Server Changes

[Ian]

I made some changes to how the website works this morning (including patching the forum software), but more importantly there are some big improvements to how the server works. It should mean that pages are generated much faster, so loading times may improve (especially if you're based in the USA or Europe).

Tweaks and patches are made in the background all the time, but because this one is quite major I wanted to mention it in case there are any problems. If you notice any page errors or timeouts, please do let me know .

 

[Ian]

There have been a few teething problems with the change, so I've been working on the server most of today - but I think it's now finally resolved . There shouldn't have been any downtime today (although there is a server reboot scheduled for the next patch update), but we haven't had the full benefit of the speed/resource improvements yet.

 

[Trouble]

OK?????
Haven't noticed any outages today
The rest, I'm just going to nod my head and pretend I know what that means.
As for the server(s).......
Where are they physically located?

 

[Ian]

Glad to hear that it hasn't been noticeable . The server is in Washington DC, so it should be speedy for both the USA and Europe. Normally it's problem free, but the latest patches have been a nightmare! Should be settling down now though thankfully!

 

[Trouble]

Thanks for the location info.
Just had a couple brief glitches in getting to the site.

 

[davidhk129]

I have had 2 internal server errors today. No, I did not make a screenshot copy.
The last error was only 1 min ago before I managed to access this site.

 

[davehc]

I was also unable to get on the site a while ago, but Ok again now.

 

[davidhk129]

Just had another one.
This time I made a screenshot.

 

[davidhk129]

Was that my computer or was that your server ?

 

[Trouble]

Seems to be a rolling issue.
I had two, earlier this morning between 9 and 10 A.M. Chicago Time.
But have not had one since.
I talked to Ian at that time and he checked the server logs and was unable to find anything that would indicate a problem on that end of things.
I just chalked it up to yet another ethereal glitch.

 

[Ian]

Thanks for the details everyone, I'll see what I can do to fix this. I've had server monitoring running, but it has never been picked up, so I can only assume it's very intermittent. I'll make some changes now and see what happens - please keep me posted!

 

[Ian]

This is an interesting thought - I wonder if it could be DNS issues. The server reports no errors and the screenshot above says that the website can't be found, rather than an error provided by the server.

I'm going to roll out additional monitoring so I can try and capture this myself, as the site seems to be working well at my end.

 

[davidhk129]

I did have " internal server " error before a few times, but I did not take a screenshot.

 

[clifford_cooley]

From 9:45AM to 10:00AM UTC (5AM Central Time)

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator to inform of the time the error occurred and of anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Web Server at windows10forums.com

Additional note w7forums loaded fine.

.

 

[Ian]

Thanks Clifford, I've been away the past few days but I'm looking in to this now.

 

[Ian]

OK, I can see the HTTP 500 errors in the logs and some errors relating to opcache, which we use to speed up PHP processing. I've changed the memorybase, as it looks like this can cause some problems with the type of config we have. Lets see how this works .