forum issues

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 7:35 pm

I'm sure several people noticed the forums down recently. The issue was that there were 37 processes running at the same time which it seems is illegal to our server and so it banned me. This is the second time this has happened. So apparently upon some research (by someone else not me) I was told that it's people logging on.. as soon as someone starts surfing the forum a process is lanched. However I've never seen more than 5 people on at the same time here.. so I dunno what's causing it.

The only possibility is the same person being logged in from multiple places. I know I've been guilty of this as I have been on it at home before leaving to work and left myself logged in.. then get to work and check for new posts.. however.. 37 still seems a bit excessive?

anyone have some ideas of what can be doing this so we can remedy it or else it's just a time bomb waiting to happen.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 8:36 pm

Weird - I don't leave a browser open unless I forget about it so I am almost always only logged in from one place. And our record for users is 21...so even if all the regulars were all multi-logged like this at the same time, that would be, what 30 at worst?

The only other thing could be is it possible to not be logged off properly? Does closing your browser always log you off, or is there some bug in ie, etc where you stay 'logged' to the server once in a blue moon?

I know I also get cut off from the web occasionally - when anyone comes back in from a cut off, does it leave a ghost process?

Post by **ChristopheF** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 12:42 am

I have seen the forums down here once a few days ago.
I don't know what is the real cause of the issue, but it is certainly not because too many people are logged on. There is not a process created on the web server for each user logged on the forum.
If you have a browser window open on this forum, there is no active "connection" to the web server. Once a page has finished downloading (html page + images), the network connection(s) are closed. When you close your browser window, no signal is sent to the server to close your session or log you off. The sessions use cookies to manage sessions (there is no session concept in HTTP protocol).
So if you leave your browser open at home and also browse the site from work, that is not a problem.
However, if too many people are browsing this site at the same time (too many HTTP requests), it may be the reason for your provider to shut down your account, but I highly doubt this. Generally this only causes slow downs, or an HTTP error stating that the server is "busy".

If your provider says too many processes were running at the same time, at least can they give you the list of these processes so that you can see which programs are running? You cannot guess what happened if they don't tell you.

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 3:29 am

well, the only thing that runs here is phpbb.. as far as I know anyway..

All I was told that it reached 37 processes and it was banned immediately afterwards.. but they reactivated me without question so.... I dunno (shrug)

moo

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 1:28 pm

I have been unable to get onto the forums for the last three days, although I notice that many users have been posting during that time, so it must be an issue local to me. I have no idea what would cause that. I spoke to Beowuuf about it, and he suggested firewall issues, but I disabled mine and it still made no difference. Has any body else had problems?

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 2:04 pm

yes, me!! i had the same problems as you about three days(monday to thursday), but i thought it was due to germany or sth...

Post by **Gambit37** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 2:08 pm

Must be a local internet issue then, probably some breakdown in international links or something. Very odd though, that's pretty unlikely and unusual.

Post by **Zyx** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 2:23 pm

I've been cut off too.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 3:04 pm

Strange, so it sounds like i'm unusual in being able to get on consistently then!

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 8:52 pm

well, I was told one of the main AT&T servers went down.. some kind of main HUB or something and it wasn't our sever directly to blame.. you are in fact being cut off before you even reach this site... as well as a few thousand other servers are cut off from most sections of the world..

Despite all of that though.. I keep trying to get a hold of ZPC.. sent him an email but still no reply.. it's just a matter of finding out if this PHPBB can run well on his server and then getting the domain transferred and we'll all jump over there.

I have my Paypal standing by..

moo

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 9:21 pm

Well, Good luck switching servers. I, myself, feel that the current
one has served pretty well. I would not jump ship if it were my decision.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 9:35 pm

speaking of paypal, i have it now, so if you need a contribution, then just ask in crypticly worded ways : )

but the server does go down ALOT - i guaranteee i will be blocked access once a week currently, even though usually not for too long
since peopel assume dead link = no site anymore, that might be quite bad : (

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:48 pm

Well Paul.. the transition will be roughly seamless.. it will still be the same URL and all your favorites and shortcuts will still work.. I've noted that my other site from ZPC has only ever gone down once and that was when they had a major flood.. and even then it was only down for part of *1 day*.. so it's a good set up.. and bandwidth speeds seemed to always be good.

Post by **Gambit37** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 12:23 am

Well, I don't know what the problem with CGfiles is (is that the host here?), but they have very poor uptime as far as I'm concerned. Setting aside the recent 3 day hub problem, I often cannot get on to this site, up to several times a week depending on time of day. And their habit of trashing installs, rolling back to earlier versions without warning and generally not keeping us up-to-date on what's happening is pretty shoddy customer service in my opinion. If it were my decision, I'd have moved a long time ago.

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 4:49 am

well.. we're moving! we're moving!.. don't worry.. it's just taking some time organizing it..

And it's McHosts or something like that... not CGfiles.. that's just a domain on their server from whom I get space.

moo

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 10:07 pm

it would turn out that the whole AT&T backbone thing was bull$#!T.. as such McHosts has probably been lying about other things.. turns out that the guy never paid his bills to them for his server and so was cut off.. then after bad credit cards and "the cheque is in the mail" stalls.. he got it paid and we came back up..

So, as a result CGfiles will be moving themselves as well.. now its a question if I just go with them or what?

ZPC doesn't appear to be answering my emails and is rather difficult to get a hold of.. His service as I said has been impecable and has not caused me to really suffer any issues or down time in the past, which is great!.. however, if life has him busy and unavailable.. the chances are that if there *is* ever a problem sometime, then it may not be resolved quickly.

That worries me..

thoughts anyone?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 12:25 am

I would go with CGFiles for now, since to start with I don't remember there being any problems - maybe my memory is bad....

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 12:45 pm

´never touch a running system....´

anyway, if there was a problem someday it would be cool if there was a place(someplace like a website that is updated when there is a major problem...) where the users could actually get to know what´s up and approximately for how long the forums will be unavailable.
Something like an emergency state-information page for dungeon-master.com, widely known.

does that make sense??

FallenSeraphin · Post by **FallenSeraphin** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 2:46 pm

At the risk of quoting someone : "if the bloody thing works properly, DON'T TOUCH IT"... if it doesn't work properly, fix it

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 5:01 pm

dmweb forums are up all the time, and if i'm not lazy (which is always now) i tried to put forum statuses on the jumpsite - either one can have postings of forum status - the trouble is at the moment small outages are gone before they register with most people, or for larger ones cows is many hours behind any british browsers, so there is a time lag before info is found out - bu which time usually it gets fixed anyway

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 5:41 pm

Generally a good thing that thing with the forum status at the dm jump site.

You are definitely right: The forums have not been down for that long to having any major bad effect.
If you know that the forums will be down for some time in advance (new version/patch),then it would be a good thing to note at dm jump point.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 5:46 pm

yup
i promise to do that at least : )

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:26 pm

well apparently, the the new place is has adopted many of the cast offs from McHosts and they are raving about the new server. After numerous issues with McHosts it seems they were happy to find a place that was open and informative.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:45 pm

so i guess just stay with cgfiles and let the good times roll? : )