Transition to New Infrastructure Complete

[hostingtechs]

Hello there, Alex here, one of the hosting technicians for the PA site.

We have just finished a massive overhaul of the entire set up for the Project Avalon site. Downtime should be minimal now. Please let me know how the site is now working for you, your feedback is important.

If you have any questions about the new infrastructure, feel free to ask about that as well!

Peace and Light,

Alex

[haibane]

Clicking on New Posts = blank page, after about 10 secs of the browser trying to get to the server. No err message or anything.

edit: improvement - the blank page loads much faster now ; ) Also I've checked the source code of the blank page, and indeed, nothing at all gets loaded. Hope this helps ...

[Redtailhawk]

Clicking on New Posts = blank page, after about 10 secs of the browser trying to get to the server. No err message or anything.

Same here. I click on new posts, get blank white page.

[hostingtechs]

Try now, I just adjusted a setting. If the blank page comes up, try refreshing it.

[Redtailhawk]

still blank page, tried refreshing it, still blank.

[hostingtechs]

This is odd, cause I've loaded it on a few different ISPs. Can you try clearing your cache?

[Redtailhawk]

I cleared my cache. Am I supposed to be getting a new Avalon page, one with an "invite request"? If so, the old page comes up mostly...I hope that makes sense. I saw a new page with the "invite request", once, but now when I sign in it goes back to the old page.

[MorningSong]

I wrote up a post on the "Off the Grid" section, hit send and got a msg that I was not logged in.....and yet I was, but I thought that I had been timed out. I filled out the log in form, hit send, and got an error msg....hit back twice and found that my post did go through. And I am still logged in.

(????)

[MorningSong]

Now, this is wild...

after I hit "send" just now with the msg above, I got a "flash" of the beginning of this thread and I was no longer logged in. Then it showed me a "flash" of my post at the end. Then I got the msg that I was not logged in. I had another tab with a duplicate of PA2 open on my foxfire browser (I was reading 2 threads simultanously), so I did not have to log in to write this.

(????)

[Redtailhawk]

Also, I just went into my profile and clicked on "find all posts" and it signed me out, said something like "error no posts exist."

[Nagual]

Clicking on New Posts = blank page, after about 10 secs of the browser trying to get to the server. No err message or anything.



still getting the blank page ( 0:38 a.m. GMT)

[MorningSong]

After my last (second) post here, I got the same msg as before...you have entered a wrong user or password...and somethoùign to the effect that I had to wait 15 minutes because I had used up my quota of trys...

I had to close the tab and re-open the forum...and guess what, I was still logged in.

(????)

[Fredkc]

I think y'all are time traveling while waiting for your posts to show up.
One hour after the last post, forum's workin' fine :)

Fred

[hostingtechs]

I think y'all are time traveling while waiting for your posts to show up.
One hour after the last post, forum's workin' fine :)

Fred

So everything is working well for you as of right now?

--
Karl

[Fredkc]

Yep!
Of course I had to open my yap...

Right after posting that I went back to the front page of the forum, and got a white page until I refreshed twice.

[hostingtechs]

Yep!
Of course I had to open my yap...

Right after posting that I went back to the front page of the forum, and got a white page until I refreshed twice.

Hmm, okay. I know this happened to me once when we first got it up and running a few hours ago, but I assumed it was nothing to worry about. Now that you're reporting it too we'll investigate.

[Redtailhawk]

I'm still getting a blank page when I hit new posts. Also when I go in to my profile and click on view all posts, I get this response and it signs me out-"Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."

[Fredkc]

Trying to post again, at Richard's request.

local time: 20:12 PDT

[hostingtechs]

Just a few updates:

#1: We have confirmed there was an issue with logging in and and should have fixed it now. There is a possibility that it isn't fixed though, so please let us know if it isn't for you.

#2: We have confirmed there is an issue with posts not displaying when you go to your profile and click find all posts. This is being investigated.

#3: We are unable to reproduce the problems of getting blank pages. Pretty sure that this is something that should just go away by itself as it is most likely a DNS propagation issue or cache issue, but please keep an eye on it and keep us updated.

We really appreciate your patience and letting us know what is going on. This communication is going to ensure that the site runs very smoothly in the future. Personally, I am amazed it has gone this well so far considering this is a brand new system and this is the first that we have tested your sites on it. But again, let us know if anything else comes up and we will be sure to fix it.

Thanks!

--
Karl

[3optic]

When I saw the title, I thought this was a conspiracy thread about the completion of The Great Work.

[Swanny]

I get a blank page when looking for new posts

[haibane]

The situation is still exactly the same for me - I'm getting a blank page on New Posts, getting logged off on various occasions like a page refresh (but don't have to log in again if I hit the back button). Don't logs reveal anything interesting? Like IP ranges of users reporting these problems? IMHO if it was a DNS issue, I shouldn't be able to get in at all, not to mention posting this. Refreshing the page (CTRL+F5 in Firefox) doesn't help.
-haibane

edit: just got logged off after posting this ; )

[hostingtechs]

So you can still post as logged in, but you say you're logged out? :confused:

[morguana]

gggrrrrrr its so annoying isnt it, am haveing same probs, guess will have to wait for techs to wake up!

[hostingtechs]

gggrrrrrr its so annoying isnt it, am haveing same probs, guess will have to wait for techs to wake up!

We never sleep silly :)

What are the same problems you are having?

I am confused as to what the issue is with blank pages on new posts. We are able to start new threads fine, but I have a feeling that that I not what people are referring to.

[haibane]

So you can still post as logged in, but you say you're logged out? :confused:
Sorry, I should have provided better description: I get logged out after I post.
edit: not always tho

[morguana]

We never sleep silly :)

What are the same problems you are having?

I am confused as to what the issue is with blank pages on new posts. We are able to start new threads fine, but I have a feeling that that I not what people are referring to.

have skyped you, sorry for thinking you guys sleep!!!!!lol

i am unable to get new posts page up and when i try to do a post it keeps logging me out afterwards and i have to close tab and reopen (but show up as being logged in fine when i do this) . its kind of a ramdom ping pong of being logged in and out. oh and for some reason the 'smily' page keeps popping up when i click on to a link

[HORIZONS]

i get a blank page when looking for new posts

same here!

[hostingtechs]

have skyped you, sorry for thinking you guys sleep!!!!!lol

i am unable to get new posts page up and when i try to do a post it keeps logging me out afterwards and i have to close tab and reopen (but show up as being logged in fine when i do this) . its kind of a ramdom ping pong of being logged in and out. oh and for some reason the 'smily' page keeps popping up when i click on to a link

We may not sleep, but we're not at Skype 24/7 unfortunately, hehe.

And okay, I think I understand now. We will investigate this.

[samvado]

I was logged in OK, wrote a loooong reply, then got this "you have to log in" window, my pw was not accepted, I tried again, with a new pw, not accepted, and LOST IT ALL !!!!!

20 minutes typing down the drain !!!!!

that happens often, why is that so? usually I can just log in and my reply is then accepted, but not this time. I will have to copy/paste verything I wirte now arghhhhhhh !!!!

[samvado]

again, it happened, I get:

You are not logged in or you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

1. You are not logged in. Fill in the form at the bottom of this page and try again.
2. You may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
3. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

The administrator may have required you to register before you can view this page.

BUT I AM LOGGED IN ALREADY !!

AND THEN MY REPLY IS gone ....

trying to reply to the last msg in this page: (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?1089-How-to-prepare-for-a-CME-in-the-European-theatre)

[haibane]

I was logged in OK, wrote a loooong reply, then got this "you have to log in" window, my pw was not accepted, I tried again, with a new pw, not accepted, and LOST IT ALL !!!!!

20 minutes typing down the drain !!!!!

that happens often, why is that so? usually I can just log in and my reply is then accepted, but not this time. I will have to copy/paste verything I wirte now arghhhhhhh !!!!

Having used all kinds of connections I've learned to select and copy my post before I hit the send button.
I just got an 'Error connecting to the server - connection timed out' message after typing a long-ish post myself. Fortunately I did the CTRL+A CTRL+C routine ...

[samvado]

OK, now all msgs that seemed lost are there, false alarm, sorry. but why the delay?

[samvado]

Having used all kinds of connections I've learned to select and copy my post before I hit the send button.
I just got an 'Error connecting to the server - connection timed out' message after typing a long-ish post myself. Fortunately I did the CTRL+A CTRL+C routine ...

yeah, I know, I know, I do it often, not always as i should, and this time I got caught ... but all went well in the end - thanx anyway!

[hostingtechs]

Okay guys, Alex here again. The technical issues with the blank pages as well as the login problems should now be fixed. Please, please, please test and get back to me :-)

[haibane]

Okay guys, Alex here again. The technical issues with the blank pages as well as the login problems should now be fixed. Please, please, please test and get back to me :-)

Yes - and no. No blank page this time, but a 'Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.' message and getting logged out (O__o )

[Majorion]

This was a problem for me yesterday until I reset the password twice and after submitting a report thankfully one of the newer ones worked, but for some reason and I gather this is part of the no-login issue, the site has been randomly redirecting to a different server or something.

This is the link I get redirected to sometimes: http://upstream1.avalon.ash1.k-srv.info/forum4/

[hostingtechs]

This was a problem for me yesterday until I reset the password twice and after submitting a report thankfully one of the newer ones worked, but for some reason and I gather this is part of the no-login issue, the site has been randomly redirecting to a different server or something.

This is the link I get redirected to sometimes: http://upstream1.avalon.ash1.k-srv.info/forum4/
That is fine. This is the backend server that does the work and sends all of the content to the front end web server. We have it publicly displaying for the moment so that we can watch what it is doing.

--
Karl

[Swanny]

When I hit the new posts tab I get this


Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.

[yiolas]

I was not able to connect to the site from 20:00 - 24:00 April 14 2010 local time: Place: Nicosia, Cyprus Time Zone GMT +2
Was just now able to log in.

[hostingtechs]

Updated and tightened some security holes. I realized new posts was only working for users that weren't logged in. Please test now.

[haibane]

Yay, New Posts now working for me, thank you for your hard work (^__^ )

[hostingtechs]

Made some major changes, please report on your mileage with the forum.

[hostingtechs]

As for the most recent slowness, we were importing the database for PA1 to get it back online which caused MySQL to act slowly. The importing has completed, but we need to make some configuration changes before PA1 can go back up. This will be done tomorrow morning.

Thanks.

--
Karl

[Swami]

Thx for all the hard work!

[hostingtechs]

Thx for all the hard work!

No problem. Apologies for everything not being perfect yet.

--
Karl

[sunflower]

My user name and password were not accepted yesterday and today. Everything working fine at the moment. I appreciate all you are doing to get this forum up and running smoothly.

[Majorion]

Things are much better now, thanks.

[Lily de Cuir]

Newbie here...may seem like a dumb question, but how do I retrieve my avatar from the old forum, as I really liked it. Firstly I can't find any links to the old forum and secondly, I suppose I can't log on now to retrieve it. Had a look at the new avatars here, but none of them ring my bells. It was an animated red tree with roots into the ground that pulsated...anyone got any tips?

Thanks for all the hard work you are doing...kind regards from Oz
Lily de Cuir

[hostingtechs]

Newbie here...may seem like a dumb question, but how do I retrieve my avatar from the old forum, as I really liked it. Firstly I can't find any links to the old forum and secondly, I suppose I can't log on now to retrieve it. Had a look at the new avatars here, but none of them ring my bells. It was an animated red tree with roots into the ground that pulsated...anyone got any tips?

Thanks for all the hard work you are doing...kind regards from Oz
Lily de Cuir

In regards to the old forum, we are still re-configuring everything to get it to work on the new servers. As for your avatar, you'd have to talk to the PA people about that.

--
Karl

[hostingtechs]

My user name and password were not accepted yesterday and today. Everything working fine at the moment. I appreciate all you are doing to get this forum up and running smoothly.

Yes, that was fixed when we changed some settings. Glad it is working for you now :)

¤=[Post Update]=¤


Things are much better now, thanks.

You're welcome :)

[hostingtechs]

Hello Everyone,

Our apologies for the downtime today. We are in the process of moving some DNS servers, and one of our data centers accidentally cancelled one of them earlier than when it was suppose to be shut off. This caused some routing issues so when people tried to access the website their computers were unable to find where projectavalon.net was located.

This issue is now resolved and all should be well.

[Celine]

You have got to be kidding me...

Ok i dont know much about this stuff...but I have been working in the customer service industry most of my life.

I hope Bill gets a reduction off his monthly invoice.

I have never seen such incompetence.

Are you a new company?


I know this might seem a little extreme...

but..

Most of the members who are aware of how this "server" stuff works... are convinced this is being done on purpose. That this level of incompetence is unheard of in the industry.

So my last question might seem a bit extreme to you..but so many are thinking it..

Are you being paid to cause disruption in the service for PA members? Do any of you have a vested and personal interest in causing problems for the members at PA??

I honestly dont expect you to say.. "oh yes we are"...

but..

Just so you know...Your company does not , , provide anything close to the service you seem to say you offer.

And most here... are very aware...and very awake....

So heres a suggestion...

Honestly tell us what is going on...

[hostingtechs]

I hope Bill gets a reduction off his monthly invoice.

That will remain confidential between Bill and our company and I do not wish to disclose on that matter.




I have never seen such incompetence. Are you a new company?
I understand why you say this, but I personally guarantee you that we are not incompetent. All of our server technicians and network engineers are CompTIA A+ certified and Cisco certified. Our company has been operating since 2004 and all of our employees have been in the field of computer and network engineering for at least 10 years including myself. We know what we're doing.

Large sites such as this are simply trial and error getting them working. The main servers that we use for web hosting for small websites haven't gone down or had a single problem since December 2009 when we had planned maintenance. The reason of this is because everything is so small that it is very easy to estimate what will happen and setup everything for these estimated scenarios. With large sites you don't have a clue what can happen. We know how to host large sites, and have many other large sites that we host, but the fact of the matter is that getting everything smooth is a trial and error process. We've already gone through the trial and error process for PA and no more problems exist as far as we can tell. The site has been rock solid since mid last week, on a system that had almost no testing with your infrastructure. If you ask me, that's pretty good. The issue today was completely beyond our control and was 100% not our fault. It was the fault of a data center we are in the midst of moving out of because of issues like this. This exact same thing happened Saturday, but the billing department over at their company seemed to have taken care of the issue and put us back online much faster, so fast that it was almost unnoticeable (less than 5 minutes of downtime). Funny considering it was a Saturday and they shouldn't have even been working, and today when it is a business day they take forever....




So my last question might seem a bit extreme to you..but so many are thinking it..

Are you being paid to cause disruption in the service for PA members? Do any of you have a vested and personal interest in causing problems for the members at PA??
No, we are not being paid to cause or purposely causing any disruption or harm to PA, its owners, or its members. We would never do such a thing to any client. No matter what the topic matter was regarding, that would be a very childish and unprofessional thing to do. Just for the record though, we have nothing wrong with any of your content and we do take severe interest in PA, its owners, and its members. Everyone here is very brave for participating and should be honored for being willing to do what other people are afraid to do so that people can learn the truth. While we do not have an opinion on any specific content for purposes of not taking side if arguments regarding material arise, overall we greatly appreciate everything that everyone is doing here. It's making a difference, something that needs to be done.

If you saw our office and our time logs I think you'd understand a little better what's going on. I am the president of the company. My job is to oversee operations and manage employees, not get involved with daily operations. Because of this situation and how badly I was needed as Alex could not handle everything alone and our other server and network engineers were too busy, I have become way more involved than I should be and have had to assign our administrative professional to take over my normal duties. Alex and myself have basically been living here at our headquarters and have barely gone home or seen and seen our families in at least a month. We're in the office from about 6am eastern to 11:30pm eastern every single day, 7 days a week. 95% of our time is spent towards you guys and ProjectCamelot. I know many of you are upset with ProjectCamelot, but they require just as much attention as you guys do and are our clients too. Don't fret though, neither one of you is getting priority over the other. You're both equal.

Anyways, please don't take this as me whining. I don't have a problem with doing this and neither does Alex, it's the business and we understood that from the second we started in this field. Just as long as everyone realizes what we're doing and the amount of work and dedication we have and are putting in.....

Also, last month we purchased over $2,000 in server hardware just for ProjectAvalon (Camelot not included in this pricing). We realized that your site was very big and that the setup we had wasn't working, and that something was needed to be done. This new setup includes multiple physical servers teamed up together to efficiently distribute the load and have dedicated servers just for certain tasks. The hardware was installed in our brand new data center location here in Northern Virginia at the beginning of the month, and last week we finished setting up all of the software side of things and moved PA over to it. If we were being paid to cause harm to PA, I really don't think we would have bothered investing $2,000 on hardware for a client who pays a tiny fraction of that every month.



Just so you know...Your company does not , , provide anything close to the service you seem to say you offer.
I am sorry that you think this. Our job is to provide the hosting to the best of our ability, which we are doing. We cannot control what the powers that be wish to do, no one can. As stated above, the issue that happened today was 100% beyond our control. We do take the responsibility for the downtime, but you must understand that the internet is controlled by millions of people, not just one company.



And most here... are very aware...and very awake....
That's good. It's nice to see some people are actually awake and don't just take what is spoon fed to them.



So heres a suggestion...

Honestly tell us what is going on...
I have done so above, you have my word on that, along with everyone else here at our company.


We are very sorry for all issues that have occurred, our fault or not. Please just understand that this is the Internet and there are countless variables that no one has control over. Everything on your side has basically been resolved. We thank you for bearing with us this far and being patient, we really really appreciate it. We have come so far, why stop now when we have basically reached the end of the tunnel? Things from here on out will be much smoother, guaranteed.

--
Karl

[Shairia]

I have experienced every one of the problems listed by members in this and other threads. I noticed today that most of those issues have been fixed, however there is still a couple of glitches. If I hit the reply with quote button on a post that isn't the last posted in a thread I am locked in limbo waiting for an action that never takes place. Also when you mentioned that only members who weren't logged in were able to access the new posts tab, that was not the case for me. I couldn't access it either way, that has been resolved at this point and I would have replyed immediately to your post if I was able to.

[hostingtechs]

If I hit the reply with quote button on a post that isn't the last posted in a thread I am locked in limbo waiting for an action that never takes place.

Hmm, that's weird because reply with quote is javascript and the code is already in place and loaded when you load the thread; it's just hidden. Sounds like a browser compatibility issue with vBulletin to me because there's nothing more to do server wise once you click that. Even if the server went offline that link would still work. Now do you mean actually posting it doesn't work, it simply clicking "Reply With Quote" does not work? If the later, then we'll look into it, but please let me know.


Thanks,
Alex

[shybastid]

I noticed you guys are in Northern Virginia. Exactly HOW close are you to CIA headquarters?:eek:

I'm kidding. Nice job addressing the problems. Once problems are fixed they're fixed.
(We hope)

[hostingtechs]

I noticed you guys are in Northern Virginia. Exactly HOW close are you to CIA headquarters?:eek:

I'm kidding. Nice job addressing the problems. Once problems are fixed they're fixed.
(We hope)

We're about 30 minutes from Langley, hehe :)

And thank you. As of now, everything really should be fixed on the user side. There are still a few small things for admins that we need to fix, but public users should not be affected by any of it.

--
Karl

[Tarnus]

Give these guys some credit. Coming from webhosting and dev background myself, getting a high traffic forum to run smoothly is not necessarily an easy task. Just the data transfer alone can be a night mare. Doing a sql import of gigabytes of data can take a very long time even with a fast server. While it may seem trivial to keep a high traffic forum running, in reality its not. I've setup and managed a few myself, many things can go wrong, so please be patient with them and give them a round of applause for getting things stabilized and running correctly!
:clap2: :clap2: :clap2:

[hostingtechs]

Give these guys some credit. Coming from webhosting and dev background myself, getting a high traffic forum to run smoothly is not necessarily an easy task. Just the data transfer alone can be a night mare. Doing a sql import of gigabytes of data can take a very long time even with a fast server. While it may seem trivial to keep a high traffic forum running, in reality its not. I've setup and managed a few myself, many things can go wrong, so please be patient with them and give them a round of applause for getting things stabilized and running correctly!
:clap2: :clap2: :clap2:

Thanks Tarnus, we appreciate your words of kindness :).

--
Karl

[Swanny]

I wish this site was hosted somewhere other than usa

[giovonni]

30 minutes from Langley :eek: is that with with or without the local tyson's corner traffic delays ;)

[Gita]

You have got to be kidding me...

Ok i dont know much about this stuff...but I have been working in the customer service industry most of my life.

I hope Bill gets a reduction off his monthly invoice.

I have never seen such incompetence.

Are you a new company?


I know this might seem a little extreme...

but..

Most of the members who are aware of how this "server" stuff works... are convinced this is being done on purpose. That this level of incompetence is unheard of in the industry.

So my last question might seem a bit extreme to you..but so many are thinking it..

Are you being paid to cause disruption in the service for PA members? Do any of you have a vested and personal interest in causing problems for the members at PA??

I honestly dont expect you to say.. "oh yes we are"...

but..

Just so you know...Your company does not , , provide anything close to the service you seem to say you offer.

And most here... are very aware...and very awake....

So heres a suggestion...

Honestly tell us what is going on...

With respect, I have to agree with Celine here as she clearly points out the obvious. What is going on with this forum? It’s been badly managed from the beginning and nothing seems to have improved. Either something is being done intentionally or there’s complete incompetence here for all to see. Expecting us to be patient is one thing but treating us like idiots is not on!

AV2 is constantly going down and nothing seems to have improved. As ‘professionals’ you must realise there’s nothing professional about the way this forum is being technically managed. Celine has stated here what most of us really think based on continuous disruption – I have never known a forum managed this way (technically) not even the ones set up by amateurs!:confused:

Truly no disrespect is indented here but this needs to be said – again. There’s something not right here. So what gives?

[rhythm]

I rely got to agree with the post above and am finding this all very boring
how about gettin it sorted PROPERLY please .....

[Wood]

While I am also disappointed by the tech issues with the forum I am aware of the problems with a site like this, with high traffic, that has switched to new software, and, IMO, has not enough staff to quickly sort the problems. The DNS problem is not that understandable though. I think the outage should not have lasted for a few hours but minutes. After so many issues there should be some kind of monitoring system in place to alert whenever the site is down to respond quickly, in particular when the issue is so trivial as a bad DNS entry.

[hostingtechs]

While I am also disappointed by the tech issues with the forum I am aware of the problems with a site like this, with high traffic, that has switched to new software, and, IMO, has not enough staff to quickly sort the problems. The DNS problem is not that understandable though. I think the outage should not have lasted for a few hours but minutes. After so many issues there should be some kind of monitoring system in place to alert whenever the site is down to respond quickly, in particular when the issue is so trivial as a bad DNS entry.

The DNS problem was beyond our control. We knew about 15 seconds after it went out. We do have various monitoring systems in place, and I was personally notified along with Alex and the rest of our tech support team. The instant it went out we contacted the data center and then it was their fault that the server was not put back up until hours later. Again, we've resolved this problem by leaving this data center.


I rely got to agree with the post above and am finding this all very boring
how about gettin it sorted PROPERLY please .....

You'll be glad to know that this has already been taken care of, and was taken care of many days ago.

--
Karl

[Shairia]

Hmm, that's weird because reply with quote is javascript and the code is already in place and loaded when you load the thread; it's just hidden. Sounds like a browser compatibility issue with vBulletin to me because there's nothing more to do server wise once you click that. Even if the server went offline that link would still work. Now do you mean actually posting it doesn't work, it simply clicking "Reply With Quote" does not work? If the later, then we'll look into it, but please let me know.


Thanks,
Alex

It was the latter but after about 15 seconds it actually worked this time. One other problem I am having is navigating through a thread if I'm on page 4 of a 7 page thread and hit the last tab nothing happens.

[hostingtechs]

With respect, I have to agree with Celine here as she clearly points out the obvious. What is going on with this forum? It’s been badly managed from the beginning and nothing seems to have improved. Either something is being done intentionally or there’s complete incompetence here for all to see. Expecting us to be patient is one thing but treating us like idiots is not on!
Well neither of those two things is the case. I think the thread I posted responding to Celine pretty much explained everything, but feel free to ask any other questions you may have.



AV2 is constantly going down and nothing seems to have improved.
How has it not improved? The forum was at the point where it was unusable due to how slow it was, again something that we did not cause but took the blame for. We fixed that. Once we moved, there was a problem with logins and the find new posts tab. Again, we fixed that. The entire site been rock solid since Wednesday of last week when we moved you, that's 6 days now, excluding the issue yesterday that was out of our control as stated above and precautions have been taken so that this does not happen again.



As ‘professionals’ you must realise there’s nothing professional about the way this forum is being technically managed. Celine has stated here what most of us really think based on continuous disruption – I have never known a forum managed this way (technically) not even the ones set up by amateurs!:confused:
If we weren't professionals we wouldn't have certifications and have the skills/knowledge that we have, and we definitely wouldn't be working literally around the clock. I've seen much worse, really.



Truly no disrespect is indented here but this needs to be said – again. There’s something not right here. So what gives?
Again, I think our post in response to Celine pretty much explained "what gives." Bottom line is that everything is fixed now.



30 minutes from Langley :eek: is that with with or without the local tyson's corner traffic delays ;)
Oh gosh, don't remind me of traffic! I just spent 3 hours in it today LOL.

And that's with normal traffic conditions :)



I wish this site was hosted somewhere other than usa
Do you mean the actual server or the entire operations? If you're referring to the server, Virginia and Texas in the United States have actually been proven to be some of the best locations for data centers and web hosts in the entire world.

May I ask why you feel this way?

--
Karl

[hostingtechs]

One other problem I am having is navigating through a thread if I'm on page 4 of a 7 page thread and hit the last tab nothing happens.

Hmm, again sounds like a browser compatibility issue as it should at least be doing something. What operating system and web browser do you use?

--
Karl

[Swanny]

Do you mean the actual server or the entire operations? If you're referring to the server, Virginia and Texas in the United States have actually been proven to be some of the best locations for data centers and web hosts in the entire world.

May I ask why you feel this way?

--
Karl

IMO the forum should be hosted in a free country.
When they lock down the net people outside the USA will have no access


Forum was unavailable for me last night

[Gita]

With respect - again - you keep explaining things yet they seem to be just words. You may have 'certificates' but clearly the forum is still going off line most days and it loads extremely slow - this in IMO is not professional no matter how many certificates you and your team have! I rather there were actual skills rather than certificates! I am not trying to be difficult but the proof is in the pudding - there's still problems with this forum after all this time. I'm not interested in who to blame or whose fault it is or not - just want the forum to function properly at least most of the time and clearly this has not been the case and it's just dragging on now. Bottom line is that everything is not fixed yet as the forum was down again last night and then up again and then down again... Well you get the gist. It's so very frustrating. Please sort it PROPERLY.

[Swanny]

Never been to any other forum with so many hosting problems.
Hopefully you will fix it one day ........................

[shybastid]

I'm not picking sides here Swanny. I've had my share of reponces erased too. But don't forget,transfering two years of Avalon 1 information into Avalon2 probably had something to do with it. Maybe not.

[Sunny d]

Since PA2 started I have problems reading and logging on every day. It's getting boring......! :(

[hostingtechs]

Never been to any other forum with so many hosting problems.
Hopefully you will fix it one day ........................

You'd be surprised, there is much worse out there.

One day? It's been rock solid for a week now.

[hostingtechs]

With respect - again - you keep explaining things yet they seem to be just words. You may have 'certificates' but clearly the forum is still going off line most days and it loads extremely slow - this in IMO is not professional no matter how many certificates you and your team have! I rather there were actual skills rather than certificates! I am not trying to be difficult but the proof is in the pudding - there's still problems with this forum after all this time. I'm not interested in who to blame or whose fault it is or not - just want the forum to function properly at least most of the time and clearly this has not been the case and it's just dragging on now. Bottom line is that everything is not fixed yet as the forum was down again last night and then up again and then down again... Well you get the gist. It's so very frustrating. Please sort it PROPERLY.

What are you talking about Richard? The forum is not going offline, as stated earlier it has been rock solid for a week excluding the Monday outage. The forum is not slow, that was fixed. I think you need to contact your ISP as no one else is reporting slowness issues; you told me on the phone last week it was always slow for you due to your internet connection. Also, the forum wasn't offline last night, I was browsing it. If it had gone offline we would have received multiple notices via SMS, email, and phone call.

Why haven't you emailed us about any of this? You and Bill stated that the only problems left were the mail issues. You never said that the forum appeared offline for you or was slow. You yourself told us that we fixed those problems. Now I am beginning to wonder what is really going on here. Something isn't being properly communicated....

¤=[Post Update]=¤


Since PA2 started I have problems reading and logging on every day. It's getting boring......! :(

Can you elaborate on what these issues are please?

Thanks.

[Swanny]

You'd be surprised, there is much worse out there.

One day? It's been rock solid for a week now.

I couldn't get on here last night so not rock solid for me

Shybastid They haven't transferred anything over to here, AV1 is still there and AV2 is here

[Swami]

THX for all the hard work you guys are doing............:thumb:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uIjxvNVDmw
Dont be negative..........DANCE

[Sunny d]

You'd be surprised, there is much worse out there.

One day? It's been rock solid for a week now.

Nope....:hand:had problems getting in yesterday:confused:

[hostingtechs]

Nope....:hand:had problems getting in yesterday:confused:

What time was this?

[Swanny]

Umm about 10pm ish I think

[Sunny d]

Umm about 10pm ish I think

Yes...and in the afternoon....I also have problems logging on. my name and password don't seem to work every now and then. have to wait for 15 minutes it says, although i wrote the proper name and word.....

[hostingtechs]

Umm about 10pm ish I think

What time zone?

¤=[Post Update]=¤


Yes...and in the afternoon....I also have problems logging on. my name and password don't seem to work every now and then. have to wait for 15 minutes it says, although i wrote the proper name and word.....

That would be a vBulletin bug limited to your account as we haven't received any other complaints similar to this.

[Swanny]

BST ish
Forum is still slow even when it does work

[Gita]

What are you talking about Richard? The forum is not going offline, as stated earlier it has been rock solid for a week excluding the Monday outage. The forum is not slow, that was fixed. I think you need to contact your ISP as no one else is reporting slowness issues; you told me on the phone last week it was always slow for you due to your internet connection. Also, the forum wasn't offline last night, I was browsing it. If it had gone offline we would have received multiple notices via SMS, email, and phone call.

Why haven't you emailed us about any of this? You and Bill stated that the only problems left were the mail issues. You never said that the forum appeared offline for you or was slow. You yourself told us that we fixed those problems. Now I am beginning to wonder what is really going on here. Something isn't being properly communicated....

¤=[Post Update]=¤



Can you elaborate on what these issues are please?

Thanks.



Confused here – why are you quoting me and then talking to Richard??:confused: My name is Gita! Now I’m getting an idea why things are the way they are!!:eek:

BTW, don’t know if you’ve noticed but there are a few people here saying that things are still not working but you keep saying they are!! Just because you say they are, doesn’t mean they actually are!! If you know what I mean! With respect of course. :wink:

[hostingtechs]

Confused here – why are you quoting me and then talking to Richard??:confused: My name is Gita! Now I’m getting an idea why things are the way they are!!:eek:
Sorry, I confused Gaia (Richard) and Gita.



BTW, don’t know if you’ve noticed but there are a few people here saying that things are still not working but you keep saying they are!! Just because you say they are, doesn’t mean they actually are!! If you know what I mean! With respect of course.
Oh, I've noticed, but we need people to elaborate on the issues. The two issues that were explained in detailed as requested (Shairia and Sunny D) were both determined to not be problems related to us, and more likely related to vBulletin/browser compatibility bugs as they were the only people reporting these issues.

Please remember that we have almost no control over vBulletin acting strangely. vBulletin is software written by a 3rd party company, and all of the code is encoded so even if we wanted to fix bugs in the software we couldn't. And if you're wondering "Why didn't we have these issues before?," vBulletin releases new updates constantly to protect against hackers. Every time a new version is released, there is probability for more bugs. Almost 99% of issues that are happening only with one or two users and is not across the board a problem, are beyond our control as they are issues with vBulletin. All software that involves databases and user interaction is never going to be perfect no matter how much effort is put in to making it that way. That's just the way computers are.

[hostingtechs]

BST ish
Forum is still slow even when it does work

What is the average loading time of pages?

[Swanny]

Just clicked on new posts and got this

Search took 9.07 seconds; generated 1 minute(s) ago.

Then tried to view a thread and got this

The page you are looking for is temporarily unavailable.
Please try again later.

:ohwell:

[Swanny]

Search took 28.34 seconds. :p

[hostingtechs]

Is anyone else having issues similar to this?

[Anchor]

Hi

Great something provoked me to post before May. I'd just like to chip in here and say I witness in this thread intensely negative and extremely disrespectful posts. No amount of "with respect" at the start or end changes that, and it reeks.

It is obvious people have had problems, no-one seems to be denying it either. You need to blame someone and you figure it all must be "hostingtech".

But it isnt.

Between your sweaty and incensed fingers and the forum there are a number of things that can go wrong

1) You and your fingers
2) Your browser and your eyeballs
3) Your computer
4) Your computers connection to a router
5) Your router and your ISP
6) Your ISP and the Host
7) The host, its firewall, its router, and eventially PA2's server <-- HOSTINGTECH
8) The server and the HTTP reverse proxy <--- HOSTING TECH
9) The HTTP Reverse proxy and the forum software (vBulletin) <--- HOSTING TECH
10) vBulletin <-- PA ADMINS
11) Forum Database. <-- HOSTING TECH and PA ADMINS

I think I got all the steps here broadly right - but you can see its complex. Yes you need skilled people (with or without certificates) to make this work and barring some disorganization and communication challenges at times - which improved a lot before I stopped modding PA1, my perception is that our host has the chops for the job. Skills are not the issue. I am certain of it.

However, for many people any of these steps go wrong and its immediately PA2's hosts fault.

Now while I was a moderator on PA1 I watched our hosts work BLOODY HARD on getting this stuff right. I developed a measure of respect for them and thier evident integrity and from what I can see I stand by it even now. There were issues and they worked and worked and worked some more on them. They didnt stop and they dont stop till its fixed.

Accusing (by suggestion) them of deliberately causing problems is SAVAGE and uncalled for.

John..

PS: it took quite a while (about 15s) for that post to go from SAVE to submitted - the irony kills me :)

[hostingtechs]

John,

Thanks for that post. I think you made some very good points and I appreciate you chipping in and giving your 2 cents.

We also greatly appreciate the words of kindness in regards to how hard we work. Slacking off is one thing you'll never catch us doing :)

--
Karl

[morguana]

Hi

Great something provoked me to post before May. I'd just like to chip in here and say I witness in this thread intensely negative and extremely disrespectful posts. No amount of "with respect" at the start or end changes that, and it reeks.

It is obvious people have had problems, no-one seems to be denying it either. You need to blame someone and you figure it all must be "hostingtech".

But it isnt.

Between your sweaty and incensed fingers and the forum there are a number of things that can go wrong

1) You and your fingers
2) Your browser and your eyeballs
3) Your computer
4) Your computers connection to a router
5) Your router and your ISP
6) Your ISP and the Host
7) The host, its firewall, its router, and eventially PA2's server <-- HOSTINGTECH
8) The server and the HTTP reverse proxy <--- HOSTING TECH
9) The HTTP Reverse proxy and the forum software (vBulletin) <--- HOSTING TECH
10) vBulletin <-- PA ADMINS
11) Forum Database. <-- HOSTING TECH and PA ADMINS

I think I got all the steps here broadly right - but you can see its complex. Yes you need skilled people (with or without certificates) to make this work and barring some disorganization and communication challenges at times - which improved a lot before I stopped modding PA1, my perception is that our host has the chops for the job. Skills are not the issue. I am certain of it.

However, for many people any of these steps go wrong and its immediately PA2's hosts fault.

Now while I was a moderator on PA1 I watched our hosts work BLOODY HARD on getting this stuff right. I developed a measure of respect for them and thier evident integrity and from what I can see I stand by it even now. There were issues and they worked and worked and worked some more on them. They didnt stop and they dont stop till its fixed.

Accusing (by suggestion) them of deliberately causing problems is SAVAGE and uncalled for.

John..

PS: it took quite a while (about 15s) for that post to go from SAVE to submitted - the irony kills me :)

thanks john, always good to see you around, and yes the hosts have worked very hard and do a super job, we are gratefull for their support and help.
love m

[Swanny]

Search took 6.28 seconds.

[Richard]

Hi John, it is good to see you. There have been a handful of members and non members alike who I personally have heard the accusation of sabotage from. There's probably many more who beleive it to be the case as well. I can understand why too, considering the type of membership we have it is natural for some to scream conspiracy. And these comments are coming from the technically savvy to users who can barely find their browsers. So a question in this thread, put in respectfully is far from SAVAGE as you put it, it was warranted and deserved a response. With the one given that should be the end of it.

I can attest the Karl(owner) and Alex (Senior Tech) have put in a enormous amount of time and effort to keep us running. They are just as upset when things keep going wrong. From a technical point John you have not been in the loop and don't see just how much of the issues are host related, it goes back almost 8 weeks now. I am happy to see things working better now but I am holding my breath as I am conditioned by this server to expect failures often.

Céline, you keep right on questioning things. It helps get the answers out one way or the other :)

[Richard]

What is the average loading time of pages?

Using Firebug ( http://getfirebug.com/ ) this is the load results

This page:
50 requests
239.6 KB
(0 from cache)
12.75s (onload: 3.47s)


Front Forum Page:
9 requests
93.9 KB
(0 from cache)
6.13s (onload: 2.86s)

New Posts:
5 requests
71 KB
(0 from cache)
7.74s (onload: 6.57s)




I am currently on a 10mb cable connection.

[hostingtechs]

Search took 6.28 seconds.

6.28 seconds really isn't that bad for search.

FYI I wanted to see what loading times were like from a totally neutral location, so I am here at a public library right now experimenting and everything seems fine.

Continue to post updates on speed though please.

--
Karl

[Gita]

John, you obviously needed to get it out of your system. Hope you feel better for it. I see from your post that some of your comments may be directed towards me. My main points was not to blame but though frustration due to weeks and weeks of the forum not running as it should, I was just saying about the continuous problems that we’re still having. Being told everything is fine where it just wasn’t is somewhat insulting. It’s not all in our heads, the fact is the forum is not functioning as it should. Things have got much better but there are still disruptions.

Also when I say ‘with respect’, I was not taking the mick – I was being sincere. I’m aware of how people may read other’s post whilst reflecting their own tone depending what mood they are in, hence the reason I wrote with respect as my intention is respectful. It is possible to be frustrated and respectful at the same time. I am able to vent without being SAVAGE as you call it and don’t forget this is a conspiracy forum so therefore it’s the best place of accusations of causing deliberate problems!!

For your information, my fingers are neither sweaty nor incensed as my healing work keeps them in perfect condition!:p

I am still finding that I too average between 7 and 15 seconds to post and search.

WITH RESPECT

[hostingtechs]

Whoa calm down here. I don't want an argument evolving around this.

In regards to loading times, can some people try browsing through a proxy site and let us know if that makes any difference? I am curious if this is regional.

http://anonr.com <---- Good proxy site to use

--
Karl

[Shairia]

Sorry for taking so long to get back to your question on which OS and browser I'm using. I agree it most likely is the browser causing many of my problems and for the records I'm using Vista (ughhhhh!) and IE 8.0. Yeah I know lousy combination but it seems to be the only option for me at this time. I'm just curious because others seems to be having the same problems I am having or at least they were. It's difficult to distinquish what is causing it as all these problems are occurring at the same time for forum is having issues.

[Anchor]

In case this helps, I use variously: Opera 10.53, Firefox 3.6.3 and IE 7 and 8. It can be just as slow with all of them. Some times its fast, but most of the time I wait for the responses to my queries and pages. Searching seems to take a long time.

I am in Australia, and come in via a number of different networks depending on where I am at the time. I have ADSL from home, 4 kinds of cellular modem, and the companies network that I work for that has a proxy in Singapore.

John..

¤=[Post Update]=¤

The last post I made took 14 seconds then I got this:

"This forum requires that you wait 30 seconds between posts. Please try again in 16 seconds."

I didn't press the button more than once.

John..