Yeah, this board really is a poor ad for invision. They should really remove their name from here <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I know id never use them, not after this. I got to admit that now, when it does go down, it doesnt stay down for as long. However, the frequency of it going down has increased <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> Now it seems to go down at least once a day.
Whats making it crash?
One day its going to completely crash, and we'll loose everything. Mark my words.
well instability is one theory, but cash flow is the other. Take a look at the stats on this board and you'll see that there are tons of posts. Everytime someone posts data goes everywhere. Especially long posts that everyone is subscribed too. So my guess is that the forums are down sometimes to save on bandwidth and storage. That stuff costs alota money you know.
Oh and the reason they are using this board and not something like phpBB (which is awesome) is because invision uses less queries or something. making it easier on the server.
But I do not claim to know the real reason why the forums are down. It does make me upset though, especially when I'm over my gf's and i can't play NS and theres no forum <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
There error is a SQL error roughly stateing "too many connections" - this has nothing to do with invision and has everything to do with the hosting company that hosts the NS website.
I'm not sure what the hosting company has to do with it ... ?
Usually if there are too many connections (which isn't always the error, but a lot of times it is) then the machine is underpowered. Generally with mySQL it's a RAM issue. If there isn't enough RAM in the machine to cache large enough portions of the mySQL data files, then there is a lot of disk swapping going on during the queries, and the queries start taking longer. This problem obviously compounds itself, and you get a bottleneck, and the connection limit starts to be reached.
I have solved this on high traffic sites by moving the mySQL database to it's own machine with multiple GB of RAM, and load balancing the web serving across multiple machines if necessary. Obviously this may not be an option for the NS team due to money constraints. The same thing happened on another gaming site I'm familiar with, and what ended up happening was the community pitched in donations and they bought a few dedicated servers, which were hosted at a larger gaming site company, who was donating the bandwidth.
The bottom line is, forums are resource hogs, and the server machine is likely overworked. That's what it looks like based on my experience with similar sites, but I have no idea what the specifics are here.
Most of the time, MySQL is complied with less max connections than the server can actually handle, so that error is artificial, but a pain in the arse to fix.
<!--QuoteBegin--DeathToll_David+Jan 8 2003, 12:17 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DeathToll_David @ Jan 8 2003, 12:17 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You dont understand what a hostig company has to do with this?
Did you even read your own post?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I own a hosting company, and have been maintaining high-traffic mySQL based sites for years.
The hosting company (the people that provide the bandwidth and physical server space) are not to blame for specific application problems on a server. If you took the server that the NS forums are served on, and moved it to any hosting company, the problem would persist. It's not a hosting company issue.
(Obviously, there are exceptions, like if the hosting company happens to also maintain the NS website and forum software, which is highly unlikely.)
Blaming the hosting company in this case is like blaming Chevrolet when your camaro runs out of gas.
<!--QuoteBegin--Bytor+Jan 8 2003, 02:03 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Bytor @ Jan 8 2003, 02:03 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Blaming the hosting company in this case is like blaming Chevrolet when your camaro runs out of gas.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Amen, brother! Amen! <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
If you look at the whois info for the domain, it appears to be hosted by rackshack.net which is exactly where I host my servers. They lease dedicated servers and provide the bandwidth, but all server administration is out of their hands.
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It's the beta, thats my best guess.
I know id never use them, not after this. I got to admit that now, when it does go down, it doesnt stay down for as long. However, the frequency of it going down has increased <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> Now it seems to go down at least once a day.
Whats making it crash?
One day its going to completely crash, and we'll loose everything. Mark my words.
Oh and the reason they are using this board and not something like phpBB (which is awesome) is because invision uses less queries or something. making it easier on the server.
But I do not claim to know the real reason why the forums are down. It does make me upset though, especially when I'm over my gf's and i can't play NS and theres no forum <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Usually if there are too many connections (which isn't always the error, but a lot of times it is) then the machine is underpowered. Generally with mySQL it's a RAM issue. If there isn't enough RAM in the machine to cache large enough portions of the mySQL data files, then there is a lot of disk swapping going on during the queries, and the queries start taking longer. This problem obviously compounds itself, and you get a bottleneck, and the connection limit starts to be reached.
I have solved this on high traffic sites by moving the mySQL database to it's own machine with multiple GB of RAM, and load balancing the web serving across multiple machines if necessary. Obviously this may not be an option for the NS team due to money constraints. The same thing happened on another gaming site I'm familiar with, and what ended up happening was the community pitched in donations and they bought a few dedicated servers, which were hosted at a larger gaming site company, who was donating the bandwidth.
The bottom line is, forums are resource hogs, and the server machine is likely overworked. That's what it looks like based on my experience with similar sites, but I have no idea what the specifics are here.
Did you even read your own post?
see?
Did you even read your own post?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I own a hosting company, and have been maintaining high-traffic mySQL based sites for years.
The hosting company (the people that provide the bandwidth and physical server space) are not to blame for specific application problems on a server. If you took the server that the NS forums are served on, and moved it to any hosting company, the problem would persist. It's not a hosting company issue.
(Obviously, there are exceptions, like if the hosting company happens to also maintain the NS website and forum software, which is highly unlikely.)
Blaming the hosting company in this case is like blaming Chevrolet when your camaro runs out of gas.
Amen, brother! Amen! <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->