Recent outage July 2019 - server hardware failure

[theOptom]

The backup seems to be about a week old. The host has deployed a new server with a new setup (I assume that's a good thing). Let me know if you notice any issues.

Anyone who signed up in the last week will have to re-register.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

[Rick Sanderson]

The host has deployed a new server

I genuinely think you should deploy a new host. I've never known anything like it.

[MTP]

Is there not a way that the database could be backed up more frequently? I can't believe that it would be that large a file, given that the bulk of it would be text.

For example this mod: https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/exte ... _backup_2/

In saying that, the backup file should still be removed from the server.

[Hornhaut]

The host has deployed a new server

I genuinely think you should deploy a new host. I've never known anything like it.

I'm of the same opinion. The current hosting service is anything but reliable.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for this being the last outage in a while.

J.

[theOptom]

I think it's just been bad luck. I will see how this new setup goes.

The backup file is about 500MB.

[Johnb]

You lost some classic gems between Dispenser and myself, lol

Damn, I had him on the ropes, again!

[Mark312]

I'm not sure I believe in bad luck where internet outages are concerned.

[lad_from_leeds]

I'm checking the site a lot less these days as users drift away and posts become fewer and farther between.

When I do try and log on and find it's down it's a real pain in the ass, particularly if things I've taken time to type have since gone missing. It's a real shame as I've had a lot of good advice and made some good friends from this site over the years but I think unless these outages are sorted I'll start checking less and less and probably wouldn't be the only one who drifts off.

[theOptom]

It is annoying and I agree would obviously make one less inclined to use the site etc but as I said I think it was mainly a run of bad luck, e.g. first outage was an attack from a China IP which once found and blocked restored function, 2nd one was an updated server security module which incorrectly blocked traffic and turned out we didn't need to use a few days old backup, and this time was a hardware failure which was restored to a backup 1 week old.

I think there was only one catastrophic hardware failure in 14 years, which was last year. That was mainly annoying because of my fault in not backing up regularly. Currently there is a weekly backup made.

I could make auto backups more regularly, e.g. every 2 days, but this would mean the server is engaged in making 500MB file backups every 2 days which may slow things down, and to be totally safe requires downloading them (so 1GB in total of extra server traffic). I will check to see if it's possible to schedule the time a backup is made.

[eagle]

Page loading very slow this morning. Timed at 13secs followed by 14 then 13.

[MTP]

The backup seems to be about a week old. The host has deployed a new server with a new setup (I assume that's a good thing). Let me know if you notice any issues.

Anyone who signed up in the last week will have to re-register.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

I think EyePics is broken, boss.

[theOptom]

Yeah I noticed that hence removed the link from the top. I will get a programmer to take a look at it in the next few weeks.