recent website problems

[eFestivals]

As many of you are probably aware, there's been a number of technical issues with efestivals within the last week.

We're still working to try and find and isolate the problems, and hope to have things sorted as soon as we can.

Apologies for any inconvenience in the meantime.

[eFestivals]

a clean install of the forums software has just been done.

[Paul ™]

I've notice the time of posts are about 6 minutes prior to the actual time.

[eFestivals]

I've notice the time of posts are about 6 minutes prior to the actual time.

thanks... thought I'd corrected that, but obviously not.

[eFestivals]

Well .... after some testing this morning, it appears to be the case that the slow pages issue has gone.

Whatever the techies have done overnight, it looks like they've fixed it. Finger crossed that's true.

[eFestivals]

Everything is supposedly now fixed, tho it's possible that the configuration differences between the old server and the new one might throw up an error here and there.

If you experience any issues, please let me know here.

Apologies again for any inconvenience.

[Paul ™]

Seems a lot better cheers Neil

[eFestivals]

Seems a lot better cheers Neil

thanks - good to know you're seeing the improvement.

[Paul ™]

Hate to say this, but in the last 5 minutes or so it has slowed right down but not on every page.

[eFestivals]

Hate to say this, but in the last 5 minutes or so it has slowed right down but not on every page.

yep, I know.

I'm looking at it now, to see what can be done.

[eFestivals]

right... it appears that I've just found and fixed the issue that completely stumped at least five very experienced techies that looked into the problem.

I can't be 100% sure that I really have just yet - I need for it to be tested under very heavy load to be entirely sure and for me to not be counting the chickens too early - but the last 15 minutes website use certainly looks like it might be fixed.

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for the next 24 hours, then after that I think I can relax.

[eFestivals]

I'm pleased to say that none of those horrible server issues have been seen in the last 24 hours, and so it does look like I fixed things.

Good job it's not me who has to pay for the time of the techies that failed to fix it.

[Paul ™]

Yup all seems good here too.

What was the issue Neil?

[eFestivals]

What was the issue Neil?

I know what the issue was to fix it, but what I don't know is why it suddenly became an issue when everything with the set-up has been the same for a number of years. I can only guess it's the result of auto-software updates.

The databases for this website are hosted on a different server to the webserver, with this webserver accessing those databases via a direct network connection to that other server. That direct network connection uses local IP addresses.

The database server tries to resolve incoming IP addresses to a domain name via a reverse look-up, but when it tries to do that for those local IP addresses it fails to look them up - and so it hangs there waiting for a result that never comes. I turned off the reverse look-up and the problem went away.

I got to the point of identifying and locating the problem within about 90 minutes of starting to look at it (having previously left everything to the techies), when those techies had spent days running round in circles - tho to be fair to them, the work they did do eliminated everything down to either that local network connection or the database server in my eyes.... just not in their own eyes.

Anyway, most of all I'm just pleased it's sorted.

[eFestivals]

I'm feeling a bit smug with myself right at this moment, not only for fixing the reverse lookup issue, but also for the further tuning I did to the database server.

There's currently 4,800 people using the website, and neither server has broken into even the mildest sweat - which would have happened in the past.

Hopefully they'll be a much busier day sometime soon-ish, when I can find out how much of an improvement their is.

[JBarbour]

I'm feeling a bit smug with myself right at this moment, not only for fixing the reverse lookup issue, but also for the further tuning I did to the database server.

There's currently 4,800 people using the website, and neither server has broken into even the mildest sweat - which would have happened in the past.

Hopefully they'll be a much busier day sometime soon-ish, when I can find out how much of an improvement their is.

[Mr Splodge]

Fab job Neil, everything working perfectly and nice and quick. :-)