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Please can you get the server thing sorted out?

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Pandora_Box
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07 Jun 2012, 9:46 pm

Cornflake wrote:
Pandora_Box wrote:
sliqua-jcooter wrote:
Pandora_Box wrote:
Cloudflare is just a sh***y ass server.
Cloudflare isn't a server.
Hosting service, excuse me. It's still sh***y.
Want to try for third time lucky?


How about just Cloudflare is sh***y.



sliqua-jcooter
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07 Jun 2012, 10:55 pm

Pandora_Box wrote:
Cornflake wrote:
Pandora_Box wrote:
sliqua-jcooter wrote:
Pandora_Box wrote:
Cloudflare is just a sh***y ass server.
Cloudflare isn't a server.
Hosting service, excuse me. It's still sh***y.
Want to try for third time lucky?


How about just Cloudflare is sh***y.


Honestly, the issue isn't with Cloudflare (except for that extended outage the other day, that was totally cloudflare). The service does work extremely well, it just doesn't work right with WP because of the way things work.


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bcousins
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07 Jun 2012, 11:50 pm

jackbus01 wrote:
sliqua-jcooter wrote:
jackbus01 wrote:
So, what is the problem? Does WP have too much traffic on its forums for the bandwidth allotted by the servers? Posting and refresh is very slow sometimes. Is that the "server problem", basically lack of resources or are there secondary issues?

I am hoping any day now someone would post a rambling discussion on what the "server problems" are? :)
I wonder if sliqua-jcooter knows?


I can't talk about specifics publicly, but there are several "server problems". Some of which aren't related to servers at all. Many (but not all) of which are related.

Here's what I can say:

- The hardware that WP runs on is in no way wimpy, or old. That's about as specific as I can be on that matter

- The codebase that runs this site is very old, and has been customized over time to make the software do things it was never designed to do. That's about as specific as I can be on that matter.

- There are several independent services that run to make up the whole of WP, each one has failure points and has different issues associated with it.

- The traffic level that WP gets isn't that staggering, but inefficiencies in how the software works amplifies the amount of work the server must do to deliver a page to a user, effectively increasing the load level on the server by an order of magnitude.

- Switching the software running the site isn't as easy as it appears, and Alex has had a hard time making progress with that, but he is working on it. That part of the equation is completely outside the scope of service that my company provides, so that all rests on Alex to figure out.


Maybe the easiest thing to do would be to "freeze" (make read-only) the current WP but still make it accessible and start a new forum using off-the-shelf forum software. Some people would probably complain if they had to redo their profile, but it would be the cleanest way to do it.
The topics here are often repeated over and over again, so a clean redo would not be that disruptive.

Anyways that is my suggestion to Alex. I understand why you can't officially be more specific.


Trust me, This is better than an "off the shelf" software. With this - You can log in on the homepage and everything just works (generally).


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theimperiousdork
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08 Jun 2012, 5:23 am

Why, hello there! I guess I
don't have any privilege to say how Alex
Plank runs this joint, or that I am
just among the few who are
close to being dissatisfied with
this issue concerning its servers? It'd be
useless if I would blame Mr Cooter for the
site issues, since he's just an administrator
for WP's servers. But would it be
good if I could ask Mr Cooter civilly
and be clear about the recurring
shut downs of WP? Do you directly handle
his forum engine, or just handling the boots-
trap of the server alone? Hope my thoughts could be cleared
up by your answer, sir.


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sliqua-jcooter
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08 Jun 2012, 9:44 am

theimperiousdork wrote:
Why, hello there! I guess I
don't have any privilege to say how Alex
Plank runs this joint, or that I am
just among the few who are
close to being dissatisfied with
this issue concerning its servers? It'd be
useless if I would blame Mr Cooter for the
site issues, since he's just an administrator
for WP's servers. But would it be
good if I could ask Mr Cooter civilly
and be clear about the recurring
shut downs of WP? Do you directly handle
his forum engine, or just handling the boots-
trap of the server alone? Hope my thoughts could be cleared
up by your answer, sir.


I don't deal with the code.


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theimperiousdork
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08 Jun 2012, 9:48 am

Thank you so much, Mr Cooter, for
you have answered my question. As
for the spam issue, I stand corrected that you have
nothing to do with it, and I apologise.


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MyFutureSelfnMe
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08 Jun 2012, 1:49 pm

I just get lost connection errors, and sometimes just really long response times.

Re: the software, for years Alex has been saying he won't change the software because aspies can't handle change and they will go somewhere else. I disagree with him first because where would they go - I'd leave here myself *because* he doesn't maintain the site if there were anywhere else, besides going somewhere else is a more shocking change than staying on WP with upgraded forum software, and second, I wonder if he will still be singing the same tune in five years? Ten? Twenty? Sooner or later he will have to deal with it if he cares about the site - and I'm actually skeptical that he cares about the site.



pezar
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08 Jun 2012, 2:41 pm

MyFutureSelfnMe wrote:
I just get lost connection errors, and sometimes just really long response times.

Re: the software, for years Alex has been saying he won't change the software because aspies can't handle change and they will go somewhere else. I disagree with him first because where would they go - I'd leave here myself *because* he doesn't maintain the site if there were anywhere else, besides going somewhere else is a more shocking change than staying on WP with upgraded forum software, and second, I wonder if he will still be singing the same tune in five years? Ten? Twenty? Sooner or later he will have to deal with it if he cares about the site - and I'm actually skeptical that he cares about the site.


Keep in mind that Alex started WP in *2005*! !! ! Back then, he was likely some geek in high school who liked toying with HTML and who thought an autism forum would be cool. Today, he's a college graduate who has a job in Hollywood (the real Hollywood, not the one in Florida) and who has moved on from WP. I think he should just admit that he's outgrown WP and hand it off to ASAN or a group of aspies who will care about it. I mean, I don't have the same interests I did in 2005, and I don't expect anybody else to either. Forums come and go all the time. The problem with WP is, there are some people out there who utterly depend upon it for a connection to the outside world. Alex can't just pull the plug, for that reason. ASAN is an established organization, I'm sure they would like to have "ownership" of WP.



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08 Jun 2012, 4:43 pm

bcousins wrote:
...
Trust me, This is better than an "off the shelf" software. With this - You can log in on the homepage and everything just works (generally).


Except it doesn't really work well. I spend a lot of time waiting (tens of seconds) for threads to load sometimes. Sometimes it takes several seconds to hit submit. This make for a frustrating experience.

What is wrong with the idea of using common open source forum software (so licensing fees are less of an issue) and sticking to a less customized standard approach for the sake of stability. Also WP started in mid-2004 so it wouldn't surprise me if the software is old and too buggy. It was already pointed out that hardware is not the issue.



sliqua-jcooter
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08 Jun 2012, 4:49 pm

jackbus01 wrote:
bcousins wrote:
...
Trust me, This is better than an "off the shelf" software. With this - You can log in on the homepage and everything just works (generally).


Except it doesn't really work well. I spend a lot of time waiting (tens of seconds) for threads to load sometimes. Sometimes it takes several seconds to hit submit. This make for a frustrating experience.

What is wrong with the idea of using common open source forum software (so licensing fees are less of an issue) and sticking to a less customized standard approach for the sake of stability. Also WP started in mid-2004 so it wouldn't surprise me if the software is old and too buggy. It was already pointed out that hardware is not the issue.


There aren't any open source forum solutions that scale to the level that's needed without extremely heavy customization/tweaking.


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duncvis
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08 Jun 2012, 4:50 pm

It was 2004. *cough*

It was Alex's friend, a 14/15 year old lad called Dan Grover who actually put the site together based on PHP-Nuke, further modules and cobbling having been done since. The site code was an issue back in early '05 when I was an admin here - as you say some folk depend on this place and I think he was fearful at the time that migrating to a new system would cause issues for a lot of regular posters who at that point in the site's history were in the hundreds - he didn't want to kill it off. Considering that this place is now lower on his list of priorities I suspect attempting to migrate the database of almost 8 years of posts and 80000+ accounts while fielding the inevitable barrage of complaints about errors (never mind changes to the look and feel of the site) I wouldn't hold your breath for a change in the code, unless the advertising revenue drops off. Just my two cents, and bear in mind I haven't spoken to Alex in years, so I'm only speculating as to his current feelings. :)


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08 Jun 2012, 4:52 pm

sliqua-jcooter wrote:
There aren't any open source forum solutions that scale to the level that's needed without extremely heavy customization/tweaking.


what he said. It wouldn't be cheap.


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08 Jun 2012, 8:15 pm

sliqua-jcooter wrote:
Pandora_Box wrote:
Cornflake wrote:
Pandora_Box wrote:
sliqua-jcooter wrote:
Pandora_Box wrote:
Cloudflare is just a sh***y ass server.
Cloudflare isn't a server.
Hosting service, excuse me. It's still sh***y.
Want to try for third time lucky?


How about just Cloudflare is sh***y.


Honestly, the issue isn't with Cloudflare (except for that extended outage the other day, that was totally cloudflare). The service does work extremely well, it just doesn't work right with WP because of the way things work.


So why exactly is WP using a service that it doesn't work well with?


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sliqua-jcooter
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08 Jun 2012, 8:35 pm

Who_Am_I wrote:
sliqua-jcooter wrote:
Pandora_Box wrote:
Cornflake wrote:
Pandora_Box wrote:
sliqua-jcooter wrote:
Pandora_Box wrote:
Cloudflare is just a sh***y ass server.
Cloudflare isn't a server.
Hosting service, excuse me. It's still sh***y.
Want to try for third time lucky?


How about just Cloudflare is sh***y.


Honestly, the issue isn't with Cloudflare (except for that extended outage the other day, that was totally cloudflare). The service does work extremely well, it just doesn't work right with WP because of the way things work.


So why exactly is WP using a service that it doesn't work well with?


Because without it the server gets overloaded and dies. On a daily basis.


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09 Jun 2012, 4:37 am

sliqua-jcooter wrote:
jackbus01 wrote:
bcousins wrote:
...
Trust me, This is better than an "off the shelf" software. With this - You can log in on the homepage and everything just works (generally).


Except it doesn't really work well. I spend a lot of time waiting (tens of seconds) for threads to load sometimes. Sometimes it takes several seconds to hit submit. This make for a frustrating experience.

What is wrong with the idea of using common open source forum software (so licensing fees are less of an issue) and sticking to a less customized standard approach for the sake of stability. Also WP started in mid-2004 so it wouldn't surprise me if the software is old and too buggy. It was already pointed out that hardware is not the issue.


There aren't any open source forum solutions that scale to the level that's needed without extremely heavy customization/tweaking.


That was exactly my point, Having used most of them before.


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09 Jun 2012, 4:50 am

bcousins wrote:
That was exactly my point, Having used most of them before.


Sorry to hijack the thread for a moment... what browser are you using? The site seems to be broken with Firefox and IE at this moment in time, with only Chrome showing any graphics on the site.


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