Escape Artists

Administrivia => Metachat => Topic started by: Raving_Lunatic on December 09, 2008, 04:51:49 PM

Title: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Raving_Lunatic on December 09, 2008, 04:51:49 PM
Hiya all.

I've been browsing the sites recently, as usual, and I've noticed that for periods as long as three hours I won't be able to acess the forums, escape pod or pseudopod. It comes up with a message saying

"I'm sorry, but this page is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."

This has been happening more and more regularly, no matter which computer I am using (i.e. work or home). Advice?
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Zathras on December 09, 2008, 05:03:24 PM
Wait a minute or so and refresh
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Bdoomed on December 09, 2008, 07:24:20 PM
its happenin to everyone... well only for the forums for me.
and frequently too.

as annoyin as it is, there's nothin we can do atm as far as i know.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: stePH on January 22, 2009, 05:37:47 AM
Seriously, what the fuck?  The board was down this morning for the twenty or so minutes that I browse before going to work, and it was down when I got home from work.  As far as I know it's been down all goddamn day.  How long has it been back up again before just now (9:35 Pacific)? 
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Talia on January 22, 2009, 05:51:09 AM
Only up again fairly recently.

Happens.

little concerned about things.. I do hope everything, everywhere is ok.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Bdoomed on January 22, 2009, 08:03:28 AM
^ seconded.  i'm worried!
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Zathras on January 22, 2009, 12:45:47 PM
My fault.  I didn't use the correct wards before my Pseudo Pod marathon.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Bdoomed on January 22, 2009, 09:47:19 PM
boot to the head
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Zathras on January 22, 2009, 10:01:39 PM
 :o  oooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww  you booted me in the head
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: stePH on January 23, 2009, 01:24:21 AM
What is it?  The board software?  The hosting server?  Why is this board the hands-down least-reliable board that I read?
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Bdoomed on January 23, 2009, 04:56:24 AM
silence! do not question the integrity of the boards! :O!!!
its all the intelligence here, the forums are bursting at the seams.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Russell Nash on January 23, 2009, 08:06:00 AM
stePH,  Steve will need to come in and give you the real reason, but I can repeat what he has said in the past.  EA is too popular.  The bandwidth taken by episode downloads is immense.  At the same time the operating budget is not.  This means going with companies that sometimes can't give the reliability that a very expensive company can.  It's not hard to get reliable hosting for forums.  That bandwidth is nothing.  Three 30 minute long podcasts a week is a bit more demanding.

I do not know if that has anything to do with our recent blackout, but it is something to keep in mind.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: stePH on January 23, 2009, 02:28:38 PM
stePH,  Steve will need to come in and give you the real reason, but I can repeat what he has said in the past.  EA is too popular.  The bandwidth taken by episode downloads is immense.  At the same time the operating budget is not.  This means going with companies that sometimes can't give the reliability that a very expensive company can.  It's not hard to get reliable hosting for forums.  That bandwidth is nothing.  Three 30 minute long podcasts a week is a bit more demanding.

The last two Podcastles have been about an hour each, actually.  Yeah, I can see how episode downloads would suck up bandwidth.  Does that include through the feed, or just click-downloads from the site?
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Russell Nash on January 23, 2009, 05:41:37 PM
stePH,  Steve will need to come in and give you the real reason, but I can repeat what he has said in the past.  EA is too popular.  The bandwidth taken by episode downloads is immense.  At the same time the operating budget is not.  This means going with companies that sometimes can't give the reliability that a very expensive company can.  It's not hard to get reliable hosting for forums.  That bandwidth is nothing.  Three 30 minute long podcasts a week is a bit more demanding.

The last two Podcastles have been about an hour each, actually.  Yeah, I can see how episode downloads would suck up bandwidth.  Does that include through the feed, or just click-downloads from the site?

That's a Steve specific question that I cannot help you with.

Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: deflective on January 23, 2009, 11:04:16 PM
Three 30 minute long podcasts a week is a bit more demanding.

if it's a serious issue what are the chances of setting up a weekly torrent? with an official rss feed (http://www.mininova.org/rss/the+daily+show+vtv) it'll be just as easy to track the numbers but it'll take a little of the load off. probably not a lot but it might help.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Russell Nash on January 24, 2009, 08:12:19 PM
Three 30 minute long podcasts a week is a bit more demanding.

if it's a serious issue what are the chances of setting up a weekly torrent? with an official rss feed (http://www.mininova.org/rss/the+daily+show+vtv) it'll be just as easy to track the numbers but it'll take a little of the load off. probably not a lot but it might help.

Interesting suggestion.  That would definitely help with bandwidth issues, but I don't know what extra work would be involved for Steve.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Zathras on January 24, 2009, 08:39:37 PM
I don't know what the heck I'm talking about here, but why not host the forums on a different server?
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: izzardfan on January 24, 2009, 10:43:33 PM
I don't know what the heck I'm talking about here, but why not host the forums on a different server?

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.  Host the downloads in one place and the text (forum, blog sites) on another, so that even if the audio feeds are interrupted, the rest of it stays up.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Russell Nash on January 24, 2009, 10:46:05 PM
I don't know what the heck I'm talking about here, but why not host the forums on a different server?

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.  Host the downloads in one place and the text (forum, blog sites) on another, so that even if the audio feeds are interrupted, the rest of it stays up.

Best guess would be cost.  Remember my initial explanation was conjecture using previous knowledge.  I don't have any specific information yet.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: deflective on January 25, 2009, 07:14:51 PM
from the last discussion (http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=1944.msg34461#msg34461) it sounds like the board's software is tetchy. if Steve's custom monitoring software stops then it's just a matter of time before the whole thing folds.

what are the chances of setting up a weekly torrent?
I don't know what extra work would be involved for Steve.

setting up the rss feed would be trivial but stable torrent hosts to seed the episodes would be an effort.

i'm just not sure how much it would help; torrent software with rss capability is still an emerging tech. if only one listener in a thousand is using it then it's not worth the effort.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Heradel on February 02, 2009, 02:31:45 AM
Effing hell that was a long time.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: FamilyGuy on February 02, 2009, 04:38:46 AM
Effing hell that was a long time.

Seconded.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Bdoomed on February 02, 2009, 04:59:32 AM
fourthed (yes, fourthed... there is an invisible thirded)
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Heradel on February 02, 2009, 05:04:41 AM
fourthed (yes, fourthed... there is an invisible thirded)

*While backing away slowly*

"Yes, er, you see the nice, strong men in the white coats? They're here for you. Go with them. I'll be better in the end."
...
"Really, the struggling accomplishes little.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Ben Phillips on February 03, 2009, 05:16:13 AM
We're all swearing at it too.  If I'm not mistaken: Libsyn is hosting the mp3s, and doing a fine job, while the web and forums server is a separate machine which keeps getting taken down by, we strongly suspect, a memory leak in Podpress (http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=1944.0), the plugin for WordPress -- both of which can be updated at this point and will be soon.  Steve's not optimistic that this is really a long-term fix, particularly seeing the perpetual security problems with WordPress (e.g., wonderful marvelous spam), but it's worth a shot.

Now, when your podcatcher doesn't update that's an unrelated issue (http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=2257.msg40164#msg40164), I believe, and we're looking into that as well.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: SFEley on February 03, 2009, 05:35:10 AM
Yep.  What Ben said.  We're going to try some Wordpress upgrades and see if that stems the tide; in the just slightly longer run, I'm flexing my Rails muscles working on building something better.

Sorry things have been sucking.  It's going to improve.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Listener on February 03, 2009, 12:07:38 PM
Yep.  What Ben said.  We're going to try some Wordpress upgrades and see if that stems the tide; in the just slightly longer run, I'm flexing my Rails muscles working on building something better.


Would your new Rails app be able to bring in all the existing forum content? I've always had that problem with switching languages in installing new apps -- old content never QUITE migrates over.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: MacArthurBug on February 04, 2009, 04:01:50 AM
I figured something was up the first time it happned (for me) a few weeks back. Also figured it'd affect things. Thanks for the update.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Talia on February 20, 2009, 06:51:53 AM
Yay.

Welcome back again :P
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Bdoomed on February 20, 2009, 07:58:06 AM
yea REALLY
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: stePH on February 20, 2009, 02:09:56 PM
grrrrr  >:( RATDICK RINGMEAT!

I really miss this place when it's gone.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Talia on February 20, 2009, 03:25:48 PM
wait.. what?

*flees in terror from giant font*
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: DKT on November 04, 2009, 07:33:47 AM
Okay, I got a really weird message last night. I know Swamp got it, too. I have no idea what happened but it said that the host name didn't exist. It also thought the host was "Heroku". Anyone else see this or know what happened?
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Scattercat on November 04, 2009, 07:53:13 AM
What time is "last night"?  I was on sporadically from about nine PM EST to after midnight (also EST).  I didn't encounter anything unusual during any of my visits.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: deflective on November 04, 2009, 08:38:28 AM
i got the error too.  heroku (http://docs.heroku.com/heroku) is a type of server management software so they may have been rebooting or making low level changes.  not sure though, never used it myself.
Title: Re: Temporarily Unavailable?
Post by: Heradel on November 04, 2009, 07:33:13 PM
Hey, there was a slight snafu with some DNS changes last night (which is why some were affected and some weren't), shouldn't be an ongoing problem.