Forum repeatedly offline?

The forum(server) seems to have to have some serious issues since the last couple of days/weeks, especially during the evenings and at night (german time) where it is not reachable at all?

No 404 or 500, but just an empty error page from the browser...

I can't even open forum some times.. (I faced same problem long time ago, but only twice, if I remember correctly) since last few weeks, server acts strange for me.. if I write anything (pm, or in forum threads, doesn't matter), it won't open, all I get is a blank tab in a browser, saying that site is loading up.. but it doesn't.. If I delete all cockies in the browser, it will open, but as soon as I login, it will act the same.. Only way to open it for me in this situation, is to wait...

I faced same problem lot of times last weeks. I had to access as anonimous with an other browser.

same problem here. Sometimes it keeps loading but nothing shows.

I can confirm that issue.

+1

Login doesnt work sometimes, same for post reply button. I saw Wjbender made a "sixtime" post this week ^^

Ok, I had not yet experienced such a problem, but I'll check with our provider.

Can confirm this, this happens mostly in the german morning hours (peak downtime and latency is around 4-6 am)

+1 Same problem here.

yesterday around 9 pm (german time) i had these problems too

I can confirm this as well, happened some minutes ago.

In the netherlands it happens in the evening hours or at night very annoying

This thing gets annoying.. I've couldn't open the forum for few hours!

I believe we now found the reason, or as I should better say, the culprit . More about that later.

more than half hour with a server error answer until right now

Maybe that was the wrong culprit? Forum did not respond for a pretty long time.

It's pretty hard for me to open it even now... Sometimes it doesn't load..

I have a suspicition that if you have your browser clearing history, cookies et al on exit, the site seems to take longer to load the first time you start browser again sometimes returning error.
Once loaded again though, is instantly there even if you leave site and revisit it again as long as browser is not closed.

I'm afraid we have to live with the problem at the moment, as there is no quick solution. But we're working on a solution. -The problem is caused by a person that opens lots of pages and starts many lengthy search processes, using several servers with different IPs. This blocks other users.

Maybe you could add a captcha to the search? Or only offer the search function to registered users.

users can search by google

Sounds like a DDoS attack, my first thought.

This is what I get from time to time:

same here

just to let you know it seems it takes longer at night here in the netherlands that the site is not loading at all

any real solution yet ? it's really hard to visit as the place seems to be down more and more.

Sometimes i can login then i go into a toppic and get logged out ?

I never get that internal server error, despite I'm online in very various time. sometimes it cannot load but only for minutes. frequently a stop-refresh solves it.

We had to take the server offline yesterday for maintenance - so yesterday's offtime was not related to the problem. However, it should be solved meanwhile (I hope).

What about upgrading the forum to the new 7.5.7 version? Potentially this would also provide some kind of performance improvements, as well as a preparation for the (hopefully) comming v8...

That's right. The UBB development was on hold for almost 2 years, but it seems to have resumed in the last time, so we'll upgrade to the latest version in the next time.

Unfortunately, the issue is still ongoing...

No. Since the issue was solved, forum and server had no offtime anymore.

I can confirm that I have not faced the problem since some time ago.

Forum was broken yesterday evening.

i can confirm Firoball i exeperienced the same

It may not have been completely offline anymore, but there are still peaks during the day where it keeps loading forever and does not show any page. I tried accessing it from several ISPs and different timeslots during the day but the result is the same...

Traffic and offtimes are visible in the server logs, so we can see when there's a problem with the server. There were no offtimes or exceptional peaks in the last days, but such a problem can of course have other reasons, maybe an issue of an Internet line or domain server.

The issue reported here at first was a real problem that indeed affected the server. It was a repeated attack on the forum and the wiki. That's why the Wiki is currently offline. We have to clean spam out of the database and add security measures, which can take some weeks. But this does not affect the forum.

I don't know ... the issue seems not be solved for me. Just right now doing a post took over a minute. Last night it took ages as well. And this still happens pretty regularly.

Same for me... Posting is fast as always, but the in initial load of the mainpage takes something between 30 seconds up to 1 minute, while DNS lookups to the server itself are fine.

Almost every night the same problem:



(today between midnight and 0:25 AM)

i can confirm this. had this 2 days ago at midnight

It works a bit better for me now, but sometimes, it still takes too long to refresh, or to post a message on the forum.

The issue is definitely not solved for me. At about 00:40 the forum did not respond at all for about 10 minutes and is still very slow.

And what´s with the wiki? Down for maintenance the whole evening. Do you maintain something?

i have the trouble every night. the forum goes slow
or won't load at all.

I had this problem some time ago, but now works very well.

Thanks for all the reports, but I think it's not really necessary anymore to notify us when you have a speed issue with the forum. Since that problem in December 2012, we're anyway regularly checking the traffic logs. So we always know the server load and forum speed. We can react if something has to be done.

The reason why some users still have problems while most have not is just that there are still some small peaks of high traffic. They will get smaller and eventually disappear, but that might take some time, and no one can speed that up.

jcl ist der King der Schönschwätzerei. And that's why I love Acknex.

wiki hasnt worked since weeks and still doesnt, very annoying!!!

I can only speak for me but really nothing has changed since the very beginning. It's every night exactly at midnight (german winter time). The forum is totally useless for at least half an hour.

If you want to schedule your forum visits for avoiding midnight and the other two load peaks, here's the daily load chart:



Thread now closed in the interest of less traffic .