Forum outage resolved

[Reploid Productions]

Hrm. Given the level of panic I was seeing via TG, perhaps this should be bumped to a global announcement? It's not everyday the forum runs out of posts.

[Jolthig]

The Telegram system is entirely separate from the forum. Separate servers even. There's no relation whatsoever.

No, this is entirely due to the high-volume of posts. When the forum was set up years ago (name redacted to protect the guilty) someone thought "oh, come on, 16 million should be enough for anybody! Surely our userbase will never post that much!" and then promptly forgot about that limit. And ever since then, post after post, year after year, we moved towards that upper limit.

Today we reached it. And we got reminded the limit was there.

Ballotonia

Ah, no wonder why.

[Kylarnatia]

Bless these grand old forums. :P

[Gaveo]

Hrm. Given the level of panic I was seeing via TG, perhaps this should be bumped to a global announcement? :P It's not everyday the forum runs out of posts.

I believe this should be in the news.

You know, Max Barry, doing a article and all. :p

[Bezombia]

How...did...we...break the forum with 16 million posts?

After somebody posted #16777215, the forum database didn't have any more post IDs to assign. We had to move up to the next larger size, which is 4294967295.

What happens when someone makes the 18,446,744,073,709,551,615th post and you can't go any higher? Do you just call it quits and start Nationstates 2 again?

[Frisbeeteria]

perhaps this should be bumped to a global announcement?

I already had one up (reusing the Adbot Announcement) and have already reverted it.

I believe this should be in the news.

You know, Max Barry, doing a article and all.

I believe we'll let him shower and have breakfast first.

[The Corparation]

I have a feeling that we are going to break that 4 billion post count within a few years or so.

Hardly.

It took us 4 years to get to 16 million. So let's say ~4 million a year. Going to 4 billion will take us.... quite some time.

Lrn 2 Exponential Growth. I strongly doubt forum posting follows a linear path. I think we'll reach that limit within this decade.

[Luziyca]

The Telegram system is entirely separate from the forum. Separate servers even. There's no relation whatsoever.

No, this is entirely due to the high-volume of posts. When the forum was set up years ago (name redacted to protect the guilty) someone thought "oh, come on, 16 million should be enough for anybody! Surely our userbase will never post that much!" and then promptly forgot about that limit. And ever since then, post after post, year after year, we moved towards that upper limit.

Today we reached it. And we got reminded the limit was there.

Ballotonia

Well, that's a first. Assuming we get 4% of the new total every 4-5 years, it'll take us about 25 years if we still use these forums to reach a new limit. I can now call myself a veteran of NS now.

Anyways, I got a question. Which post had #16777215 as its ID?

Hrm. Given the level of panic I was seeing via TG, perhaps this should be bumped to a global announcement? It's not everyday the forum runs out of posts.

Hell yes.

[The Republic of Lanos]

I checked #16777215 and found it does not exist...

[Bezombia]

I checked #16777215 and found it does not exist...

Clearly [violet] crashed the website for her own nefarious purposes.

[Decius]

The Telegram system is entirely separate from the forum. Separate servers even. There's no relation whatsoever.

No, this is entirely due to the high-volume of posts. When the forum was set up years ago (name redacted to protect the guilty) someone thought "oh, come on, 16 million should be enough for anybody! Surely our userbase will never post that much!" and then promptly forgot about that limit. And ever since then, post after post, year after year, we moved towards that upper limit.

Today we reached it. And we got reminded the limit was there.

Ballotonia

But more people join each day and week than people leave. So as the years progress the 16 million mark will be reached a lot more wont it. What would it take to raise the limit?

[YellowApple]

our forum post potential has been increased from the miserly 16 million to our current 4 billion.

That's it? We'll go through that in, like, a few minutes

Regardless, glad to see that the forum is back up and running.

I did notice that the "forum administrator" in phpBB's error messages of death is 'no-reply@nationstates.net', which doesn't accept emails. Perhaps that should be changed to a functional email for this sort of thing?

I have a feeling that we are going to break that 4 billion post count within a few years or so.

Hardly.

It took us 4 years to get to 16 million. So let's say ~4 million a year. Going to 4 billion will take us.... quite some time.

Is our number of posts really growing linearly, though? I'd reckon that the number of posts would be better represented by an exponential growth model.

[The Corparation]

I checked #16777215 and found it does not exist...

Or the poster deleted it out of shame to avoid being lynched. Let's go after #16777214 instead

[Tronold]

We ran out of post IDs? Wow, this isn't is something you see every day.

[United Islands of the Pacific]

This is amazing.
Did it have anything to do with that mass-TG that was sent out to roughly 110,000 nations?

I didn't get that telegram. The forum was working this morning for me, must be because I'm on the east coast.

After somebody posted #16777215, the forum database didn't have any more post IDs to assign. We had to move up to the next larger size, which is 4294967295.

What happens when someone makes the 18,446,744,073,709,551,615th post and you can't go any higher? Do you just call it quits and start Nationstates 2 again?

I don't imagine that happening for a few decades. That's way over the amount of people in the world, so it shouldn't be seen by anyone who has an account now.

[Nightkill the Emperor]

The reason for the crash is hilarious.

[Frisbeeteria]

I checked #16777215 and found it does not exist...

Or the poster deleted it out of shame to avoid being lynched.

I'm pretty sure it was mod-deleted before we decided it wasn't a corrupt post causing the problem.

But more people join each day and week than people leave.

Site statistics don't support that statement. We're actually pretty steady over the past few years.

[The Cosmos]

I checked #16777215 and found it does not exist...

Or the poster deleted it out of shame to avoid being lynched. Let's go after #16777214 instead

What a memorable post

[The Blaatschapen]

Hardly.

It took us 4 years to get to 16 million. So let's say ~4 million a year. Going to 4 billion will take us.... quite some time.

Lrn 2 Exponential Growth. I strongly doubt forum posting follows a linear path. I think we'll reach that limit within this decade.

While it's not linear, it's not exponential either. I'll send you $10 if we reach this limit within this decade.

[The Corparation]

Lrn 2 Exponential Growth. I strongly doubt forum posting follows a linear path. I think we'll reach that limit within this decade.

While it's not linear, it's not exponential either. I'll send you $10 if we reach this limit within this decade.

We have a deal.

[New Mushroom Kingdom]

This is epically winning

[Bezombia]

I checked #16777215 and found it does not exist...

Or the poster deleted it out of shame to avoid being lynched. Let's go after #16777214 instead

Indeed if you had gone to the "view all posts" during the crash when the forums were still viewable and clicked on the first thing you would have gone to that.

[Daskoxian]

Or the poster deleted it out of shame to avoid being lynched. Let's go after #16777214 instead

What a memorable post

Surprisingly fitting.

[United Islands of the Pacific]

Lrn 2 Exponential Growth. I strongly doubt forum posting follows a linear path. I think we'll reach that limit within this decade.

While it's not linear, it's not exponential either. I'll send you $10 if we reach this limit within this decade.

Google calculator says it'll happen in 1,000 years if it goes at a steady rate, which it won't.

[Hydronium]

I have a feeling that we are going to break that 4 billion post count within a few years or so.

Hardly.

It took us 4 years to get to 16 million. So let's say ~4 million a year. Going to 4 billion will take us.... quite some time.

Unless if the number of users increases, which is likely. We could make a (relatively inaccurate) equation: ((a*n)*(g)*(d))*or^t ≤ 4,000,000,000, with a being average posters, n being number of posts daily, g being growth rate, d being death rate, and t being time, with time being either multiplied by or the exponent of the main equation, depending on if the equation is exponential.