Server busy? - yikes!

[scarecroe]

Heh, can you tell I've been stress-testing the new forum

I left for about an hour and came back to the forum only to get a "The server is too busy at the moment. Please try again later."

Can we expect for this to happen often?

I tried again a minute later and saw that there were 19 Currently Active Users. Is this close to the limit that the server and software will handle?

 

[Luke]

Scott

Vbulletin handles 70-100 users online at the same time in some of the Simpsons forums. This has been happening at MC for the past two nights with just 10-20 users. It also shouldn't be feeling much of a load either - these things can handle 50,000 posts +. I thought MC was on quite a capable hosting package so it is wierd. It could be that the server or ISP has quite low bandwidth allocated to it or, perhaps someone somewhere is intentionally overloading the server and it has nothing to do with the forum.

 

[scarecroe]

Luke

It appears that MuppetCentral is now being hosted by Vosn.net, IP space owned by Tucows (is that right Phil?). I wonder what hosting package Phil optioned for when considering the move. The server type, its' network integrity, geographical location, etc, will all have to do with what this forum is going to be able to process. I just hope there won't be continuing problems in the future with the availability of the forum.

How would Janice say it?: Like, that would like totally be a bummer. Rouley!

 

[Janice & Mokey's Man]

Dude, you gotta stop headin' to the top of my favorite person list...

 

[scarecroe]

Originally posted by Janice & Mokey's Man
Dude, you gotta stop headin' to the top of my favorite person list...

LOL! Wow, that's like, 2 Janice refs in just as many hours!

 

[Luke]

Scott

Nope, i don't think VOSN.net is the host. The IP nameserver thing is just handled by them. Lots of webhosting companies use them for their nameservers so they don't have to use their own.

At this end (UK) the new MC host seems very fast and capable. The forum software is PHP/MYSQL so it should be running easily right now with the forum posts & member load fairly low. I think there is a problem somewhere with the server and whatever the ISP has allocated to it. Obviously theres more than one site on a server - and it could be what one of the others are doing or running. Hosting companies always overload their servers with too many sites anyway - its all about balancing the load.

Last night the problems lasted ten minutes or so, tonight it was just a few minutes. It's not too bad but the thing is if it goes belly up now then what chance is there once the decent features get enabled and there are tons more users and posts.

 

[Phillip]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm aware of the server issues that occasionally happen and am looking into it. As you found out, if you wait a little bit you can get right in.

 

[Janice & Mokey's Man]

Originally posted by scarecroe


LOL! Wow, that's like, 2 Janice refs in just as many hours!

This is what I'm sayin'! lol

 

[scarecroe]

Luke

Too true. Too true. VOSN acts as an IP allocator getting their space from Tucows. However it appears that MC's IP comes out of a block maintained by venturesonline.com who happen to be a hosting provider in Colorado which is where the IP terminates.

At first I thought MC was being hosted on a dedicated or co-located server, but since the IP is not designated specifically for MC, it appears that this is not the case.

Since Phil runs a fan site that doesn't pull in any revenue, I can only assume that he picked the best package for his/our needs that he could afford. After all, I'm sure it's only a matter of time until Phil and Cindy hear the sound of tiny little flippers hopping around the lilypad to provide for.

All the power to them for every effort in our new virtual home!

 

[Luke]

Scott

Yes i know what you mean. The thing is, if it was a real server error then the main MC site would be down, slow etc etc but even when the forum is off, it's as quick as ever. I guess theres a problem somewhere along the line and as Phil said, he'll look into it. It could be something to do with how Vbulletin uses Mysql and how much resources the ISP gives to it.

Just to say though, it was down for me for the last 20 minutes again just now. Thats now 3 outages in 2 days.

MC does bring in revenue but the hosting packages in the states while well featured cost an arm and a leg for a decent bandwidth allocation, and then you are still reliant on what everyone else on your server is doing with their sites also. This forum shouldn't be using that much right now.