Server issues

[captplaystation]

Seem to get this message a lot recently, when trying to change between threads. Did Danni sell up as rumoured a while back, and is this the beginning of PPRune going down the tubes to make/save money. Sincerely hope not.

[folald]

Newbee member 2nite and getting the same message continuously. VERY frustrating. :ugh:Otherwise looks great:ok:

[iain8867]

It seems that quite a few of us have been getting this message recently

[elac2]

Getting very fed up with this message. Sort it out guys please. Or maybe it is not so easy so an explanation would be good.

elac2

[niknak]

Since Danny ran off with the loot (:):p), this site has suddenly become very selective about the posts which appear and the quality of the servers has deterioated significantly.

Server too busy has been a regular feature for at least six weeks now, again, a sign that the new owners may not give a stuff about this site and are using the existing technology to service other commercial ventures.

They're perfectly entitled to do that, but I wonder how many of the advertisers who pay good money to place their online adverts here are aware of that?

Lets hope they read this before one of the tame mod's tells teacher about me.:{:ouch:

[MarkD]

PPRUNE is probably one of the busiest vBulletin sites in the world and has frequently gone through growing pains. However, I find it amusing that the first post and next three after are from people who haven't paid a penny towards its upkeep - especially the OP who's been a member since 2002. The Search function will find you the thread on PPRUNE changing hands but I suppose laziness is an issue as well as cheapness.

[niknak]

Mark,

A bit cheap to accuse posters of not paying for the upkeep of pprune.

Danny made no bones about the fact that he sold the site to a commercial enterprise and it's not up to the contributers, no matter what the owners may think of them, to pay for the upkeep of the site.

It may have started as a good idea with the best of intentions, but Pprune is now a respected part of the aviation community with many valid and positive contributions made everyday - you may not have noticed, but that's why advertising has very obviously significantly increased on these pages on a daily basis.

Just as circualtion figures make money for newspapers, the number of people logging on here each day, attracts advertisers and ergo, money for the owners.

The service form the Pprune servers has been utterly crap recently, that's entirly down to the owners and operators of this site and, if advertisers walk away that's not our problem.

[bear11]

I haven't seen any increase in ads since, I think you'll find that the ad revenue does not pay for the costs of running the site, and pprune donations still go straight to Danny. But you're right, the server is too busy.

[HeliCraig]

Its interesting to see the increase in number of times I have been served the "Server is too busy message" over the past few days.

I say interesting, only in so far as to serve even this basic static (IE: no database driven content) page the server undergoes some, albeit minimal, load.

Now the only difference between that page and the requested one will be, for the most part, extra text which has to be retrieved from the sites database server. The extra text itself "costs" next to nothing in bandwidth to serve or process - the problem would be getting it from the database.

In an attempt, I presume, I to stop the thing falling over there is some load balancing which serves this static page rather than going to the DB and getting the rest of the requested page.

As I am struggling to believe the load has increased so much in the past week I would hazard a guess that the script which does the load balancing may need tweaking!

Just my two penneth worth as a software engineer; as opposed to you lucky sole who get paid to fly!!

[dazdaz]

Only time when I get the 'server to busy' window is when I'm not logged in, maybe when logged in one gets priority to the forums.

Daz

Update......I'm logged in and got the 'server to busy' ahhhh ignore the above, only took seconds to get back.

[Dysonsphere]

well getting it while logged in but only for the last few days.

[Saab Dastard]

Folks,

Only some people in different parts of the world are affected.

It appears that the majority of users are NOT experiencing this.

Important to note that it is not the number of users on the server per-se that is the problem. Today's max is about 2850 connections, and the server has handled over 50% more than this in the past.

It IS being investigated, but if the problem lies outside the PPRuNe servers - as seems very possible - and actually in the networks and ISPs connecting you all to the server, there is not a great deal that PPRuNe can do about it.

You will all (probably) be kept informed of events, given that the mods and admins involved are volunteers with full-time jobs to do!

SD

[captplaystation]

Thanks for that. Seems to happen whether I am logged in or not. So far so good today. I am incidentally in Spain not as stated in La France,if that helps your trouble-shooting.
MarkD, thanks for the kind comments. . .Not. Pillock.

[P.Pilcher]

Well, I got it a fair bit yesterday (U.K. based) and just put it down to PPRuNe's growing pains which seem to occurr every other year until a new, bigger and even more "all singing, all dancing" server is installed.

P.P.

[Miraz]

if the problem lies outside the PPRuNe servers - as seems very possible

It is an error message page generated by vBulletin - it has to be the servers

[IO540]

I also notice that the google syndication stuff totally hangs the browser for anything up to a few seconds.

I wonder what kind of stupid code they are making the browser run?

[Bushfiva]

vBulletin generates the "Server is too busy try again later" at an operator-configurable load. The trick is to set it at a level where as few people as possible see it, but before the servers are crawling. It's pretty much guesswork, since the message can be generated by instantaneous loads. "Try later" could be as little as a fraction of a second.

It would be interesting to know whether datastore is in Filecache or Memcache, and whether it's on a different machine if memcached.

[west lakes]

Interestingly enough, and not wishing to get invloved with the politics, I got a server busy message shortly after opening up the forum this morning.
I often view without logging in for a while.

The server busy message invited me to log in as I would then be able to use the forum without getting a server busy message - if you know what I mean

[west lakes]

The server busy message invited me to log in as I would then be able to use the forum without getting a server busy message - if you know what I mean


Which er didn't work as I've jusy had 3 in succesion
This is the message

The server is too busy at the moment. Please try again later.
To avoid this message, please register (http://www.pprune.org/forums/register.php) or login:

it is sadly untrue as I've been getting constant busy messages since 13:10 (UK)

[Saab Dastard]

6472 users online at 15:15!!!

The incident at Heathrow is attracting considerable attention.

This is the largest number ever seen on PPRuNe, by a huge margin.

SD

[pilotmike]

Amazing! PPRuNe must be psychic. The Heathrow accident is now offered as an explanation for all the problems getting online today, but I was getting this message and having problems getting on for the past week. Possibly PPRuNe was grinding to a halt in anticipation of the accident? I think we should be told about it's divine connections....

I was on the verge of buying a personal title to make a contribution in recognition of the use I've had from PPRuNe, but must now postpone this gesture until I see a better and more reliable connection.

Any coincidence with Danny's departure, I wonder?

[Saab Dastard]

Any coincidence with Danny's departure, I wonder?

Danny hasn't departed - far from it. He will remain in charge of PPRuNe for several more years at least.

Amazing! PPRuNe must be psychic. The Heathrow accident is now offered as an explanation for all the problems getting online today

It IS the reason for the problems today - divine intervention not required.

Any suggestions to the contrary is offensive and uncalled for.

SD

[Ken Wells]

Someting has to be done about the sever issues.:}

It is now almost becoming unusable.:ugh:

Today has been paricularly bad.:eek:

It now takes too long to open the threads etc.:{


I undersatnd this ahs happened since the chnage over.:*

Please sort it out before you start losing contributors and Sponsors!!!:(

[JB007]

Most users ever online was 7,012, Today at 16:22.

Can't remember what it was on 11th September 2001, but similar then too!

[PPRuNe Pop]

You will just have to get used to the idea that a server can only do so much. While it might irritate you it irritates us mods because we have to field your concerns.

However, the FACT is that with, as now, well over 6000 using the server it is going to kick a lot of someone's out. Not only that when you get in it is like swimming in molasses! And then like banging nails in water. You get nowhere!!!

Plans are in hand to get a bigger and better server and Danny is on the case. Don't expect it to-morrow. But it WILL happen.

It will die down but an event like today is BOUND to corrupt the system.



PPP

[Flash2001]

When I was able to log in at around 1630, the statistics said a bit over 1000 members were on and a few thousand or more guests. I totted up all the members declared on the threads and found 206. WTH?


After an excellent landing you can use the airplane again.

[pr00ne]

PPRUNE is effectively unuseable now, shame, I used to like it, now just too much hassle to try to log in. Just been trying for about 15 mins to get this message posted, got the "Server too busy, try again later" message over 20 times.

Shame.

Especially as the mods etc seem to think that it is OUR fault....................

[RJ Kanary]

The "Server Pulling It's Hair Out" message has been appearing here in the Colonies for over a week.
The BA Triple Seven short field approach story has just made a bad situation much worse. :(
{The good news is no casualties, other than one used up airframe.}

[Bushfiva]

I was on the verge of buying a personal title

E Pinocchio! It's Geppetto!!

Sorry, just messing with you. It often takes me 4 years to decide whether something's worth paying for, too.

[shortstripper]

I couldn't get on at all from lunch time yesterday. Even today when things have quietened down it's like russian roulette when you click on a posting ... Will it let you view or will it say the server is too busy! I wrote a long reply on a thread earlier only to loose it when I submitted it. The server message came up and when I hit the back button my message had gone (it usually reappears?) ... grrrrrrrrrrrrr! I can't be bothered to re write it now.

Whatever the cause, I hope it's soon resolved as the site is becoming too frustrating, for me at least.

SS

PS, I copied this message. Which is lucky as so far I've tried four times now to submit it!!!!!

PPS .... 10 X now and no luck :mad:

[Saab Dastard]

PLEASE READ THIS ANNOUNCEMENT FROM DANNY REGARDING THE CURRENT SERVER UTILISATION PROBLEMS

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=309132

PPRuNe Servers vs Exceptionaly High Number of Visitors
Whilst this may be a sore point for many of you who actually manage to read this, due to the BA B777 accident at LHR yesterday and the intense interest it has generated worldwide, the number of people attempting to log into PPRuNe has more than doubled. This has led to some problems with the servers being able to handle the loads.

PPRuNe is scheduled to transfer to new, more powerful servers in three weeks. Whilst this should resolve the problems, it does not help in the short term. We are making every effort to control how many people are able to log on to PPRuNe at any one time.

Our normal level of visitors runs at around 2,500 at any one time. This increased to over 7,000 yesterday and caused a partial meltdown of our servers. It has been running at around 3,500 overnight and has once again increased to over 5,000 this morning.

This causes the server to run quite slowly, for obvious reasons. To try and alleviate this problem, a system has been installed that gives priority to visitors who have registered and are logged in. I will be tweaking these facilities throughout the day but we are currently restricted by overwhelming numbers of visitors.

If you are a guest and manage to read this, then congratulations. You are one of only a few to be able to do so. Please bear with us whilst we try to keep everything running, albeit more slowly than usual. If you are a registered member and are logged in and have had the "server busy" message more times than you would like, then I apologise for the substandard experience you are having of PPRuNe at this time.

SD

[pilotmike]

Quote:
pilotmike - "Amazing! PPRuNe must be psychic. The Heathrow accident is now offered as an explanation for all the problems getting online today..."

Saab Dastard - "It IS the reason for the problems today - divine intervention not required.

Any suggestions to the contrary is offensive and uncalled for.

SD"

Nobody is in any doubt about the principal cause of the problem yesterday.

However, by selective quoting, my ACTUAL point was conveniently edited out... namely that the problems have been apparent to many PPRuNers for the past week. By definition, that cannot have been affected by the increased traffic caused by the 777 accident at Heathrow, no matter how tempted anyone is to proffer it as the underlying cause.

What I actually said was:
Amazing! PPRuNe must be psychic. The Heathrow accident is now offered as an explanation for all the problems getting online today, but I was getting this message and having problems getting on for the past week. Possibly PPRuNe was grinding to a halt in anticipation of the accident? I think we should be told about it's divine connections....


If my attempt at humour, whilst making a valid point, is mistaken and considered offensive, then that is highly regrettable.

Many other posts on the matter echo my own findings, and should be considered before shooting the messenger.