP, you think you've sorted it and bang it kicks you in the G**lies

[Updraft]

Does Netweather have a separate database server or is the database running on the same server as the forum files? For a forum this big I would think the two would be separated?

[Paul]

Indeed!

Dave, repeating again - it's not a resources issue it's a bug somewhere within the forum which is locking the database up, once we clear that then all will be fine.

[NorthNorfolkWeather]

Paul,

If I were you I would be having a conversation with Rackspace, that new server is not enough!

It is very frustrating to have downtime to the forum on a night like this. Surley it will ultimatley impact your advertising revenue!

Sorry for the tone of my post, just a little frustrated!

Regards

Dave

Sorry, I'm with the Netweather Team here. They are using a commercial product that should be expected to WORK. If it doesn't, then it's a sh*ty job to find the problem. When it's found the developers can patch it.

Paul's said a few times it's a database problem which probably means MySQL or PHP, debugging either is a nightmare. HAve a beer and enjoy the ride

After all, it's ONLY weather

Edited January 5, 2010 by NorthNorfolkWeather

[Methuselah]

Sometimes, things do go wrong: cars and motorcycles break down, and computers break down; is it really all that surprising that servers also sometimes break down? As the late S. J. Gould was so fond of saying: S**t happens!

Instead of complaining, maybe we should spare a thought for those who really do lose sleep, trying to keep things running?