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Recent downtime and the going forward (February 2013)

post #1 of 97
2/1/13 at 8:27am
Thread Starter 
Hello lovely people.

First of all, my apologies for the recent downtime, and the gradually slowing down and brief regular outages of the server in January. I have found it very frustrating to use the site personally, and I know that many of you have too. I always seem to get to the stage when the site is running smoothly for a bit, and then slowly deteriorates.

The site is run on two database - one hold all the forum and user related bits; and the other all the perfume-related bits. My host is testing to see whether one database is dragging the site down, so currently I have switched off all the parts of the site that run on the perfume database, to see whether that's effecting performance.

If the site is still crashing every few hours/minutes/seconds, then we'll know that isn't the problem and we can try another test.

Going forward, as I've mentioned before, I've partnered with a company called Huddler, who are working on a new 'non-crashy' version of the site as we speak. They've been working on this for the last year or so, and it's getting near final stages. The main benefit for me is that Huddler look after all the advertising and tech side of things, which means the site won't be doing this type of thing any more, and I'll be able to concentrate on running the actual website rather than tinkering in back ends all the time. I should be posting more about this in the next week or so.

In the meantime, Apologies once again for the rubbishness, and I'll aim to get the perfume bits of Basenotes back online as soon as I can.

Update here: 4th February
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post #2 of 97
2/1/13 at 9:46am
Vive la non-crashy. Well done with the hard work.

I'm blaming it on the "panty-dropper" posts.
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post #3 of 97
2/1/13 at 9:56am
Thanks Grant, I really appreciate all you do!
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post #4 of 97
2/1/13 at 10:09am
Thanks for all the hard work, and the update!
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post #5 of 97
2/1/13 at 10:16am
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Well done!
Fingers crossed you get some sleep.
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post #6 of 97
2/1/13 at 11:12am
That's good to hear.

Well done Grant.
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post #7 of 97
2/1/13 at 11:43am
Have you tried to split the forum into two different physical servers and use something like cisco to do load balancing? This way you can manage the bandwith comming in and going out.

You could set up the max # of users at any one time, and for everyone else give a static page from a third cheap PC that says "We're full, check back in 5" so the database servers are not over taxed.

You could archive some of the older posts onto a different database so the current database isn't so full.

I'm sure you will figure it out. You have a good forum. It's just a matter of finding the bottleneck. Happy searching.
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post #8 of 97
2/1/13 at 11:55am
Thanks for the update, Grant - much appreciated.

Keep up the good work!

Still the best!! (When it works!!).
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post #9 of 97
2/1/13 at 12:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by HDD8 View Post

Thanks for the update, Grant - much appreciated.

Keep up the good work!

Still the best!! (When it works!!).

Ditto. Thanks Grant, l look forward to the non-crashy version!
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post #10 of 97
2/1/13 at 12:43pm
The forum is working much better today. It's faster and there are no long waits. Looks like the problem was fixed.
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post #11 of 97
2/1/13 at 12:59pm
Thanks for the feedback Grant!
Hope all is fixed soon!

Best regards,
François
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post #12 of 97
2/1/13 at 1:57pm
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Hurray!
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post #13 of 97
2/1/13 at 2:29pm
This is a fantastic site and worth waiting for. Am looking forward to the "de-bugged" version.
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post #14 of 97
2/1/13 at 3:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by smellgood4u View Post

The forum is working much better today. It's faster and there are no long waits. Looks like the problem was fixed.

The forum section is working normally today. Sounds like your hunch about the problem is correct, and good luck on the fix.
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post #15 of 97
2/1/13 at 5:21pm
Jolly good show! Perhaps there could be a way for us to list our "Scents of the day" that we were unable to post due to the outage?
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post #16 of 97
2/2/13 at 12:22am
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Do what must be done, Lord Grant. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy
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post #17 of 97
2/2/13 at 2:02am
We appreciate what you are doing behind the scenes, Grant.
Keep on doing what you do so well. Life without basenotes is
quite unthinkable!
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post #18 of 97
2/2/13 at 3:24am
Thanks for all the information, Grant! Well done!
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post #19 of 97
2/2/13 at 3:39am
Thanks Grant, the parts that are up are working as they should, hope the rest is ready to go up soon, and really looking forward to the new version of the site.
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post #20 of 97
2/2/13 at 4:06am
Thanks for your hard work.

And for once I'm glad for all of those "review topics" that people started!
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post #21 of 97
2/2/13 at 6:10am
Hey Grant ~

I'm sure you've noticed how speedy the site is to come up, switch pages, respond to the messaging system, and leaving replies. It's almost shockingly fast compared to what I'm used to. I actually stopped coming by as much because it was so slow. Just getting "on" the site and going through items for sale by opening up separate tabs per user sales took forever for them to load. I think it's safe to say that the fragrance database and related pages are what's are killing the site I use them nearly every day too, so it's a major bummer. Hopefully your techie can fix it permanently because as you said, it starts out slowish but not bad, then gradually just grinds down to the point pages won't even load.

I'm rooting for you, Grant !
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post #22 of 97
2/2/13 at 7:13am
Thanks Grant for the info and your work.
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post #23 of 97
2/2/13 at 8:20am
Thanks G.
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post #24 of 97
2/2/13 at 8:36am
Site works much better, but honestly, I care a lot more about the fragrance directories and wardrobe than the forums Keep up the hard work & thanks, Grant. Hopefully the directory will return soon
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post #25 of 97
2/2/13 at 8:37am
Thank you for the clarification of recent problems.
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post #26 of 97
2/2/13 at 8:57am
Thanks for the update . . . cheers !
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post #27 of 97
2/2/13 at 9:09pm
Thanks for the feedback Grant.

The site seems a lot faster...looks like its the perfume database that's bogging the forum site....

Also you mentioned huddler...you say. I have some experience with that host on other forums. Very good choice. I can't wait for that yo be up and running...

Keep up the great work!
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post #28 of 97
2/2/13 at 11:12pm
Thanks for the update. Fingers crossed
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post #29 of 97
2/3/13 at 12:10am
Thanks for the update, Grant - never underestimate how much we appreciate all your efforts
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post #30 of 97
2/3/13 at 1:04am
Thread Starter 
Yes, the site sure seems zippier without the directory. Although not nearly as functional! I'll be posting more on Huddler next week, but they've had good experience converting sites that are 10 times busier than Basenotes, so the crashyness of Basenotes should be a thing of the past, once that's sorted out.

I'm going to keep the directory off until at least the end of Monday. Traditionally weekends are less busy anyway, so I want to see a full week day as well to make sure. The Directory etc may come up bit-by-bit til I can ascertain which bits are the evil bits.
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post #31 of 97
2/3/13 at 12:00pm
Thanks Grant!

BTW, the directory is cached at the wayback machine. So we still have access to view what was there.
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post #32 of 97
2/3/13 at 3:45pm
Thanks for the update.
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post #33 of 97
2/3/13 at 4:02pm
Further to smellgood4u's post above: for those who don't know about it, Wayback Machine is a tool that takes you to archived copies of web pages. This could be useful to us because it allows us to see a page that's down, as it looked before it went down.

Wayback Machine is here:

http://archive.org/web/web.php

Copy the address of the page you're trying to see, and past it into the Wayback Machine (making sure the http:// part isn't repeated). It will show you a calendar of when that page was last archived. Click on the most recent and voila, you have your page.

Apologies to all those that know this already, I am aiming this post at those folks who are unaware that the internet is cached/archived!
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post #34 of 97
2/4/13 at 4:09am
Pages wouldn't load while I was up, late last night. Other than that it has been much better.
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post #35 of 97
2/4/13 at 6:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by M. Le Pew View Post

Further to smellgood4u's post above: for those who don't know about it, Wayback Machine is a tool that takes you to archived copies of web pages. This could be useful to us because it allows us to see a page that's down, as it looked before it went down.

Wayback Machine is here:

http://archive.org/web/web.php

Copy the address of the page you're trying to see, and past it into the Wayback Machine (making sure the http:// part isn't repeated). It will show you a calendar of when that page was last archived. Click on the most recent and voila, you have your page.

Apologies to all those that know this already, I am aiming this post at those folks who are unaware that the internet is cached/archived!

Thank you for this! I was not aware.
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post #36 of 97
2/4/13 at 6:48am
Too late -- I have pulled all my hair out and now wear a wig.

Cheers, Grant
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post #37 of 97
2/4/13 at 7:38am
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Good luck Grant. We really appreciate your efforts!!
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post #38 of 97
2/4/13 at 9:45am
Best of luck with the future upgrades, Grant. I trailed off from using Basenotes a while back due to the downtime. The Huddler folks have done good things at StyleForum so I'm looking forward to whatever comes next with great anticipation.
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post #39 of 97
2/4/13 at 10:39am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kewart View Post

We appreciate what you are doing behind the scenes, Grant.
Keep on doing what you do so well. Life without basenotes is
quite unthinkable!

Agreed!

Thank you again, Grant.
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post #40 of 97
2/4/13 at 12:37pm
Thanks for the info Grant!
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post #41 of 97
2/4/13 at 12:44pm
Thanks for all the hard work Grant. We may whinge sometimes but we haven't left you. BN is fab when it's so zippy.
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post #42 of 97
2/4/13 at 3:32pm
Thanks for the update & hard working.
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post #43 of 97
2/4/13 at 4:41pm
Thread Starter 
Update - The Directory Pages - like this one are back online. As the Directory Search is still offline, you'll need to use the "Google search" on the top right of each page for now.

Apologies for the piecemeal returning of everything. If it all comes back at once, it's more difficult for me to tell what's working and what isn't. I've spend about 5 hours tonight going through the code, and databases which are used by the Fragrance Profile Pages, so that they are a lot more efficient. I'll get working on the review pages, wardrobes etc tomorrow once I've seen how this holds out.

Cheers all, and good night x
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post #44 of 97
2/4/13 at 5:25pm
Wonderful - thanks for the update G.
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post #45 of 97
2/4/13 at 5:56pm
Thanks for the hard work Grant. Much appreciated. Here's to hoping the wardrobe function will be back soon as well
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post #46 of 97
2/4/13 at 7:17pm
Thanks for the update Grant. What are your plans for the members that have lost there true post count for some unknown reason during this difficult time, like me? It should be around 1100.
I appreciate all that you do! Thanks so much!

Robbie Williams
southerngardens
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post #47 of 97
2/4/13 at 10:47pm
The forum slowed to a crawl tonight. I tried clicking on links and it would take refreshing many times trying to get the page to load. Posting is diffucult, sometimes it posts, other times it doesn't. I hope it gets fixed again. Could it be a DOS type attack to bully the owners to switch hosts? It seems odd that the first fix was the directory because it could mask the DOS attack as just an over taxed server if the intention was for a host to try and get basenotes to leave the old host for a new one. Is that too much of a conspiracy theory?
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post #48 of 97
2/5/13 at 1:35am
Thread Starter 
Well that didn't blooming work.

Okay, bear with me.
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post #49 of 97
2/5/13 at 6:32am
Wardrobe malfunction . . .

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post #50 of 97
2/5/13 at 8:25am
Hi, Grant, appreciate all you do!
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post #51 of 97
2/5/13 at 8:47am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Grant View Post

Well that didn't blooming work.

Okay, bear with me.


Done!




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post #52 of 97
2/5/13 at 9:12am
It's fast again.
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post #53 of 97
2/5/13 at 3:50pm
Grant,

Thank you so much for stopping what you are doing to fix my problem!!!! You are the BEST!! I love Basenotes and will wait it out with you till the bugs are gone. It's too good of a website to let go down the drain!

Thanks and Cheers!

Robbie Williams
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post #54 of 97
2/5/13 at 9:11pm
You remind me of my ex-husband while I was trying to give birth to our son after 23 hours of hard labor.
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post #55 of 97
2/5/13 at 9:39pm
Yay! I am excited for it to be debugged as it is one of my favorite sites to read in my spare time. I recently joined as a new member so that I could post as well Thank you!

- - - Updated - - -

Yay! I am excited for it to be debugged as it is one of my favorite sites to read in my spare time. I recently joined as a new member so that I could post as well Thank you!
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post #56 of 97
2/6/13 at 1:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Schilling View Post

I'm blaming it on the "panty-dropper" posts.

Oops, I thought the panty-dropper comments were supposed to be a secret only shared in the male fragrance threads. Now we're going to have tens of thousands of angry female Basenoters calling us male chauvinist pigs. Oh well.

On the serious side, yes, thanks Grant for your hard work on the website - we all understand that it is quite an undertaking.
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post #57 of 97
2/6/13 at 1:49am
Thread Starter 
Having let the site run with half the directory up for two days, it seems that the crashy bits are now confined to within the period of 4.30 - 8am GMT. Hopefully this will help diagnose the problem, In the meantime, I'm in London today but i'm going to see if I can swiftly get through the code for one of the other sections that is down before I leave.
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post #58 of 97
2/6/13 at 2:42am
I am clueless about these things, but I have always noticed when I am online (and that's very often during the week) that at 6 am. your time the system collapses for about 2-4 minutes. I always thought that maybe it was a backup thing or so.
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post #59 of 97
2/6/13 at 8:24am
My comment was a reply to this comment (apparently removed by Grant)


\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\tJoin DateAug 2009Posts12 \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t



\t\t\t\t
\t\t\t \t\t \t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t Re: Recent downtime and the going forward (February 2013)

\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tjeezes peepl! what kind of "looser attitude" is that? testing...testing.....SSSHHHHMesting!!!! just fix this goddamn website. or just close it completely. Just f***ng close it now!!!!Dont deny your failure or get your s*** together and repair it like it's your mothers life was depending on it!!!!! \t\t\t\t\t\t
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post #60 of 97
2/6/13 at 8:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by RavenNightMyst View Post

My comment was a reply to this comment (apparently removed by Grant)


\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\tJoin DateAug 2009Posts12 \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t



\t\t\t\t
\t\t\t \t\t \t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t Re: Recent downtime and the going forward (February 2013)

\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tjeezes peepl! what kind of "looser attitude" is that? testing...testing.....SSSHHHHMesting!!!! just fix this goddamn website. or just close it completely. Just f***ng close it now!!!!Dont deny your failure or get your s*** together and repair it like it's your mothers life was depending on it!!!!! \t\t\t\t\t\t

Strange post......????
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