PDA

View Full Version : Service interruptions


Garuda
12-16-2011, 07:58 AM
1. Our ISP has let us know that the Forum will likely be offline for about 20 minutes for a hardware upgrade to the server.
That should resolve the problems we've been having with the board slowing down.
A specific time was not given.

2. The forum will also be taken offline temporarily for a software upgrade: this will happen on Sunday 18 December, around 10 AM GMT, and will last for about 1 hour.
Garuda
01-21-2012, 08:37 AM
Today, the forum was offline for about 6 hours due to a technical glitch that prevented the web server from communicating with the database server.
Our apologies for that.


Please note that on Sunday 22 January 2012, i.e. tomorrow, an upgrade of the software is scheduled.
Around 10:00am GMT (approximate time), the board will go offline for about an hour.
Garuda
03-19-2012, 05:25 PM
The forum went down twice today for a short period of time because of a problem at the server farm.
Garuda
03-26-2012, 05:41 AM
The forum will be taken offline today, Monday 26 March, for one to two hours for a software upgrade.
Musado
03-26-2012, 05:12 PM
The forum will be taken offline today, Monday 26 March, for one to two hours for a software upgrade.

Due to unforseen circumstances no upgrade was performed today, so, the forum will now be taken offline on/around 09:00 AM GMT on Tuesday 27th March for a software upgrade
Garuda
05-15-2012, 11:32 AM
The forum was offline today for about half an hour for a planned software upgrade.
Garuda
10-15-2012, 04:59 PM
The forum first suffered some service interruptions and then later was offline for a full hour today because of a problem at the server farm.
Garuda
02-05-2013, 11:19 AM
The OutPost Forum fell victim to a Denial of Service Attack, which effectively brought the site down for nearly 15.5 hours.
Garuda
05-05-2013, 06:17 PM
Earlier on today there was a technical problem at the server farm where the site is hosted, which resulted in The OutPost Forum temporarily not being accessible.

All is back to normal now.
Garuda
05-15-2013, 01:18 PM
A short interruption of service - approx. 15 minutes - is scheduled for today to apply a security patch and a reboot.
Garuda
06-10-2013, 06:06 AM
An interruption of service of approx. 1 hour is scheduled for today for a software update.
Garuda
10-09-2013, 05:19 AM
Our apologies for the service interruption.

The database server had crashed because one table had been corrupted.

The problem is fixed now.
Garuda
10-28-2013, 05:00 AM
The forum was not accessible for several hours due to a Denial of Service attack.
Garuda
12-10-2013, 03:02 AM
In the past 12 hours the forum has again been suffering a Denial of Service attack.

As with the previous two DoS attacks, computers of Forum members were infected with malware which launched the attack.
Garuda
07-28-2014, 04:26 PM
The forum will be offline for approximately one to one and a half hour on Tuesday 29 July, around 10 AM GMT for a software upgrade.
Garuda
07-29-2014, 01:17 PM
The forum will be offline for approximately one to one and a half hour on Tuesday 29 July, around 10 AM GMT for a software upgrade.

The forum had been upgraded.
Garuda
09-05-2014, 06:55 PM
There have been connectivity problems at the server farm where The OutPost Forum is hosted.

They have not yet been resolved, but they're still working on it.
Garuda
01-09-2015, 12:24 PM
We are currently experiencing a Denial of Service attack which may cause service interruptions.
calikid
01-09-2015, 05:11 PM
We are currently experiencing a Denial of Service attack which may cause service interruptions.

Just to be clear, it is NOT a specific attack on the TOP Forum, but rather an issue with the agency hosting the forum (many other sites are also effected).
Darn hackers, you'd think they could find better things to do with their time!
Garuda
01-28-2015, 01:35 PM
The forum was down for about 2 hours because a problem with the database servers at the server farm.
calikid
02-08-2016, 09:53 PM
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

I am sure many of you have noticed the serious lag time, and maybe even been kicked off the forum a few time this Monday February 8, 2016.

The people who host the forum are suffering from "adverse performance on some of our servers, and are investigating the causes".

As I said, this is a problem with the hosting service.
Many other websites housed there are also suffering similar problems.
As far as we can tell, it is NOT a problem specific to TOP Forum.

Please bear with us while they make repairs.


Thanks
Garuda
02-10-2016, 06:14 PM
The Forum was offline for several hours today, because of problems at the server farm.

When they saw several servers being knocked offline, they initially thought it was a Denial of Service attack.
It turned out, however, that a safety protocol had been activated that shut down all servers because of a fire hazard caused by a power failure.
Garuda
02-12-2016, 05:22 PM
You may notice that things are still sluggish today.

The server that hosts the site is one of three experiencing problems at the server farm.

The server farm have let us know that they are in the process of copying its content to a new server.
Garuda
02-29-2016, 05:15 AM
The forum is sluggish again. We have been experiencing up to 400 hacking attempts per hour by two separate botnets.
Garuda
07-10-2016, 01:06 PM
The forum was offline for approx. 20 hours because of DDOS attack, with up to 140 000 hacking attempts in just a few hours.
Garuda
10-09-2016, 06:13 PM
The forum was offline for a while because of an 'intermittent network connectivity issues' at the server farm.
calikid
11-14-2016, 12:35 PM
The forum was down part of Sunday 11/13/2016 due to an ISP database problem (many sites, not just TOP Forum). We are assessing damage.
It appears a DB backup may have been installed to complete the recovery, and the last few postings are missing.
Please bear with us as we evaluate recovery options.
calikid
11-15-2016, 02:18 PM
UPDATE ON FORUM RECOVER, AFTER THE SUNDAY Nov 13, 2016 FAILURE
The database restore has been completed by the forum's Hosting Service, following the failure/replacement of their DB server.

Web Host:


The database restores have all completed now. Once again, our apologies for the inconvenience caused...

It appears the restore rolled back the Forum posts approximately 24Hrs +/-.
We did lose something under a dozen posts made on Saturday, that were made after the last known good backup completed.
Apologies if your post was one of the lost ones, but please feel free to re-enter.

Thank you for understanding.
calikid
01-17-2017, 09:05 PM
THE SERVER FARM WAS OFFLINE for a few (5-6) hours today, Jan 17, 2017,
with "Technical Connectivity Issues".

Thank you for your patience during the repair process.

We seem to be in business, it does not appear any posts were lost.
calikid
11-05-2017, 08:46 PM
The Forum software update was completed this Sunday morning. Lots of moving parts. Thanks to all staff involved. 😎

The erroneous Google "Deceptive Site" flag should be history. If not, you may want to clear your browser cache. Or give it a day as the internet "Black List" is updated and propagates.

And a thank you to all members for your patience, while we worked out the problems.
Garuda
10-30-2019, 02:11 PM
You may have noticed that on several occasions the forum wasn't accessible recently.

There has been a problem at the data center. They thought it was fixed, but the problem kept re-occurring.
Yesterday, they decided to move sites that were hosted on a specific server to a new one.
We're hopeful they have solved it now.
Garuda
05-21-2021, 05:24 AM
Usually, a backup does not interfere with the operation of the forum.
Today, however, it caused the forum to not be accessible for about 20 minutes.
Garuda
05-25-2021, 03:04 PM
Today, the forum was not accessible for several hours.

A crucial file for the operation of the forum got corrupted.

It took a while to figure that out and to restore it from a backup.

Any files that may have been uploaded in the last two days may have been lost in the process.

Posts etc. were not affected.
calikid
05-25-2021, 06:21 PM
Today, the forum was not accessible for several hours.

A crucial file for the operation of the forum got corrupted.

It took a while to figure that out and to restore it from a backup.

Any files that may have been uploaded in the last two days may have been lost in the process.

Posts etc. were not affected.

Never fun to be down, but repaired in under 24hours? Nice work. :)
Thanks.
Garuda
07-30-2022, 07:00 PM
Around 3 August the forum will be inaccessible for a short while it is being moved to a new server.

It may be one or two days sooner or later.
Garuda
08-02-2022, 05:19 PM
Around 3 August the forum will be inaccessible for a short while it is being moved to a new server.

It may be one or two days sooner or later.

The server was moved today, i.e. 2 August 2022.
The interruption appears to have been absolutely minimal.
Garuda
11-25-2023, 11:13 AM
There was a hardware failure at the hosting company earlier, which made the forum inaccessible for several hours.

All is fixed now.