# Welcome back! Outage information here.



## Piratecat

And we're back! 

Around noon yesterday our server suffered a malfunctioning motherboard. We went down like a poleaxed steer as a result. Unfortunately, that happened on a Sunday... so it wasn't until this morning that Cyberstreet could diagnose the problem and swap in a replacement. $100 of equipment later (along with a lot of time spent repairing the databased that crashed when the motherboard went), we're up and running as normal. Our apologies for the outage, although there isn't much that could have been done differently.

Hey, buy a Community Supporter membership for a friend, and we'll name the new motherboard after you.  

Many thanks to Adlon of mortality.net for helping diagnose and fix the problem, and to Thomas Heretic of Nothingland for his repair of our databases. You guys are the best.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard

Good to be back...feels so strange without having ENWorld around.

And thanks PCat for the update over at Monte's board! Heh, I even checked that old 'backup' ENWorld but nothing there since the last problems(January, I think)


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## beeber

it's so scary w/o enworld around   

i forget how much time i spend here until something like this happens (this past time, and the hurricane).  gotta start saving for that community supporter membership.  now if i can just stay away from ebay. . . .    

welcome back!


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## FireLance

Maybe we should have some designated alternate board to get info and updates when ENWorld goes down. Nutkinland/Nothingland used to be a good place for that, but it seems to have become unfriendly to casual users recently.


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## jester47

I would say either Monte's Board or the Necromancer Boards as they are both run by EZ board and there is a lot of population crossover between those two and EN World.

Aaron.


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## buzz

Well, I went striaght to RPG.net, and, lo, there was a thread about ENWorld. The community loves its waterin' hole, yes it do. 

Thanks for the hard work P-Cat & Co., and for keeping various boards updated.


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## Nifft

Yay! We _wuv_ you, new motherboard!

 -- N


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## Halivar

I tried searching both RPG.net and Nutkin/Nothingland boards for hints as to what happened. After about thirty seconds of looking at unfamiliar territory, I became lonely, despondant, and closed my browser.

Hooray! Welcome back, ENWorld!


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## Tarrasque Wrangler

I know Cyberstreet's been good to us in the past and all, but even my cheapo webhost has 24/7 technicians.  If a motherboard blows on a Sunday it gets fixed _on Sunday_.  Cyberstreet doesn't have technicians on Sundays?  Is it just like a dude in a garage in Florida or something?

 I'm not morally outraged or anything, just wondering.


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## Xath

Hey Piratecat, thanks for keeping us updated at Randomling's boards.  I never realize how much time I spend here until the site goes down.


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## CalicoDave

Welcome back, ENWorld!!

It sure makes for a long day at work when the boards are down and I actually have to work!


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## irdeggman

Is this tied to electronic voting perhaps?  

I smell a consipiracy.


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## Scribble

twitch twitch... shake... must.. post....


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## Knightfall

W00t!

Happy Happy, Joy Joy!

   

Thanks for all your hard work, P'Cat. And Adlon and Thomas Heretic too. And I say we should call the new motherboard "Adlon Prime".


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## Truth Seeker

High praise to those involved...

Lord, the addictive factor is terrible on me, I had to refocus my energies on somewhere else...like surfing for news on Enworld....and Yo...found PC at RPG net...speaking with calm(cat like) and purring with confidence(manly liked...LOL) to reassure those travelers who visited here...we are NOT...dead.

Like Wotc(some felt) the ghost had fled, but NO...like PC, the courage field is strong and spreading...I spoke with the carried courage...and said  nay..."Dead we are not, for the shadow of ungratefulness cannot keep us, from reaching the warm glow of Enworld's crown..."

I wish...I did said that...LOL.

And oh....((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((HUGS)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) to everyone...


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## Algolei

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Hey, buy a Community Supporter membership for a friend, and we'll name the new motherboard after you.



diaglo bought me one!  I think we should name it Bill in honour of diaglo!  




			
				Halivar said:
			
		

> I tried searching both RPG.net and Nutkin/Nothingland boards for hints as to what happened.



Egad!  That must have been _HORRIFYING!!_


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## Pants

I almost went into an apoplectic fit when I couldn't get my daily ENWorld fix.

Yay for ENWorld being back!


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## ayrwind

Sheesh, a few days without getting my fix made me realise how much i spend my time here.  Dang!  Now where is the link to become a community supporter...   Off to the main page for the link i go!


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## Angel Tarragon

Thank god! I mean considering how often IE and my wireless conection putzes out on me, I thought that was the reason for me not being able to log on earlier today. Anyway, congrats on the new mobo.


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## Ao the Overkitty

Scribble said:
			
		

> twitch twitch... shake... must.. post....



 That's something I'd expect to hear from Crothian.

Was funny. He got so twitchy with not being able to post his reviews he started posting them over on randomling's.

And yes.  Thanks for the updates over there, Pkitty.


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## Sado

Welcome back. I have been so bored at work.


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## Evilhalfling

*Big Grin* 

Did anyone else find the story called Enron, Ronworld, EnWorld while looking for news about the outage here? 

next time ill just head for RPG.net 

On the plus side I finished a 6 page midterm, half a development proforma and 
2 pages for my planning law class - gotta love midterm cruch - 4 classes 
6 different projects due, between today and next monday.


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## TheAuldGrump

Algolei said:
			
		

> diaglo bought me one!  I think we should name it Bill in honour of diaglo!
> 
> 
> 
> Egad!  That must have been _HORRIFYING!!_




That's funny, now the motherboard only runs DOS.

(I have some friends who still use it, and call it the only true operating system...
  Not that I should complain, I had an Amiga for years after Commodore folded... and still miss it.)

The Auld Grump


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## Umbran

Okay, I just have to ask - _at what time_ on Sunday did it actualy crash?  You see, I was getting married on Sunday, and if the crash were too close to the time my ceremony took place, I'd get seriously spooked...


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## Truth Seeker

Umbran said:
			
		

> Okay, I just have to ask - _at what time_ on Sunday did it actualy crash? You see, I was getting married on Sunday, and if the crash were too close to the time my ceremony took place, I'd get seriously spooked...



Between 1:30 am to 2:15 a.m., I was on, when it went down.


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## caudor

On the bright side (and I always try to find the bright side), we get to see that nifty-looking, flashing attention icon to announce this thread...and it also means the outage is over   

Arrrrrr...it makes me want to talk like a pirate.


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## Hand of Evil

You just don't know how much you appreciate EN.World until it is unavailable!


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## MrFilthyIke

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> You just don't know how much you appreciate EN.World until it is unavailable!




I know, I had to read up on what happened at RPG.net...*shudder* It's nice to be home.


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## Piratecat

Umbran said:
			
		

> Okay, I just have to ask - _at what time_ on Sunday did it actualy crash?  You see, I was getting married on Sunday, and if the crash were too close to the time my ceremony took place, I'd get seriously spooked...




Everyone blame Umbran!

Congratulations, my friend. You two make a glorious couple.


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## buzz

Tarrasque Wrangler said:
			
		

> I know Cyberstreet's been good to us in the past and all, but even my cheapo webhost has 24/7 technicians.  If a motherboard blows on a Sunday it gets fixed _on Sunday_.  Cyberstreet doesn't have technicians on Sundays?  Is it just like a dude in a garage in Florida or something?



I was curious aout this, too. When P-cat mentioned on RPG.net something like, "I left them a message... we'll get in touch with them Monday", I was kida flabbergasted. I used to work for a hosting service, and that kind of lag would have put us out of business.


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## Keeper of Secrets

Good to see the place back.


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## Adlon

Tarrasque Wrangler:

Ok, well, I see a couple of questions regarding the 'service' the server got after the board failed, so, I'll explain a few points....

Cyberstreet is the HOST for ENWorld. They host a server owned by Morrus.
Cyberstreet carries spare parts for the servers THEY own. NOT for servers that OTHERS own. Believe it or not, there were NO boards on hand for the processor that drives the ENWorld server. Much as I'd liked, we cannot pull one of those from our A$$.
Normally, on a 3rd party owned server, THEY are responsible for repairs. As things are, I and the owners of Cyberstreet ARE Morrus by extension when things break here. Had Morrus been local, he's have a key to the building, and could fix his own machine. As I care about ENWorld, I usually fix things FOR Morrus, or, those at CS do.

I built the server for ENWorld. I was asked to give a price on the machine, I did, and I did NOT quote extra parts. There was a budget, and I fit my pricing into the budget. When you buy your next computer, PLEASE be sure to order that extra motherboard, just in case.

Cyberstreet is NOT a cookie cutter web host company, where they can afford to have rotating shifts of 8$/hr monkeys sitting around waiting for a board to blow. It's a smaller, family owned and operated business. A business who works with their clients, rather than shutting a site off at a day past due on service fee's.

Morrus was GREATLY taken care of on the repairs, essentially costing the price of the new motherboard. I do not believe Cyberstreet is charging the almost $300.00 for labor on a double time sunday.

So, now that you know more about WHAT you're talking about, we return you to your regularly scheduled thread...............


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## Morrus

And it's all greatly appreciated, Adlon!  You, Walter and the Cyberstreet crew have come to our aid time and time again.  We all owe you a great debt of thanks.


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## gamecat

Its been a while for me. I finish a PrC and lo and behold enworlds down... hee hee i spent most of monday trying to get to enworld...

you guys are awesome squared.


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## ledded

Nice to see things back up.


And thanks for the reminder, P-Cat, that while we may cherish Enworld, it aint a mission-critical real-time application except for maybe the few that actually do business on it, the folks that directly support it don't get paid $100.00/hr in consulting fees to keep it running 24/7 without interruption, and the budget probably doesnt support instantaneous failsafe/switchover servers in a big bad cluster so that anything short of a comet hitting the earth won't take it down (though those last two *would* be nice, huh?).  

That being said, and considering how little it actually goes down, I for one appreciate the efforts of those who keep it running on a daily basis so that hundreds, nay, thousands of us can goof off anytime we can sit down at a computer .  Thanks guys.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Everyone blame Umbran!




...could have SWORN it was 'blame PirateCat!' 

And I'll throw in another huge thank you to Adlon and Cyberstreet!


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## Henrix

It's amazing how homeless I felt when this place was down!

And thanks to everybody who helped get it all in place again. (Not least to Adlon and Cyberstreet, I remember what a nightmare it was before you started helping out!)

While it was down I realized that I didn't even remember where the backup boards used to be.....  We almost never have need of them these days!


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## the Jester

Ahh, good to be back.   

Thanks everyone!


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## diaglo

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> That's funny, now the motherboard only runs DOS.
> 
> (I have some friends who still use it, and call it the only true operating system...
> Not that I should complain, I had an Amiga for years after Commodore folded... and still miss it.)
> 
> The Auld Grump





punch cards mang. there are 10 kinds of people in this world. those who know binary. and....

i still love the old Cray computers in the NSA.  


edit: ditto on the glad to be back and great work to get us here guys..


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## Mouseferatu

Fixed your quote, Diaglo. 



			
				diaglo said:
			
		

> Punch cards are the only _real_ operating system. All others are just pale imitations of the real thing.


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## Nail

...I'm just glad it's back up.  Thanks, Adlon.


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## EricNoah

Thanks for bailing us out yet again Adlon!


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## Angcuru

The posting content in my blood was getting low for a while there.  A whole weekend w/out ENWorld.   Eeek.


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## Darth K'Trava

Truth Seeker said:
			
		

> Between 1:30 am to 2:15 a.m., I was on, when it went down.




AH, HAH!! Now we know who the culprit was......!!! It was Truth Seeker!!!!


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## buzz

Adlon said:
			
		

> Cyberstreet is NOT a cookie cutter web host company, where they can afford to have rotating shifts of 8$/hr monkeys sitting around waiting for a board to blow. It's a smaller, family owned and operated business. A business who works with their clients, rather than shutting a site off at a day past due on service fee's.



Didn't mean to ruffle any feathers, Adlon. Just curious and fondly remembering my days of being screamed at by customers. 

For your efforts, sir, I say unto you: Booyah!


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## Truth Seeker

Darth K'Trava said:
			
		

> AH, HAH!! Now we know who the culprit was......!!! It was Truth Seeker!!!!



*blink...blink*

Wait...the last thing I was looking at, was Krug's new piece for the day...switch pages..then -click-....got that 'Error can't-find-server-page.'

At first, I though it was a hacker attack...honest*heavenly halo*...then I just felt, it might be a server issue, so...went to sleep thereafter.

Wait...I am NOT the culprit...we know there is some Enworlders that live in Florida...yeah...squeeze the ------, the orange juice out of them on this.

Now where is my orange juice squeezer?


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## TheAuldGrump

diaglo said:
			
		

> punch cards mang. there are 10 kinds of people in this world. those who know binary. and....
> 
> i still love the old Cray computers in the NSA.
> 
> 
> edit: ditto on the glad to be back and great work to get us here guys..




Heh, I've used punch cards. (Believe it or not there were punch card readers for the Apple ][. I got to be the lucky kid to transfer data from an ancient DEC to the more powerful and smaller Apple ][. The DEC was old enough to have a 200 baud modem designed to handle four computers at once, because one machine had no use for so much _speed!_) 

Also data drums, stringy floppies, tape drives, hard sectored drives, and (horrors) a paper reel reader. (Like a very narrow punch card on very fragile paper, wrapped around a reel like an old fashioned tape player. Worst Idea For Data Storage Ever.) Though I only had to use APL once... To get the machine to transfer its data to the cards in a format the Apple could read. (All previous data having been saved on the aforementioned paper reels. Having to tape the paper strip, then poke a hole through the tape to copy the holes the tape covered was one of the most annoying jobs I ever had.) I had an easier time programming the Altair than trying to get readable data (most of it ignored for years before being copied over, and I am sure it was ignored again afterwards) out of that darned machine.

The Auld Grump, what was the topic again? Oh yes... Glad to see the boards back up, I have been having enough problems with my connections lately that I wasn't sure that my machine wasn't at fault.

*EDIT* Mostly because of an ongoing battle between XP SP2 Firewal and my remembering to turn it off while downloading stuff...


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## Liolel

Glad Enworlds back, although my computer seemed to take paticular long to relize that it was up as now is the first time I could acctually connect. Still I know well enougth that such things happen an I'm not complaining. I'm just happy its back.


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## Thomas Heretic

Adlon said:
			
		

> Wisdom




Just my 2¢.  Cyberstreet's service is standard for co-lo centers.  It is the client's server and they are expected to maintain, fix, update, etc. it.  Remember EN World is co-located at Cyberstreet not hosted by Cyberstreet.  In my opinion Cyberstreet went far above and beyond the call of duty for a co-lo.  I personally see zero room for criticism against Cyberstreet.


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## Fieari

Hey cool, the board's back again!  Just wondering what the problem was this second time?  Wonderful to see it was fixed so quickly again, but my curiousity is blooming... was it the motherboard again, or something else?


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## Morrus

It was a hardware problem again, although we're not clear on the details yet.  Cyberstreet took care of it (going above and beyond the call - again!) and Thomas Heretic rebuilt the databases once the server was running again.


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## Truth Seeker

This...is...so...much...torture.

*breathing into paper bag*


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## Tarrasque Wrangler

No need to get snooty Adlon .  I _did_ say "*they've been* *good* to us" and I meant it.  See, I didn't know you guys co-lo'd the server.  In that case, whoever said it was spot-on about "beyond the call of duty".  At the ISP I used to work for it was "Your server blew?  Come down and fix it, monkey".  Probably why they went under. 

 So can we all go back to blaming Morrus for everything now?  Huzzah for the status quo!


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## TheAuldGrump

Hmmm, since you came back up I have been getting some odd errors on page loads - the background does not always come up on the index pages for the forums. (I am using Firefox on a dial-up if that matters.)

The Auld Grump


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## Tarrasque Wrangler

I've gotten that too.  On Netscape with DSL, FWIW.  And the wysiwyg quick reply buttons are all weird when you click them.


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## johnsemlak

Thomas Heretic said:
			
		

> Remember EN World is co-located at Cyberstreet not hosted by Cyberstreet.  In my opinion Cyberstreet went far above and beyond the call of duty for a co-lo.




For us non-techies, what is a 'co-lo'?


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## Wycen

johnsemlak said:
			
		

> For us non-techies, what is a 'co-lo'?




Colocation.  The Enworld server is in a cabinet or shelf inside the Cyberstreet data center.  Generally somebody who owns the server, ie Morrus, must come inside the data center to do anything with it.


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## TheAuldGrump

Hmmm, the URL button does not seem to be working with Firefox right now either.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* But works fine with IE.


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## Algolei

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> That's funny, now the motherboard only runs DOS.
> 
> (I have some friends who still use it, and call it the only true operating system...
> Not that I should complain, I had an Amiga for years after Commodore folded... and still miss it.)
> 
> The Auld Grump



Ha ha h--_HEY?!_ _*I*_ still use DOS!  It's great!  I can run all my old, wonderful programs on it, like WordPerfect 5.1 (the only true word processing program).

I have to run Windows 98 because the newer version don't provide DOS, though.  Heck, even Windows 98's DOS won't let me run some of my really old programs, so I keep my 386 handy too.


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## irdeggman

Punch cards - oh yeah where I learned the importance of numbering all of my pages (just in case I drop something).

Fortran oh the memories, the lines and the subsequent drinking.

I still rmember some of the best MTS commands
run:
*grindcardsinto powder
*pizza
*trek
*logoffrandomuser


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## Fast Learner

I agree that in a co-lo situation, Cyberstreet has gone above the call of duty. Good job!

I do wonder, though, if ENWorld should be co-loed instead of leasing a server. I'm unfortunately still to broke to buy an account (donated in the past but am broke now), but if I had paid for won, based on the money raised it would seem like leased servers (with near-instant repair) would be a better route.

Just one guy's opinion, though, and obviously I don't know the details of everything.


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## Thomas Heretic

Fast Learner said:
			
		

> I agree that in a co-lo situation, Cyberstreet has gone above the call of duty. Good job!
> 
> I do wonder, though, if ENWorld should be co-loed instead of leasing a server. I'm unfortunately still to broke to buy an account (donated in the past but am broke now), but if I had paid for won, based on the money raised it would seem like leased servers (with near-instant repair) would be a better route.
> 
> Just one guy's opinion, though, and obviously I don't know the details of everything.




I certainly don't know all the details, but if you already have a server co-location is cheaper than hosting, at least it is when we are talking about the amount of bandwidth EN World chews up.
In the long run it is cheaper to buy a server and co-locate it then have a dedicated hosted service, ie lease a server, but it is cheaper in the short run to be hosted.
For a mid range server it would probably cost another $150-$200/month on top of the bandwidth charges.


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## drothgery

I don't know what the bandwidth and utilization data look like (or how ENWorld's servers are actually set up), but it seems to me (based on observed performance and the frequency of outages, ignoring the ones caused by hurricanes) that what ENWorld has for server/servers is/are not adequate to keeping up with the demands of serving the current forum software with a community the size of ENWorld.

Doing anything about this may be difficult, as I'm almost certain that Morris got as much server and bandwidth as he could afford, and setting up redundant front-end servers is not cheap or trivial. But almost nothing can kill an online community faster than consistent availability issues.


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## Piratecat

You're preaching to the choir. We just don't have enough funds to continue paying for monthly hosting AND upgrade the server.  Want to guess which is getting precedence?


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## wingsandsword

Piratecat said:
			
		

> You're preaching to the choir. We just don't have enough funds to continue paying for monthly hosting AND upgrade the server.  Want to guess which is getting precedence?




We all know what the cure for that is, more people need to get Community Supporter accounts.

When I next get paid, I'm buying one, I come here too often and for too long (since back in '99 when it was just 3e rumors) to not give a little back, and I'd like to be able to search too .


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## TheAuldGrump

Algolei said:
			
		

> Ha ha h--_HEY?!_ _*I*_ still use DOS!  It's great!  I can run all my old, wonderful programs on it, like WordPerfect 5.1 (the only true word processing program).
> 
> I have to run Windows 98 because the newer version don't provide DOS, though.  Heck, even Windows 98's DOS won't let me run some of my really old programs, so I keep my 386 handy too.




Heh, you are not alone - Word Perfect 12 has a Word Perfect 5.1 compatability mode. 

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* For that matter I still have a Win 98 machine that I use for XCom...


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## Isida Kep'Tukari

Man, after this latest outage, the first thing I did was buy me a Community Supporter membership.  We like our motherboards, oh yes we do.  And I like ENWorld, yes I do.  I spend way too much time here, seriously.  (Looks at PbP sig)  I think I'm addicted...    



And I like it!


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## Algolei

There's a WP 12 now??  What's the world coming to?  What oh what?


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## drothgery

Piratecat said:
			
		

> You're preaching to the choir. We just don't have enough funds to continue paying for monthly hosting AND upgrade the server. Want to guess which is getting precedence?



Just a minor FYI if you ever do have the funds [or decide Something Must Be Done and launch another major fundraising drive or something] -- get someone who really knows what they're doing (not me; I'm a web developer who's always had the luxury of a full-time sysadmin) to analyze things and figure out what the actual bottlenecks are. Upgrading the server might very well have little effect if the slowdowns are caused by traffic eating all of your bandwidth (or even all of your co-lo service's bandwidth, in an extreme case), and if a system upgrade would help, it's quite possible that upgrading the hard drives will help more than upgrading the CPU(s) or the amount of memory.


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