Export thread

What the hell happened?!?

#1

Dave

Dave

Yesterday about 3:30 PM, everything went dark. I tried opening a ticket, but the host's site was dark as well. Uh oh.

I contacted the host on another site we both frequent and he was trying to find out what was going on. Apparently, the company he leases his servers from suspended his account without warning. On these servers there were about 200 sites (IIRC) all using XenForo. Now, with XF having the ability to send an email on a post, the server center decided that the number of emails being sent out meant that it had to be spammers. So they flagged all the servers as spam farms and suspended the accounts. It took almost all night for Mike (the host) to get them to turn things back on. When I last spoke with him it was 3 am and he was still working on it.

The bad part? Even though we had hourly backups, it didn't help as they were unable to be used on any other servers. I honestly thought by the time I went to bed that the fat lady had sung and that we'd lost everything.

So what does this mean for us? Let me tell you.

  • We are not changing hosts. It was not Mike's fault and he is already taking steps to move to a better server farm with redundancy. He thought he had it before and didn't. But the dude worked his ass off to get things back up and that's got to be worth something.
  • My backup site, nihsen.com, was woefully inadequate for the task at hand. I thought it would be easy enough to go over there, but it proved to be insufficient for our needs in both bandwidth and ease of use. And the spammers got there first, which sucked. Don't know how they do it. I'll be working on a separate plan of action for backups in the future.
  • I'm going to be running a separate backup of my own and downloading it to my drive. I hadn't done it in the past because it slows down the site and we were having issues with it at the time. Now that I've got the Piwik fixed, I'll be setting up a cron to take care of this.
So there you have it. I thought we were Kurtzed, but we came back like the proverbial phoenix. And not the shithole in Arizona.


#2

CrimsonSoul

CrimsonSoul

test post


#3

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

With a little bit of googling I was able to follow what happened. What a cluster and a half. Bleep OVH. Bleep them HARD.


#4

Cheesy1

Cheesy1



#5

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Oh god... where did we go?

Were we dead? Is that what dead feels like?


#6

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

It was the French being, well, French.

So yeah. :p


#7

figmentPez

figmentPez

I'm still getting some hiccups from the system.


#8

Bubble181

Bubble181

Yup, every other page I click I get "unexpected errors". Refreshing usually works, but still...


#9

Cheesy1

Cheesy1

Same.


#10

North_Ranger

North_Ranger

Ditto. But at least this helps the withdrawal symptoms.

Also, Dave ? Respeknuckles.


#11

Frank

Frank

I managed to acquire tonsillitis while the forums were down. So, stuck in bed with my laptop and no Hal made me sad. Glad it wasn't a permanent thing. Thanks Sir Dave.


#12

HCGLNS

HCGLNS

Dave said:
Yesterday about 3:30 PM, everything went dark.
Click to expand...
stienman.jpg


#13

Zappit

Zappit

Thank God we made it!


#14

Emrys

Emrys

Yay, I can sign in too!

<happy doomweasel dance>


#15

Cheesy1

Cheesy1

Emrys said:
Yay, I can sign in too!

<happy doomweasel dance>
Click to expand...

otter dance.gif

(Yes, I know it's an otter, but it's the best I had!) :p


#16

Emrys

Emrys

<hugs Cheesy1, then squeexplodes!>


#17

Dave

Dave

Okay, new update. Apparently, the server farm Mike is moving AWAY FROM is being capricious. They are refusing to release the servers fully and are suppressing his bandwidth, which is what's causing all of our issues. We'll be back in full soon. Baby steps and fuck the French company OVH who is doing all of this. Le pricks.


#18

Zappit

Zappit

Dave said:
Okay, new update. Apparently, the server farm Mike is moving AWAY FROM is being capricious. They are refusing to release the servers fully and are suppressing his bandwidth, which is what's causing all of our issues. We'll be back in full soon. Baby steps and fuck the French company OVH who is doing all of this. Le pricks.
Click to expand...
That would be LES pricks.


#19

Emrys

Emrys

:notes:Dave is the champion, Dave's friends. And Dave keeps on fighting to the end!:notes:


#20

Sparhawk

Sparhawk

I gotta continue that...

:notes: Dave is the champion, Dave is the champion, No time for Frenchmen, Dave is the champion... of the nets! :notes:


#21

Cheesy1

Cheesy1

Davy Mercury

Davy Mercury.png


#22

Dave

Dave

Oh, and my basement pipes sprung a leak today. Good thing it's a 3 day weekend or I'd be dead by Monday.


#23

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

What's this I saw about a meteorite heading towards Nebraska?


#24

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Next time this happens, we all agree to reunite in a church in limbo. Agreed?

Also, why is there a weasel face-humping a fish?


#25

Emrys

Emrys

ThatNickGuy said:
Next time this happens, we all agree to reunite in a church in limbo. Agreed?

Also, why is there a weasel face-humping a fish?
Click to expand...
That's what happens when you give a doomweasel shore leave.


#26

Bowielee

Bowielee

I think we should pull over that Pitt vs Spawn thread from before you shut down the other site. I must know who is superior.


#27

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Bowielee said:
I think we should pull over that Pitt vs Spawn thread from before you shut down the other site. I must know who is superior.
Click to expand...

Which one do people even remember?

There's your answer.


#28

Bowielee

Bowielee

ThatNickGuy said:
Which one do people even remember?

There's your answer.
Click to expand...
But, but, Pitt is so EXTREME!!!!!!

90s_kid.jpg


#29

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Bowielee said:
But, but, Pitt is so EXTREME!!!!!!

View attachment 10967
Click to expand...

Well hell, he'd fit right in with today's comics! Let's put him in the DC Universe! Debut #1 issue with a foil cover and all!


#30

figmentPez

figmentPez

ThatNickGuy said:
Debut #1 issue with a foil cover and all!
Click to expand...
Hologram cover or no dice!


Speaking of which, a company is working on home printing of holograms. What they already offer for businesses is pretty impressive (architecture and military mostly, according to their videos, but I can imagine a market for full 3D rendered video game scenes.)




#31

Dave

Dave

Looks like we're fully back now. I got up this morning, took my bike for a spin and then came online. I'll take a shower before my rehearsal today. But I'm hoping the bad is behind me for the weekend.

As to my daughter, she's fine. It was a minor fender-bender and she was 100% at fault. Now for the wonderful news: She's not on our insurance because we couldn't afford the premiums. So while the car was insured, I'm pretty sure I'll be paying for this out of my own pocket. Yay me!


#32

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

When is HF due for the migration to the new server?


#33

Dave

Dave

Already done. Finished a bit ago.


#34

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Sweet. Hardly noticed a thing.

And now that we're off of OVH, maybe the spambot plague will die down. OVH has a bad reputation for that and malware.


#35

Dave

Dave

That would be awesome! I'd like to turn back on registration so that I wasn't getting plagued every other second with spammers.


#36

bhamv3

bhamv3

Thanks Dave, for your efforts and for the info.

I shall direct vile thoughts towards the cheese-eating surrender monkeys for a while.


#37

Just Me

Just Me

Thank you Dave for all the work and effort you put into this place!


#38

Emrys

Emrys

I'm getting 503 Service Unavailable and Out of Memory errors. Are we still having problems or is it my system here at work?


#39

Cheesy1

Cheesy1

Not just you, started getting the same message myself.


#40

Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

Emrys said:
I'm getting 503 Service Unavailable and Out of Memory errors. Are we still having problems or is it my system here at work?
Click to expand...
I'm getting this too occasionally.


#41

jwhouk

jwhouk

Suggested already to clear out the cache and maybe cookies.


#42

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

jwhouk said:
Suggested already to clear out the cache and maybe cookies.
Click to expand...
Yeah, some people still get redirected to nihsen.com as well. We need to get the word out to clear out the cache to stop that from happening.


#43

PatrThom

PatrThom

Ravenpoe said:
We need to get the word out to clear out the cache to stop that from happening.
Click to expand...
For Windows users:
Start->Run
type "cmd" and hit Enter
type "ipconfig /flushdns" and hit Enter
type "exit" and hit enter
Try to access the site again

--Patrick


#44

Jay

Jay

Untitled.jpg


Top