Flyertalk down?
 

Was anyone else unable to access Flyertalk during this weekend? I couldn't get into the site from Saturday until this am. Did I miss a scheduled maintenance announcement or is my computer a mess?

I was also unable to access FT this weekend. Even now it is very slow and I recognized that e.g. in the word association thread just 2 posts were made within 12 hours or so. That is far less than normal.

Every FT page takes ages to load.
What is going on ?

I think this is better answered in the Technical Issues form.

Let's try to keep Community for posting get-togethers. Thanks. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

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essxjay
FT Community moderator

[This message has been edited by essxjay (edited 03-03-2003).]

Well it's here in the technical issues forum now. Any updates?

Another one curious as to what happened? and as to why it takes so long to upload each page or thread


Helllllooooo out there!!!!!!

I couldn't get in all weekend either. It's still taking too long to load pages but seems to have improved throughout the day. I did, however, get lots more work done this weekend because of it! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif


[This message has been edited by Ginger K (edited 03-03-2003).]

I wonder how many expletives were uttered amongst the FlyerTalk technical staff when they found out that the site was down again from last night until just now...

Randy,
Please give us some information why the site has been down again!

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If you've been around FlyerTalk for any amount of time - you know that I'm very comfortable taking responsibility for things gone wrong (even if i/we are only in the area). But this time - I think it only fair to point out the cause of our problem. A little while back, a member or two thuoght they would be cute and try to hack into the code creating posts that had time-stamps on them as well as putting the member name in the post directory. Well, it spawned amateur wanttabees and we've had several of these try to do things which they have absolutely no business doing and no talent to do. These have unfortunately created a few 'runaway processes' which are a problem. We can fix them over time - but it's very expensive and very time consuming. We have repaired damages orginally caused and corruption is now stable, but it is taking a tremendous effort to fix all the related damage.

So, if you'd like to say thanks for the problems, please remember who started these hacks and those that tried to copy their efforts. Remember a particular member who couldn't seem to get any of the hack coding correct and it appeared in his topic titles and posts??

For once, we'll assign the blame. Go talk to those members to again ask them how cool they are. Really (good) cool people don't damage things.

Wow, thanks for the explanation, Randay. I had no idea. All I knew was that I was suffering from serious withdrawal.

I'm also comfortable taking the blame when part of it belongs to me, and I guess this is one of those times.

I sincerely apologize for adding extended ASCII characters to my posts, which caused Flyertalk to break. Note that this has never happened on ANY other UBB board, or any other BBS-type system, so I had no idea that a simple &nsbp; character would cause Flyertalk to a screeching halt 2 weeks later, and cause it to be down for over a day, while the administration diligently worked to bring it back online and repair the damage that I caused.

So, Randy (and all of the FT community), I am very sorry, and I hope you will accept my apologies for the downtime. As punishment, I am sentencing myself to a one-week timeout.

Why can't I even post birthday greetings for Rudi right now ?
This is my first post within the last 24 hours and the flood control thing comes up...
???

Yikes.........

So sorry to hear about the mess. And more sorry that your kindness, Randy, is being repaid with an expensive fix.

I hope that the boards get up & running again soon and cheaply.

...and there I was about to suggest a roll of duct tape. It seemed obvious to me that someone was tripping on the power cord each evening as they left the office! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Seriously, though, many thanks for the hard work that goes on (unappreciated, most of the time) to keep this board up and running. We only complain so loudly because we junkies need our fix!!!

I am sharp enough to know that I think you are just needling us, although you may have a point to inject that thought into this thread.

Hmmm...threads also need needles. What a great segue with which to string you along. Ahh, sew who cares anyway...

To clarify things - it wasn't markbach (no real need to time your self out), it was a few of those that tried to mess with the board later on trying to do what he did. They tried to experiment but they didn't have the exact talent and others tried to take it even farther. It reminds me of those that have been seriously injured trying to replicate the stunts they saw in 'Jackass - The Movie'.

To clarify things - it wasn't markbach (no real need to time your self out), it was a few of those that tried to mess with the board later on trying to do what he did. They tried to experiment but they didn't have the exact talent and others tried to take it even farther. It reminds me of those that have been seriously injured trying to replicate the stunts they saw in 'Jackass - The Movie'.

Randy,
Many thanks for your detailed explanation and your time.


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Yes, thanks Randy and apologies for those "wanna-be experts" who caused the problem, the down time, and expense and loss of time to you and staff. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

FT has been down for me (and clearly others) for most of the past 12 hours or so, so the problem seems still to exist?

I have no knowledge whatever of UBB intricacies, but always wonder whether posting 1000s of replies to already corrupt threads in OMNI (which orginally had a corrupted thread heading IIRC something like "9.17am", but someone has changed it to the current "normal" looking title) simply so folks can boost their post count does not de-stabilise the UBB platform?

If the (once legitimate) thread is corrupted anyway, keeping it active daily for many months (7 months in this example) I imagine cannot be helpful to the stability of the rest of the Bulletin Board?

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~ Glen ~

Come and visit the most ** FRIENDLY FORUM ** on FlyerTalk. No flame wars, no personal abuse, no substance abuse. Not much of anything really!



[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 03-04-2003).]

Tell me about it.

There are soooooooo many other ways to pad a post count.

Aren't there?

I do not post unless I either:

• Have valuable information which I can impart to other members of the FlyerTalk community;
• Have a question;
• Want to add some levity, as I attempted (and hopefully succeeded) to do in this thread.

That said, I have a seemingly stupid question:

Why would anyone want to pad their post count?

Thanks markbach for coming forward to take responsibility, even if you weren't responsible. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif You are an incredibly smart kid (read young gentleman) and we are lucky to have you aboard. I am sure that you will contribute all of the technical expertise you can muster up (and I am certain that that will become even more awesome as the years go by) to help FT along its growth path.

Randy, I am sure I have read something, somewhere about a voluntary one-time donation to upgrade the software. I would be more than happy to contribute as, I am sure, would many other Flyer Talkers. Can we think about putting together some sort of program to raise funds for this? FT has become an important ingredient in many of our lives and I know that many would be happy to give back something, according to their means.

Punki, Randy has commented on this issue in the past. While he appreciates the sentiment expressed, the version of UBB that is currently implemented at Flyertalk is the most appropriate version for a bullentin board with such high volumes.

This version of UBB is the last that supports static web-pages. The dynamically-created web-pages in the newer versions of UBB would add considerably to server-load and would most likely cause FT to fall over on a regular basis.

I'm not aware of the full details of the attempted hacking attempt on FT, but I do support prosecution (in the legal sense, not the 'time-out' sense, of the word) for the alleged hackers. Others may have different views.

There are some here on FT who live and die by their post count.

Maybe it is the "Mine is bigger than yours" syndrome.

Maybe they think it add credibility to their posts.

Maybe they are fascinated by large numbers.

Since my own post count does not impress me in the least, nor does anyone else's, I don't honestly know the answer.

Not me. Once I hit 10, I run out of fingers. Once I hit 20, I run out of toes.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

I am thankful that you decided to stop at 20 and not go on to 21...

When my son was 3 years old, he was very proud of his learing to count "Daddy, I canm count to 10 ... but I can't count to 11 yet". Priceless http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

amen

And once I hit 999, I changed my handle.

Amen to what?

Oh, amen to the poster who talked about padding one's post count. I couldn't tell this from your answer. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

(Ignoring the smiley)

Readily apparent what the "amen" was applicable to. You Yanks really are thick at the moment, aren't you.

(Smiley deliberately not included to show that I am serious).

Dave

Dave,

If you would do a search on FCTSTY's posts you would see what amazing nj was referring to.

He has a habit of scolding people who are unclear in their thread titles.

Also - lighten up a little - we are all here for information and fun!

Kaeokai

Since the "tech" part of this thread was taken care of (rather, addressed) earlier, I'm closing the thread.