Forum performance - like a slug

Dr Doom · Minor Poster Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 74

Who are the site admins, does anybody know?

TonyGosling · Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 12:47 pm Post subject:

From the 'about this website' section
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=7239

Current Administrators
JHR (Semi-Active)
5UPerRaAdMiN (domain holder - inactive)
Andrew Johnson
Ian Neal
Mick Meaney

Moderators
John White
TonyGosling

See mods panel here
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/groupcp.php?g=281

Ian Neal told me by text the other day that he has emailed PowWeb asking them to resolve the slothful forum issue. As far as I know no more has been done.

The inaction and lack of decision-making relating to this forum is becoming a serious problem which needs to be resolved asap. It will not go away, only get worse.

As I've said before, No Planer Andrew Johnson's presence as an admin. is increasingly untenable particularly as he has been lobbying for the removal of John White and myself as moderators by phone behind the scenes. This is in no way to decry Andrew's hard work scanning new users for shills and spammers.

I would like to see a proper forum management and moderation structure thrashed out, or even politely agreed, by the existing mods and admins at a face to face meeting arranged for the convenience of all with reasonable notice. And with suggestions considered from all forum users.

Rowan Berkeley · Relentless Limpet Shill Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 306

Several of us think the site's script is buggy, so this is nothing to do with the ISP.

The mods are a different issue altogether.

ishaar

Could one of the mods please pm me when this site is up and running again. Like others I keep getting this:

TonyGosling · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:36 am Post subject:

Rowan, you're not helping.

PowWeb is US based which is an issue since a new US law allows US
authorities to spy on all websites that use a US based ISP and therefore subject to US law.

Any thoughts on this fine people?

Rowan Berkeley · Relentless Limpet Shill Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 306

Tony, i think the script is buggy, and your assumption that the slow down is caused by enemy action suggests that you may be rather buggy too, but this is quite ok, the world needs fantasy.

ian neal · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 2:58 pm Post subject:

Being an IT dunce I'm unsure how to know if a site is buggy and if it is how to unbuggify it, but Rowan any advice directed towards Mick Meaney by PM gratefully rec'd

One possible cause / solution might be to prevent guests visiting the site and just allow registered users. There appear to be a large number of guests regularly hanging around. Possibly just curious passers-by but possibly not. Any thoughts. Would preventing guests speed things up?

Mick Meaney · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 10:58 pm Post subject:

My guess is the host are cramming a ton of web sites on a single server, the problem is a database one, their mysql server can't handle the amount of requests.

Ian preventing guests might make a difference but it will also block search engines, Google brings in a lot of our traffic so if that can't index the site, then RINF becomes the main source of our traffic which isn't ideal. I wouldn't suggest blocking search engines at all.

I thought the redesign might help speed things up by making the index page quicker to load.

The problem is with PowWeb. This site or one of the site on the same server this site is hosted on is causing a massive drain on mysql resources.

ian neal · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 11:34 pm Post subject:

Could it be a denial of service attack

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack
>
> "One common method of attack involves saturating the target (victim)
> machine with external communications requests"
>
> What happens if someone (or several people) have their finger on the
> refresh button? Could some person(s) who hang out in Critics' Corner be
> doing this? Seeing as we have to now log on to access the site could it
> be that someone who is registered is slowing the system down with
> multiple requests?

This is what I'm suspecting our current 'guests' may be doing?

ian neal · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 11:56 pm Post subject:

Can I check that all users are experiencing these problems. is anyone not experiencing these problems?

Why would we have 55 guests (as i type) if guests are now unable to view the forum?

Thanks. Trying to get this resolved asap

chek · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:06 am Post subject:

Yes I too am frequently getting the max users SQL warning, particularly often (nearly but not quite every time) during the past week or so.

Also strangely, I haven't had email notification of responses to watched topics for ages - yet this one has suddenly appeared out of the blue when my last reply in this thread was back in Nov 2006!

warp66 · New Poster Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 9

I have a suspicion it could be something to do with the new IE "multi tab" browsing facility . Could it be several searches from one browser could be seen as many connections? I only started having problems when using that facility. Mind you , my knowledge of computers ends at pressing the on button Confused

ian neal · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:18 am Post subject:

Just had a on line chat with powweb who inform they upgraded their server/MySQL to 5.0 and that currently there is not a problem. I'm not convinced but I will be trying to get this resolved tomorrow.

Apologies for the problems

chek · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:19 am Post subject:

Nah - we can rule that one out Warp.
I still get the 'max user unable to connect warning' on office networks and homes using IE6, Firefox and Opera browsers.
And also when I've tried having a quick peak at the site from BT, Orange, AOL, NTL and C&W ISP's when fixing other peoples systems.

Disco_Destroyer · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:20 am Post subject:

have you tried running a search for the software? Maybe it needs updating or something, youu should be able to find support if you know the software Wink

for example:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikonboard
http://forums.ikonboard.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invision_Power_Board
http://www.invisionboard.com/
http://forums.invisionpower.com/

Disco_Destroyer · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:22 am Post subject:

as this looks like Invision (maybe?)
http://www.securityspace.com/smysecure/catid.html?id=52057

TonyGosling · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:22 am Post subject:

sure is flying now
oh! what a miracle Smoke

Have the NSA discovered we might move to a server outside the USA which they then have to illegally hack into to read our PMs and private section.

I'm unconvinced by PowWeb's story - can we move this forum out of US territory please.

Should be some news on this very soon to announce here.........

warp66 · New Poster Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 9

thanks for clearing that up for me Chek , At least I can carry on as normal and keep my fingers crossed lol . I can see all possible is being done to try and eleviate the problem . Thx all for your efforts

Disco_Destroyer · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 12:26 am Post subject:

lol strangely I just found this lurking at the bottom of the page hehe I'll be quiet now Laughing

http://www.phpbb.com/

Thermate911 · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 1:26 pm Post subject:

FWIW - Yep, I'm getting the DB overload error msg too.

Disco_Destroyer · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 1:34 pm Post subject:

incase this was missed on the other thread? Also the same warning happened to me today at 12:48ish for maybe half an hour!

ukginger · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 1:45 pm Post subject:

As somebody who has been around the block just a couple of times...

The problem is caused by the Hosting Company.

What is happening is that the MySQL ( pronounced "my-sequel" ) is failing the load. An exact diagnosis as to why this might be is best summed up by the phrase

"You get what you pay for"

Stephen · Moderate Poster Joined: 03 Jul 2006 Posts: 819

ian neal · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 4:15 pm Post subject:

Because instead of clicking on the latest topics and getting the log in page, you can just click on the forum link at the top of the home page and access the forum that way. But I do think this will put off new comers to this site. Crying or Very sad

When I logged out and tried this I still came to the log in page?

General lurkers are v welcome and so as soon as the forum performance issue is rectified guests will be able to view again

Rowan Berkeley · Relentless Limpet Shill Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 306

Thermate911 · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 4:28 pm Post subject:

chek · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 4:44 pm Post subject:

ukginger · Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:39 am Post subject:

Come on, stay on topic

The Forum is just a mySQL database, it can be moved no problem.

First you freeze the Forum temporarily, then you make a complete backup of the database, copy it onto the new server, install phpBB, load the database by restore form backup.

Quick test...

Go back to the original server and put in a redirect.

ian neal · Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:13 pm Post subject:

This from powweb. At least they acknowledge the problem is their end. I have to laugh when they say they are working with federal authorities to identify the criminals when elements of said authorities would be top of my suspects list.

Recent Service Issues

Over the weekend, PowWeb servers became the target of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. DDoS attacks are malicious attempts to interrupt Internet services by intentionally "flooding" and overwhelming providers with bogus data. Once the volume of this data exceeds an architecture's capacity, systems can no longer perform their tasks and performance issues occur.

While our hosting platform is designed to withstand such attacks, many customers experienced a service degradation, and in some cases, an interruption in services altogether. Thank you for your patience while we worked to combat the attack and bring all services back to normal as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, DDoS attacks are not uncommon, and Internet criminals are constantly discovering new ways to disrupt services. Please be assured that we are working with federal authorities to identify those responsible for the attack and prevent any type of future disruption. If you'd like to learn more, Google "DDoS attacks" or "DNS storms." As always, if you have questions or concerns, please contact us .
- 09/04/07 at 11:40 EDT

ian neal · Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:26 pm Post subject:

This from powweb. At least they acknowledge the problem is their end. I have to laugh when they say they are working with federal authorities to identify the criminals when elements of said authorities would be top of my suspects list.

Recent Service Issues

Over the weekend, PowWeb servers became the target of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. DDoS attacks are malicious attempts to interrupt Internet services by intentionally "flooding" and overwhelming providers with bogus data. Once the volume of this data exceeds an architecture's capacity, systems can no longer perform their tasks and performance issues occur.

While our hosting platform is designed to withstand such attacks, many customers experienced a service degradation, and in some cases, an interruption in services altogether. Thank you for your patience while we worked to combat the attack and bring all services back to normal as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, DDoS attacks are not uncommon, and Internet criminals are constantly discovering new ways to disrupt services. Please be assured that we are working with federal authorities to identify those responsible for the attack and prevent any type of future disruption. If you'd like to learn more, Google "DDoS attacks" or "DNS storms." As always, if you have questions or concerns, please contact us .
- 09/04/07 at 11:40 EDT

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