Recent Down Time

[Poida]

Sorry about the down time peoples. The company I have the site hosted through just made an enormous change, moved their hardware across from one city in the USA to another city. A physical move to a new server and they manually reloaded the whole damn lot. We didn't get any notice before it happened but it's all nearly done now so apart from an odd break or two, you should not see any more timeouts.

[Poida]

Hi everyone, the past week or so has seen the forum offline due to the hosting company (again) migrating to a new server.
I needed to update a few setting so the database was linked again.

All fixed now!


As well as the server change, I have also finally sorted the issue with the search function not working, you should now find search works properly. It's loaded with more features than the phpBB2 software so have fun using it!

[IZU069]

Yay!
I think a G200W may soon be advertised for sale....
(Not mine, but I suggested here etc. A bit embarrassing when the site's down though I'm more concerned with missed opportunities!)

Now that stability is back, where did we get to with alternators, distributors (RG of course - esp for delco, microtech, non-CAS megasquirt etc), fuel pumps & dual batteries (debunked oil-pressure & "smart isolation switches" refer to the last 2) LOL!)....??
(Or did all that info get exported....?)

[Poida]

We'll have these issues now & then but it's part of the price ya pay for a free site. The server costs me nothing and we don't cop adds or pop ups so it's pretty good value. It's reliable enough for my liking. I could have probably got it back up a bit quicker but I wasn't quite aware what was happening to stop it accessing the data bases. Just one of those unexpected glitches. Just had to reset the database links and away we went.


I'm really pleased I figured out the fix for the search problem. All that time it had just refused to work, periodl. Now the forum is 100% operating with no errors. YAYYYY!!!!

[Poida]

Wow, it happened again! I opened a Twincam web page to find another database error message which needed more upgrading to fix it. Not sure how long the site was off line this time though it shouldn't have been more than 48 hours.

I hope the migration is all over and done with now. As much as these intermissions are happening I WILL continue to keep the site running.

Poida

[IZU069]

Is it easier for you if we email you/admin if we notice it is down?
(I suggest waiting and trying again before doing so...)

I tend to assume admin knows whenever (one of their) sites are/is down, but I don't live in the real world anymore.


Otherwise I reckon all is well. If we complain about downtime etc, then we can start to formalise payments and a proper server site, else help admin.

I don't mind the non-committal free situation (for us) - but I have learnt to note certain info/details offline and transfer dealings/sale etc to email.
And I have little fear of legal liabilities flowing down from this site. (Geez - it's almost as if admin knows as I do!)

[Poida]

Wow, might have to seriously consider that option...

When I sent the previous post it hung and refused me entry to the web page again. Today on checking I found I had a suspension notice pending for excessive use of the site resources!

July 7 at 7:03 pm
suspension
You have been suspended for high system resource usage. Accounts are suspended for usage when they are detected to have consistently high cpu usage, memory usage, or process amounts.

Um, I imagine that may have just been an error. I didn't see any other users logged in at the time. I'm still yet to view the server log files but I'll be really surprised if I find anything unusual there. One of the server messages regarding the migration shows this

Roughly 3 weeks ago we started moving free hosting members over to the new hardware. It is not easy to move thousands and thousands of people so we definitely expected problems, and of course got our fair share. A lot of the issues come from pushing the software we use, specifically cPanel to its limit. We've been fairly successful with creating solutions to each of the problems we've faced and were very confident once we moved everyone and were able to fine tune our solutions things would start to run smoothly again.

2 days ago we hit a wall... we hit a limit in cPanel that is hard coded and encrypted. Because of this limit people will receive an error saying the server is too busy and to try again later. Not only do the users receive that error we as admins receive it also... and on top of that all of our systems that control the server also receive it which in turn breaks almost everything.

When we first started to see this error consistently we opened a ticket with cPanel asking if this value could be changed somewhere or if there is anything they could do to help us. After a few responses back and forth this is the latest one:

Hi,
I have a request in with our QA/Developers to see if this is something we can modify on our end, it may be tomorrow before i hear anything but i will update you as soon as i have any information.
Thank you for your patience.
--
Kevin Asklund
Linux Asst. Manager
cPanel Advanced Support/Training

This response was from a little over 24 hours ago. We are still hoping for a positive answer today. This is where we are at right now, we're waiting on an answer from cPanel to figure out what to do next. If they are able to modify this value for us we should be able to continue moving forward with the moves... if not we're going to have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new solution for free hosting.

So for now we just may have a few hickups so if everyone can be patient that would be great. I'm happy for members to message or email me if they notice something amiss. I'm not always accessing the site so I could easily miss something for a few days.