Sorry about today’s downtime. Things broke and I was off the grid. (Hooray Focus Mode!)
We’re aware that there has been too much downtime and we’re looking into upgrading/moving/fixing the server. Hang in there with us as we sort this all out.
Now that would be hilarious. Have the downtime message say something like “The MPU website has block-scheduled this time period for ‘deep work’. We suggest you do the same.”
I don’t think a lot of people would get the joke though.
I realize this on/off situation is hard to handle. But any explanation of what’s going on? Just down again for about an hour. Are these systematic DNS attacks? Something else? Clearly it’s not a one-off situation.
It’s been discussed before, and it’s largely a server traffic vs. capacity issue. Apparently the solution is something more complex than “upgrade the VPS to have more capacity”. And as somebody that’s been on the server side of hosting, I can definitely see how that might be possible.
@webwalrus Thanks for the explanation. Based on what you write we might expect this on/off-line behavior to continue for awhile (i.e. days/weeks instead of hours in one day).
It’s intermittent, and based on previous discussion when it happens one of the main admin crew need to log in, get the proverbial hamsters back on the wheel, and get the site back up. They’re usually pretty speedy about it, too. Much speedier than one would expect given the fact that this is a free forum they’re effectively donating their time and money to run.
It’s nearly always me that does this. This time the metaphorical hamster had escaped the cage and needed to be rounded up first though!
Most of the time when the server is offline it’s for less than 10 minutes, the problem is retrieving the log files when there’s an issue is nigh on impossible. I’m not a sys admin but as a dev I’m pretty familiar with how this stuff works, and so the lack of log files is concerning. There’s a plan in the works for fixes - and finger’s crossed that’ll be soon!