Server Issues, slowness, upgrading server soon [solved - server upgraded]

[SuperSleeper]

Howdy folks,

The datacenter that houses our server was having some issues all this morning starting at about 9 am or thereabouts, U.S. Central Time.

They are aware of the problem and are currently addressing it.  The server loads have come considerably down from their highs earlier this morning, but these issues may come back throughout the day until the issue is entirely resolved.

In the meantime, I'm opening the forum back up (for now), but we may have to temporarily shut things down again if the problem comes back.

SUGGESTION:  If you're typing a rather large post, I'd suggest copying your text PRIOR to hitting the "Post Reply" or "Post Thread" buttons, just in case we have to shut down the forum again right as you are submitting your post.  That way, you can save the text of your post in a text document (so that your work is not lost) and then paste it into a post later when the forum comes back online.

This temporary measure should no longer be needed once the datacenter assures me that all is well again.

After this particular issue is completely resolved, I'm going to put in an order for an upgrade to our server, which will likely double our RAM & equip us with a  faster processor so that we can absorb issues like this without having to shut down the forum.  We don't really have the funds to do that, but we'll figure all that out later.

In the past, Apnea Board has remained online with something like a 99.8% uptime, so this particular issue (and the shorter one we had last week) are highly infrequent.

I apologize for the inconvenience, folks.  I'm trying my best to make sure we have a robust system for the future and I'm spending most of my day today keeping on top of this, and doing little else.

[SuperSleeper]

If we have to take the forum back off-line for a bit, you should be able to see my updates on this page:

http://www.apneaboard.com/advisory.htm

Might want to bookmark that link.

That link has remained active all throughout these issues, except for 10 minutes during a server re-boot, so I'm hoping that even if the forum goes down again, you'll be able to receive updates from me on our server status.

As I said on that page:     The main website, the wiki and the Mantis site (private site used by the OSCAR Team) will remain open, even if we shut down the forum again temporarily.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the OSCAR download site will remain open as well.

Thanks again for your patience, folks.


Been a long day, but I'm hopeful we can soon return to normal.  

[Sleeprider]

Welcome back. I assume we're going to see another fundraiser soon to accomplish some upgrades.

[SuperSleeper]

Welcome back. I assume we're going to see another fundraiser soon to accomplish some upgrades.

Ha... I hope not.  I hate fund-raisers. 

Still talking to the sales people about possible upgrades & cost.  I'm not going to do anything that might involve any type of upgrade until this particular issue is resolved for sure.

Way too early to pull the trigger on the upgrade.  I'm still knee-deep in monitoring what's going on today every 5 minutes.

Stay tuned...

[SuperSleeper]

Forgot to mention that the OSCAR download site will remain open as well, even if we temporarily have to shut down the forum again.

[SarcasticDave94]

Operators are standing by to receive your call to process your donation. Hurry, do not delay! This trio even offers cat scans.

[SuperSleeper]

If and when I order the upgrades, it's going to be on a weekday, not over the weekend.  I want the "A-Team" to do it, not the "B-Team", if you know what I mean.

[clevername]

Glad were back! Now back to research and reading everything here to get some proper sleep!

---

trying to setup a paypal now to help with the upgrade. Iv told my doctor LITERALLY "i would give up a winning lottery ticket for a non-stop 8 hours of sleep a day"
This board is one step closer.

[SuperSleeper]

UPDATE:  March 15, 2020 4:03 PM: The intermittent issues still persist.  The behavior seems to be everything normal for several minutes, then high load spikes for 3-5 minutes now, then back to normal.  The datacenter shift supervisor is escalating these issues to a higher level admin.  Sounds like they might be doing something with network equipment or something.  Our server may be disconnected from the Internet at some point during the change, but it probably won't be for more than a few minutes or so.

If the forum is offline but the server still up, you can always see these and other updates at the bottom of this page:

https://www.apneaboard.com/advisory.htm

You may wish to bookmark that page so you can reach it when the forum goes down.

Also, reposting this:

SUGGESTION:  If you're typing a rather large post, I'd suggest copying your text PRIOR to hitting the "Post Reply" or "Post Thread" buttons, just in case we have to shut down the forum again right as you are submitting your post.  That way, you can save the text of your post in a text document (so that your work is not lost) and then paste it into a post later when the forum comes back online.

Sorry for all the inconvenience folks.  This too shall pass, and we shall be doing upgrades to help with these sort of issues soon, hopefully.

NOTE:  The server has now been upgraded, this thread is now closed.  See this link for the upgrade announcement:

http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Thread-...N-UPGRADED