Thread
why the slow forum
I tried all day Saturday to connect, and it kept timing out. Wasn't until the evening I was able to connect and then it was extremely slow when trying to read posts - I finally gave up. Very frustrating for sure. Perhaps we all need to donate some $ to get a better host? I'd be willing for sure because I value this community.
$5 USD from 20 people should buy a year on most hosts. Hosting isn't expensive (I pay about $7/month for the PPCMLA). Excessive down time from any host is inexcusable. And whatever host Tom & Co. have picked for the 68kMLA should be ashamed of themselves - it would be one thing if the 68kMLA were run out of someone's basement, but for a professional web host to constantly have trouble sending pages (Safari loads pages from the 68kMLA about 70% of the time; that's a 30% failure rate!)...
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Drew
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Drew
I've had a talk with my host, and things should be a bit better now. He's been tweaking the Apache config to speed things up a little. The server we're on is getting upgraded at the end of the month as well, so that should improve things as well.
However, I'm going to keep an eye on it...
However, I'm going to keep an eye on it...
Speed seems OK here at the moment, it seems very variable depending on where you are, sometimes it's slow or inaccessible for me when other people can get on it fine but today it's not at all bad here but others are saying it's slow. Got "unable to connect" for a while just now though.
Took almost three minutes of loading to get to this topic. However, that's an improvement from last nights not loading at all. It is taking quite a bit of determination on my part just to post once or twice a week, when a month ago I was averaging 3 per day.
I don't want to be the person that complains about the hosting, but doesn't contribute when it comes time to pony up some cash. So, my question is: What monetary contribution does one need to make to resolve this issue?
I don't want to be the person that complains about the hosting, but doesn't contribute when it comes time to pony up some cash. So, my question is: What monetary contribution does one need to make to resolve this issue?
It varies depending on days, times... and more logically, whether the server is half-dead or not.
Anyway, this really is becoming unbearable. This is the first time i've been able to access the forums in the last 8 hours or so, and even when I do manage to get here it's a race against the clock before it goes down again. One example...
12:31 AM: Start load of http://www.68kmla.org/
12:33 AM: Redirect to http://68kmla.org/
12:35 AM: Redirect to http://68kmla.org/forums
12:36 AM: Start Load of Index Page
12:39 AM: Safari Times Out.
I did eventually get to it after a while, but I was logged out when I did get here. Logging in was also an ordeal.
If this was my server, i'd be taking to it with a crowbar by now.
Anyway, this really is becoming unbearable. This is the first time i've been able to access the forums in the last 8 hours or so, and even when I do manage to get here it's a race against the clock before it goes down again. One example...
12:31 AM: Start load of http://www.68kmla.org/
12:33 AM: Redirect to http://68kmla.org/
12:35 AM: Redirect to http://68kmla.org/forums
12:36 AM: Start Load of Index Page
12:39 AM: Safari Times Out.
I did eventually get to it after a while, but I was logged out when I did get here. Logging in was also an ordeal.
If this was my server, i'd be taking to it with a crowbar by now.
Ir was very slow earlier today again but seems fine at the moment. No offence, but I notice there hasn't been any response from the admins on the issue of using this one guy with his little server as our host rather than a proper datacentre... :-x I really think this is an important issue, as people will slowly drift away and new people will not bother with the site if it is unusably slow half the time, and it will slowly die.
There was indeed a response from Tom (admin) a few posts earlier. He indicates the server is being replaced at month's end. I do agree with you that this is important to resolve though. I stand committed to contribute financially for a better host if that's what it takes - I think this current situation will cause people to drift away, I have given up in frustration several times myself :'(
I meant that there's been no response since someone looked up the site's nameservers to figure out what host we are on, and the issue of why we're using such a host, as opposed to the issue of just the slowness. Personally I think a better host would be a good idea, not just a better server.
Well I don't think it's attributed to the server hardware or connection, maybe the server software. I'm sure the admins would be doing something about this considering the effects it's having... but if there's a server change at the end of the month I guess it's something to look forward to.
None of the things you mention would happen with a professional host though. It makes me wonder whether this guy is just a friend of one of the admins etc, as if someone was paying for this hosting I doubt that they'd put up with it being like this for long, but this site has been slow on-and-off for months now. Even sites hosted on normal PCs on standard residential connections are better than this!
Well, hopefully it should be sorted out now. The forums have been moved over to another server, and this one seems a lot snappier.
Anyway, sorry for all the slowness and thanks for bearing with us [
] ]'>
Owen is a friend of mine from school. It just so happens that he now runs a hosting company... so yes, I do get the hosting for cheap. It also been rock solid up until the last couple of weeks. However, I do agree that it has been a bit pitiful lately. It's been an intermittent problem with the specific server we were on, which makes it hard to track down. Hopefully now that we're on another one of his servers things should be better, and I'd like to stick with him if possible. If things still don't improve (though from the looks of it they have already) then I would consider moving things.
Anyway, sorry for all the slowness and thanks for bearing with us [
] ]'>Seems much better. Here's a funny question though - why can one of my iMacs connect and the other still shows the host's "account suspended" page? Both share the same internet connection, and I have cleared Safari's cache, and restarted the iMac. Stange.
Edit - all's well now, both iMacs are loading fine.
Edit - all's well now, both iMacs are loading fine.
The decline seemed to me to begin about a month ago. From the time that Lazarus rose again until then it had been impressively snappy, ie five seconds or less from clicking on the bookmark to ready to log-in. Subsequently it has been all the things mentioned above and more, to the point that it was not even possible to log out without an inordinate wait, and sometimes no success. This morning (in this part of the world, anyway) in the 6.5hr since midnight, the forum has varied from snappy to palsied. Some of that could be general 'Net traffic-related, but there is still a dimension of curmudgeonly refusal to load pages. What other kinds of site does the host serve?
de
de
You can contact owen via:
Skype: orudge
MSN Messenger: owen[@]owenrudge[.]net
Phone (US): (850) 390-4810
Phone (UK): +44 20 7870 5620
(from http://zernebok.com/support.php) although when I talked to him I got nothing besides what has been said (servers running slowly, tweaking apache and mysql config, not sure what's happening, may add another server and upgrade hardware, etc). He did say though that the old yoda server has about 100 sites but didn't get much more specific then that...
Skype: orudge
MSN Messenger: owen[@]owenrudge[.]net
Phone (US): (850) 390-4810
Phone (UK): +44 20 7870 5620
(from http://zernebok.com/support.php) although when I talked to him I got nothing besides what has been said (servers running slowly, tweaking apache and mysql config, not sure what's happening, may add another server and upgrade hardware, etc). He did say though that the old yoda server has about 100 sites but didn't get much more specific then that...
http://www.litclassics.com returns a 404 error...My suggestion is not to complain about the speed of the forum until you're willing to click the paypal button at the bottom of the page to help fund "more reliable" hosting.
Failing that, we could go back to a free host like litclassics. [
mysql had failed: Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2) in /home/tomleven/hosted/68kmla.org/forums/db/mysql4.php on line 48
Warning: mysql_error(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /home/tomleven/hosted/68kmla.org/forums/db/mysql4.php on line 330
Warning: mysql_errno(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /home/tomleven/hosted/68kmla.org/forums/db/mysql4.php on line 331
phpBB : Critical Error
Could not connect to the database
Owen says:
11:21:35 AM Owen Rudge: well, no, the server was up. The web server was up, but all its threads were tied up serving clients, which were all waiting upon mysql, which had decided to crash
11:21:49 AM Owen Rudge: ironically enough, after moving 68kmla from yoda to dumbledore yesterday, yoda has begun working fine again
11:22:02 AM Owen Rudge: I have applied some further optimisations to yoda, which is now working well
11:22:39 AM Owen Rudge: Dumbledore seems to have been working well for the most part apart from this issue just now, from what I can tell
11:23:08 AM Owen Rudge: I think things ought to be running properly now
11:23:25 AM Owen Rudge: I have been tweaking the configuration to try to optimise things
11:23:54 AM Owen Rudge: the reason for the random issues I believe your users are complaining about seems to be as a result of too many people trying to access the server, basically
11:24:03 AM Owen Rudge: there's only so much that optimisation can do, which is why we are upgrading hardware soon, too
11:24:45 AM Owen Rudge: Yoda does now seem to be under control, and Dumbledore has, apart from the problem just now, been working more or less fine for the past few days according to an uptime monitor I've been running
11:24:50 AM Owen Rudge: so hopefully, things will stay that way.
11:25:09 AM Owen Rudge: my apologies again for any inconvenience the downtime has caused, it is not usual and is very annoying for all of us!
Warning: mysql_error(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /home/tomleven/hosted/68kmla.org/forums/db/mysql4.php on line 330
Warning: mysql_errno(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /home/tomleven/hosted/68kmla.org/forums/db/mysql4.php on line 331
phpBB : Critical Error
Could not connect to the database
Owen says:
11:21:35 AM Owen Rudge: well, no, the server was up. The web server was up, but all its threads were tied up serving clients, which were all waiting upon mysql, which had decided to crash
11:21:49 AM Owen Rudge: ironically enough, after moving 68kmla from yoda to dumbledore yesterday, yoda has begun working fine again
11:22:02 AM Owen Rudge: I have applied some further optimisations to yoda, which is now working well
11:22:39 AM Owen Rudge: Dumbledore seems to have been working well for the most part apart from this issue just now, from what I can tell
11:23:08 AM Owen Rudge: I think things ought to be running properly now
11:23:25 AM Owen Rudge: I have been tweaking the configuration to try to optimise things
11:23:54 AM Owen Rudge: the reason for the random issues I believe your users are complaining about seems to be as a result of too many people trying to access the server, basically
11:24:03 AM Owen Rudge: there's only so much that optimisation can do, which is why we are upgrading hardware soon, too
11:24:45 AM Owen Rudge: Yoda does now seem to be under control, and Dumbledore has, apart from the problem just now, been working more or less fine for the past few days according to an uptime monitor I've been running
11:24:50 AM Owen Rudge: so hopefully, things will stay that way.
11:25:09 AM Owen Rudge: my apologies again for any inconvenience the downtime has caused, it is not usual and is very annoying for all of us!
yeah ? so ?
its working again now and the down time was what ? 10 minutes 15 minutes ?
noticed you are one of the biggest complainers so here is an idea hit the paypal button a few times sink some money in to it then you got a reason to bitch
if not consider that this is a free service payed by tom from his own pocket and its just a bloody forum
I'm trying to keep up with the events so that those who run the forum know what is going on and what may be affecting their user base, my hope is from these notifications that they will then be able to make the appropriate decision as to how and where the forums should be hosted. Any forum which has a dedicated community will have users posting about downtime for the same reason I am, to try and make the owners aware of the issue so that they can deal with it as they deem necessary. Apart from that I am also amazed at how much downtime the host has been able to put upon its clients as of late even on another server...
However, I will now stop posting updates to this thread as the owner has been given a pretty good picture already of what is going on. I am quite pleased at how durable the member base seems to be despite the continued downtime this forum encounters . This is my last post in this thread.
However, I will now stop posting updates to this thread as the owner has been given a pretty good picture already of what is going on. I am quite pleased at how durable the member base seems to be despite the continued downtime this forum encounters
. This is my last post in this thread.Well I do think some pressure is needed, as even with the pressure that there has been recently from the members to get the site working properly, it still seems that not a lot is happening - most admins would have changed to a proper host by now rather than putting up with the current one just because it's a friend that provides some kind of favourable deal. After the last debacle with months of downtime and the revelation that there were no backups, as well as no information throughout that time as to what had happened and if/when the site was coming back, I think the members here are right to be keen to ensure that this site is reliable and usably fast. I don't mean any offence to the admins, but like the others here I hate to see the site like this for long periods of time.
It is on and off. Slow when lots of people are on, fast when there are less people loged in. I wonder if the servers are overheating due to overuse or being clogged with dust.
It really is wacky. Fast...Slow....Fast etc.
Perhaps it would help if no registered users visited the site for 24 hours.
Just an idea.
It really is wacky. Fast...Slow....Fast etc.
Perhaps it would help if no registered users visited the site for 24 hours.
Just an idea.
The general opinion in this topic seems to be that a professional host can cost as little as around $5 per month, which doesn't seem a lot and I don't suppose this favourable deal is much/any less than that. Anyway, to be honest a home server would offer more speed and reliability than this (and makes backing up very easy 
)
)There's almost no way a home server with this many connection will be faster than this. Most people's home servers only have a couple of connections, if any, at once.The general opinion in this topic seems to be that a professional host can cost as little as around $5 per month, which doesn't seem a lot and I don't suppose this favourable deal is much/any less than that. Anyway, to be honest a home server would offer more speed and reliability than this (and makes backing up very easy
As noted already - I have offered to contribute for a better host. I want to know how much and how often this is needed and I am MORE than willing to do so. Can't say I see many others here offering to pay up...My suggestion is not to complain about the speed of the forum until you're willing to click the paypal button at the bottom of the page to help fund "more reliable" hosting.
Failing that, we could go back to a free host like litclassics. [
No ISP is going to let you hog their bandwith by hosting a site as popular as this one. They will either force you onto their business plan at a higher price or throttle your connection. Getting a real web host is the only answer.There's almost no way a home server with this many connection will be faster than this. Most people's home servers only have a couple of connections, if any, at once.The general opinion in this topic seems to be that a professional host can cost as little as around $5 per month, which doesn't seem a lot and I don't suppose this favourable deal is much/any less than that. Anyway, to be honest a home server would offer more speed and reliability than this (and makes backing up very easy
I recommend ServerLogistics. I've used them for several years to host two domains and I can attest to the fact their down time is virtually non-existent. They are also a Mac hosting service too, which is nice. The owner is absolutely outstanding, very friendly, and I honestly think he never sleeps! No matter what time of day I email them, I get a reply within an hour! And no, they don't have a team of people on customer support lines either.
http://www.serverlogistics.com/
They even have server colocation (if you are willing to pay a bit more) which can easily host popular sites -- yes, even sites "as popular as this one" [:I] ]'>. (Speaking of which, I am quite curious to know what bandwidth this site uses per month.)
But of course, this service is probably not as cheap as what ~tl uses now, as he clearly stated he's getting his current service for next to nothing due to his friendship with the owner of that host.
Now, I must say that I've read through this entire thread and both sides are rather bad at fighting each other rather than mutually trying to solve the problems on this site. Yes, some people complain and feel no obligation to support this site financially, while others demand cash payments to the host of this site without stating that you will not be granted an guarantee of site up-time nor will you obtain a promise of moving to a new host. You will receive, however, a good feeling in your heart if you contribute, and that's probably good enough reason to support this site. With that said, I must admit that I myself haven't yet contributed, so perhaps it's time for a change. Getting back to my point though, I feel a bit on the side of "the complainers" insofar as these folks are simply passionate about this site. I too have a passion for it and hope it sticks around (with good backups and virtually no down time) for quite some time to come. If sending a little money can "guarantee" that, as it would on a Serverlogistics account, then I would be happy to do my part.
I run a few boards that are hosted by GoDaddy, and I'm happy as a clam. It's amazing how cheap hosting is these days.
Even if you roll your own and get a static IP (which I used to do), it's really not all that expensive. But the problem there is that buying redundant hardware, etc...can add up real quick. I find that getting a dedicated server from GoDaddy made the most sense.
I'm not saying GoDaddy is the best hosting service out there, but they've been really good to me.
Even if you roll your own and get a static IP (which I used to do), it's really not all that expensive. But the problem there is that buying redundant hardware, etc...can add up real quick. I find that getting a dedicated server from GoDaddy made the most sense.
I'm not saying GoDaddy is the best hosting service out there, but they've been really good to me.
I think the issue at heart is that it takes a lot of effort to run a site like this.
Frankly there are more important things in life then a forum on the Internet, so I don't expect everything to be perfect. I would feel bad if I thought that the admins were neglected their personal life to keep things at 100%.
I don't why I am even arguing about this. So the site is a little slow big deal. I'm certainly not in a hurry.
Frankly there are more important things in life then a forum on the Internet, so I don't expect everything to be perfect. I would feel bad if I thought that the admins were neglected their personal life to keep things at 100%.
I don't why I am even arguing about this. So the site is a little slow big deal. I'm certainly not in a hurry.
Well, not all of us are patient. I for one am rather impatient. Some are certainly more and others less. It's a varied bunch we have here. And while no site can be all things to all people, it is important we all work together to not only "recognize" that problems exist, but also work toward a mutually beneficial solution. That's the most important thing. And the fact is, most of us are "out of the mainstream" anyway in that we love old Macs. If everyone loved old Macs there wouldn't be any around to buy on EBAY! :b&w:
So being patient with "each other" is a critical point, just as much as it is with being patient during the time this site is offline.
So being patient with "each other" is a critical point, just as much as it is with being patient during the time this site is offline.
the forum takes its spells, one minute its fast , then another seems like your on a 9600 baud or slower dialup modem. it does get annoying at times when you are trying to edit a post and its taking like 15 minutes for the page to respond. And no its not my connection having issues, cause i can browse to any other site and its fast as hell connecting to them and loading the page so i know its not my connection at fault. i am not complaining at the least about it, it just gets rather annoying when it use to be fast at responding and loading the pages and such.
I think the formula should be:
Contributors - people who have donated time / money to keep the site up
Everyone else
Contributors can bitch about slow speeds.
Everyone else, well maybe you should contribute.
I follow the formula. I don't contribute $$ therefore I can' complain about the speed.
Contributors - people who have donated time / money to keep the site up
Everyone else
Contributors can bitch about slow speeds.
Everyone else, well maybe you should contribute.
I follow the formula. I don't contribute $$ therefore I can' complain about the speed.