Recent bouts of downtime, and how it was fixed

[sothis]

Hi all,

Some of you may have noticed recent bits of downtime throughout last weekend - I apologize for that. We determined that our server host hadn't properly put the drives in the RAID array into a cooling system, and the drives were thus overheating. They have since fixed the issue and the servers should be good to go.

In case you weren't aware of them yet, I do highly suggest you follow either the site's Twitter or Facebook account. I post about downtime immediately on there when a problem occurs, so you'd be updated instantly if the site is inaccessible (as soon as I find out, which is usually extremely fast).

Here is the site's facebook page

Here is the site's twitter page

These links are also accessible via the footer on all pages of the site.

And since not everyone reads the forum either, please pass these links around to your friends on Anime-Planet so they can be immediately updated in such cases. :)

[Drahken]

Unless you intentionally took the site down for some reason tonight, you should check back with your host. The site was down from at least 12:20am-1am tonight (possibly longer in each direction).

[sothis]

i'm on the fence about starting a new thread vs posting here, so i'll just post here

the site was indeed down again. i am completely livid with our host and am forcing myself to wait an hour before responding to the most recent ticket so it's not 100% flame

essentially, this time, there was a network issue. some people were able to access the site, most were not. they spent at least an hour fixing it, not updating me along the way, and so far hasn't bothered apologizing. it was the worst possible time for downtime given the recent other issues (also outside of our control)

i'm so pissed i might start looking into new hosts.

[Garyuu]

I notice a lot of problems, and not just recently. It's common for the site to be not working for a few minutes. What's frustrating is it happened a few times while posting something. Suddenly nothing will load.

[sothis]

basically if that was happening prior to sunday of this week, it was probably the host's mishandling of installing our RAID array when we purchased the second server a few months ago. they hadn't put in a cooling system and the drives were super close together - so any time there was heavy disk activity the site would lag, and in the case of last weekend, it crashed 3 times. (it took them 3 times of messing with the server to even notice)

UGH.

if that's still happening for you after sunday, garyuu, it might be another issue, though i suspect it's related to the RAID array. last night's was network-related and i'm pretty much flat out unimpressed with the host right now.

we focus #1 on the site being snappy, non laggy and reliable, so this is so frustrating.

[Garyuu]

I let you know if it happens again.

[Raven]

If you have never checked out hostgator, I'd say look into them. I was on a shared hosting plan, but they got virtual private servers and dedicated as well. Great support team.

I have noticed the downtimes as well, if it persists, I do recommend looking into a new host. I'll let you know if I deal with the issue again.

I found this when I searched for good dedicated hosting: http://drupal.org/node/579562

Not sure what you use now, but this has popped up as a good dedicated host on a few pages I've come across: http://www.liquidweb.com/

At least that's something to look into. See if anyone on your facebook page is saying the same thing.

1 and 1 is popular, but I've seen some negative reviews on it.

[Crimm]

Good luck, Sothis.

Also, I hardly read this thread due to your sig and avatar. :P

[Drahken]

The one I posted about was the only actual downtime I've noticed (although I have been logged out a few times, which only happens after a server problem).
However, I did notice a lot of sluggishness in the timeframe mentioned in this thread's original post, and I noticed similar sluggishness this weekend (indicating that the overheating issue probably has not been fully resolved).

[Tyranid5]

Originally Posted by Drahken

The one I posted about was the only actual downtime I've noticed (although I have been logged out a few times, which only happens after a server problem).
However, I did notice a lot of sluggishness in the timeframe mentioned in this thread's original post, and I noticed similar sluggishness this weekend (indicating that the overheating issue probably has not been fully resolved).

That's a good point. I never really thought of that. I had to keep logging back in, but I thought that was because of the stupid connection that i switched to. And after things got fixed I don't have to login 1/2 as much as I was the past couple of weeks.