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Bug or Server Issue Again?

post #1 of 32
6/11/10 at 9:58am
Thread Starter 
A couple of years ago accessing the forum was unenjoyable, as it was slow as molasses and wonky to surf due to a server limitation. A server upgrade corrected the problem, but lately the same problems have begun to reappear, and they are unique to this site. And i am noticing similar issues being posted by other members. Is the current server up to the task?
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post #2 of 32
6/11/10 at 12:26pm
I am experiencing the same problems.
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post #3 of 32
6/11/10 at 12:33pm
A few problems as well now and then. Mainly waiting quite a long time after entering my log in details and also when replying to a post. It's pot luck, seems great then the problems kick in for a while before returning to normal.
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post #4 of 32
6/11/10 at 2:46pm
Yes, me too. Slow ,not loading properly etc.
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post #5 of 32
6/11/10 at 3:04pm
  • kbe
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"The web address you entered is not available[more information]You were trying to go to www.basenotes.net

CloseA 50x server error was received attempting to serve your request, indicating that either the server is currently unable to handle the request or the request timed out waiting for a response. The error may have been due to a temporary issue and therefore you could try to access the web address again."

I routinely get the above message when I try to either access or post to Basenotes or open a new page in Basenotes at or near the hour (e.g. this was at 5.59PM EST today) Usually I can access wherever I was going within a 4-5 minutes wait when I try again. I am currently on AT&T U-Verse 12mbs fiber-optic internet service and that means around 6200kbps download speed for me according to www.broadband.gov.
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post #6 of 32
6/11/10 at 3:18pm
I think I have what kbe has - ATT U-Verse fiber optic stuff.
You just can't do anything with basenotes,for 1-3 minutes on the hour ,kbe. But today, the page isn't loading properly ,takes forever esp. this morning.
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post #7 of 32
6/11/10 at 3:18pm
Until today the server problem has always been from about 1 minute before the hour to one minute after the hour by my clock. Earlier today it began 10 minutes before the hour and lasted until just after the hour. I can handle a few minutes of no access, but if it's longer I tend to go and do something else.
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post #8 of 32
6/11/10 at 3:19pm
Me too, 30 Roses.
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post #9 of 32
6/11/10 at 3:32pm
Yeah, I confirm that the problem is still there, just before to a couple minutes after the hour, EVERY single hour, with intermittent longer outages. Grant, if this was going on with my server or host, I'd pitch a big ol' hissy fit. And stomp, too. Probably quite a bit, to be honest, if the problem continued as long as this one has.
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post #10 of 32
6/13/10 at 11:25pm
Does basenotes always seem down, or is it just my Internet connection?
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post #11 of 32
6/13/10 at 11:35pm
Hey simplysim. It's a known issue. See the treads in the Community Centre for more information, here: http://www.basenotes.net/forums/43-Community-Centre
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post #12 of 32
6/14/10 at 12:37am
Indeed, yesterday and several days ago, I had the very same problem regarding the unavailability of Basenotes during a few hours a day, yet, after these few hours elapsed, it usually all got back to normal
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post #13 of 32
6/14/10 at 4:08am
Same problems here, just a minute or two after the hour. There might be an hourly cronjob (assuming a server running some flavor of Linux) occurring on the server, which is causing page loads to time out during this window. Having said that, I'm also seeing very slow load times during the period just before 12 noon UT.
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post #14 of 32
6/14/10 at 4:43am
Please be careful in your word choice, especially for the titles.
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post #15 of 32
6/14/10 at 5:25am
  • kbe
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Another 'bug'?

When I first log on to Basenotes and click on 'Forum' and then click 'New Posts' the list that appears often doesn't have all the new posts shown. Today (around 8:00 AM EST) I noted that both SOTD threads were missing from the list. More I am sure but those two stuck out. I had to go to the individual Men's and Women's forums to access them. Anyone else noticed this?
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post #16 of 32
6/14/10 at 5:35am
The infamous Basenotes server is a rickety old steampunk affair and prone to frequent breakdowns and temper tantrums ... we really need to do a whiparound so Grant can invest in something a little more substantial and reliable
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post #17 of 32
6/14/10 at 7:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Twolf View Post

Please be careful in your word choice, especially for the titles.

Agreed.... you can change the title by going to ... Edit Post - Go Advanced....
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post #18 of 32
6/14/10 at 8:13am
Basenotes *never* sucks!!! Are the pages loading slowly? Yes. But Basenotes as a community does NOT suck.
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post #19 of 32
6/14/10 at 8:38am
Well there are a lot of better ways to put forth your complaint.
Having said that, I think basenotes does need to improve its accessibility. It just has been going downhill for a while now..
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post #20 of 32
6/14/10 at 8:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by gupts View Post

basenotes does need to improve its accessibility. It just has been going downhill for a while now..

http://www.basenotes.net/payments.php
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post #21 of 32
6/14/10 at 6:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CologneJunkie View Post

http://www.basenotes.net/payments.php

Are you saying basenoters who are not *supporting members* cannot complain about the poor accessibility?

If you are, I heartedly disagree.
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post #22 of 32
6/14/10 at 6:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gupts View Post

Are you saying basenoters who are not *supporting members* cannot complain about the poor accessibility?

If you are, I heartedly disagree.

I don't think that was the implication, just a little hint that if there were more paying basenoters perhaps the server hardware issue would be made mood by a shiny new non-squirrel (or is it hamster?)-powered server.
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post #23 of 32
6/14/10 at 6:44pm
I only wonder why there are server issues lately, more than anything else. I mean ,when Basenotes is slow loading or whatever... I usually go do something else . It's the 'mystery' that interests me.
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post #24 of 32
6/15/10 at 2:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mimi Gardenia View Post

I only wonder why there are server issues lately, more than anything else. I mean ,when Basenotes is slow loading or whatever... I usually go do something else . It's the 'mystery' that interests me.

The hourly regularity of this issue strongly indicates that this is an hourly cronjob being started on the server which is temporarily monopolizing either the disk drive or the CPU. If the server is a Unix/Linux machine, I would recommend running a process status at 15 seconds after the hour, and make sure the command includes flags to report both percentage CPU usage and in-process memory usage. Or, the command "top" (described here) provides the information in a user-friendly format. If the server is a Windows machine, running the Task Manager and sorting the contents of the "Processes" tab by "CPU" and "Mem Usage" will accomplish the same thing. It's more than likely a CPU allocation problem. The type of error messages in the responses are clearly indicating that the listening socket is starving out HTTP connections while the CPU is busy with other processing, especially since it's very unlikely that there is an hourly drain on socket descriptor resources.

I was also seeing some time delays in connections to the doubleclick ad server, so doubleclick.com might also be having issues with an hourly cronjob which are slowing load times for BN pages. That will be harder to diagnose, since it's unlikely Google will allow anyone to run low-level diagnostic commands on their servers.
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post #25 of 32
6/15/10 at 3:17am
Hah! I've learned something. When I first read "cronjob" I thought it was a derogatory term.
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post #26 of 32
6/15/10 at 3:45am
SendMail Daemon perhaps? I've seen that sucker bring processor utilization way up when it isn't configured properly.
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post #27 of 32
6/15/10 at 5:26am
I have ALWAYS had problems with BN server, drops the page, slow, lengthy navigation - I thought it was my computer or something!
Relieved to know it is BN problems -

reine
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post #28 of 32
6/15/10 at 8:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Astaroth View Post

The hourly regularity of this issue strongly indicates that this is an hourly cronjob being started on the server which is temporarily monopolizing either the disk drive or the CPU. If the server is a Unix/Linux machine, I would recommend running a process status at 15 seconds after the hour, and make sure the command includes flags to report both percentage CPU usage and in-process memory usage. Or, the command "top" (described here) provides the information in a user-friendly format. If the server is a Windows machine, running the Task Manager and sorting the contents of the "Processes" tab by "CPU" and "Mem Usage" will accomplish the same thing. It's more than likely a CPU allocation problem. The type of error messages in the responses are clearly indicating that the listening socket is starving out HTTP connections while the CPU is busy with other processing, especially since it's very unlikely that there is an hourly drain on socket descriptor resources.

I was also seeing some time delays in connections to the doubleclick ad server, so doubleclick.com might also be having issues with an hourly cronjob which are slowing load times for BN pages. That will be harder to diagnose, since it's unlikely Google will allow anyone to run low-level diagnostic commands on their servers.

Thanks ! I took what I could out of that - not very computer minded , I'm afraid ! *LOL*
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post #29 of 32
6/15/10 at 11:32am
This has been happening for 2 months now - seems like a LOOONG time to fix something like this...
Maybe it is a very complicated problem?
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post #30 of 32
6/15/10 at 9:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthew View Post

This has been happening for 2 months now - seems like a LOOONG time to fix something like this...
Maybe it is a very complicated problem?

These are usually not terribly easy things to diagnose. A couple of years ago I used to do contract work at one of the larger American ISPs, and we had many lengthy meetings in which we would try to troubleshoot why customer pages would load slowly. You have to take into account that most pages have a very complicated mix of Flash, JavaScript, and third-party URLs. Any combination of these things can end up being the slow dog pulling the dogsled, and sometimes the slowdown doesn't happen reliably enough to be examined closely. Add to this the complication of other processes competing for CPU/socket/storage resources on the same server machine, and it becomes pure hi-tech detective work.
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post #31 of 32
6/15/10 at 10:55pm
Hey Astaroth. I believe Grant mentioned the hourly downtime is intentional to run some combination of maintenance scripts. Hopefully when Grant gets the new SQLified directory up and running the server(s) will see significantly less load. If I recall correctly the directory is currently a flat-file database Grant put together himself ages ago.
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post #32 of 32
6/16/10 at 6:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DocmanCC View Post

Hey Astaroth. I believe Grant mentioned the hourly downtime is intentional to run some combination of maintenance scripts. Hopefully when Grant gets the new SQLified directory up and running the server(s) will see significantly less load. If I recall correctly the directory is currently a flat-file database Grant put together himself ages ago.

Correct. Going to do another 2am-er tonight to get some more headway on this...
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Basenotes › Basenotes Forums › Misc › Community Centre › Bug or Server Issue Again?