"Server Busy" Messages Prevent Login or Interrupt Activity on Forum

[kinsugi]

Chronic, frequent, severe, intermittent interruption of access to the forum

LET"S POST THESE "SERVER BUSY" MESSAGES.

Until now people have just thrown comments into the Internal Server Error thread about this, but it's a DIFFERENT error, and IMO it has a much bigger negative impact on our use of the forum than that error. It's interfering with participation on the forum and may be driving people away. It may also have affected donations... why donate to a forum you can't access? The number of people online has consistently been below 400 when I've checked, since this has been going on, and has even dropped below 300.

I finally hit my own limit because tonight it kept me from being at the end of a HUGE AUCTION... which is my primary reason for coming to AF any more. I always login to my member page first but alternately have bookmarks I try for Auctions, Giveaways, and Contests.

Tonight I got the message from about 7:20 PM Pacific Time (gmt-8) until 8:00 PM Pacific Time (end of auction) and was knocked off again within 2 minutes, before I could even access the auction page. I got back on at about 8:10 PM Pacific Time.

I'll add the exact quote the next time I see it, but you know the one... it says the server is busy and may be backing up files, which is a necessary function. But it happens many, many times a day, randomly, since server migration. It was particularly bad during the Christmas break and into the New Year, especially over the first weekend in January, hitting 80-90% of the time. It destroyed repeated efforts to hold major events on the forum that had been planned for weeks.

One active Aariner said she gets the message 75% of the time she tries to log in. Let's start logging these with specifics, so Dai can figure out why it's happening.

[Twinstar]

This is all tied in to the other error. It's all the same thing. I have been talking to aarin and everyone just needs to be patient. I will let aarin answer anything regarding this as she is the one who can communicate to Dai (when she can...).

I know it's frustrating (believe me, I really know as I get the error a lot, about 80% of the time). But as far as I know it hasn't fully been pin pointed. It is why I don't really do auctions or run contests right now but I still try to do what I can when I can get on. I don't know what else to say regarding this anymore.

[kinsugi]

Dai-kun asked for specific TIMES as part of research on that other error. If knowing times can help, then let's track times. I've sent you a PM why I think it's so important that we do anything we can to help resolve this.

[edit out comment about theories since I'm not a tech any more]

Bottom line... gathering specific and accurate information about the timing of these errors can't hurt and may help, ne?

[Twinstar]

I have sent a reply by pm. I think you can just log these errors in the first report since it's linked.

[crisislover]

I got a server busy message yesterday at 11:06PM EST and I couldn't access anything until 11:20PM EST. It usually happens at 10PM EST for me, or at 2AM EST. They can last about 40min to an hour for me.

[aarinfantasy]

Dai-kun came online today and I missed out on talking to him because it was my bedtime. But I hope he saw this or at least read my messages about them. Like everyone else, I also want this problem to be solved as soon as possible because my activities in the forum has been limited to due to the error.

Dai, if you are reading this, it should be a coding error right?

[aarinfantasy]

Dear all, Dai-kun told me that the "500 internal server" error issue should be fixed now.
However, he is unsure if this has fixed the "server busy" issue as well or is related to it.
Please keep us posted here. Thanks!

[Dai-kun]

Please take a screen shot of the error page and post it here.
Also I need to know if when you cannot access the forum, is it just you or everyone else. Thanks

[kinsugi]

Lots of ppl seem to be having the problem, but unless we log times here we can't tell who else might also be locked out at the same time... :( especially when they are short. Will start logging again; thanks, Dai-kun.

[Yaoi17angel7]

Hi everyone,
I had that problem with the busy server too. I'm living in Germany (GMT+1) and got this error often around 6-9 PM. No matter if I was already logged in or not.
However since a few days (3-4) I haven't got this error anymore. So it works for me now.

[Dai-kun]

Please tell me if you get the server busy error anymore, this should be fixed.

[Yaoi17angel7]

I don't get it anymore. Everything is fine. Thanks for your effort on this, Dai-kun. :)

[Twinstar]

I'll keep an eye on it and report anything I see still. I am still getting the "internal server error" (just had it a few mins ago) so it's still too soon to say much.