Slow Forum?

[Beechwoods]

Thanks for the report, Mark...

[Ali Tait]

Never had any problems at all recently.

[Marco]

S'ok here.... Apparently, delays are only happening to folk who don't pay their Council Tax :eyebrows:

Marco.

[Reid Malenfant]

Apparently, it's only happening to folk who don't pay their Council Tax :eyebrows:
Jeez :eyebrows: You got me thinking then Marco, cheers for the reminder actually ;) Last payment this month & it had kind of slipped my mind :doh:

[Marco]

Hehehehe.... Psychic Marco knew ;)

Marco.

[Alex_UK]

Just had a "timeout" and "This Page Cannot be Displayed" message at 20:23.

[Reid Malenfant]

Yeah & you managed to double post Alex :eyebrows:

It's definately messing again, approximately 8:24PM :rolleyes:

[Beechwoods]

Many thanks Chaps. I have passed this on...

[Ali Tait]

Strange I have had no problems at all.

[Reid Malenfant]

Strange I have had no problems at all.
You just aren't moving fast enough to see it Ali :eyebrows:

[Alex_UK]

Yeah & you managed to double post Alex :eyebrows:

First time that has ever happened to me - I feel part of the club now! 2nd post on that thread duly edited. :rolleyes:

[Reid Malenfant]

First time that has ever happened to me - I feel part of the club now! 2nd post on that thread duly edited. :rolleyes:
I always know things are messing about when that happens Alex, seen it oh so many times :rolleyes:

[Reid Malenfant]

Slowing up for me again @ 8:55PM :scratch:

[Alex_UK]

Just had another one at 20:52 (what is it they say about Policemen & buses?) - and taking 20 seconds or so to load pages...

[Jonboy]

bit slow at loading pages 21:02

[Reid Malenfant]

9.23PM it really messed, no response to page changes for well over 30 seconds :rolleyes:

E2A:- & then as soon as it messed up it was back to normal.....

[Alex_UK]

Seems a bit better the last 20 mins. PS - Jon, your strapline reminds me of "Oral makes your day, Anal makes your hole weak" :eyebrows:

[Jonboy]

"Oral makes your day, Anal makes your hole weak" :eyebrows:


:lolsign: and gives you piles

[Beechwoods]

Thank you everyone. I have passed your observations on. The 'on-topic' ones at least!

:spank: :spank:

[Alex_UK]

Thank you everyone. I have passed your observations on. The 'on-topic' ones at least!

:spank: :spank:

That'll be my bad, then... Sorry!

:o

[Beechwoods]

:lolsign:

[Macca]

very slow@ 1954 hrs then 'IE explorer cannot display page' - twice including the first tiem I went to post this - 20mb optical fibre connection all with old fashioned cable no wireless (if it matters)

[Reid Malenfant]

Jeez, i just lost the forum for a good few minutes & when it did surface it's like swimming through treakle :rolleyes: Problems started badly at about 7:50PM but it's been messing about for hours (slow on & off) in all honesty :doh:

I can't be the only one, someone else must have noticed :confused:

Connection timed out while looking for extra emotes at about 7:59PM.... When will it end ffs :steam:

[Macca]

Jeez, i just lost the forum for a good few minutes & when it did surface it's like swimming through treakle :rolleyes: Problems started badly at about 7:50PM but it's been messing about for hours (slow on & off) in all honesty :doh:

I can't be the only one, someone else must have noticed :confused:

:

You're not see my post above:)

[Beechwoods]

No, we noticed :steam: and we're not pleased. I will be having 'words' tomorrow :argument:

[Jonboy]

just had a big drop out 5 mins ago, it ok again at the moment :scratch:

[Reid Malenfant]

You're not see my post above:)
Yes i did Martin, but only after things kind of righted themselves & my post was on the forum :lol: Previous to that all i got was "timed out" & "the web page is taking too long to respond" etc, etc :doh:

I think you get the picture :steam:

[Beechwoods]

Last night's particularly bad sequence of issues around 8pm were actually the result of changes being made at our forum host, to address the problems we'd been seeing.

Performance should have improved as a result of these changes. It certainly appears to be snappier, but I'm keen not to jump to any conclusions until things have bedded in.

Global Gold are working on a few other enhancements which should improve resilience which may result in intermittent glitches as the changes go in. I will try and give you advance warning of when these go in, so you can be forewarned.

- some network infrastructure is being upgraded this week
- web and database server upgrade this weekend.

I do appreciate the feedback you've been giving; I hope that you find you don't need to quite as much as you have, going forward.

[Marco]

Yes it's, nice and fast now @ 10.24am - let's hope it's that way at 8pm tonight! :)

Marco.

[Beechwoods]

Here's hoping!

[Alex_UK]

"This web page is not available" 20:17

[Marco]

Yes, but that wasn't AoS, daftee - that was 'www.ladyboyswithlollipops.com', one down on your favourites list from AoS!! :lol:

No probs here at my end...on AoS! ;)

Marco.

[Alex_UK]

Yes, but that wasn't AoS, daftee - that was 'www.ladyboyswithlollipops.com', one down on your favourites list from AoS!! :lol:

No probs here at my end...on AoS! ;)

Marco.

Bloody hell your monitoring software is good! :eek:

To be fair, it is speeding along, so could have been a blip elsewhere.

[Beechwoods]

Did anyone else have any issues last night?

[MartinT]

No, was fine all evening.

[Spectral Morn]

site unavailable there for a minute

[Beechwoods]

Anyone else?

[Reid Malenfant]

If i don't say anything it's due to me having no problems...

No problems my way so far today ;)

[Alex_UK]

Anyone else?

Nope, not so far (fingers crossed)

[Beechwoods]

It looks like individual users are just seeing isolated issues here and there rather than glitches felt by all users, which is good.

Global Gold have some further enhancements going in tomorrow morning (Sunday morning GMT) which should provide some more resilience, but it does feel like the major concerns we had with performance have been resolved...

[Alex_UK]

it does feel like the major concerns we had with performance have been resolved...

Yes, I'd agree with that - thanks for sorting Nick - and well done to Global Gold in resolving quickly too. Fingers crossed we're all sorted.

[Mark Grant]

Cant say I have noticed any problems recently, maybe I am just not online at the same time as a problem :)

I have noticed that two other forums that use the same hosting also have intermittent problems,

A really busy forum that may be using up lots of global gold resources:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/forum-feedback-news-archive/1329233-server-busy.html
(recent problems on pages 4 onwards)

also this photo forum:
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=282522

looking here
http://www.globalgold.co.uk/vbulletin-hosting/case-studies

there is also playfish saying they have up to 10,000 users on line at a time which might explain the peak time problems :)

http://www.globalgold.co.uk/vbulletin-hosting/features-and-benefits
look at the ' high traffic forums' list.

My guess is a lot of peak time traffic slows things down occasionally.

Mark.

[Reid Malenfant]

Possibly just me but i had a right hangup there for about a minute or so, kept clicking away with zero response ;) 8:15PM

[Spectral Morn]

Yes, me too :) This page can't be found.


Regards D S D L

[Alex_UK]

Just had one too at 22:11

[Reid Malenfant]

Forum is timing out left, right & centre for me :steam: 5:44PM

[Marco]

Yes it's shite just now....! :rolleyes:

Marco.

[Ali Tait]

It's strange I've had none of the recent problems. :scratch:

[Beechwoods]

I hear you :steam:

[Alex_UK]

Just had a "this page cannot be displayed" - took a good few refreshes before it came back. 20:15

[Marco]

Yep, we still seem to be getting some problems in the evening, during the 6-8pm period....

Marco.

[Barry]

Having the occasional 'Page cannot be displayed' tonight. :(

[Spectral Morn]

just lost the forum for a minute :steam:


Regards D S D L

[Barry]

What happened at 22:33 tonight? The forum 'froze'.

[UV101]

I notice that the forum disappeared around that time too. I checked my tapatalk app on my phone at the same time and was prompted for username and password. Normally I'm just logged in. I guess there was a bit of a blip!!

I've also had a few duplicate and late notification emails over the past few days.

[Beechwoods]

Yep, the forum dropped for c. 5 minutes last night from around 22:32. I suspect that some work is going on. I also had some duplicated PM notices, and a few which came through as a bunch yesterday around 17:31.

[MartinT]

The site appeared to be down for about 10 minutes just now - back up at 10:10.

[Beechwoods]

Yes; it looks like the whole VB400 stack was down (not just our forum) - I have mailed GG for confirmation of cause.

[Beechwoods]

From GG:


We spotted a temporary issue on the webserver but have now put a permanent fix in place.

[MartinT]

I'm having a lot of trouble with page not found errors while posting tonight.

[Beechwoods]

No problems here - yet -

[Reid Malenfant]

Am i the only person swimming through molasses here or are others experiencing extra ordinarily long page loading times? Sometimes it takes over 30 seconds for a page to load, other times i'm giving up :doh:

Well stuff me if it hasn't just gone back to normal :lolsign:

[MartinT]

Been fine for me all day :)

[Jonboy]

i've had a couple of page not available messages today and yesterday but speed has been fine

[Alex_UK]

Been really slow for me tonight, though not sure if that is down to my ADSL or indeed this 'puter - anyone else had slow performance this evening?

[Reid Malenfant]

Been really slow for me tonight, though not sure if that is down to my ADSL or indeed this 'puter - anyone else had slow performance this evening?
+1, it hacks me off waiting for clicked buttons to do something :eyebrows:

[Reid Malenfant]

This can't just be me as fleabay is working fine ;) The site has been messing about timing out for the last twenty minutes (now 2.15PM), pages are taking minutes to load if they don't time out first :eek:

None of the emotes work so i'm guessing from memory here :D

It's like trying to wade through setting concrete..

[Ali Tait]

Yes, running a bit slow for me too.

[Beechwoods]

It's running like crap. I've raised a ticket with Global Gold. Not happy. :steam:

[Alex_UK]

Various "Page Cannot Be Displayed" errors too, as well as very slow...

[Beechwoods]

All part of the same sh*t I'm afraid. We've never had an outage last that long. Near enough 2 hours since things first started crawling.

Thanks for your perseverance, regulars :)

It looks like it's back now, touch wood.

[Reid Malenfant]

Hmmm, looks like we might be back up to speed... Only two hours & twenty minutes of slowness :doh:

[Barry]

Seems I'm not the only one who has been having trouble today.

It took a while even to connect to AoS. This was about 2:30 this afternoon.

By the time I had got past "Page cannot be displayed" and actually managed to log on and post about the slow nature of the forum, ten minutes had passed. It took several attemps to actually get the reply window up, what with several "page cannot be displayed" messages.

I eventually wrote the post and posted it only to greeted, yet again, with "page cannot be displayed" and lost the message.

I gave up in disgust and shut down the PC. It was not a local problem: I could read my e-mails, look at the BBC website and log on to eBay.

Glad the problem has been fixed, but it seems to me that since AoS migrated to its new host, we have had a lot more problems of slow running (today was the worse it has been - positively glacial in progress).

Regards

[Beechwoods]

Frankly I'm starting to agree. When it's good it's great, but there have been far too many issues for me to be happy. It's because our server isn't dedicated. When there's a problem with any of the other forums sharing the server we're on we feel it. Not good by any stretch. I'm being polite.

[Reid Malenfant]

It all started at about 1.55PM Barry, that's when it all went wrong for me, as you can see it all came right again at about 4.15PM - 2HR 20mins :eek:

Yes i'll be honest & say i saw far more of the this:- 4032 than i did pages on the forum in that time :rolleyes:

I can't say i'm surprised you gave up chap, i certainly wanted to myself but i decided to stick about to find out how long it actually lasted. More fool me i suppose :eyebrows:

[Alex_UK]

The drop-outs are getting rather tedious now, and why does it always happen after you submit an epic post? :steam:

[Beechwoods]

We're working on a proper solution Alex. You're not the only one getting 'a bit' frustrated.

[Alex_UK]

Thanks Nick.

[Reid Malenfant]

Someone feed the Hamsters or change the team please :eyebrows:

[Reid Malenfant]

Someone feed the Hamsters or change the team please :eyebrows:
Is it just me that finding things a tad slow & getting time outs? :rolleyes:

[Alex_UK]

Ok for me tonight so far...

[MartinT]

New avatar alert!!

[Alex_UK]

New avatar alert!!

Needed something a bit more "sunshiney" - one from the garden on Sunday. :)

[Barry]

It's none too 'snappy' for me this evening (20:40 and now 23:20). :(

[Beechwoods]

We are investing in an upgrade to our hosting arrangements which will go live later this month. I will post more a more specific timetable shortly.

[Alex_UK]

Let us know if you want to pass the (virtual) hat round. :)

[Marco]

Guys,

Please see Nick's announcement here: http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?p=206764#post206764

In order to improve service and eliminate the slow running and time-out problems we've been having, we'll be upgrading to our own dedicated server tomorrow, during the time span Nick has specified.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience any downtime may cause, but by the end of it all, the forum should zip along quicker than ever, with most importantly, consistency improving overall.

So all-in-all, things should be much better! :cool:

Marco.

[Reid Malenfant]

Interesting :) If we are changing servers won't it take time for DNS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System) to get round the web? This can take 24 hours or so...

Or am i just imagining things :scratch:

This sites IP AD appears to be 91.207.221.71

If this is going to change which i assume it will do then looking for theartofsound.net will probably not bring anything up until the DNS has spread through the web as i mentioned earlier & this can take 24 hours for it to spread worldwide.

[MartinT]

The last time I did this it took only 1-2 hours for most DNS servers to update. Only a really crap service provider will take longer.

If Nick releases the IP address then those with slow DNS updates can access AoS temporarily via the IP.

[Reid Malenfant]

If Nick releases the IP address then those with slow DNS updates can access AoS temporarily via the IP.
Indeed, that is what i was hoping might happen ;)

[Beechwoods]

You're all so keen! DNS propagation should not take long as Martin says, I'm not sure if it'll be quicker than last time since it's a move within the same datacentre, but last time it was only 1-2 hours for most of us.

I use OpenDNS 'cos I like a reliable and quick dedicated DNS service, ever since my ISP got their completely screwy one weekend!

There's always The Art Of Sound Facebook page (thanks Alex!) if announcements are needed and can't be done here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Art-of-Sound/168349186529768

[Reid Malenfant]

There's always The Art Of Sound Facebook page (thanks Alex!) if announcements are needed and can't be done here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Art-of-Sound/168349186529768
Sorry, i don't do facebook ;) One forum is enough for me :eyebrows:

Well if i get lost i'm sure i'll find you all sooner or later :lolsign:

[Tim]

Well if i get lost i'm sure i'll find you all sooner or later :lolsign:
. . . and if you do, I'm sure we can rustle up a posse to come and get cha' :lol:

[Reid Malenfant]

. . . and if you do, I'm sure we can rustle up a posse to come and get cha' :lol:
Well i gotta good stock of beef jerky just in case :lol:

[Marco]

Wow - seems pretty zippy now!! :eek:

Marco.

[MartinT]

It certainly does! Well done, Nick :)

[Reid Malenfant]

Well i really don't want to pee on anyones fire, but since the last hour or so i have been having more problems than on the previous server :doh:

I have been posting replies & as usual before i post them i preview it. But i'm often waiting about a minute or so for the preview to show, when i do hit reply i'm again waiting... I often don't know if it's been posted so i open a new browser window & go to AoS forum page only to be faced with a blank page as i'm waiting for that to load :( So i go again & eventually the main page loads & i see that the post is up. On the original reply post i'm still seeing this:- 4307

By the way, i have hit the preview button about 10 times now & nothing is happening :( I'm typing this while i'm waiting for it to do something.... anything, just a little something :lolsign: FFS this is getting beyond a joke :steam: Why am i waiting - the forums hibernating :mental: By the way, Ebay is 100% fine, it's just here that's stuffed :steam:

Well i had to copy this whole post, delete my attachment, go to the main forum page & then back here to try again, hows that for working nicely :mental: Lets see if it previews this time :eyebrows: yep - have a post!

[keiths]

Pretty bad here too - hanging when posting, l-o-n-g wait after clicking "New Posts" etc.

[Mark Grant]

It's flying here :)

maybe its your computer or something to do with DNS etc ?

I would try the usual clear cookies and history, reboot both the PC and router and see what happens.

[Marco]

Yep, same here with AOL... Positively FLYING - zippier than a very zippy thing!! :)

Marco.

[Beechwoods]

It's been like lightening for me too. I strongly suspect that any glitches you are seeing are not server specific, such as caching issues, DNS etc.

Can everyone reading this please post to state if things are good or bad?

[Mark Grant]

If anyone is having a problem it would be worthwhile mentioning which ISP you are on as there maybe a pattern to it.

[Tim]

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w63/greatgig/fast.jpg

Very zippy here indeed - I'm with Demon Internet :)

[keiths]

Have run CCleaner to clear the cache etc and rebooted both PC and router. Still very intermittant and slow. BT business broadband.

[Reid Malenfant]

Have run CCleaner to clear the cache etc and rebooted both PC and router. Still very intermittant and slow. BT business broadband.
Funny, i have done exactly the same & it's still problematic ;) I think you can guess my broadband provider...

Yep, BT :eek:

[Beechwoods]

It's been consistently good for me on Three Mobile, home broadband via Namesco and on the work network. Safari on my mobile, Firefox at home, IE7 at work.

I'm sorry that you're having problems Keith. I can only hope it settles down to an improved service for you shortly. The server is barely getting warm in terms of CPU and memory usage.

[Marco]

Yer comps are loaded with viruses from downloading too much porn, guys!! :eyebrows:

;)

Marco.

[keiths]

There's no such thing as "too much porn" :eyebrows:

[Reid Malenfant]

I think things appear to be gradually improving, at least it's far less problematic than earlier :) I have had similar problems on forums before when the IP address has been moved & i was with BT back then as well :doh:

They just appear to be damn slow to get things ironed out :rolleyes:

E2A:- Page loading now appears to be lightning fast :eek:

[Barry]

No problems my end - a big improvement. :cool: I'm with BT Broadband.

Cheers

[keiths]

Zooming along now :scratch:

[Marco]

They'll have just received your last bill payment, which stopped them from cutting you off! :lol:

;)

Marco.

[Reid Malenfant]

They'll have just received your last bill payment, which stopped them from cutting you off! :lol:

;)

Marco.
Funny you say that, i was down the post office paying it earlier today :scratch:

:lolsign:

[Marco]

:adminpower:

We have ESP!! ;)

[MartinT]

Funny you say that, i was down the post office paying it earlier today :scratch:

Post Office? Pay? What is this ancient form of debt balancing?

[Reid Malenfant]

Post Office? Pay? What is this ancient form of debt balancing?
I don't do direct debits ;) The utilities love them as half the time they estimate the bill in their favour :rolleyes: I'd rather keep the money in my account even if i don't get a lot of interest :eyebrows:

Besides, it's only about 250 metres away.. Some exercise has got to be good :eyebrows:

[MartinT]

I don't do direct debits ;) The utilities love them as half the time they estimate the bill in their favour

Ah, I prefer the smoothing effect between winter and summer, at least for energy bills. If they over-estimate, I get the money back which immediately goes into a hi-fi savings pot (just got £300 back from Eon) :)

[Alex_UK]

Well done Nick - all very speedy for me late last night and again this morning.

[Beechwoods]

Thank you Alex. I'm really pleased with how it's all looking. I wasn't expecting such a noticeable speed boost, just more resistance to timeouts, so the extra snappiness is a real bonus :)

[Rare Bird]

has anyone noticed this place has been acting the goat loading pages?

[Reid Malenfant]

For a few weeks Andr'e :eyebrows: I have given up posting in here as i'd be here half the time :rolleyes:

[Marco]

Zipping along at lightening speed here... Get yerselves a decent lappy or PC - oh and chuck BT Broadband in the bin!! :eyebrows: ;)

Marco.

[Alex_UK]

Can't say I've noticed any problems lately - I did suffer before the change of hosts but no problems since.

[MartinT]

It's been fine here for a good while too.

[Beechwoods]

For a few weeks Andr'e :eyebrows: I have given up posting in here as i'd be here half the time :rolleyes:

You're saying that you've given up posting to this thread because you're having so many problems? Since the forum move I have been monitoring things extremely closely. My own experience of the forum has been extremely fast, but also, the resource usage on the box is extremely good. Low memory usage, low CPU usage, negligible swap usage. Typically 5% of the available resources. We've also not had any record of database errors being served.

[Reid Malenfant]

Well it's ok as i type :) Tbh i have no idea what the hell it is, but when i do a broadband speed test it always falls flat on it's face to any UK server. I get 3 to 4 times the upload & download speed to countries like Germany :scratch:

UK is just bloomin pitiful :lolsign:

[MartinT]

Mark, that's an issue you need to address with your ISP. You may need to change ISP to one who can properly diagnose your problems. Are you using good DNS settings to the ISP's servers, or alternatively good independent ones like the Google DNS servers? If you want to change ISP, I can strongly recommend ICUKnet.

This isn't a forum performance issue.

[Jac Hawk]

Zipping along at lightening speed here... Get yerselves a decent lappy or PC - oh and chuck BT Broadband in the bin!! :eyebrows: ;)

Marco.

from the man who uses AOL " Always of Line" the latest which report is pretty damning against AOL, TalkTalk and Orange, in my humble opinion the best are ZEN, BE, and BT, but what do i know.:ner:

[Jac Hawk]

At the moment the forum is loading up really slowly, it started in the early hours of Saturday morning and hasn't corrected itself yet, thought it might be my PC but TBH the rest of the web opens up fine.

[Macca]

At the moment the forum is loading up really slowly, it started in the early hours of Saturday morning and hasn't corrected itself yet, thought it might be my PC but TBH the rest of the web opens up fine.

Same here...

[jantheman]

12:39 and its going realllllyyy slooooowwwww. Taken me about 3 minutes to get to this point so I can post......
Could be the us Devon types are on the end of the line and some of the bits are just dropping off and getting lost.....
I wonder how Frank (effem) is doing...he's further down than me.

[Alex_UK]

Same here...

and here.

[Stratmangler]

Seriously slow here too :(

[Jonboy]

me too

[AlanS]

Must be all these horrid new people changing our forum<j>

[Beechwoods]

There's obviously a problem. I will try and get the box restarted.

[AlanS]

S'fine here like a rocket

[Beechwoods]

I've just run some table maintenance tasks which may improve performance. Please post to this thread with your observations. Thank you.

[Alex_UK]

That appears to have helped, Nick. Thanks.

[Beechwoods]

Others were still having problems so I have asked for Global Gold to take a look and restart the server if necessary. There may be a minute or so's outage when this happens.

[Alex_UK]

Helped - not cured I should have said. ;)

[Jac Hawk]

still taking 30 to 40 seconds to open a page :steam::steam::(

[AlanS]

Still fine. BTW I am using Opera Mini who's servers are in Norway.

This posted in less than 2 sec.

[Beechwoods]

It's really fast for me even on safari on my iPhone. I have emailed our out of hours support and am waiting for a restart. I suspect that whatever is happening is not affecting everyone but I am doing what I can to get whatever it is fixed. Please bear with us. It is frustrating but everything on the server looks ok and so there is very little I can do about it myself as the on off switch is at the datacentre.

[Epiphany Acoustics]

Seems fairly quick for me using Firefox 4.

[Beechwoods]

From Global Gold:

Apologies for the delay in replying but we think you may be being affected by a DOS attack on part of the network. The engineers are battling with this.

Apologies for any slowdown / downtime we hope it will be fixed shortly.

We will advise as soon as it is sorted.

So it looks like some of you are being affected by a Denial Of Service attack which Global Gold are trying to isolate and shut down.

[Beechwoods]

The forum just went down there for 5 mins though our server itself wasn't the source of outage. I assume that something was being done in terms of network routing to resolve the issue above. I will give further updates when I get them.

[Reid Malenfant]

The forum just went down there for 5 mins though our server itself wasn't the source of outage. I assume that something was being done in terms of network routing to resolve the issue above. I will give further updates when I get them.
I guess that's why i couldn't find it :lolsign:

[keiths]

All seems back to normal now.

[jantheman]

Better here too...seems like someone has plugged the end of the wire so we dont lose any bits...

[WOStantonCS100]

I should have read this thread sooner. I thought maybe my ISP was fartin' about. After the outage, things seem back to normal. Well, as normal as it gets for AoS... :ner: :)

[Beechwoods]

:lol: glad to hear it's business as usual! Bedlam et al :)

[Reid Malenfant]

Am i the only person experiencing having to wait 10 minutes for pages to load? :scratch: I'm getting time outs left right & centre..

Please don't say it's my DNS as everywhere else i go on the net is like lightning ;)

WTF? Now things appear normal :confused:

[MartinT]

There have been a few problems today, Mark. Nick is on the case.

[Reid Malenfant]

Ah, sorry to hear it but i'm glad i'm not the only one :) It was driving me nuts :mental:

[Beechwoods]

The forum dropped twice between 17.45 and 18.00 - either that was the cause of your issues, or it was the symptom of their fix, to clear the problem.

[Reid Malenfant]

Well i guess it was a fix Nick as things are pretty normal right now.. Yes that'd be the times i was pulling my hair out thinking my evenings fun was going to be ruined :eyebrows:

[sparrow]

Had the same probleme here between 5 & 6 pm..seems OK now.

[Beechwoods]

From our server host... just for info. Seems the cause was a malicious attack which overwhelmed the system for a short while until it was isolated and fixed.


There was an major attack last evening on a specific server and IP on the
network. Some 14 million packets were been sent from 400+ locations
to a single IP address causing a temporary loss of services to some clients
as the network slowed and became unavailable in part.

All services were restored within 20 to 30 minutes once the attack was
null routed. We apologise for any interruption to your services.

[AlanS]

Who and why would anyone want to attack AOS?

I see Mr Dunn's forum had a spaming account set up yesterday.

[MartinT]

It might not be AoS, it would only need to be an attack on the same ISP to cause those kinds of problems.

[Beechwoods]

It was an attack on the datacentre as a whole, not us specifically. Folks know if they really want to piss us off they only need to start posting without saying Hello properly first ;)

These days kids can buy 'kits' to carry out malicious attacks, phishing exercises, whatever without any real skill whatsoever. It's quite likely the person attacking our datacentre had no idea what sites they were hosting, and just wanted to see if they could 'do it'.

And our other halves think we need *our* heads examining sometimes?!

[Reid Malenfant]

:lolsign: Never a more true word was said ;)

I used to have to put up with silly boys doing the old DOS attack nearly daily, things like that are pretty rare here which is why i guess i wondered what was going on at the time... It did bring back some memories though & the DOS attack scenario was one that was pretty near the top in all honesty :rolleyes:

As i say though, it's so rare here i wonder what the hell is going on when it happens ;)

[Marco]

It was an attack on the datacentre as a whole, not us specifically. Folks know if they really want to piss us off they only need to start posting without saying Hello properly first ;)

These days kids can buy 'kits' to carry out malicious attacks, phishing exercises, whatever without any real skill whatsoever. It's quite likely the person attacking our datacentre had no idea what sites they were hosting, and just wanted to see if they could 'do it'.

And our other halves think we need *our* heads examining sometimes?!

I can't abide the scumbag wastes of space that do this type of thing for 'kicks' :wanker:

I'm being quite serious here, but if whoever was responsible for these bloody stupid attacks could be traced, I'd love to knock on their doors(s) one night and walk in with a baseball bat, and smash to a pulp every f*cking piece of computer shit they had that was responsible (and take great delight in doing so!) and tell the idiots that if they did it again, next time the target would be their heads ;)

Marco.

[worthingpagan]

I can't abide the scumbag wastes of space that do this type of thing for 'kicks' :wanker:

I'm being quite serious here, but if whoever was responsible for these bloody stupid attacks could be traced, I'd love to knock on their doors(s) one night and walk in with a baseball bat, and smash to a pulp every f*cking piece of computer shit they had that was responsible (and take great delight in doing so!) and tell the idiots that if they did it again, next time the target would be their heads ;)

Marco.

LOL, seems like a reasoned response to me :lol: :cool:

[Tim]

So you don't like them then Marco :lolsign:

[Alex_UK]

I'm a bit worried he's getting all liberal on us... :lol:

[Marco]

So you don't like them then Marco :lolsign:

Let's say that I'd most likely prefer examining the contents of my last jobby ;)

Marco.

[Barry]

Is it just me, or has the Forum been a bit slow of late? Today around 20:30 it was so slow I couldn't even make a post to that effect. I logged off in annoyance! :steam:

It's still bloody slow!

[Reid Malenfant]

Yes it did appear to be a bit problematic earlier Barry, all seems fine now this way, hope you are likewise in the clear as I type :)

[Barry]

Hi Mark,

No - it's still slow, though it's not consistent.

[Barry]

20 seconds for the 'Reply' page to become active. 65 seconds for the last post, from 'Submit Reply' to appearing in the thread.

[Reid Malenfant]

No - it's still slow, though it's not consistent.
Yes I find that to, I have no idea what the heck causes it but I have given up attempting to find out :rolleyes: I'm sure if you look back on this thread you'll see me bitching about it :eyebrows:

Hope it sorts itself out soon Barry, whatever it is :)

[The Grand Wazoo]

This was noted last night actually & Nick has been on to the task of solving it for some time. Hopefully normal service will be resumed asap.

[Barry]

Cheers Chris,

Trust it doesn't cause Nick to tear out his hair! (Bring on the TV test card.)

[Beechwoods]

Sorry about the patchy performance over the last day or so. Indeed we have been investigating, but with no root cause found yet. I will flag the performance problems last night again.

We should have some improved monitoring services loaded to the server in a few weeks time which should make it easier to diagnose and fix any issues. Until then, I appreciate your forbearance.

[Barry]

Without wishing to belabor the point, it's too slow and unuseable for me tonight - so I'll be logging off! :(

[Jonboy]

been a bit up and down for me the last couple of days, also when i have been typing in the box for replying to a thread the letters in the message start breaking up, dissapearing and changing their font style, whats that all about :scratch:

[Reid Malenfant]

Ok, things were only a little problematic earlier (as in 5 - 7PM say), but in no way as bad as when i posted the other day, now things are flying as per usual & have been since about 7PM :scratch:

Just thought I'd add this as it might help sort out what the problem is... BT Broadband this way..

[Beechwoods]

New diagnostics software should have gone on yesterday, to allow a view of performance over time rather than just at point in time. The server was also restarted after 195 days straight. I believe that this helped a bit but obviously a couple of you are still noticing issues.

Ali, I have no idea why you would be seeing what you're seeing, it sounds like a browser glitch to me - clearing browser cache (you can leave cookies and history when you do this) may help.

[Barry]

It's particularly capricious at the moment. At times lightning fast, at others it's like wading through treacle!

[sparrow]

Slow here right now..first time I've had any issues for a while.

[Mark Grant]

No problem at all here, maybe it's only certain ISP's as everything loads fine for me :scratch:

http://i759.photobucket.com/albums/xx234/server9/forum-pictures/AOS-Capture.jpg

[Beechwoods]

The forum appears to be freaking out again with unexpectedly high CPU usage. This will affect database performance. It's intermittent, as Barry observed. We are aware and are trying to do something about it. Frustrating thing is nothing has been done behind the scenes to change anything that would have caused it to be problematic now when it's been fine for months :scratch:

[Barry]

At the moment it's so bad, it's unusable!

[Beechwoods]

Yep.

[Beechwoods]

Absolutely flying now though :steam:

[Reid Malenfant]

Nick, calm down dear :eyebrows: You'll go bald & have a heart attack :eek:

What I find odd is that it affects different people at different times & not everyone at the same time :scratch: Think on that one, as that will lead to what the problem is I reckon...

For instance when Barry posted it was unusable I wasn't having a problem :confused:

[Beechwoods]

And shit again.

Sorry this is doing my head in. Our forum hosts are looking into it as I write though. 300+ percent server load. Typical is 30%.

[Beechwoods]

And back to normal. 30% CPU load.

[Beechwoods]

It seems we were being pillaged by some aggressive search bot that was hammering our search functions and not even announcing that it was a search engine. It has now been banned at an IP level and I hope that that is the end of that.

[Reid Malenfant]

Hi Nick, I hope & doubt it's just me, but ever since something weird happened to the forum at just before 11PM yesterday evening it has been running a tad slow.

Lots slower than I'm used to, hense why I'm commenting :eyebrows: I haven't had a time out, but it's been close.

While this isn't forum related I notice that paypal had issues from late yesterday evening, looked to be about the same kind of time as well.

I'm probably just thinking of worst case, but it did seem kind of odd to me that things went a bit snafu on a few services that I happen to use, as there are very few of them :scratch:

A complete AV, malware, spyware etc check today revealed absolutely nothing as it always appears to :eyebrows:

:lol: Just timed out when I went to preview my post.... Typical :rolleyes:

[Beechwoods]

OK, you're not the first to mention it. I'll have a poke around and see what happens.

[keiths]

Just had the forum 'freeze' on me here whilst getting new posts.

[Beechwoods]

I've raised a ticket with our server hosts. Ping times to the forum mainpage are about 3x slower than typical. *Something* is going on...

[Reid Malenfant]

You know this is odd Nick, while it appears others service has slowed down, mine is back to fast as....

:scratch:

[Beechwoods]

You must be channeling the lifeforce, Mark!

What we need is for The Gadget Show to start, and have a big special about vinyl, digital streamers and valve amps, that'd give the old girl a rest for a while :)

[ursus262]

The old girl?

[Beechwoods]

The server ;)

[Reid Malenfant]

The old girl?
Yeah the forum man! :D

Quaint as it may seem I can remember when you fixed a car with a buggered rubber belt with a pair of tights or stockings :lol:

They were always known as women, you never call a car by a blokes neme :D

So... The old girl :lol: She still needs sorting ever now & again :cool:

[Beechwoods]

Looks like things are a lot better now. The web service itself has been restarted and the response time stats look a lot better, and to me pages are being served a lot quicker.

Fingers crossed that's that for the timebeing at least :)

[ursus262]

Ah, that explains it. :cool:

Oh, and for the sake of clarity, my car is a "he" and his name is Eddie ;)

Or, to use his full title: Eddie the Pet Rocket!

[Reid Malenfant]

I have never had a car :eyebrows:

[brian2957]

Never had the pleasure of paying large monthly payments , large insurance premiums , high road taxation and horribly high petrol prices . Not to mention maintenance costs Mark. What's wrong with you man !!!!!

[Reid Malenfant]

I guess I don't like to waste money on fripperies Brian :lol:

If I don't need it then it's out of the window...

[brian2957]

Don't think the car would fit thru my window mate :) If I didn't need it to get to work it would be gone . As soon as I retire I'm selling it and buying an OPPO.
Much better VFM in my opinion.
Brian.

[RichB]

I have never had a car :eyebrows:

my hi-fi is worth more than my car:lol:

its a matter of priorities...

the old banger was written off this week on account of a daft young lass driving directly into the side of us... (nobody hurt so its all ok, i dont belive in 'maximising' insurance claims!) I'm already planning how to replace the motor as cheaply as possible to buy more audio stuff:eyebrows:

[jon1]

I'm already planning how to replace the motor as cheaply as possible to buy more audio stuff:eyebrows:


nice one;)


jon