• Welcome to AlpineZone, the largest online community of skiers and snowboarders in the Northeast!

    You may have to REGISTER before you can post. Registering is FREE, gets rid of the majority of advertisements, and lets you participate in giveaways and other AlpineZone events!

Downtime and Database Issues

Greg

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 1, 2001
Messages
31,154
Points
0
Hello all - many of you probably noticed the "Forbidden You don't have permission to access / on this server" error message the past day and a half. I've been having stability problems with the database all last week. I had my host move the site to a different semi-dedicated server and it crashed the mySQL server shortly thereafter. Since that affected other clients, my host blocked access to the site entirely while we attemped to resolve the issues.

So far I've completely rebuilt the forum script from scratch using the latest phpBB version and current mod versions. I also attempted to rebuild the database and restore it from a backup. No data was lost. There are still several features not yet installed - namely the "Quick Reply" and "Search Titles Only" mods. The calendar has also been removed and I'll likely not reinstall it (the less mods the better; especially during these types of situations). I'll work on finishing the reinstallation in the coming days, but now I'm off to bed! At least most functionality has been restored. I'm not sure whether these approaches will even solve the issues that caused all this (still not sure what they are). Fingers crossed.
 

Greg

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 1, 2001
Messages
31,154
Points
0
Thanks Beano. "Quick Reply" and "Search Titles Only" mods have been reinstalled. I think we're pretty set now, but if anyone experiences any issues please contact me - PM or contact@alpinezone.com if the board is down. Thanks.
 

NHpowderhound

New member
Joined
May 26, 2005
Messages
533
Points
0
Location
The Woods at Jay Peak
Thanks Greg for what is proabably many unseen hours of work to resolve this latest issue and the many things you do behind the scenes to keep AZ going.
((*
*))NHPH
 

Terry

Well-known member
Joined
May 9, 2004
Messages
2,192
Points
48
Location
Fryeburg Maine
Thanks Greg for keeping things running. I had a panic attack when I couldn't use the site. Thought I had been banned for some reason! Gret to have it back so I can get my ski fix! :beer:
 

teachski

New member
Joined
Nov 3, 2003
Messages
1,041
Points
0
Location
Barre, MA
Website
teachski.com
Thanks for your hard work Greg!

It's nice to see the site back. Your efforts to get it up and running as quickly as possible are appreciated by all. :beer:
 

Greg

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 1, 2001
Messages
31,154
Points
0
Thanks for all the kind words and support. Yeah - sorry if I alarmed anybody. Next time, I'll try to get my host to post a message as to what's going on. I was "banned" from the site too. Kudos again to JaguarPC for their help here. Let's hope the demons have been exorcised... ;)
 

BeanoNYC

Active member
Joined
Feb 6, 2005
Messages
5,080
Points
38
Location
Long Island, NY
Terry said:
I had a panic attack when I couldn't use the site. Thought I had been banned for some reason!:

LMAO .... me too! I was thinking, did someone log on with my name and cause havok? Did someone pull up to my house manage to log on to my wifi network and do some damage? Fortunately, I was chilling with BobR at a concert Friday night so he would have been my "alibi."
:wink:
 

Greg

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 1, 2001
Messages
31,154
Points
0
Just installed a more current version of the image resize mod.
 

Greg

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 1, 2001
Messages
31,154
Points
0
Still having some major stability issues. The database seemed to crash a few times already today. I think I may have it narrowed down to the script that pulls the post data from the forum and displays the recent discussion on the rest of the site. This same script also powers the News portal and trip report portals, as well as many of the RSS feeds. I've removed use of this script from every page I could. This hopefully will reduce the load on the database server. I am in touch with the script's author to rewrite it to make it more efficient. I guess, in a sense this is a good thing in that the site has become busy enough that it's maxing out the efficiency of some of the scripts and quite possibly phpBB. I think it may be time to pursue more stable forum software, i.e. vBulletin. A conversion would be a huge undertaking though so hopefully we can limp through the rest of the ski season and maybe convert over the slower summer months.
 

Greg

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 1, 2001
Messages
31,154
Points
0
Still problems. I've disabled the News portal temporarily to pin down whether the scripting there is indeed causing the problems. Sorry for the inconvenience...
 

ctenidae

Active member
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
8,959
Points
38
Location
SW Connecticut
No worries, Greg.
You might want to try crossconnecting the proton accelerator with the flux capacitor, and shunt the excess wattage through the dihydrogenmonoxide acidase inhibitor. If you can get it ramped up to one point twenty-one gigawatts, well, there's just no telling what you can do.

As you might have noticed, my programming skillz are pretty much limited to ctrl-alt-dlt
 

andyzee

New member
Joined
Sep 14, 2004
Messages
10,884
Points
0
Location
Home
Website
www.nsmountainsports.com
Now I can see why your ranked as "AlpineZone Authority"

:lol:
ctenidae said:
No worries, Greg.
You might want to try crossconnecting the proton accelerator with the flux capacitor, and shunt the excess wattage through the dihydrogenmonoxide acidase inhibitor. If you can get it ramped up to one point twenty-one gigawatts, well, there's just no telling what you can do.

As you might have noticed, my programming skillz are pretty much limited to ctrl-alt-dlt
 

Greg

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 1, 2001
Messages
31,154
Points
0
There is a good chance that I am going to attempt a vBulletin conversion in the next few days. This will likely result in several hours of down time. I'll post an announcement if I decide to proceed here.
 

Catul

New member
Joined
Dec 8, 2005
Messages
159
Points
0
Location
Avon, CT
Greg, sounds like you have a major undertaking on your hands over the next couple of days - good luck!

Hope it all works out, I need my daily (or more) AlpineZone fix! :)

EDIT: the forum is really flying this morning, looks like disabling the News script might have done the trick? Let's hope it lasts ...
 

Greg

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 1, 2001
Messages
31,154
Points
0
Working on importing to a test board now. Things are going VERY smoothly. I may upgrade the actual forum as soon as this morning. If the forums go down, you'll know what I'm doing... ;)
 
Top