Sloooow Bored

[tubadave]

Hey folks. Quick post (probably not quick, actually) to let everyone know that I am aware of all of the technical issues....LB and I have been discussing it, and I've been looking in and experiencing it for myself. Rest assured that I am working on getting it fixed. I've seen the theory presented that the issue might relate to another website on my web hosts' shared server pulling too much bandwith/CPU and dragging this site down. I'm reasonably certain that's not the case, as I actually run another phpBB message board on this same web space (same servers, etc.) that doesn't have this issue. That forum is MUCH newer and MUCH smaller (age is measured in months, and there are less than 1500 posts total) and my hunch is that nearly four years and 400,000 posts on this forum have caused the databases to grow so large that the software/server keeps timing out while trying to navigate through all of it.

I'm going to get with the support folks from my hosting provider ASAP and see if they can help me diagnose the exact problem, and/or suggest a solution. I don't know what the fix will be, but my plan right now is to try to do something during a weekend.....this coming weekend, if I can manage it. I think, at the very least, I'm going to have to remove a lot of the older posts from the Bored (and hopefully, lest LB hunt me down and kill me, store them someplace else where they can be easily accessed.) The last-resort nothing-else-will-work solution is to blow the whole thing up and start over, which I don't want to do, but if the slowness I endured just trying to log in and get to the point where I could type up this post is any indicator, it would still be preferable to the status quo.

In any case, once it's Fix Time, I will have to take the Bored completely offline for a while.....probably a whole weekend, as I mentioned. I'll give everyone as much warning as possible before I do that.

Hang in there everyone......help is on the way.



tubadave

[littlebeast13]

One thing I just recently thought of, and not sure if it has anything to do with our issues, but a lot of the weirdness with the Bored seemed to coincide with it..... do you think the PM bomb that seemed to wreak havoc with things on the Bored contributed to this in any way? Before that happened, it was no problem to delete the hordes of spammer registrations we'd get everyday, but afterwards it was so troublesome to even delete one member at a time that I gave up and they have piled up at the door ever since. I also seem to recall the daily half hour long Internal Server Errors we grew accustomed to started not long afterwards..... I still wonder what those were all about, as they don't really seem to have anything to do with the deluge of ISE's we've gotten recently.....

Thanks for checking in and doing whatever you can for us. As one of this Bored's biggest consumers, I can't thank you enough....... though I will still track you down and kill you if you don't create an archive for whatever has to be thrown away.....

lb13

[tubadave]

I never have been able to determine the reason why that PM bomb caused as many problems as it did. And now that you mention it, I do recall that the Bored had been pretty free of issues up to that point, but never again afterward. I'll keep that in mind as I'm troubleshooting this (which will not be any more tonight.....I really shouldn't be up this late!)

I'll keep everyone posted as I get things figured out.

[peacock2121]

Thanks Dave!

[Queen Fantine VIII]

I never have been able to determine the reason why that PM bomb caused as many problems as it did. And now that you mention it, I do recall that the Bored had been pretty free of issues up to that point, but never again afterward. I'll keep that in mind as I'm troubleshooting this (which will not be any more tonight.....I really shouldn't be up this late!)

I'll keep everyone posted as I get things figured out.

Would scads of unread PMs contribute to the problem? I know that I am reminded every time I sign on to a different ID that it's been a while since I've done it because I have 7 unread messages. Is there a way as an administrator to mass delete PMs that have been just sitting around unread since such and such a date?

Again, maybe a drop in the bucket..... When somebody quotes a post with a picture or video, does that take up double space or just link to the original? I always try to remember to remove them from a quote and just leave the text to which I'm replying. If this does take up a lot of space it would be a total pain in the ass to go back and take out all of the duplicates, but it would keep some peoples' heads from exploding if entire posts were erased. I'd be willing to be a volunteer to spend some free time here and there going through and cleaning up the extras (assuming that I could be trusted to have temporary moderator capabilities....ha!).

Also assuming that people wouldn't have a problem with their old posts being edited (for that purpose only, of course).

[littlebeast13]

I never have been able to determine the reason why that PM bomb caused as many problems as it did. And now that you mention it, I do recall that the Bored had been pretty free of issues up to that point, but never again afterward. I'll keep that in mind as I'm troubleshooting this (which will not be any more tonight.....I really shouldn't be up this late!)

I'll keep everyone posted as I get things figured out.

Would scads of unread PMs contribute to the problem? I know that I am reminded every time I sign on to a different ID that it's been a while since I've done it because I have 7 unread messages. Is there a way as an administrator to mass delete PMs that have been just sitting around unread since such and such a date?

Again, maybe a drop in the bucket..... When somebody quotes a post with a picture or video, does that take up double space or just link to the original? I always try to remember to remove them from a quote and just leave the text to which I'm replying. If this does take up a lot of space it would be a total pain in the ass to go back and take out all of the duplicates, but it would keep some peoples' heads from exploding if entire posts were erased. I'd be willing to be a volunteer to spend some free time here and there going through and cleaning up the extras (assuming that I could be trusted to have temporary moderator capabilities....ha!).

Also assuming that people wouldn't have a problem with their old posts being edited (for that purpose only, of course).

Oh no!!!! Don't tell me Beast's Log is clogging up the Bored!!!!!

Whatever will I do???

lb13

[Queen Fantine VIII]

I never have been able to determine the reason why that PM bomb caused as many problems as it did. And now that you mention it, I do recall that the Bored had been pretty free of issues up to that point, but never again afterward. I'll keep that in mind as I'm troubleshooting this (which will not be any more tonight.....I really shouldn't be up this late!)

I'll keep everyone posted as I get things figured out.

Would scads of unread PMs contribute to the problem? I know that I am reminded every time I sign on to a different ID that it's been a while since I've done it because I have 7 unread messages. Is there a way as an administrator to mass delete PMs that have been just sitting around unread since such and such a date?

Again, maybe a drop in the bucket..... When somebody quotes a post with a picture or video, does that take up double space or just link to the original? I always try to remember to remove them from a quote and just leave the text to which I'm replying. If this does take up a lot of space it would be a total pain in the ass to go back and take out all of the duplicates, but it would keep some peoples' heads from exploding if entire posts were erased. I'd be willing to be a volunteer to spend some free time here and there going through and cleaning up the extras (assuming that I could be trusted to have temporary moderator capabilities....ha!).

Also assuming that people wouldn't have a problem with their old posts being edited (for that purpose only, of course).

Oh no!!!! Don't tell me Beast's Log is clogging up the Bored!!!!!

Whatever will I do???

lb13

You'll just have to quit the league. I'm sure that MaBeast will understand once the necessity has been properly explained to her.....

Meanwhile, come on people, when you end up posting the same thing four times instead of editing all of them to blame the server or state that they're duplicates, just delete them! If a post is currently the last post in the thread, it can be deleted.

[Estonut]

Again, maybe a drop in the bucket..... When somebody quotes a post with a picture or video, does that take up double space or just link to the original? I always try to remember to remove them from a quote and just leave the text to which I'm replying.

The pictures and videos are always stored elsewhere and the posts just contain the URLs to point to them, so what is stored (here) is exactly what you see in the "Post a Reply" window when you quote a post.

[MarleysGh0st]

Thanks, Dave!

Although you've never mentioned money being an issue, let me go on record as being ready to chip in, if that's needed.

[Bob Juch]

Dave,

While it might be our own database, I suspect it's a another database sharing the database server that's causing us problems. We shouldn't be causing all that many I/Os but someone else's might.

[Bob Juch]

Dave,

While it might be our own database, I suspect it's a another database sharing the database server that's causing us problems. We shouldn't be causing all that many I/Os but someone else's might.

You should be able to get stats from our hosting provider and ask them to move our database if necessary.

[Bob78164]

Hey folks. Quick post (probably not quick, actually) to let everyone know that I am aware of all of the technical issues....LB and I have been discussing it, and I've been looking in and experiencing it for myself. Rest assured that I am working on getting it fixed. I've seen the theory presented that the issue might relate to another website on my web hosts' shared server pulling too much bandwith/CPU and dragging this site down. I'm reasonably certain that's not the case, as I actually run another phpBB message board on this same web space (same servers, etc.) that doesn't have this issue. That forum is MUCH newer and MUCH smaller (age is measured in months, and there are less than 1500 posts total) and my hunch is that nearly four years and 400,000 posts on this forum have caused the databases to grow so large that the software/server keeps timing out while trying to navigate through all of it.

I'm going to get with the support folks from my hosting provider ASAP and see if they can help me diagnose the exact problem, and/or suggest a solution. I don't know what the fix will be, but my plan right now is to try to do something during a weekend.....this coming weekend, if I can manage it. I think, at the very least, I'm going to have to remove a lot of the older posts from the Bored (and hopefully, lest LB hunt me down and kill me, store them someplace else where they can be easily accessed.) The last-resort nothing-else-will-work solution is to blow the whole thing up and start over, which I don't want to do, but if the slowness I endured just trying to log in and get to the point where I could type up this post is any indicator, it would still be preferable to the status quo.

In any case, once it's Fix Time, I will have to take the Bored completely offline for a while.....probably a whole weekend, as I mentioned. I'll give everyone as much warning as possible before I do that.

Hang in there everyone......help is on the way.



tubadave

Glad to know you're on the case. Like many others, I'm happy to do whatever I can to help out.

A couple of observations. First, it seems to me that there must be some kind of external factor contributing to the problem. I surmise that it's not merely the size of the Bored simply because the problem is intermittent. At times (like the last few minutes) we get more-or-less-normal response times.

Second, even during the molasses periods, some functions are worse than others. I can often load the front page of the forum even when I can't get into specific threads. And I can sometimes get the "quote" or "reply" screens, but find myself unable to complete the post. At other times, it turns out that my attempt posted, but the Bored is unable to complete the "automatic display" process -- I confirm that my attempt did indeed post by seeing (often from the front page) my name as the thread's last poster.

The one other thing I've noticed is that it seems a little easier to get into a thread by clicking on the "last post in thread" link than it is by clicking on the "first unread post" link. Here's hoping you find these observations helpful. --Bob

[littlebeast13]

A couple of observations. First, it seems to me that there must be some kind of external factor contributing to the problem. I surmise that it's not merely the size of the Bored simply because the problem is intermittent. At times (like the last few minutes) we get more-or-less-normal response times.

Second, even during the molasses periods, some functions are worse than others. I can often load the front page of the forum even when I can't get into specific threads. And I can sometimes get the "quote" or "reply" screens, but find myself unable to complete the post. At other times, it turns out that my attempt post, but the Bored is unable to complete the "automatic display" process -- I confirm that my attempt did indeed post by seeing (often from the front page) my name as the thread's last poster.

The one other thing I've noticed is that it seems a little easier to get into a thread by clicking on the "last post in thread" link than it is by clicking on the "first unread post" link. Here's hoping you find these observations helpful. --Bob

I think the last part of your second observation is answered by the third one.... the easiest way to get into a thread during the slow periods is by just clicking on it..... clicking the last post button is bad, and the go to oldest unread post is even worse.... and that's essentially what the Bored is doing is directing you to a certain post once you post a message. I noticed while doing my avatar archive as early as this past Spring that bringing up specific posts in threads caused massive delays even in non-molasses times.....

lb13