Author Topic: Temporarily Unavailable? (Read 19380 times)

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?

Zathras · **Reply #1 on:** December 09, 2008, 05:03:24 PM

Wait a minute or so and refresh

Bdoomed · **Reply #2 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.

stePH · **Reply #3 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)?

Talia · **Reply #4 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.

Bdoomed · **Reply #5 on:** January 22, 2009, 08:03:28 AM

^ seconded. i'm worried!

Zathras · **Reply #6 on:** January 22, 2009, 12:45:47 PM

My fault. I didn't use the correct wards before my Pseudo Pod marathon.

Bdoomed · **Reply #7 on:** January 22, 2009, 09:47:19 PM

boot to the head

Zathras · **Reply #8 on:** January 22, 2009, 10:01:39 PM

oooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww you booted me in the head

stePH · **Reply #9 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?

Bdoomed · **Reply #10 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.

Russell Nash · **Reply #11 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.

stePH · **Reply #12 on:** January 23, 2009, 02:28:38 PM

Quote from: 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.

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?

Russell Nash · **Reply #13 on:** January 23, 2009, 05:41:37 PM

Quote from: stePH on January 23, 2009, 02:28:38 PM

Quote from: 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.

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.

deflective · **Reply #14 on:** January 23, 2009, 11:04:16 PM

Quote from: Russell Nash on January 23, 2009, 08:06:00 AM

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 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.

Russell Nash · **Reply #15 on:** January 24, 2009, 08:12:19 PM

Quote from: deflective on January 23, 2009, 11:04:16 PM

Quote from: Russell Nash on January 23, 2009, 08:06:00 AM
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 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.

Zathras · **Reply #16 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?

izzardfan · **Reply #17 on:** January 24, 2009, 10:43:33 PM

Quote from: 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?

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.

Russell Nash · **Reply #18 on:** January 24, 2009, 10:46:05 PM

Quote from: izzardfan on January 24, 2009, 10:43:33 PM

Quote from: 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?

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.

deflective · **Reply #19 on:** January 25, 2009, 07:14:51 PM

from the last discussion 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.

Quote from: Russell Nash on January 24, 2009, 08:12:19 PM

Quote from: deflective on January 23, 2009, 11:04:16 PM
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.

Heradel · **Reply #20 on:** February 02, 2009, 02:31:45 AM

Effing hell that was a long time.

FamilyGuy · **Reply #21 on:** February 02, 2009, 04:38:46 AM

Quote from: Heradel on February 02, 2009, 02:31:45 AM

Effing hell that was a long time.

Seconded.

Bdoomed · **Reply #22 on:** February 02, 2009, 04:59:32 AM

fourthed (yes, fourthed... there is an invisible thirded)

Heradel · **Reply #23 on:** February 02, 2009, 05:04:41 AM

Quote from: Bdoomed on February 02, 2009, 04:59:32 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.

Ben Phillips · **Reply #24 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, 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, I believe, and we're looking into that as well.