Slowness and Downtimes

[Marked 197]

I know that some of you have noiticed the forum going slow, or you cant access the server on occasion. This is all to do with the host. Now, when the forum goes down, it goes down for 5-20 seconds, I have noticed. Refresh it after that period of time, and it will load again.

 

The reason for these problems is that the host had to format its servers, deleting all its software in the process. That is the reason the forum went down for three months also. So the host is slowly getting things fixed, and all back to normal. So the downtimes and slowness is temporary.

 

Take a look at this list to see what the host has done, and is going to do:

 

Please follow the below updates dates to see latest progress.

 

 

UPDATE 15 NOV:

Cause is related to MySQL, because as soon as we stop it, all sites start working blistering fast. Will still take 10-15 days. Fixing...

 

UPDATE 16 NOV:

110mb is doing a major system stability test for next 48 hours. Your PHP scripts may give strange behaviour, or something that worked before, suddenly won't. But only small percentage of scripts will be affected. Anyhing related to "sessions" will not work. And you won't be able to log into admin area of your script like Joomla is one I know.

 

UPDATE 17 NOV:

Ok. You may cancel what Update 16 Nov said. As it's all been fixed and sessions works now.

 

UPDATE 18 NOV:

Looks like we've solved the slowness of sites issue once and for all. Although will post back in 48 hours for surefire confirmation.

 

UPDATE 21 NOV:

It's not. Although HTML and non MySQL dependent PHP scripts are totally unaffected. They run fast at all times. It's just MySQL based scripts that are snail-slow expecially during peak traffic periods. Possible solutions being looked at are (1) do what's already being done by trial-and-error of testing various config, (2) move MySQL to another server. The latter is once-and-for-all fix to a blistering fast service. Although more costly.

 

UPDATE 25 NOV:

The issue of slow MySQL based sites is offically fixed. However it now only happens about 5-8 hours every day during peak traffic periods. This means one thing: We'll soon upgrade to top-range servers.

 

Meanwhile if you're irritated by current situation during those 5-8 hours each day until new hardware is installed, there's nothing that can be done to please you. You'll just gonna have to be patient.

 

Or during time when MySQL is down, you can try to FTP or go through File Manger, and replace your index.php file with index.htm (where it contains some other interesting content for your visitors to see).

 

Eitherway: Stability WILL BE RESOLVED!

 

 

UPDATE 29 NOV:

We just ordered a Dual Core 4x2.8 Ghz Opteron. You don't get much better then this. Transfer should happen in 5-10 days from now. Then slowness, mysql, etc... is history.

 

UPDATE 29 NOV:

Waiting for other admins to set aside time so transfer can start. You as a member don't have to worry about anything in terms of site being stuffed up or loosing data.

 

UPDATE 3 DEC:

Stage 1 is complete. Stage 1 is process where all members were moved to another HD. Then next step (Stage 2) is to take it out from old and put in new server.

 

Stage 3 is basically configuring it on new machines. Which should hopefully be done within 1 hour, but no guarantee that it'll take that short.

 

UPDATE 4 DEC:

Transfer is complete to AMD Opteron servers. So no more downtime, slow loading sites or FTP issues. Looking over for potentially created problems. And fixing if any found...

 

I'm also waiting for peak traffic periods to see how the new machines will hold up. If that slowness still occurs then that's 1000% proof that it's not the hardware but mySQL. In that case, we'll downgrade to MySQL 4.1.

 

UPDATE 6 DEC:

So far system is obviously coping more then well with loading speeds. FTP was fixed. Obviously sometimes the 50 slots will be filled, so you'll have to wait to login.

 

Only thing left is to solve the load unreliability. Average is

 

As a result, sites may become inaccessible on and off during the 4 busiest hours of day. At least until it's found why load goes very high. Because when Apache is restarted, load goes back to > 1. Seems like a memory leak or something. At least Apache is childs-play to tune as compared to MySQL which was the case before.

 

UPDATE 10 DEC:

Recently machines were upgraded thinking it'll solve the slowness issue of sites. Nope. Didn't do anything. Sites still slow during peak traffic times. And it's because of MySQL 5.1 as was suspected right from the start since Nov 13.

 

So will be downgrading to mysql 4.1 very soon which will take several hours. It'll be announced obviously when as it's a very long procedure. Something like 5-10 hours as you gotta convert all the data.

 

 

UPDATE 13 DEC:

New plan. Moving service over to individual clusters.

 

So only about 15,000-12,000 users per server.

 

This is final, GUARANTEED way to solve all problems.

 

UPDATE 22 DEC:

Hmm. Seems after the domain was restored from eNom, 110 hasn't has a single issue regarding prolonged slowness of sites issue.

 

That's kinnda good news.

 

 

 

UPDATE 28 DEC:

Looks like the site is being hammered with traffic bigtime. Trying to transfer the service ASAP.

 

Please be patient and hold your "downtime concerns" for a short while only.

 

 

What I plan to do is move to a better host. Thent there will be no problems at all. But in order to do that, i need to raise some money. That is why there is an add at the bottom of the board. But to get enough, the forum must become alot more active.

 

Thank you all for your patience with these problems.

[Dark Dragon 0]

I don't get it, why don't we just use invision plus ?

isn' that better ?

[Marked 197]

Are you serious?

I can give you a huge list of reasons.

This forum software is much better, and I own this forum, unlike someone who would make an invisionfree/plus forum.

 

The slowness and downtimes are temperory, and there is nothing else i can do.

[RMXPirate 0]

Lol it doesnt bother me :P btu meh. Also forumer.com is a good host for free :D

[Marked 197]

I have a big update on this.

The host is in the middle of transfering its accounts to mulitple servers.

The purpose of this is to FINALLY eliminate all (beyond-comprehension) annoying downtimes and have your sites running at maximum speed at all times of day.

So by the end of day, or so, this issue will be resolved.

[RMXPirate 0]

Alright!!!

[Marked 197]

The forum has beeen placed on a different server, so the slowness and downtimes should be gone.

 

Although, there will be a point where the forum will go down briefly for a MySQL related fix by the host. But I will annouce that here before it happens.