Server Busy or Unavailable

[Paul Stenning]

Apologies for the slowness and database errors for the last few minutes. I was running maintenance jobs on the forum database to try to sort out a few glitches we have had today.

[Paul Stenning]

I am aware of a problem over the last 10-15 minutes. The MySQL database service crashed and failed to restart. I have restarted it manually and reported it to the hosting company to investigate.

The server load is still quite high so the forum could be a bit sluggish until they have found and dealt with the cause.

[Paul Stenning]

I'm also aware of further problems over the last 20 mins or so. There seems to be an issue with the MySQL database service. The hosting company are on the case...

For now please be aware that things could be unstable so when posting or replying please select the text and press Ctrl-C (copy to clipboard) before posting. Then if it goes wrong you haven't lost it all and can paste it into Notepad and save it until it is back up.

[Valvepower]

Hi Paul,

I don’t know if it helps but the forum crashed whilst I was editing a new post. I was in the advanced edit mode. And having not made any changes to the post I feel I may have accidently used the browser ‘back’ button instead of using the correct save changes dialogue boxes.

It may be irrelevant and a sheer coincidence but I felt it worth a shout.

If it was me, I’d gladly stand in the naughty corner with the dunce’s hat on at the next Wotton Bassett meet

Terry.

[Paul Stenning]

It wouldn't be that - there is nothing you could do from the browser that would upset it that much.

[Paul Stenning]

I had some automated emails about database problems (too many connections) between 16:19 and 16:21 today.

[Geoff 555]

Hello Paul .Not a complaint at all but found that everything stopped loading at 11.16. It was fine before and I have just come back on and there are no problems.
No problems with other sites.
XP and Firefox ( and Thunderbird.)
Thank you very much for everything that you do.
Cheers.
Geoff.

[Paul Stenning]

The hosting company have just experienced a denial-of-service attack that bought down their network. Hence the outage for the last half hour or so. It seems to be back up now but could be iffy for a while.

https://twitter.com/#!/ukdedicated

[Paul Stenning]

I am aware of problems at the moment - the hosting company are on the case.

[paulsherwin]

Seems fine again now.

[Paul Stenning]

Yes, it was down for about 10 minutes I believe. Database issue with this forum that bought the whole server to its knees. Not good, and something I will need to get addressed if the forum is to remain on the same server as the busy eCommerce websites that generate my income.

10 minutes here dosen't matter, 10 minutes for commerce is a different thing. I am sure all of us won't mind if Vintage Wireless has a bit of downtime while you fix it.

[Paul Stenning]

Exactly, it's the knock-on effect on the eCommerce websites that is the issue.

We have had a few problems caused by vBulletin software recently. It is an old version, no longer developed, and the upgrade is too expensive for me for a hobby website.

So there are two options:

1. Migrate the whole forum (with all users, threads, attachments, PMs etc) to different forum software such as phpBB. This is likely to cause some upheaval and there will probably be a few things that don't quite work.

2. Organise separate (cheap) hosting for the forum. Shared hosting somewhere is less of an issue for that because the odd bit of downtime is not a big deal. However there is a cost again, and for the size and traffic of the forum it may be quite significant.

I am looking into option 1, though nothing can happen until I've moved and have broadband on at the new flat.

and the upgrade is too expensive

I'll chip in a fiver or so, it is about two to three hundred dollars, that is only about 30 fivers.

[Robert Darwent]

Hi Paul,

Don't know whether its feasible or if you would be even receptive to the idea but considering a large proportion of the forum members are also members of the BVWS, would not an arrangement with the BVWS to share their website be possible as regards alternative hosting for the forum?

Regards

[paulsherwin]

GPL forum software is much more sophisticated than it used to be and a switch shouldn't be too traumatic once people adjust to the new interface.

[Paul Stenning]

Upgrade to the new vBulletin is £109 plus VAT. I don't like vBulletin 4 though - I have used it on another website for a client and was not impressed. This price is just for an upgrade to version 4, if/when they release version 5 there will be a further upgrade cost.

vBulletin 3.x was the last version written by Jelsoft in the UK. vBulletin 4.x was released after they were taken over by Internet Brands (USA company) and got rid of most of the UK based developers. There are still a lot of people using vBulletin 3.x or moving to other solutions because they don't like vBulletin 4.x and/or the way the organisation is now run.

phpBB is well established and does have a vBulletin 3.x importer available. As vBulletin 3 has been around for a long time I would expect the importer to work well and be fully debugged.

I plan to download the full forum site (attachments, database etc) to my local development server and and see how the importing etc works. Then I will be better placed to make a decision.

[Paul Stenning]

I understand we have had a brief outage or slow period, can someone please confirm times etc?

[Dave Moll]

I was getting "database error" a little before 16:30 - sorry, I didn't note the exact time.

[Darren-UK]

The latest outage was just now; 17:20hrs to 17:25hrs. There's been a few over the last hour or so but, like Dave, I didn't note the exact times.