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Forum Index > News and Announcements > Site Downtime - 12/6 @ 8 AM
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Author Thread Post
Krinadon
Level 75
Guardian of the Realm
Site Administrator
Joined: 12/17/2012
Threads: 1,114
Posts: 14,657
Posted: 12/6/2021 at 2:38 AM Post #1
Downtime Begins: Monday, December 6th @ 8:00 AM
Estimated Duration: 1-4 Hours


Hello. The downtime from November 19th could not be completed on time and thus had to be rescheduled; it was rescheduled to this morning.

The downtime is again to make some hardware changes to our server to try and improve database performance.

I really have no idea how long this process should take, but I can't imagine it will take long once our Host can begin the process. However, that's the bigger question. The entire process is completely out of my hands, so there isn't anything that I can do but sit by and watch. =P

Keep an eye out on our Twitter for any updates during the downtime. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Also, just a reminder, this scheduled downtime is in addition to our regularly scheduled weekly maintenance at 4 AM.
Edited By Krinadon on 12/7/2021 at 7:02 AM.
Varyntha
Level 72
Maze Runner
Joined: 9/3/2014
Threads: 22
Posts: 1,562
Posted: 12/6/2021 at 3:43 AM Post #2
Thanks! ^_^
Dragonsrcool54
Level 56
The Perfectionist
Joined: 5/7/2018
Threads: 75
Posts: 65,355
Posted: 12/6/2021 at 6:40 AM Post #3
Huh. Deja Vu.

Hope this doesnt take too long!
Kitsunegamergal
Level 36
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 8/21/2021
Threads: 44
Posts: 131
Posted: 12/6/2021 at 7:08 AM Post #4
Thanks, I'll be on lunch break by then so win win
Krinadon
Level 75
Guardian of the Realm
Site Administrator
Joined: 12/17/2012
Threads: 1,114
Posts: 14,657
Posted: 12/7/2021 at 7:19 AM Post #5
Hey, all.

Well, that was fun.

I greatly apologize for literally almost an entire 24 hours of downtime. That obviously was not even remotely the plan. The whole process ended up being a laundry list of issues one after the other. The sole good news though is... the process was completed, the site's settings are basically back to like 98%+ of what they were, and database queries are running in a third of the time.

For those interested, what happened was this planned downtime was scheduled for 9 AM on Monday. They were to remove our software RAID 1 configuration and set our drives up to instead be two independent drives. My expectations were that this would be a simple procedure and that the data on the RAID configured drives would be viable after the RAID configuration was removed.

What really happened was... the ticket got erroneously marked as "at any time", instead of 9 AM. This caused the issue where this process did not even begin until 2:30 PM. Second issue, apparently, what I expected to happen is not how it works - they replace our RAID drives with a new drive and then migrate the data over. This means basically it's a fresh install of our server software. Only so much is carried over in a basic migration, so many server configuration settings and custom installed software were lost. I had not planned ahead for this because I did not realize this would be happening, so I had nothing to refer to to put things back where they were.

So, now it's about 9 PM at night and the server's in shambles. The main reason I wanted to perform this specifically on a Monday is because we have our routine weekly backup run at 4 AM on Mondays. I asked our Host to restore as much as they could from that backup. However, the interfacing for restorations through this process is not the greatest and so things had to be restored piece by piece manually by the support tech. This took another 6 hours.

Unfortunately, a lot of things could not be included in this process. So then I began a 3-4 hour session with another tech who helped me manually install/configure/fix issues, one by one, going down the checklist until finally everything was sorted out. And then, once I could verify no issues, I brought the site back online.

At this point, I can verify that Insert, Update, and Delete queries are running 3x faster than they were prior to all of this. We now have two separate m.2 NVMe SSDs to utilize moving forward, so this will help with other data storage issues. Configuration wise, we are probably about 98% the way things were prior to downtime, so basically everything should be working the same both backend and frontend.

Most importantly, we shouldn't have to do downtime like this again for the foreseeable future.


Thank you to everyone for your immense patience during this very extended downtime. I have made it so December 6th's Advent Calendar prize is claimable through December 9th. The site was frozen during the whole duration of the downtime, so it's basically just like Monday 8 AM to Tuesday 7 AM didn't exist lol. =\

If you run into any issues, please don't hesitate to let me know.
Edited By Krinadon on 12/7/2021 at 7:20 AM.
Dragonsrcool54
Level 56
The Perfectionist
Joined: 5/7/2018
Threads: 75
Posts: 65,355
Posted: 12/7/2021 at 7:21 AM Post #6
No problem! Thanks for fixing this, Krin!

Also, i think i jynxed it with my earlier post.

oops.
Edited By Dragonsrcool54 on 12/7/2021 at 7:35 AM.
Giraffe
Level 72
Joined: 10/5/2013
Threads: 68
Posts: 587
Posted: 12/7/2021 at 7:26 AM Post #7
Dang that sounds like a lot of work! I hope you're finally going to get some sleep and relax. You more than deserve it! Thanks for keeping us up to date!
Vineyiea
Level 75
Guardian of the Realm
Joined: 5/2/2017
Threads: 187
Posts: 5,109
Posted: 12/7/2021 at 7:32 AM Post #8
Yikes, that must of been stressful for you! Hope you can relax a bit today now that it should be fixed!
Lyonid
Level 74
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 11/2/2021
Threads: 0
Posts: 9
Posted: 12/7/2021 at 7:51 AM Post #9
I gotta say that as a new player I deeply respect and appreciate the transparency. I have noting but admiration for people dealing with any administration task. Sending you lots of love! \o/
Mascot51
Level 62
Joined: 10/6/2020
Threads: 4
Posts: 104
Posted: 12/7/2021 at 8:06 AM Post #10
I was wondering why I kept getting server errors and 'insecure connection' warnings. I didn't even see the maintenance banner until I stripped out the IP from my hosts file and got the site link from google instead. This was an attempt to come at the site from a slightly different direction hoping to get a different connection.And it worked, sort of. At least I got on the right server since I didn't get the warning and did get the banner.

So, you are no longer listed as safe in the hosts file. Means no more free ride onto the browser, which frankly I'm more comfortable with anyway. Means your site has to go through the same hoops everyone else does. Given that I've managed to completely block people like doubleclick and pagead for years, this should tell you something about the parts of my hosts and other security measures you didn't see.
Edited By Mascot51 on 12/7/2021 at 8:08 AM.
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