What happened to the Site?

davecoventry's picture

He has: 112 posts

Joined: Jun 2009

I was unable to get on here since Sunday, did anyone else have difficulty?

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

Yes, our server was down. I'm not sure why yet. Last I heard JeevesBond put in a support ticket and when I got to work this morning things were working again.

davecoventry's picture

He has: 112 posts

Joined: Jun 2009

It must have been down for a good 48 hours. It wasn't offline, just serving up garbage. Was it a DOS attack?

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

Oh, really? For us it just wasn't coming up at all...

It sounds like we need to upgrade to a dedicated server. The hosts have already increased the ram on our VPS and told us that next time we need to go to a dedicated server. Which sucks, partly because of the ££ but also because JeevesBond really doesn't have time to set it up right now.

pr0gr4mm3r's picture

He has: 1,502 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

JeevesBond really doesn't have time to set it up right now.

Well, if you need help, this a forum full of webmasters. Smiling

Greg K's picture

He has: 2,145 posts

Joined: Nov 2003

Megan, you should just get a server in your house... put it in a corner of the baby's room, the hum of the fans will sooth him/her and keep it warm Smiling

I myself at times, when the house isn't too warm, open up the door to my computer room so I can fall asleep listening to the fans and watching the pretty blinking lights up and down the server "rack" (cheap walmart shelves modified to handle spacing for towers). I'm now switching to true servers, so may have to build a true rack.

Either way, I agree it can take some time to custom set them up and tweak everything.

-Greg

JeevesBond's picture

He has: 3,956 posts

Joined: Jun 2002

So it turns out the problem was partly us, partly the hosts. I shouldn't use the past-tense because the issue is on-going and the site may disappear again. Smiling

The server did crash after an article of Megan's got onto Smashing Magazine, which is one of the reasons why we really need to move to a server with more RAM (we're using 1.3GB RAM + ~1GB swap at the moment -- yikes!)

But the reason we were down for so long is that the host's ISP are having trouble with some Cisco routers. Cisco are apparently being rather useless about the situation, they gave the ISP some updated firmware, but all it did was crash the hardware.

Apparently, about 80% of the machines in the datacentre are connected. We seem to be slipping in and out of the remaining 20%.

The ISP is working on the problem now, but don't be surprised if the site goes down again. Sad

EDIT: Oh, and if the site does go down again, I suggest going to http://www.cisco.com and waving your fists angrily at the screen. It won't help, but it will make you feel better. Smiling

a Padded Cell our articles site!

Michael James Swan's picture

He has: 400 posts

Joined: May 2008

Thanks Jeeves Bond,

I did notice the same thing when i returned but could not access the site.

Either way, i am back now/

~ MIKE

Want to join the discussion? Create an account or log in if you already have one. Joining is fast, free and painless! We’ll even whisk you back here when you’ve finished.