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shepherd352

shepherd352

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Oct 1, 2009
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The Forum has been off-line quite a bit lately but I have seen no information explaining the outages. It is helpful to know of planned outages, so we can adjust our schedules to connect. It is also helpful to know of unplanned outages, so when we trouble-shoot connection difficulties, we know whether the forum was the cause.

When trying to post this, I was getting connection errors. I had to save the message and it took several efforts to post it. I tried to create a second connection and got the message "The server is too busy at the moment. Please try again later." but this message does not always appear. If this message is accurate, it would seem that the new format of the forum has resulted in reduced capacity.

Is this information available anywhere?

One difference with Paradox games has been access to the wider community. If that access is being reduced, it would affect my decision to buy these games in the future.
 
When I know about downtimes beforehand, I always post it as an announcement. These announcements show up on the top part in each forum. You don't see it when you read a thread though, just when browsing a sub forum/forum. (None visible now)
Yesterday we had a few minutes of planned downtime that was announced that way, and after this, I hope that the server busy messages will be reduced heavily and the speed should improve.

The new forum software requires a bit more performance, so we are working to optimize it constantly.
 
Thanks for the feedback. It is nice to know that you are seeking to improve performance.

My frustration has come from many attempts to access the site, with some ending in the "explorer cant reach site / diagnose fault" message and some with the "server is busy" message. If the server is off-line (not just busy), I don't know if there is any way to provide feedback to people trying to access it. That would be useful but one easy service would be to add your announcements into a stickied "Admin Announcements" thread, so when we get access to the Forum, we can check if there have been recent issues.

Given that this thread has received some views but nobody has felt the need to add their bit, my views may not coincide with much of the community. The sugestion is offered and you should do whatever you think best. No need to reply back to this comment.
 
The "Admin Announcements" thread is a good idea, I'll add it in the paradox general discussion forum the next time I have something to say. Also, I'm moving this thread there now, since this is not HoI3 specific.
 
I take the chance to post in this thread instead of opening a new one,
because what i want to say kinda touches on the same basic subject.

I take the most things, that are out of my hands to change, with equanimity and serenity.
But the state of the Forum, concerning downtimes, are reaching a point that is even for me not easy to take.

In the last week or so, i had EVERY DAY problems with the Forum.
Sometimes with the "server is busy" message, but most times it just timed out on me.
It is no problem with my line, everything else works fine besides this Forum.
Maybe i am just unlucky, but i doubt it.

It is frustrating and aggravating, to loose postings/not beeing able to post something/send messages
when this happens, and it happens every day sadly.
When it happenes then i normally give up on the forum after 10 minutes or more of trying to reach it.
Everytime it happens i loose the overview on where there are new postings in my user cp/settings.

I dont want to bash you Paradox pepole, but dammit, get these servers to a state that is reliable and workable,
because at the moment it feels like this forum is held together by duct tape and hope.
And even for the biggest fan things get unbearable at some point. The forum should be a fun/good experience,
at the moment its just making me not want to visit here at all to be honest.

I can only imagine what impression some new user gets from this that just bought his first paradox game
and searches for a patch or mod or wants to communicate with other pepole here...
Thats not an impression i would want to give this user if it would be my company for sure.
Dont you think this hurts your reputation? It surly does in my opinion.

Well, whatever, i cant help you other than by letting you know of my frustration.
Please improve the situation in whatever way you can.


EDIT:
There we had it again (06-11-2010 at 01:46 CET), its allways around this time i experience it most.
Server not reachable for 20-30 minutes, this time i stayed awake so i can report it straight away. :(
 
Last edited:
I've noticed there is almost always connection problems each night, starting ca 01.15 Swedish time. I guess this is part of planned maintenance, but it isn't explicitly said anywhere I think, and might be part of the reason for the OP's problems?
 
And there it happened again: 01:15 -> forum gone

I can see a pattern here.
If this is some kind of regular downtime for maintance
then it would be wise to announce it, because it happenes every day it seems.
 
Alexspeed said:
And there it happened again: 01:15 -> forum gone

I can see a pattern here.
If this is some kind of regular downtime for maintance
then it would be wise to announce it, because it happenes every day it seems.
Click to expand...

It is regular, and it has been announced a myriad times over the last years.
 
Velko said:
It is regular, and it has been announced a myriad times over the last years.
Click to expand...

I know that before the Forum update there was sheduled downtimes,
a few minutes after 00:00 and in the morning around 06:00,
but there never was any downtime around 01:15 before.

EDIT:
Summertime / Wintertime - 1 hour difference - i got it now.
 
Last edited:
We backup all data from the forum every day, at around midnight (depending on summertime then of course).
The forum will need to lockup then unfortunately, as new posts would not be saved anyway.
There is not much I can do about that right now.

General performance is still being worked on though!
 
Hello Kallocain, do you still work on the performance?

Browsing the forum has really become irritating since the change. Every page takes too long to load.

Keep us informed! Thanks! :)
 
We are still working on it! The next steps are to upgrade the mysql version and double the RAM in the database server. Both these things will require a bit of downtime, so I'll create the Admin Announcements thread when it's time.
 
Thank you for keeping us informed!
Its good to see you are working on it, because the loading times really could need a boost ;)


EDIT:
Oh and this thing is haunting me in my nightmares... please make it stop! :(

vBulletin Message said:
The server is too busy at the moment. Please try again later.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
I rarely have these problems - perhaps I'm simply not on at the same times the American crowd arrives?

Alex, your first post in here looks like a poem. :wacko:
 
King_Richard_XI said:
I rarely have these problems - perhaps I'm simply not on at the same times the American crowd arrives?
Alex, your first post in here looks like a poem. :wacko:
Click to expand...

Well i have it allmost every day now :(

And it looks that way because i make paragraphs to improve the readability :)
 
Alexspeed said:
Well i have it allmost every day now :(

And it looks that way because i make paragraphs to improve the readability :)
Click to expand...
That's unfortunate...

And
I
think
your
idea
may
work.
;)
 
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