Server Errors

[Lackadaisical2]

With all due respect, let's get this done. Purge the old posts but also you know what? Start enforcing policies that apply to needless picture spam in all other forums to forum 7 as well. I'm sorry for the tone, but this has become aggravating. I bet forum 7 is a big part of this problem.

I was wondering the same thing, if pic spam was part of the problem, despite my mild love affair with forum 7, NSG>F7

Forum 7 has to abide by the rules too. *nods*

Well, theres a lot of "post your fav anime character", "who are you attracted to" threads, which whether or not its pic spam (I probably used the wrong term), each page is about 25-50 pictures.

tho I notice that in forum 7, when threads hit a certain level of inactivity... they get purged... there's only 6 pages of threads... should this be also implemented accross the board? say... 10 pages of threads with archiving only a few...

The only issue I have with this is the effect on post counts, non?

[Gauntleted Fist]

Actually I might try a new search engine, too.

Yay! Thank you for your hard work, Violet.

[Montanaa]

Edit: Post updated
And the board is going quite slow at times and very finicky at other moments.

[JuNii]

The only issue I have with this is the effect on post counts, non?

would cut down one the gravedigging tho...

[My 3rd Floor Flat]

If they do begin to purge threads (especially from the RP sectors) I advise that the moderators give at least a weeks notice else me and the rest of the RP'ers will be up in arms about some of our best threads being obliterated.

Because some of the more accomplished and long lasting threads get posted in only once every week and half sometimes; the detail that goes into them.

[Newmanistan]

If they do begin to purge threads (especially from the RP sectors) I advise that the moderators give at least a weeks notice else me and the rest of the RP'ers will be up in arms about some of our best threads being obliterated.

Us sports RPers will be livid if it was done without warning.

It probably just needs to be done with forum 7 and I go back to what I said in my first post here... ENFORCE the pic rules of other forums in forum 7. That's a big part of the problem.

[Grays Harbor]

Its still not as bad as it was on the pre-jolt servers. Some were lucky to be able to get on once every 2 or 3 days. While not being able to get on for a few minutes, or to lose a post because of it, is a bit frustrating, its not anything that is insurmountable.

[Mikertaz Kein]

Well, I on't think it is a problem caused by pics. Really it isn't much of a drain. The problem seems to be with the server itself...

[GetBert]

...are really starting to get annoying. How about putting the limit back on quotes, quote pyramids are nothing but annoying anyway.

[Mikertaz Kein]

But again, that can't be the problem. If pic and quotes can hinder this forum that badly, then I think Max needs to upgrade the hamster...

I don't think that is the problem, so my money goes to some clashing code or a server malfunction. It tells me there is too much traffic, but we have had many more users on at other times...

[Mikertaz Kein]

double post X(

EDIT: Laggy forum is laggy...

[Bluth Corporation]

Seeing as the pictures themselves are not actually hosted on the NS server, they shouldn't be the cause of the problem at all.

The reason for the picture rules is mostly to deal with objectionable content and to keep the threads readable, not for performance issues.

[The Alma Mater]

Disable the seach functions.
Yes, I love them and need them and all that - but I need my NSG fix more.

[Melkor Unchained]

I'm not entirely certain what's going on here since I don't have access to the necessary resources. All I know is that when things first started going awry (and I don't know if we're currently experiencing the same problem or not) it was suggested by Pyth that it had something to do with heavy network traffic. We've set new forum load records just about every month since at least July, and we should bear in mind that this is a new(ish) server that hasn't yet been with us a full year. I would guess our average load has been slowly increasing and its beginning to impact network performance.

[Rejistania]

Can someone please upgrade the servers to something as terrific as 386s? C64 were great but they make bad servers. The slowness and errors get on my nerves!

[JuNii]

Can someone please upgrade the servers to something as terrific as 386s? C64 were great but they make bad servers. The slowness and errors get on my nerves!

sure, please send check, money order, or credit card number to...

[My 3rd Floor Flat]

The situation is going to continue to deteriorate, only once were out of the winter season will we know if it is permanent, but either way something has to be done. I point the blame at Forum 7's traffic.

[Bluth Corporation]

I point the blame at Forum 7's traffic.

At the moment, F7 has 57,200 posts going back 45 days, or an average of 1271 posts a day, 52 posts an hour, 0.8 posts a minute

General has 584,057 posts going back 250 days, or an average of 2336 posts a day, 97.5 posts an hour, 1.6 posts a minute--twice the rate of F7.

II has, since the beginning of the new forums, averaged about 0.66 posts a minute.

This doesn't take into account views, but it seems reasonable to assume that views are roughly proportional to posts. So F7 seems to only be creating slightly more load on the server than II, and half that of General.

Now, yes, this is a fairly simple metric. But it's the only one I have access to--which means it's the only one you have access to too; so there is no basis for your claim.

[Dododecapod]

Been having the same problems. Often when I try to post.

[My 3rd Floor Flat]

I point the blame at Forum 7's traffic.

At the moment, F7 has 57,200 posts going back 45 days, or an average of 1271 posts a day, 52 posts an hour, 0.8 posts a minute

General has 584,057 posts going back 250 days, or an average of 2336 posts a day, 97.5 posts an hour, 1.6 posts a minute--twice the rate of F7.

II has, since the beginning of the new forums, averaged about 0.66 posts a minute.

This doesn't take into account views, but it seems reasonable to assume that views are roughly proportional to posts. So F7 seems to only be creating slightly more load on the server than II, and half that of General.

Now, yes, this is a fairly simple metric. But it's the only one I have access to--which means it's the only one you have access to too; so there is no basis for your claim.

Your missing the content though

F7 is heavy on quote pyramids, pictures (which are then quoted, people don't *snip* in there often remember), so it stands to reason that a single thread like "your favourite anime character" containing possibly dozens of dozens of pictures would put an unproportional strain to it's relative size. Which is already quite... impressive.

[Bluth Corporation]

Your missing the content though

F7 is heavy on quote pyramids, pictures (which are then quoted, people don't *snip* in there often remember), so it stands to reason that a single thread like "your favourite anime character" containing possibly dozens of dozens of pictures would put an unproportional strain to it's relative size. Which is already quite... impressive.

I've already explained why pictures don't cause any more stress than normal text.

[Topid]

I couldn't even get on NS, let alone the forums, for the last hourish. I was on facebook and candystand, but NS kept giving me an error. That's the first time (for me) it's been like that. Normally it's just the forum that goes down...

[My 3rd Floor Flat]

I couldn't even get on NS, let alone the forums, for the last hourish. I was on facebook and candystand, but NS kept giving me an error. That's the first time (for me) it's been like that. Normally it's just the forum that goes down...

Same.

Perhaps in times like this the moderators should implement some contingency measure that slows down certain aspects of the site so that it doesn't get overloaded. God knows what they could do though, maybe deactivate a function that allows pictures to be downloaded from offsite resources and be shown or soemthing.

[[violet]]

Yikes! Horrific few hours there. Sorry about that.

I've tracked the issue down to search--not the act of people searching so much as the amount of work the server is doing to maintain a big index of words and the posts they occur in. Each time someone posts, this list needs to be updated, which is backing everything up.

I've temporarily disabled updating of search indexes, which probably means that posts made after now won't be findable via the forum's text search. This obviously isn't a permanent solution, but something that should allow us to stay online (and fast) while we find a better search option.

As a workaround in the meantime, if you want to find something Google actually does a pretty good forum search, via "<your search terms> site:forum.nationstates.net" . Example: "slow site is slow" site:forum.nationstates.net

Sorry again about the terrible performance. I'll get it fixed. We have no plans to purge any posts (outside of Forum 7); we'll just figure out a better search option.

[Bluth Corporation]

Perhaps in times like this the moderators should implement some contingency measure that slows down certain aspects of the site so that it doesn't get overloaded. God knows what they could do though, maybe deactivate a function that allows pictures to be downloaded from offsite resources and be shown or soemthing.

Again, pictures are not the issue. The NS server doesn't serve up the pictures to begin with. They're served up by whatever server they're stored on, so if I type, for instance:

Code: Select all

[img]http://www.foo.com/img.jpg[/img]

then my browser will contact the http://www.foo.com server to download img.jpg. All the NS server does is send an <img src="http://www.foo.com/img.jpg"> to my browser; it doesn't deal with the actual serving of the picture, since the picture is never stored on the NS servers.