For the crazy server move!!

Howdy,

Despite all the best laid plans and attempts to prepare for the unknown, we can all see that things do not always work out the way we hope!! We are up against some minor issues and a few major ones. Please pray for the following:

1. The email issues beyond our control are resolved quickly.

Email is the connecting string that holds a forum like this together. It is the only way I have of contacting people. It is what keeps people coming back to the forum. It is necessary for new people to register. Having it messed up is a VERY serious problem for any forum!

2. The tech support guys at our new hosting service will be able to properly configure the MySQL server that is the engine of the forum.

MySQL is the underlying foundation of this site. It is what drives all the database processes, stores and retrieves information. If it is not right, it affects everything.

3. That all of our members, and even those people trying to register during all this mess, will be patient and stick with us.

I've spent a LOT of time and effort in growing and guiding this community. I want to see that continue. I hope that everyone will understand that growing can be painful and frustrating but that we will get through it.

4. That I will have the patience, determination, and ability to see this through.

There are often times when I step back and ask myself, "Is this really worth it?" Sometimes it is after a big flare up of touchy topics that get everyone worked into a frenzy. Other times it is technical issues that seem so far beyond my grasp. Then there is the whole special issue of the spammers... Pray that I will be able to find that balance point where I can devote the time and attention needed to the site without neglecting the time and attention that is needed in other areas of my life.

All my issues seem to have cleared up on their own by about 8 this morning.

Wait, let me clarify, all my TWT-related issues. I'm getting mail, can log it, etc...

Meister, dooode, chill...we're doin' good over here.

What you're doing is a GOOD THING and I think I speak for many, many here who would probably agree that we can be patient for whatever it takes. And let us know how we can help.

So take a few deep breaths, Scott. We're behind ya!

I was all operational by noon Sunday.

everything seems to be back to normal (or better) from what I've seen.

Hope the little strings get themselves tied off here shortly

So no one noticed the site being down for several hours this evening...

It did go south on me while I was online but no issues since then. We're content to wait it out Scott. If you have the patience for this, then we sure should. Thanks for all you do for all of us!

Thanks for the effort and time it takes to be the Mom for this operation. I know it can at times be a thankless, difficult, time-consuming, dirty, annoying, appalling, frustrating, scary, impossible, hair-raising job.

Tourmeister said:

So no one noticed the site being down for several hours this evening...

Click to expand...

Yep, but I had read your note on the server move so it was no big deal to just 'hang out' until it came back on-line like I knew it would!

Thanks for such a great site and all your hard work.

When the site wouldn't work I just went for a ride. When I came back, it worked fine. I've done that three times. It's amazing how even a short ride has health benefits.

You have done well, Scott. Much better than other sites I've watched change servers. They took weeks to sort everything out.

Can we just go back to phpBB?













No! Don't do that!
This forum has the best setup of any that I use regularly!

My ongoing complaint - I spend too much time here!


We will survive...

Tourmeister said:

So no one noticed the site being down for several hours this evening...

Click to expand...

Don't fret over it too much; it's just a little bump in the road...

Tourmeister said:

So no one noticed the site being down for several hours this evening...

Click to expand...

What do you mean it was down! How can it be down, you can't get any stuff if it's down. Who says it's down?












Hey this ain't down, your just fooling with us aren't you?

Tourmeister said:

So no one noticed the site being down for several hours this evening...

Click to expand...

Remember, evening for TM is 2am-5am.

Thanks, again, TM for sticking with it. A couple of hours here and there is not the end of the world (almost).

Every time I have a server crisis at work, I have to fight the urge to get all worked up and stressed out. At the end of the day, it's not life or death and "it's all gonna' burn". I know it might sound corny, but I tell myself, "All I can do, is ALL I can do.", meaning there's only so much I can do and control, I'm just one guy doing his best and I gotta let the rest go.

Tracker said:

fight the urge to get all worked up and stressed out. At the end of the day, it's not life or death and "it's all gonna' burn".

Click to expand...

Amen to that. I'd rather Scott had it down for a few days and get some sleep, rather than staying up trying to get the bugs out. And it wouldn't matter if this were running on Oracle or WebSphere, sidegrades and upgrades carry their pain.

So Scott, you do have help looking at PHP and MySQL issues right? Doing that by yourself is a nightmare.

Did they dedicate an entire server, or provide a VM? The latter seems a groovy solution.

I spent the evening in the garage getting worked up over other things... The server had to be rebooted. Fortunately, the guys at ST-Owners.com knew how to get the tech guys to drive back up to the server office to do that or the sight would have been down until this morning

Tomorrow I leave for Mexico until next Monday. I will be in cell phone and pager no mans land... While the site issues are frustrating, I will not melt down over them. Recall that the Jews got in trouble because they only time they asked for help from God was when really big bad things happened. God wanted to be involved in the routine of their daily lives as well. If I tried to only get him involved with the big things, I'd basically be saying, "I got it under control, thanks anyway..." Obviously, I don't So I could use his help However, I have not lost the larger perspective...

Whoa,

We have a managed dedicated server. It has four websites on it, TWT, ST-Owners, Backroad Motorcycle Tours and Piston Powered Passion. The latter two are just static sites with unchanging html and a few images. STO and TWT both are similar in size and demands. We both run about 150 users at a time and average about 40GB of transfer a month. The server is a dual 3GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM, running Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL and some other stuff that is meaningless to me Right now, I think the performance issues are related to how the software is configured, particularly the MySQL. I am not a programmer. I am a user in every sense of the word So I frequent the VB support forum, make heavy use of the search feature, and then share my info with the techie guys. Ideally, they will know what to do... Dave (an Admin at STO) is very much a techie guy in comparison to me. Since we share the same machine and they are having the same issues, he is on top of things. So if he gets their issues solved, ours get solved as well. He's a good guy and I have a lot of confidence in him. So I can relax and wait...

Tourmeister said:

Whoa,

We have a managed dedicated server. It has four websites on it, TWT, ST-Owners, Backroad Motorcycle Tours and Piston Powered Passion. The latter two are just static sites with unchanging html and a few images. STO and TWT both are similar in size and demands. We both run about 150 users at a time and average about 40GB of transfer a month. The server is a dual 3GHz P4 with 1GB of RAM, running Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL and some other stuff that is meaningless to me Right now, I think the performance issues are related to how the software is configured, particularly the MySQL. I am not a programmer. I am a user in every sense of the word So I frequent the VB support forum, make heavy use of the search feature, and then share my info with the techie guys. Ideally, they will know what to do... Dave (an Admin at STO) is very much a techie guy in comparison to me. Since we share the same machine and they are having the same issues, he is on top of things. So if he gets their issues solved, ours get solved as well. He's a good guy and I have a lot of confidence in him. So I can relax and wait...

Click to expand...

Ummmm.....I really wanted to help, but yer WAY above my head.

So how 'bout I just make you some microwave popcorn and go find some Dilbert cartoons? I hear you nerdy guys like that kinda thing...

jest stirrin' up trouble over here,

Jill

Tourmeister said:

So no one noticed the site being down for several hours this evening...

Click to expand...

it went slow, then gone right after I posted the remark prior to yours. Pinged, Telnet'd to port 80 so figured you were working on it and it would come back up in time.
Popped in Casino Royale and the site was back up when I was done. no complaints from me.

hehe, the two sites I frequent most live on the same server, go figure.

Well, we've upped the memory in the machine today to 2GB Ram. Hopefully that will cover the performance issues.

Tourmeister said:

So no one noticed the site being down for several hours this evening...

Click to expand...

I noticed and the withdrawal was severe..........

I just went over to another forum for the evening to remember why I love this one so much.

Keep up the good work Scott. It is certainly worth it for us....

It's a good thing this all happened in the Spring - now you can just make a splash page that says "Get off 'yer behind, turn off the computer, and go for a ride!" for when the site has issues.