Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

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Lord Jim
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Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Lord Jim »

Nobody's posted anything here since early this morning....

Or was there a mass suspension?


:P
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Gob
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Gob »

You arse :D
urrent Outage: Hardware failure on hosting machine andromeda (updated 2 hours 2 mins ago)
Hello,

Due to issues with the RAID controller on the shared web server �andromeda�, we have moved the server on to new hardware and are restoring all data from our backup server to the new hardware. During this process, the data on the backup server will be mounted directly over NFS to allow all services to remain online for the duration of the restoration.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this unplanned outage. We will keep this post updated with as much detail as we can provide. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our support team.

Please note, this is regarding the shared web server �andromeda� and no other services (email, MySQL) or servers are affected.

Thanks!
The Happy DreamHost Server Fixing Team


Hello,

The NFS mount from the backup machine to the new hardware has been created. This allows your sites to load as the restore is running.

There are a few apache instances that are failing to start. This would explain why your site remains offline. Our admins are diligently working towards getting the apache servers online.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this unplanned outage. We will keep this post updated with as much detail as we can provide. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our support team.

Please note, this is regarding the shared web server �andromeda� and no other services (email, MySQL) or servers are affected.

Thanks!
The Happy DreamHost Server Fixing Team

Current Outage: Hardware failure on hosting machine andromeda (updated 3 hours 25 mins ago)
Hello,

Update! Our admins were able to get all Apaches on the machine up and running, so your sites should all be up at this time. The restore is also progressing well.

If you're experiencing any issues with your sites, please contact our support team.

Please note, this is regarding the shared web server �andromeda� and no other services (email, MySQL) or servers are affected.

Thanks!
The Happy DreamHost Server Fixing Team
Sorry folks, it was totally out of our hands.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Gob
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Gob »

And it's still fucking slow too. Grrrrr....
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Crackpot
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Crackpot »

way.........................................................................................................................................................................................................to............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................slow..............................................................................
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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Lord Jim
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Lord Jim »

It's almost as slow as a cricket match....
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Lord Jim
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Lord Jim »

I tried to post a follow up in another thread and got timed out; right now this is just too slow to deal with I'll check back later...

Strop, I'd like to suggest that when the board returns to real time speed you might want to send out an email to let everybody know that we're back in business....
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Gob
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Gob »

Yep, was planning to do that!
I'm very sorry that things have been so problematic for you, and truly
appreciate your patience through this trying restoration.

The main reason performance has been less than ideal is due to the
large number of users on this server that are more active than what is
typical for a shared hosting machine.

Taking this into account, plus the restoration of data from the backups,
and the sites actively being served concurrently, things are fairly maxed
out.

The other option would be to completely take all sites offline during the
restoration process, which obviously isn't really a solution.

We'll continue monitoring the server and making any tweaks we can to
improve things, but performance will likely not be optimal until the
restoration has completed.



Thanks!
Brandon
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Lord Jim
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Lord Jim »

The main reason performance has been less than ideal is due to the
large number of users on this server that are more active than what is
typical for a shared hosting machine.
Okay, well if I'm reading that correctly, the guy's explanation essentially amounts to that he sold more space to more accounts than the server he has to host the accounts on could adequately accommodate....

Well, I guess he gets points for honesty....
performance has been less than ideal
He also gets points for understatement....

This is just an irritation to us, but imagine if you had an online store website that you depended on your livelihood for hosted with this guy....

If I had that kind of site with this web host, and after two days of my site being essentially useless I got an email talking about "tweaks" and "less than ideal performance" and with no timeline whatsoever as to when the problem was going to be fixed....

I'd probably be ready to go lookin' for Brandon....

Give him the opportunity to find out what it's like to have a nose with "performance that is less than ideal".... :)
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Gob
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Gob »

Working better, but still as slow as a two legged tortoise with piles.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Gob
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Gob »

Hello,

Here is an update on the ongoing restore for your shared web hosting server, andromeda.

The server is currently experiencing intermittent high loads and slowness from the backup server which may be causing slowness and/or timeout errors for your sites. Some slowness is to be expected until more data is restored to local disk, but our admins will work on getting the load to a more manageable level. Sites are being served from backups and the restore process continues to execute.

In the meantime, if a PHP-based sites appear to be timing out you might try switching to running "PHP CGI" mode in the Domains / Manage Domains section of the panel. CGI mode has a different timeout setting than FastCGI mode and that may help if your site it running slowly because of the restore. We will send an update when it's safe to switch back again.

We are also aware that some of the users aren't being mounted properly from the backup server. If you find you are having any issues with your hosting or are missing any data, please contact our support team with any details you can provide, and we will be happy to assist!

Thanks!
The Happy DreamHost Server Fixing Team
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Lord Jim
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Lord Jim »

I appreciate these updates Strop, (and I'm sure everyone else who's willing to wait for the system to respond so they can see them appreciates them too) but I have to say that at this point the content of these emails is beginning to strike me as somewhat amusing, (and also giving me a sense of Deja vu...I have seen this before)

These correspondences from the webhost are classic examples of what frequently happens when techie sorts attempt to engage in customer relations....

It's not a pretty sight....there's a complete disconnect....it's a skill set that just ain't in their wheel house....

They are sending out these lengthy tomes explaining in detail the nature and causes for the fact that their system is completely fucked up, (and even trying to shift part of the blame to the customers for heavy traffic...something that the owner of this business should have anticipated and planned for and that is in no way the fault of the customers, who signed up for his service anticipating that he would be able to handle the volume of traffic for them that he was promising to be able to deliver with their hosting package) and they are minimizing the nature of the problem, (which conveys the impression that they don't really understand the dimensions of the problem they have) and they are failing to provide the ONLY information that genuinely matters to their customers....

Namely, "When the hell are you going to have this cluster fuck fixed?"

Their customers don't give a rat's patoot about their explanations for what the problem is, or how they're trying to deal with it. What their customers are going to be thinking is, "Here we are going into day three of this melt-down, and these bozos have yet to give any indication whatsoever as to when the service I paid for is going to be provided again."

These emails are essentially conveying two messages:

A. They have no idea of the extent of the problem from the customer standpoint.

B. They have no idea when the problem is going to be fixed.

I get the distinct impression that the guy who owns this business was originally probably an IT guy someplace, who saved up a little money and sort of backed in to setting up a web host business. (As opposed to a person with a business background who decided to go into the web hosting business)

A business person would be focusing on answering the questions that would logically be in the minds of the customers; ("when the hell is my website going to work again?") it's a techie person who would be oblivious to this, and instead be sending the customers detailed technical explanations of the problem he's dealing with.... :lol:
Last edited by Lord Jim on Thu Apr 12, 2012 6:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Sue U
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Sue U »

Please PM me when functionality has been restored. I can't stand -- and don't have the time for -- waiting and waitning and waiting ... and waiting some more, just to be timed out. Jim is right about the business skills of the webhost.
GAH!

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Gob
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Gob »

Sorry to all; I wish there was something I could offer in terms of "it'll be fixed when", but no news from the host on when it will be finished.

I'm going to move our site away from Dreamhost if they cannot offer better service than this.

Please tell anyone you know to hang on in there, and keep faith with us.

Taff


Current Outage: Hardware failure on hosting machine andromeda (updated 16 hours 27 mins ago)
Hello,

Here is an update on the ongoing restore for your shared web hosting server, andromeda.

The server is currently experiencing intermittent high loads and slowness from the backup server which may be causing slowness and/or timeout errors for your sites. Some slowness is to be expected until more data is restored to local disk, but our admins will work on getting the load to a more manageable level. Sites are being served from backups and the restore process continues to execute.

In the meantime, if a PHP-based sites appear to be timing out you might try switching to running "PHP CGI" mode in the Domains / Manage Domains section of the panel. CGI mode has a different timeout setting than FastCGI mode and that may help if your site it running slowly because of the restore. We will send an update when it's safe to switch back again.

We are also aware that some of the users aren't being mounted properly from the backup server. If you find you are having any issues with your hosting or are missing any data, please contact our support team with any details you can provide, and we will be happy to assist!

Thanks!
The Happy DreamHost Server Fixing Team
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Lord Jim
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Lord Jim »

Well, the good news is, the DreamHost website itself is working just fine... :lol:

http://dreamhost.com/

And here's what they have to say about their shared hosting plan, which they are still happy to sell to anyone with the price of the package:

http://dreamhost.com/web-hosting/
Shared hosting is an ideal solution for bloggers, website designers, e-commerce stores and small businesses.
While in general that is certainly true, in the case of DreamHost, one might rise to differ....

Among the touted benefits for this package, you will find:
Limitless Possibilities

Get unlimited data transfer bandwidth, website storage, email and hosted domains, and much more!
Again, one might rise to differ... :D

And then there's this:
Enterprise-Level Reliability

Our expert technical support representatives are available 24/7 via email, live chat, and you’ve even got the option of reaching a human being over the phone. Our 100% uptime guarantee [italics theirs]means we take uptime seriously.
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Pardon me...I need a fresh pair of trousers...

After looking over their website, what I find particularly annoying is that this is not some little one man operation....

This is a large company, (that claims to have a "populist" philosophy) that undoubtedly has sufficient server resources to move the sites affected by this cluster fuck to while they sort out this "restoration" business...

If they chose to do so....

(BTW, "Brandon" is so far down on the totem pole, that he doesn't even make the "our team" employee page:

http://dreamhost.com/about-us/the-dream ... -profiles/)

And to give you an idea of just how big an operation this is, their executive profile page lists no fewer than 12 people:

http://dreamhost.com/about-us/the-dream ... -profiles/

The bottom line is that after looking over their site, it seems to me that there is no question but that DreamHost has the resources and the personnel to have provided a solution to this problem for the sites affected by this within 24 hours of it happening, had they chosen to do so.....
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Lord Jim
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Lord Jim »

To draw an analogy...

Imagine that you have been seated with a group of people at a table in a restaurant. At some point during the meal, the legs on the table you are seated at collapse....

There are other tables with space available in the restaurant, but rather than move you to one of those, the Maitre d' comes over and says:

"I'm terribly sorry about these less than ideal dining conditions that may be affecting some of you in the enjoyment of your meal. It turns out that there were some unexpected stress points in the wood in the table legs and the combination of this with the large amount of food that you lot ordered caused the table to giveway. Again, I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please rest assured that we have called in some carpenters that will be working to fix your table, though I can't tell you how long it will be until that happens"





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Last edited by Lord Jim on Fri Apr 13, 2012 1:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Crackpot
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Crackpot »

I wonder Just how "happy" the DreamHost server fixing team is and what substances are involved.

the good news is it is now only taking a minute or two for the page to load
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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Lord Jim
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Lord Jim »

That could just be because at the moment the traffic is lighter....

It's gotten faster a few times before only to go completely south again....
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Gob
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Gob »

Sorry gang, I'm as fustrated as you lot.

When we're up and running properly again we'll have a chat about how best to proceed.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Gob
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Gob »

It seems to be getting better, fingers crossed!!!
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Gob
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Re: Gee this forum sure has become unpopular....

Post by Gob »

I'm going to try posting a new thread...

I live on the edge me...
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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