# *Server Is Under High Stress*



## Mike Bobbitt

I have a feeling it may be slow right now... but I can't test because I'm on the "inside". Anyone noticing any speed problems tonight?


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## dapaterson

Somewhat slow from Ottawa... but my DSL connection has been flakey of late, so I can't rule that out as a cause.


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## Mike Baker

A little slow here, Mike.


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## Nfld Sapper

Been slow all day for me.

Did a free Cable Test and my connection is:

4 megabits per second

Communications 4 megabits per second
Storage 492.8 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 2.1 seconds
Subjective rating Awesome

Info
Date & time Wednesday, September 12, 7:54PM*
Test type IDT4 Free
Connection type Cable
Region Newfoundland


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## navymich

Nfld Sapper said:
			
		

> Been slow all day for me



Ditto for me.  I found it slowest at about noonish.


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## Snaketnk

I was experiencing some pretty long load times myself (Cable in Montréal, m'self)


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## MarkS33

Hasnt been that bad here in Vancouver.... some times it gets a bit hung up, but all in all, its been business as usual ;D


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## GAP

Normal in the 'Peg


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## missing1

Quite slow here in Lansdowne for the last 5-6 hours


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## armyvern

Mine was very slow to upload from 1800-2130 last night. It seems to be working like a charm though this morning (yeah it's after midnight here on the best coast ...  ).


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## Mike Baker

Still a little slow for me this morning.


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## PMedMoe

It was slow for me yesterday, both at work and and home.  Seems better this morning.


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## George Wallace

Just a quick survey, Is it just me, or is the site really slow in the last hour or so?


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## TN2IC

It's slow Mr. Wallace for me.


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## observor 69

Been slow here in GTA for most of the day.

Edit:
And now at 1706 it is normal speed.

??


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## navymich

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Just a quick survey, Is it just me, or is the site really slow in the last hour or so?



I was first online this afternoon about 1530ish and it was slow then, and is still quite slow now.


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## Bruce Monkhouse

Mike should be back tomorrow to tinker with the system.


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## navymich

It's back to regular speed now for me.


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## Private Parts

Was slow late morning/early afternoon, normal about an hour ago, and now seems to have slowed down again.


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## George Wallace

Site seems a bit sluggish today.  Anyone else find it so?


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## Mike Baker

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Site seems a bit sluggish today.  Anyone else find it so?


Running good for me George.


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## vangemeren

I've been on and off the site a lot after 14:00 hrs EST and I didn't seem to notice a difference.

The only time this site slows down for me is when the site is about to go down.


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## vangemeren

For the last 5 minutes the site went really slow and now its rebounded to the fastest I've ever seen it on this connection, almost like a rubber band effect. Why would the site slow down like that at this time of day? I closed the browser window to see if it was my connection and only this site was slow.


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## navymich

Same for me over the last 1/2 hour or so.  Really slow and you think it's going to time out, then super fast.


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## karl28

ITs seems a bit slow for me this morning to.


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## Raye

Very, very slow for me.  It took about 4 minutes for the post function to work.  Also, no avatars are visible to me under the names, no pictures what so ever.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Sorry folks, 1 of our connections went down. It's back now.


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## Raye

Wow Mike.....you're good!!!!  Things are working fine on my end now.  Thanks Mike!!


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## karl28

Mike Bobbitt  

No worries  you and your staff are doing a great job .  I just reprot something running slow when I  notice it hope that's allright ?


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## Mike Bobbitt

Absolutely, that's the best way for us to know something is going wrong.


Thanks
Mike


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## Edward Campbell

The site is very slow this morning on both the Windows/IE7 and Linux/Firefox boxes. Ditto for Ruxted.ca.


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## Mike Baker

It is a crawl here. At least I have school


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## PMedMoe

Yep, slow for me (at work) so far.  :-\

Edit: 
At 0904 hrs, working great now.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Yeah, we had a problem, but that one is fixed. In fixing it, I unfortunately uncovered another problem. The server can't boot without manual intervention due to a corrupted device BIOS. I actually didn't think I'd get it to bood at all this morning. Anyway, it won't affect daily operation, but I definitely have to chase this one down.


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## 3VP Highlander

System was very slow when I tried to get on at 0745, but is working fine now and it is 0957.


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## Mike Baker

Fine here now, thanks Mike!


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## navymich

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> The server can't boot without manual intervention...



Maybe you need help from another source.  May I suggest:



			
				ArmyVern said:
			
		

> I told you that I am a witch   >



 ;D


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## aesop081

3:47 PT....

All is well


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## navymich

It's been quite slow for me for about the last hour, especially when posting.


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## aesop081

1754 PT..........all is still well


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## Mike Baker

It was slow again for a bit earlier but now it is flying for me.


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## Edward Campbell

It is _p a i n f u l l y  s l o w_  on the Linux/Firefox box (at 08:05 (Eastern)) and unworkable on the Windows/IE7 box.


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## GAP

I have made three posts this morning only to lose all three due to being unable to find site.....this seems to be better now (at work), but all last night and this AM, couldn't do diddly....


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## Edward Campbell

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> I swapped 3 different DSL modems in place, and connection #1 just never establishes without a kick from me on the router. The DSL modem syncs, but no connection is made, so it's the router. But connection 1 and 2 are configured exactly the same, so I'm not sure why the difference! Maybe tonight I'll swap them to see if it's the first connection slot, or the actual connection that's causing the problem.



It looks, from here, a lot like the problem we had a few months ago.

Added: Same as before (Sep 07) at 0900 Hrs; one minute it's quick, the next it's "Nothing heard." Happens with both boxes - it appears to depend upon which connection (at Mike's place) one 'grabs' at any moment. It's *not* my connection - the rest of the Internet zooms along happily on both machines.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Edward, you're right... it's not your connection, it was one of ours. I brought the other connection up and we're back in business again.

Sorry for the inconvenience all!


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## Rayman

Since about 0300 to about now (1300) its been slow, as well avatars aren't loading.


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## Lance Wiebe

The site is kicking along quite nicely for me now!  (XP & Firefox).

I haven't seen it this fast in several days.

Whatever you did Mike, it worked!


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## George Wallace

WOW!  Site speed sure is fluctuating this morning.


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## geo

same here George.... it limps along (with sudden bursts of speed)....

Need for speed!


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## karl28

Yup I have to agree with you guys  the site is one min  fast the next not so fast .


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## Mike Baker

So                  s   -    s  -   slow!


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## armyvern

Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slooooooooooow.

System Load is high too:



> System Load is High: 10.01



But not many people on.  ???



> 370 Guests, 56 Users


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## navymich

Is anyone else finding the site really slow this morning, or should I blame it on the cold up here freezing everything?


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## Mike Baker

Smooth here.


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## Mike Bobbitt

It was slow again, fixed now. I'll try to figure out an automated way to at least detect when one of our connections goes down.


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## GUNS

Its a might slow here on the Rock. There is from three to five second delay.


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## Mike Baker

Okay it is slow here at home, but it isn't too bad at school.


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## PMedMoe

It comes and goes for me both at work and home.  I'm not computer savvy, but for whatever reason, double-clicking seems to speed it up.  8)


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## Mike Baker

Super slow now.


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## Mike Bobbitt

It's the ferry to the rock that carries the packets... everything's good on this end.


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## Mike Baker

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> It's the ferry to the rock that carries the packets... everything's good on this end.


Haha well it's really wonky now Mike.


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## Nfld Sapper

Mike Baker said:
			
		

> Haha well it's really wonky now Mike.



Must be on your end there mikey. Mine is super fine.


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## GUNS

:rofl:


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## navymich

The site has been quite slow for me most of the morning.  Anyone else?


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## Mike Baker

airmich said:
			
		

> The site has been quite slow for me most of the morning.  Anyone else?


Yeah it has been slow for me too.


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## GUNS

Slow here as well.

Could it be the cold? :


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## navymich

GUNS said:
			
		

> Could it be the cold? :



Hope not, or I've got a loonnggg winter to get through without feeding my addiction!  :-\


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## Edward Campbell

I have been unable to get on, at all, since around 1000 Hrs with my Windows/IE7 box. I have gotten on, now and again, but very slowly, with my Linux/Firefox box.


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## Edward Campbell

It took about 5 mins to upload the last message. But now it's working fine; this loaded in 5 secs!

The rest of the Internets flies along on both machines.


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## George Wallace

It has been slow most of the time I have been on.  That could also account for the relative lack of posts lately.


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## Edward Campbell

It's dead slow again (on the Linux box) and still unavailable on the Windows box.

Once again, lest one accuse me of _otherenditis_, everything else on the Internet seems to go at breakneck speed on both boxes.


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## Franko

Slow here.

Wait a tick.....Mike gone again?

Regards


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## Mike Baker

Recce By Death said:
			
		

> Slow here.
> 
> Wait a tick.....Mike gone again?
> 
> Regards


Gone to Cali.


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## GUNS

Speed back to norm.


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## Franko

Still screwy from time to time. Almost hit or miss.

Regards


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## Mike Bobbitt

Bloody hell... *every time* I leave it happens... terribly frustrating! Anyway, we're up, at least for now.


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## GUNS

Site speed dead slow today.

Is it only me?


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## PMedMoe

Nope, it's not just you.  :'(


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## dapaterson

No problems in Ottawa right now...

...at least, no problems accessing army.ca...  there's only so much I can do about other problems from Ottawa...


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## geo

dead slow from La Belle Province!


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## deedster

dapaterson said:
			
		

> there's only so much I can do about other problems from Ottawa...


\ :rofl:

Dead slow & no Photo Gallery


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## tomahawk6

maybe the server needs to be rebooted ?


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## JBoyd

Chat is kinda laggy this morning, but the forums seem fine


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## Delicron

It's real slow in Calgary today too... :-\


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## PMedMoe

Back to normal for me now!  8)


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## deedster

PMedMoe said:
			
		

> Back to normal for me now!  8)


PMM normal?  ;D

Still very sluggish here (whine, whine, whine) ... WINE !!!!  Now there's an idea!


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## GUNS

Site speed seems to be back to normal on the Rock.


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## Dano651

Still slow in Barrie


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## dapaterson

Interestingly my home connection was knocked offline for a while - looking at the logs on my router I saw hundreds of different IP addresses hitting three ports seconds apart (if that):  65265 (UDP); 52094 (TCP); and 2638 (UDP).

Depending on who Mike's upstream comes from, it may be they were under siege as well.  I suspect the slowness may be due to the upstream getting saturated.


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## Mike Baker

Still a tad slow here.


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## dimsum

Wasn't able to get on at all for the past 3 days...just got on about 2 hours ago.  It's fine now though in Winnipeg.


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## Nfld Sapper

Is it me or did the site just get all wonky again?


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## PMedMoe

Yep, it's all wonky again.  Not _quite_ as slow as it was earlier today, but still slow.


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## muskrat89

Slow for me, and icons no/slow loading....


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## Roy Harding

The site is painfully slow today - in all four iterations (milnet.ca, army.ca, navy.ca air-force.ca).

Slow enough that I'm giving up on it for today.


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## aesop081

Roy Harding said:
			
		

> The site is painfully slow today



Same here. So slow in fact, that i think the internet is de-inventing itself.


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## FastEddy

CDN Aviator said:
			
		

> Same here. So slow in fact, that i think the internet is de-inventing itself.




Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe a site could have a few kinks or equipment problems, resulting in slow logging on or down loading.

On occasion I couldn't log on or the connection was so slow, I timed out. But it never happens with really big sites like BANKS, LOTO QUEBEC etc., I wonder why ?.

We have 17,350 +/- members, and if we each sent "MIKE" a dollar, I'm sure he could really upgrade  this site.

Maybe we could start a drive with a "Accumulated Total Thermometer" and a little Loonie symbol beside our Name on the Members list and posting ID ?. And before you say, why don't you put your money where your mouth is, a MO for Membership will be in the mail Monday (its about time).

Cheers.


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## Mike Baker

It's pretty bad here now.


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## cameron

Somewhat slow from my end too.


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## dangerboy

Last night in Brandon I could not log on, the site would time out.  Today it is still very slow especially loading icons.


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## PMedMoe

It's working okay again from my end.


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## Mike Baker

Huh, it's good here now


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## Mike Baker

Huh, and now it is *painfully slow*


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## karl28

Well last night at 11pm wasn't able to get on at all  . This morning at 10:36 its hit or miss .


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## armyvern

Very very slooooooooooooooooowwwww.  :'(


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## armyvern

Very very slooooooooooooooooowwwww.  :'(


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## aesop081

FastEddy said:
			
		

> We have 17,350 +/- members, and if we each sent "MIKE" a dollar, I'm sure he could really upgrade  this site.



The site's hardward was recently replaced by something quite capable. I dont think its related to the current slowdown, but thats just me.


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## Edward Campbell

It is (at 1100 Hrs Central) going at the normal high speed, again, after a day or so of on-again/off-again slowdowns.


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## armyvern

CDN Aviator said:
			
		

> The site's hardward was recently replaced by something quite capable. I dont think its related to the current slowdown, but thats just me.



Something's glitching though -- 

My unread topics won't disappear even when I click them and tell them to!!


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## Mike Baker

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> Something's glitching though --
> 
> My unread topics won't disappear even when I click them and tell them to!!


Same here. And everything is very slow to load up. Got any ideas to what the problem may be, Mike?


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## PMedMoe

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> My unread topics won't disappear even when I click them and tell them to!!



Mine don't either but the site speed is okay.


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## Mike Baker

PMedMoe said:
			
		

> Mine don't either but the site speed is okay.


Same here now. Funny.


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## GUNS

Site speed and forum functions, normal here on the Rock.(for me, that is)


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## GUNS

Site speed and forum functions are all normal for me. :


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## JBoyd

the 'mark all messages as read function" doesnt seem to be performing correctly for me over here


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## Mike Bobbitt

Working on getting things sorted folks, sorry about the delay! I was off in the woods for the weekend so I was out of touch. Figures things would fall apart.


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## Nfld Sapper

LOL you knew this would happen. BTW check your email Mike I sent you some info.


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## Mike Baker

Arggh, slow again.


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## GUNS

Everything is running smoothly on this end>


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## armyvern

GUNS said:
			
		

> Everything is running smoothly on this end>



Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Not here. It's taking a full 4 minutes for my pages to load.

It's worse than the 0400-0500 site back-up lag that I'm used to. 

So, because I'm so frustrated ... I'm going to bed to catch some zzzzzz's (yes, a miracle I know) ... 

and will come back later once all you _riff-raff _ -*) have headed off to bed in the hopes that it will be faster.  ;D


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## GAP

Bribery doesn't even work.....I renewed my membership, hoping it would give me a higher speed for my little niche.....drat!!!


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## appletreecdn

Hmmmm...the site has been slow for me especially during dinner time around 1800ish here on the west coast (Coquitlam, BC near Vancouver).  It has been so for the past few days.  Wondering if this is a site specific issue or internet issue.


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## Roy Harding

appletreecdn said:
			
		

> Hmmmm...the site has been slow for me especially during dinner time around 1800ish here on the west coast (Coquitlam, BC near Vancouver).  It has been so for the past few days.  Wondering if this is a site specific issue or internet issue.



It has been abysmal for me here (Terrace, BC) since Saturday night.

On the plus side, I've rediscovered the joys of splitting firewood and taking long romps through the bush with my wife and dog.


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## Mike Baker

Yep, super slow here.


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## GUNS

0817hrs Verrrrrrry slooooooow thissss morrrrrrrrrrning. :'(

333333 tooooo 55555 sssseeecccooonnnddd dddelay.

Not a good start for my day.  No Army.ca with my tea.


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## GUNS

Man, this is weird.
0827hrs - site speed and forum functions are back to nornal.

We are in a "deep freeze", here on the Rock.

Mike do you have the correct strength anti-freeze for the system? ;D


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## Edward Campbell

Very, very slow last night and this morning ... so slow last night that I gave up trying to get into Milnet.ca Admin to post a report.


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## GUNS

1058hrs - back to being slow again. Damn

I have no excuse for not completing the list of chords the wife left me. :'(

Retirement sucks, some days.


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## geo

Hoboy.... sooooo slow this morning.
Guess I'm forced to do some work !!!

Mike - have you fed the squirrels this morning?


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## Mike Bobbitt

Just oiled their wheels, we should see some improvements now.


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## midget-boyd91

Everything is running fine here, now. Whatever you did, Mike, it worked.
Thanks, 

Midget


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## George Wallace

Still running sluggishly here.


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## JBoyd

wouldn't even load for the most part for me last night, kept getting gateway timeout errors.


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## PMedMoe

FAST.......slooooooow......FAST........sloooooow.......


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## Cat

couldn't access army.ca at all this morning - now I can get on - however milnet.ca was available yet slow earlier...

*twitch*

I think the site may be having personality issues today.


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## Mike Baker

It isn't too too bad right about now.


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## 1feral1

Yesterday, could not even post (got thru once only), kept timing out, and this am, from home so very very slow.


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## GUNS

1920hrs - site speed slow again.


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## Mike Baker

It has take me an hour to load up this. That is how slow it is, like we hit a huge bottle neck. Mike, can you fix it?


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## karl28

Working great in lovely snowy Trenton Ont .


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## Sigop2004

very slow last 2 days in Victoria on  Telus High speed enhanced


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## JBoyd

Sigop2004 said:
			
		

> very slow last 2 days in Victoria on  Telus High speed enhanced



Well theres your problem, your using Telus


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## FastEddy

JBoyd said:
			
		

> Well theres your problem, your using Telus




Was very Slow for last two days here in Montreal (all other sites no problem, almost instantaneous ) but much better, almost normal, at 3.05 am 22 Jan.

But on Videotron cable High Speed 853 kbs.

Cheers.


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## Mike Baker

Here at normal speed now.


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## emmiee

Reminder to Mike Bobbitt:  feed the hampsters the wheel is slowing down.

emmie          ;D


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## Edward Campbell

It is markedly slower here (Texas) too this evening (2020 hrs Central).


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## armyvern

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> It is markedly slower here (Texas) too this evening (2020 hrs Central).



Well, it's flying here in NB.

Mike must have fed the hamsters steroids!!


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## Edward Campbell

It's sporadic here. I went off (closed browser), then on again and it's OK. Then off again and on again and it was slow again. It's OK now.


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## armyvern

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> It's sporadic here. I went off (closed browser), then on again and it's OK. Then off again and on again and it was slow again. It's OK now.



The other hamster has probably returned from it's smoke break on your end then.

Hopefully, it'll be a while before the other beast heads out for one.


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## Fishbone Jones

It's sailing right along here at home. However, my DIN computer was worse than dialup tonight.


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## FullMetalParka

It has been a bit slow lately over in BC, but my internet provider sucks anyways... so it's probably their fault.


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## PMedMoe

I'm still getting the fast/slow thing going on.  Was great last night at home, is so-so here at work.


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## Mike Bobbitt

It seems to be a problem with our connections... The hardware is good and under a light load, but something's up with our dual DSL connections. I've taken a few steps but will continue to investigate. We could be simply saturated with traffic.


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## Nfld Sapper

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> It seems to be a problem with our connections... The hardware is good and under a light load, but something's up with our dual DSL connections. I've taken a few steps but will continue to investigate. We could be simply saturated with traffic.



Painfully slow today Mike.


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## deedster

Not as bad today, yesterday was brutal.
Aren't we impatient though?  ;D
Thanks for all you do Mike!


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## Nfld Sapper

D Squared said:
			
		

> Not as bad today, yesterday was brutal.
> Aren't we impatient though?  ;D
> Thanks for all you do Mike!



Not really. Just informing Mike.


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## Mike Baker

Not too slow here.


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## deedster

NFLD Sapper said:
			
		

> Not really. Just informing Mike.



Sorry Sapper, meant it  as a corrporate "we"


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## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

I have reconfigured a few things here, please let me know if we see another slowdown.

Thanks
Mike


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## GAP

What I have been seeing over the past week was a sometimes long delay from the time you clicked on a topic to when it actually changed screens and displayed it....almost as if there was difficulty in the handshaking mode.....that delay is not there today....


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## Mike Bobbitt

Glad to hear it. A large part of the problem (but not the only part) was a suspicious German IP: 89.149.242.175

It doesn't belong to any registered member here, yet it had sucked down 250Gb of data so far in January. The logs show it was just probing - continuously probing - and never obtained any useful (non-public) info. I've shut down that IP and hopefully that will help.


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## Franko

To compare it from yesterday......It's like night and day now.

Regards


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## PMedMoe

Same here.  It's working great!  8)


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## Mike Bobbitt

Glad to hear it... let's wait before we pop the champagne though, just in case this is simply a lull.


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## GAP

Can the system be set to flag/warn about massive amounts of data being downloaded like the dataminers/keystrokers like to do?


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## Mike Bobbitt

It's complicated. We're constantly being probed from many, many locations. There is no way to automatically detect what constitutes a probe vs. a very active user without getting it wrong a fair amount of the time. Furthermore, there's no way to automatically block an IP without causing problems down the road. Just because an IP from Videotron in Quebec is probing us today doesn't mean that a valid user won't be trying to log in from it tomorrow.

Still, there are some things that can be done, and I'm already in the proess of checking into those.


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## GAP

You're right


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## Mike Baker

It is super fast now Mike! ;D


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## Nfld Sapper

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Glad to hear it. A large part of the problem (but not the only part) was a suspicious German IP: 89.149.242.175
> 
> It doesn't belong to any registered member here, yet it had sucked down *250Gb of data so far in January*. The logs show it was just probing - continuously probing - and never obtained any useful (non-public) info. I've shut down that IP and hopefully that will help.



Wow, that's alot of downloads. 

Site is much better now Mike.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yeah, that's a massive amount. To put it into perspective, all user traffic for all things Milnet/Army/Navy/Air-Force.ca in December totalled 104 Gb.


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## Nfld Sapper

Email inbound Mike.


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## deedster

Back to lightning speed here!


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## NL_engineer

Slow here Mike


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## Nfld Sapper

NL_engineer said:
			
		

> Slow here Mike



Must be you, fine in my neck of the woods


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## Rayman

Mr. Bobbit, could it be just a crawler for a search engine or is someone trying to choke the site?


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## Mike Bobbitt

It's not a search crawler, I can tell from the logs that it's probing for vulnerable software. It's clearly an automated script trying to spread into our neck of the woods.


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## Nfld Sapper

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> It's not a search crawler, I can tell from the logs that it's probing for vulnerable software. It's clearly an automated script trying to spread into our neck of the woods.



So should we deploy the protected minefield?  ;D


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## Mike Bobbitt

Already deployed and well covered by MG fire. I just have to pay attention next time a trip flare goes up.


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## Nfld Sapper

;D

Engineer Support is standing by


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## Mike Baker

NL_engineer said:
			
		

> Slow here Mike


Very fast here.


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## Roy Harding

The site has been golden this evening.


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## armyvern

Roy Harding said:
			
		

> The site has been golden this evening.


Here too!! Yay!!


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## 1feral1

As at 281942kJan08, its working fine here in Australia.

Cheers,

Wes


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## Roy Harding

It's starting to bog down again here.

This COULD be my ISP, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the site - but I don't think so; all other sites I'm visiting are normal.


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## Nfld Sapper

No problem in my neck of the woods.


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## Mike Baker

NFLD Sapper said:
			
		

> No problem in my neck of the woods.


Nor mine.


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## PMedMoe

Slow again here tonight.  Mostly the icons loading.  :'(


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## deedster

Exactly what Moe said.


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## Mike Bobbitt

I'm checking into it now...


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## armyvern

Mike,

Two DSL connections are down.

 :-X

But, it's working like lightening still down here!!  ;D


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Heh, ignore that warning for the moment... that's me tinkering.


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## armyvern

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Heh, ignore that warning for the moment... that's me tinkering.



And here I was thinking my witchly powers were just that darn good that they were allowing me to still connect!!  ;D


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Ok, fixed. How's the speed?


----------



## Roy Harding

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Ok, fixed. How's the speed?



It's good for me now (an hour after you asked).


----------



## Mike Baker

What the hell happened?? I couldn't even get on for a while, but now it is super fast. Mike, you playing with the wired again??


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse

Off the web for about 20 minutes...a little windy up that way Mike?


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Mike Baker said:
			
		

> What the hell happened?? I couldn't even get on for a while, but now it is super fast. Mike, you playing with the wired again??



Get back to school you    ;D


----------



## GUNS

Working perfectly here in my neck of the woods. :warstory:


----------



## Mike Baker

NFLD Sapper said:
			
		

> Get back to school you    ;D


I'm out when I don't have any exams. I was just back when I noticed the site was not working


----------



## karl28

Yeah same for me earlier this morning but now its working like a champ .


----------



## PMedMoe

Working great today, both at work and home!


----------



## George Wallace

WARNING

SITE SPEED VERY SLOW

Don't   POST  Twice!


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Think the hampsters need to be changed or something.

Site takes very long to load or fails to load at all.

Maybe we got a rogue IP again.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I'd like to take a moment to curse profusely at the situation.

The server is overwhelmed. Don't know why and unfortunately am tied up with other things so I can't spend time investigating at the moment. I'll do my best to keep things limping along but I fear it will be a limp, at least for a while.


----------



## karl28

Hey Mike thanks for the update appreciate all the hard work that goes into keeping this site up .


----------



## dangerboy

Whatever you did fixed it as it is working find out here in Brandon.


----------



## Roy Harding

And in Terrace.

AND I'm no longer seeing the "Site Traffic is Heavy" warning.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Guess Mike replaced the hampsters  ;D


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

No... just _motivated_ them properly.


----------



## Roy Harding

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> No... just _motivated_ them properly.



What'd you do - give them donairs for supper?


----------



## PMedMoe

Site speed is great here in Kingston.     Wish I could say the same for the weather.... :-\.....but it got me a day off!!  ;D

If only I didn't have to shovel!


----------



## geo

good speed this morning.  Guess the squirrels running the servers have had their wheaties this morning.


----------



## George Wallace

geo said:
			
		

> good speed this morning.  Guess the squirrels running the servers have had their wheaties this morning.



Naw!  It has to be that the roads are so bad, many people are still in their cars and not on the internet, freeing up all this time for us.   >


----------



## PMedMoe

Finding the site a little "sluggish" this afternoon.  Probably because people are posting like crazy!!


----------



## 1feral1

Its been a bit slow here in Australia about an hour ago, but seems to be a bit better now.


----------



## Mike Baker

Not bad here...


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Figures... I'm on the road so we can expect a problem.


----------



## midget-boyd91

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Figures... I'm on the road so we can expect a problem.



Are we going to need to duct tape you in front of your computer? Don't think that I won't do it!

Midget


----------



## Yrys

uncle-midget-boyd said:
			
		

> Are we going to need to duct tape you in front of your computer? Don't think that I won't do it!



don't worry, Vern and lots of others will be there before you .


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Are you suggesting that Vern will appear at the mention of duct tape restraints?


----------



## Yrys

ARGHHHH!!!

NO, no, wasn't suggesting anything of the like.  

/ducking in a far far away somber corner not know to human life  :-[ .


----------



## midget-boyd91

> Are you suggesting that Vern will appear at the mention of duct tape restraints?



You just worry about keeping the site up. Or I'll let Vern borrow the whip I've got kicking around here! 




			
				Yrys said:
			
		

> /ducking in a far far away somber corner not know to *human* life  :-[ .



We seeee youuu.  8)

Midget


----------



## Yrys

uncle-midget-boyd said:
			
		

> We seeee youuu.  8)
> 
> Midget




MMM, I wonder if I should let it know to the Forces that you aren't a human being   ?


----------



## Yrys

Me again.

But with something related to the thread (something different, hey) ...

The site take sh*ty time to dowload for me this evening/night...

So, as someone else wrote here : "Is it just me, sigh ?".


----------



## 1feral1

From Australia, super slow, infact it was timing out both at work and at home.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Not just you guys... one DSL link was down but it's back now.


----------



## Mike Baker

Slow for anyone else but me?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

It was, but now is fixed.


----------



## Mike Baker

Thanks Mike!

Baker


----------



## Yrys

Mike Baker said:
			
		

> Thanks Mike!
> 
> Baker





> "Mike,
> You were *REALLY*right"
> -Bobbitt


----------



## Edward Campbell

The site is very, very slow, all of a sudden, at about 10:55 (Central) - took me 10 mins to get this far!


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Seems ok from the Rock.


----------



## Franko

Seems to be hit or miss.

Mike got this error:

DSL connection 216.58.85.243 is down!!

Perhaps another reason why that upgrade is needed? I've been getting error codes like mad this morning.

That and the dreaded white screen.

Regards


----------



## Mike Baker

NFLD Sapper said:
			
		

> Seems ok from the Rock.


Not too too bad for me. Slow loading up though.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

One connection was down, it's back again.


----------



## George Wallace

Mike

Your upgrades are really slowing the site down to a crawl.


----------



## Mike Baker

It's pretty slow again.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Seems ok from this secret location lol


----------



## Mike Baker

It's still sluggish when its loading up the emotions and pictures, but other then that it's good.


----------



## armyvern

Mine is running like wildfire here today; no problems at all.  ;D


----------



## Edward Campbell

Very, very slow here (Texas) right now (10:15 CST).


----------



## Yrys

A bit slow here also (Montréal).


----------



## armyvern

> DSL connection 216.58.85.243 is down!!



Ooops.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

and back!


----------



## Mike Baker

Finally able to get on today. The site was down all together yesterday, and most of the night before.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Must be your connection Mikey, mine is fine.


----------



## Mike Baker

NFLD Sapper said:
			
		

> Must be your connection Mikey, mine is fine.


Yeah thats what I guessed, since everything else worked fine. The site is still slow though.


----------



## Edward Campbell

You might want to check your end (your own hardware and your ISP), it has been fine from here (Ottawa, Linux/Firefox) for the past few days.


----------



## GUNS

Mike, its working fine here in the big city.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Even looking good in Chicago right now!


----------



## George Wallace

Guess it depends on where we are being routed.  It was really slow today at work, and is fluctuating here at home this evening.


----------



## Mike Baker

It's amazing here now.


----------



## dangerboy

Working fine out in the booming city of Brandon, of course it is 0550 and not to many people are up.


----------



## PMedMoe

It's been slow here for me too.  Really bad at work but last night it got better at home.


----------



## Edward Campbell

It has gotten noticeably (and abnormally) slower now (0730 EST) than when I first logged on this morning at 0530 EST.


----------



## Mike Baker

This is as fast as it has been in a while now.


----------



## GUNS

Difficulty in accessing ARMY.CA and once in very,very slow


----------



## George Wallace

GUNS said:
			
		

> Difficulty in accessing ARMY.CA and once in very,very slow




Yeah!   I've had the Army.ca Green Screen of Death several times in the last hour or so.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I'm checking... it looks like we're being probed by China.


----------



## NL_engineer

Hasn't that happend before ???


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yeah, it was from Germany that time.


----------



## Yrys

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> I'm checking... it looks like we're being probed by China.



What do you mean "probed " :  an "interested" party examining the web site ?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Looks like an automated tool checking all the doors and windows here. No way to tell if we're just a hapless victim or a specific target, but I'm treating it seriously.

Luckily everything is still locked up tight. Let me know if you notice performance improve here so I know when I've squeezed out the last of their connections.


----------



## tomahawk6

Alot faster for me now


----------



## midgetcop

Back to normal for me.


----------



## PMedMoe

Oh yeah!  So much better!!!!


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Milnet.ca: 1
China: 0


----------



## Yrys

Fluctuations for me. Somewhen slow, somewhen fast. .. and this page was all to the left,
with weird writing before being correctly loaded ...


----------



## leroi

Mike,

Could not get in (completely) from about 2:00 pm to About 5:00 pm today. Situation similar to what Yrys described above. All seems to be fine here in Guelph now.

Were you serious about the probe?

Thanks,

leroi/Joan


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

leroi, we're probed on a constant basis. If I watch the logs they scroll by a page every few seconds. This was just a more focused effort as opposed to the general "hubub" of noise that hits us usually.


----------



## Franko

Still rather slow.

Regards


----------



## TCBF

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Milnet.ca: 1
> China: 0



- For now...

- Probably punishing you for allowing hooligans to engage in anti-factual discourse regarding China's purely internal affairs.

 8)


----------



## kkwd

Milnet.ca loads very fast along with air-force but army and navy are slow down here in Indy.


----------



## 1feral1

From Australia, very very slow, anout 5 mins just to load the main page, and a few minutes to go from page to page.


----------



## GUNS

Everything back to normal here on the Rock.

Note to self:  no more Chinese food.


----------



## George Wallace

Worse than at a snail's pace here.  Takes forever to load, post, edit, etc.


----------



## Mike Baker

Still not the fastest here. Was down from about 3:30 here, to some other time, just got back.

I don't like the Chinese testing the lines


----------



## George Wallace

There are also a flood of Korean IPs on the line too.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Someone hit the hyperdrive  ;D


----------



## Mike Baker

George Wallace said:
			
		

> There are also a flood of Korean IPs on the line too.


Would that be North Korean, or South?


----------



## George Wallace

Some from Seoul, but could still be both.

If you want to get paranoid, research what the Chinese are doing to gather Intelligence through the Internet.

Could that be applied to North Korea, Iran, India, Al Quada, ..........................................  Yes, of course.  

How paranoid do you want to get?


----------



## Mike Baker

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Some from Seoul, but could still be both.
> 
> If you want to get paranoid, research what the Chinese are doing to gather Intelligence through the Internet.
> 
> Could that be applied to North Korea, Iran, India, Al Quada, ..........................................  Yes, of course.
> 
> How paranoid do you want to get?


George, I am already paranoid, your just making me worse


----------



## George Wallace

I am not at all impressed with Bell Canada if what I heard on the radio yesterday is true.  There was a brief news bite stating that Bell Canada was going to purposely slow down Internet Speeds in the Quebec/Ontario Regions during peak user times during "work hours".  If this is true, they should expect a drastic increase in unsatisfied customers dropping them as Service Providers.......Off to Cable companies and such.  I really wonder what genius has come up with a plan like this.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

George Wallace said:
			
		

> I am not at all impressed with Bell Canada if what I heard on the radio yesterday is true.  There was a brief news bite stating that Bell Canada was going to purposely slow down Internet Speeds in the Quebec/Ontario Regions during peak user times during "work hours".  If this is true, they should expect a drastic increase in unsatisfied customers dropping them as Service Providers.......Off to Cable companies and such.  I really wonder what genius has come up with a plan like this.



Well don't think the cable is better, rogers has quietly made monthly limits too. Just found mine online I get 60GB a month and so far there seems to be no way I would use that much.


----------



## Yrys

If I'm not wrong, Bell also used that tactic years ago. First, with some warning, a limit in upload/download. Then,
more discretely, a decreased of that limit, and payments when people are going over it...


Add :
Somebody post these articles a few days ago, here.

Bell Canada Throttles Wholesalers, Doesn't Bother To Tell Them


Canada Stuck in the Slow Lane on Traffic Shaping Debate


----------



## Yrys

It's slow for me at the moment (loading of pages) ...


----------



## armyvern

> System Load is High: 24.10



Holy moley --- is this why it's so slow here now??

 :-[


----------



## armyvern

> System Load is High: 45.37



Holy moley --- is this why it's so slow here now?? (I had just posted in the other thread and it was only 20. something or other. Egads!!

 :-[


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Fixed, for the moment.   Been one of those days.


----------



## McG

Users Online   	 701 Guests, 88 Users (0 Buddies)

Googlebots?


----------



## McG

Nope.  Looks like Yahoo.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Our web server security module was overwhelmed by yahoo, crawling the site... I've temporarily disabled it.


----------



## Yrys

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> I've temporarily disabled it.



How do you disable Yahoo ?

Won't they take it personally  > ?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

They won't care, but we'll be cut out of all Yahoo! search results.


----------



## McG

Yrys said:
			
		

> How do you disable Yahoo ?


a lot of HESH into the right place.


----------



## armyvern

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> They won't care, but we'll be cut out of all Yahoo! search results.



Well, send them an email  a lot of HESH (thanks MCG!!) and tell them to quit spamming us with their bots!!  >

Fraggle Google rocks!!


----------



## Yrys

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> Fraggle Google rocks!!



Didn't Google need to crawl the site, once ? Or are they working differently ?


----------



## armyvern

Yrys said:
			
		

> Didn't Google need to crawl the site, once ? Or are they working differently ?



There's constantly googlebots crawling through the pages, they don't seem to have such a slowdown effect on us as Yahoo does though.

Less Yahoobots (I think I'll start calling them idiotbots)... but much _slower_ than your average googlebot in the village.


----------



## George Wallace

Slow in loading some pages right now.


----------



## Mike Baker

Good on my end.


----------



## leroi

No problems here in Guelph ...


----------



## Nfld Sapper

No problems from my part of THE ROCK


----------



## Mike Baker

NFLD Sapper said:
			
		

> No problems from my part of THE ROCK


Same here...very fast indeed.


----------



## Mike Baker

SO SLOW


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Baker said:
			
		

> SO SLOW



Not from my neck of the ROCK


----------



## Mike Baker

NFLD Sapper said:
			
		

> Not from my neck of the ROCK


It is very slow loading things up for me. Like emotions, pictures, etc.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Do we have a dropped connection again?

I have the familiar problem: I can use Army.ca on one computer (Linux/Firefox) but not on the other (Vista/IE7) - even though they share the same Internet connection.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yes, dropped and back up again.


Cheers
Mike


----------



## armyvern

Arggghhhh!!!


----------



## Edward Campbell

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> Arggghhhh!!!



Indeed.

Quite slow here, both boxes (Windows/IE7 and Linux/Firefox) but the rest of the web is good on both.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Hmmm, looks and feels OK to me.


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's good again on the Linux box, still slow on the MS box - same connection.


----------



## Mike Baker

Fine here.


----------



## karl28

It sleems slow right now takes a bit for the site to load up .


----------



## Yrys

Slight slow tangent here, must be near ArmyVern !


----------



## PMedMoe

V-e-r-y------s-l-o-w.........







Edit:  Just sped up again!!!  ;D


----------



## Mike Baker

Really good for me!


Baker


----------



## karl28

Working like a champ now .


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Shut down a couple Korean network ranges, we should be faster now.

I also create a tool to help me discover when we're being probed automatically.


----------



## Mike Baker

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Shut down a couple Korean network ranges, we should be faster now.
> 
> I also create a tool to help me discover when we're being probed automatically.


All in a days work, eh Mike?


Baker


----------



## Mike Baker

Site is a little slow as of now. (8:08 AM NL Time)

Baker


----------



## armyvern

Baker said:
			
		

> Site is a little slow as of now. (8:08 AM NL Time)
> 
> Baker



Yep, it is:



> DSL connection 216.58.85.243 is down!!


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

...and fixed.


----------



## Mike Baker

Still slow for me 

Baker


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Then stop downloading all that porn  ;D


----------



## Mike Baker

NFLD Sapper said:
			
		

> Then stop downloading all that porn  ;D


How'd you know!?!?! 

Haha just kidding.

Site is good for me now.

Baker


----------



## Edward Campbell

The site is decidedly slow tonightat 2145 EST - moreso on the Windows/IE7 box than on the Linux/Firefox box.


----------



## GUNS

Logged on at 2315hrs.(Rock time)

Forum came up at 2318hrs.


----------



## GUNS

*Cancel Last*.

Working my way through the Forum, Site Speed was normal.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Seems OK at the moment...


----------



## Edward Campbell

We appear to have that old connection problem again: this site is very, very slow (but available) on my Linux/Firefox box but I cannot even connect from the MS Windows/IE7 box. The rest of the net is normal.

Added:

And now, just moments later, both work.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

One connection was down, is back up.


----------



## Mike Baker

Slow for anyone else?


Baker


----------



## muskrat89

Wonky here too


----------



## Mike Baker

Whats funny is that Milnet is working a lot better the Army.ca, but its still not the best.


Baker


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Working fine from Freddy.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Both DSL connections are up and running... May have been an intermittent problem.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

However we're being slammed from a bunch of systems from Groupe iWeb Technologies inc. (Montreal) so I've blocked them out all together. We should see an improvement now.

Looks like they have a bunch of zombie systems that are trying doors and windows around the Internet.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Good thing you installed that new security system  ;D


----------



## karl28

Working great here .


----------



## Mike Baker

Fine here now.


Baker


----------



## Kyu

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> However we're being slammed from a bunch of systems from Groupe iWeb Technologies inc. (Montreal) so I've blocked them out all together. We should see an improvement now.
> 
> Looks like they have a bunch of zombie systems that are trying doors and windows around the Internet.



Ah crap, not again.  :threat:

The servers used by the company I work for now, are hosted by iWeb, and we were hacked this January. I hope the servers we work on aren't affected. iWeb technical support is practically nonexistent. It took us almost a whole month to fully recover from the last attack. I'll tell my boss about that tomorrow morning, and we will inspect our own servers to see if they are affected.

Thank you Mr. Bobbitt to let me know about that issue. I hope it's not our servers that are causing these problems.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Looks like the dropped connection bug again at 1955 Hrs EDST

Army.ca is very, very slow on one box (Windows/IE7) and fairly quick on the other (Linux/Firefox).

The rest of the WWW is fine.


----------



## tango22a

Very SLOOOOOOW here....And I keep getting a reset message. Using XPPro and Firefox

tango22a


----------



## Mike Baker

Site was gone there for an unknown amount of time for me, just got on here 7 minutes ago.

Fine now though.

Baker


----------



## Kyu

Snail speed in Montreal. XP Pro (SP3) + Firefox. 



> The servers used by the company I work for now, are hosted by iWeb, and we were hacked this January. I hope the servers we work on aren't affected. iWeb technical support is practically nonexistent. It took us almost a whole month to fully recover from the last attack. I'll tell my boss about that tomorrow morning, and we will inspect our own servers to see if they are affected.
> 
> Thank you Mr. Bobbitt to let me know about that issue. I hope it's not our servers that are causing these problems.



Monday, I checked the servers of the company I'm working for and they weren't the zombies. We let iWeb know about that issue, but knowing them, I wouldn't hold my breath...

_Edit : Changed my last sentence to make clear that I don't work for Milnet.ca/Army.ca/Navy.ca/Air-force.ca_


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

You can blame Bell this time. It's become abundantly clear to me that Bell has under-engineered the phone system in my community, and they don't have the capacity to provide service to everyone all at once. So when someone calls because their phone service has been cut, they simply cut someone else's and connect the complaining customer to that port.

What results is a "rolling blackout" of phone service, and apparently it's my turn to be the sucker. As has happened nearly 10 times already, my phone is now suddenly dead. Bell continues to act surprised when I call which is quaint. I still get DSL sync on that line, but because of the significant line noise (lord knows what I'm connected to at the CO) the signal is terrible and our connection suffers as a result.

Bell has said they will send a tech to fix the problem tomorrow (which is exactly what they told me last night around this time) so hopefully this won't last too long. Site speed seems to be intermittent in the mean time, so please bear with me.

If you really want to get me going about Bell, ask me what'll happen if they accidentally reconnect us to a port without a DSLAM.


----------



## Mike Baker

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> If you really want to get me going about Bell, ask me what'll happen if they accidentally reconnect us to a port without a DSLAM.


Okay, what'll happen?  


Good thing it isn't the server that went wonkey, I guess.

Baker


----------



## armyvern

Well,

It seems to have just picked up significantly here ...

All is now good.  ;D


----------



## karl28

Mike Bobbitt 

           I use to have Bell internet but switched to Cogeco Cable high speed about three years ago and I have never had a problem  when you call for help you actually get help .   I am not sure if Cogeco Cable is available in your area but might be a thought to check into .


----------



## tango22a

Has slowed down even more now. When I attempt to go to next page all I get is a GREEN screen. Not blaming you Mike.

Cheers, 

tango22a


----------



## McG

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Site speed seems to be intermittent ...


Indeed.  At least it leaves hope (isn't hope great) that another brief window of quick navigation is only a the next click away.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

karl,

Bell isn't my service provider... There's no way I'd ever consider that! However Bell does have to provide the raw DSL feed as unfortunately they have a monopoly in that area. If they mis-connect our port tomorrow, I have to log a ticket with our ISP, who will then log a ticket with Bell to ask that they have a look at things. So the guy who disconnects the DSL (even if accidentally) is not allowed to reconnect it. That's done by a whole other group, and again - I can't call Bell directly they'll just tell me they can't do the work. (The same work their tech undid.) Been down that road once already and it takes weeks to resolve, even though the tech can fix it in minutes.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Oh I forgot the best part of this story... how I found out! Last night a cop comes to my door and says he had a 911 call from our house. Of course I immediately ask the kids and of course, they're terrified at the prospect. The cop says the 911 operator heard just static, and nobody picked up when they called back. I checked our phones, sure enough: static.

Apparently instead of a silent disconnect, Bell somehow triggered a 911 call from our line this time. Kudos for mixing it up at least.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Still slow at 0700 Hrs (EDST) today.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I expect it will unfortunately be this way until Bell fixes the line. They are scheduled to send a tech today some time from 8-5. My experience has been they usually come pretty early.


----------



## tango22a

Mike:

Currently NO Problems!! Will keep fingers, toes, etc. crossed

Cheers,

tango22a


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's good here, very quick, on both computers - 0840 Hrs.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Still no dial tone on the line, so I'm afraid it's chance that the connection is good.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Seems to be working fine from G'nam and the DIN


----------



## karl28

Mike Bobbitt  

           Thanks for getting back  didn't realize how it was set up on your end sounds like a huge operation .


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

The line is fixed and we're back in business.


----------



## Edward Campbell

After being very fast most of the day (after about 0900 Hrs) it is spotty again: slow then fast then slow, all in one 'visit.'


----------



## Mike Baker

Fine here on the Rock.


Baker


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Bad news: Bell disconnected our DSL. We're on 1/2 speed until further notice.


----------



## Mike Baker

I don't find it that bad Mike.


Baker


----------



## Scoobie Newbie

slower then norm.

Any reason given


----------



## Edward Campbell

Sporadic again for me.  Fast and then painfully slow in the same visit.


----------



## armyvern

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Sporadic again for me.  Fast and then painfully slow in the same visit.



Same way here in NB Edward ...  



> DSL connection 216.58.85.243 is down!!


----------



## tango22a

Couldn't even get on between 1500hrs to 1830hrs. Kept getting reset notices. Please give good old Ma Bell a swit boot in the keister for me. Not to worry Mike we are all big kids here and will find a way around the problem.

Cheers,

tango22a


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I've disabled the 2nd DSL connection completely for now... but it will take up to 2 days for the DNS changes to propagate. Between now and then it'll be hit and miss slow. After that it'll be consistently slow, but on average better than it is now.

I'm on the case with Bell. Gave some poor guy in Bangalore hell but didn't get anywhere.


----------



## PMedMoe

The site is much faster today than it was yesterday.  If it's any consolation, the bell.ca site was slower.  ;D


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Bell is refusing to reconnect the DSL on the downed line... they say they have no record of the service. My left eye is starting to twitch ever so slightly.


----------



## Mike Baker

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Bell is refusing to reconnect the DSL on the downed line... they say they have no record of the service. My left eye is starting to twitch ever so slightly.


How about we start a petition? That could work ;D


Baker


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I have to go back to our ISP and log a ticket with them. I'm anticipating resolution in the order of weeks. In a week and a half I'm travelling for almost a month.


----------



## karl28

Mike Bobbitt  

Just please rember a happy thought it will save you a headache or two .


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Good news! As of this morning our 2nd DSL is back in business. I have updated DNS and within the next 1-2 days you should all be back to normal.


----------



## Mike Baker

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Good news! As of this morning our 2nd DSL is back in business. I have updated DNS and within the next 1-2 days you should all be back to normal.


Awesome news Mike!

Guess I don't need to send all that dog shyte to Bell now, eh? ;D

Deadpan


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Don't hold back on my account! After all, they did needlessly cause about a week-long outage.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I should add though... the local techs have always been great. It's dealing with the more distant tech support people and the policies they have to adhere to which drive me crazy. Once I get a hold of a local guy my problems are  easily solved.


----------



## karl28

Mike great work its like super fast now .


----------



## Mike Baker

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Don't hold back on my account! After all, they did needlessly cause about a week-long outage.


Okay then, it's in the mail 


Deadpan


----------



## karl28

Did any one have any problems logging on to the site this morning about 11am ?  IT came up not able to view the web page l but all the other websites I checked out worked fine .  Even though right now its working great I also use IE 7 not sure that helps any .


----------



## Mike Baker

karl28 said:
			
		

> Did any one have any problems logging on to the site this morning about 11am ?  IT came up not able to view the web page l but all the other websites I checked out worked fine .  Even though right now its working great I also use IE 7 not sure that helps any .


Yep, it was down for me totally, from about 12:30 until I went at 1. (NL Time)


Deadpan


----------



## karl28

Deadpan  

       Thanks man nice to know that I wasn't the only one .  Must be those crazy buggers at Ma Bell again .


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yeah it's just getting ready for when I leave tomorrow morning. :


----------



## karl28

Mike Bobbitt  

IF it makes you feel any better its been working fine ever sense that . I hope that you have a great day tomorrow . 


Cheers Karl


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks!


----------



## Edward Campbell

Is Mike away?

We seem to have that DSL connection problem again. The site is slow then fast then not available at all on one computer but fast then slow, etc, on the other.


----------



## Mike Baker

It's not just you Mr. Campbell. It's really slow for me too.


-Dead


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse

Actually it happened just after Mike logged on...tinkering I would assume.


----------



## Harris

I'll check the site when I get home tonight and see if there are any issues.


----------



## Mike Baker

It isn't as bad now for me.


-Dead


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Wasn't me... But whatever it is seems to have righted itself too.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Are we having another "dropped connection" problem?

I'm getting sporadic results: normal (fast) sometimes, painfully slow at others.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Are we having another "dropped connection" problem?
> 
> I'm getting sporadic results: normal (fast) sometimes, painfully slow at others.



Seems fine from Gagetown


----------



## GAP

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Are we having another "dropped connection" problem?
> 
> I'm getting sporadic results: normal (fast) sometimes, painfully slow at others.



same here, hmmm.....Mike is on vacation again, I can tell


----------



## Eye In The Sky

Its been sluggish by times for me. (Shearwater)


----------



## kratz

There have been times today the site was so slow, the page would not load here in Borden.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

GAP said:
			
		

> same here, hmmm.....Mike is on vacation again, I can tell



His tag says it all 


> Mike Bobbitt
> is in Nova Scotia for the rest of July!


----------



## GAP

> His tag says it all
> 
> Quote
> Mike Bobbitt
> is in Nova Scotia for the rest of July!



gulp.....that's how I could tell......oh for ESP...


----------



## tango22a

Was able to log on twice out of about ten or twelve tries since 0700 today. Possibly the site is under attack again .


tango22a


----------



## Rodahn

Myself as well, tried about 10 times earlier today, and the site wouldn't load... glad it's back now so I can get my fix...


----------



## GUNS

Anyone having trouble with the site speed? 

Here on the Rock, its wicket!


----------



## Snafu-Bar

It's a teeny bit slow, but i'm not compalining as i'm not a paid subscriber yet.  ;D


----------



## Mike Baker

It's good here on my part of the Rock.


-Deadpan


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's a familiar situation, for me: it is slow on my (fairly powerful) desktop (MS Vista + IE7 or Firefox) and fast on my notebook (Linux (Linpus Lite) + Firefox).


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Something's up... haven't found it yet but I'll keep looking.


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's quick, again, on the MS Vista desktop box - just five minutes after your last post, Mike.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

All is fine from the home of the Engineers.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> It's quick, again, on the MS Vista desktop box - just five minutes after your last post, Mike.



Then I'll happily accept the credit!


----------



## PMedMoe

Don't know about anyone else, but the site is as cold as slow molasses this evening.  Other sites are loading slow, but not as slow as here.   :'(


----------



## Snafu-Bar

Aftershocks from the Russian DDOS attacks  

^ Kidding.  ;D


 It's slow but bearable.


----------



## PMedMoe

Just sped right up now.  Go figure.  :


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Fine from good old Oromocto


----------



## danchapps

Speed has been up and down for me the last day or so. Not bad during the day, but last night it bogged right down about 12:30is I think (Edmonton time), and again right now. Could be the lack of gas being produced by Petro-Canada here, that's my bet.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Very, very slow here. It was impossible to login for about 2 hours. I thought it was the Ruskis, too.  : Maybe I should stop calling Putin a thug?  :-*


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's like the old dropped connection problem: I can login from the Linux/Opera box, not from the Windows box. Seems a bit catch-as-catch-can.


----------



## X Royal

Very poor for me right now. I know I'm on dial-up but 2 minutes per page change is quite slow. Now it's _click & catnap_ speed. Not having this problem on any other sites I've been on. When I first tried this site, I went elsewhere due to the speed. When I came back it was no better.

Rick

OK: Close to 3 minutes for the post to go through. As for this modification about 2 minutes to get to the typing point. How long for it to happen?????


----------



## Mike Baker

It's pretty slow for me too.


-Deadpan


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Strange, super fast in "boil water now" Oromocto


----------



## NL_engineer

Fast for me in 4 O-town


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> It's like the old dropped connection problem



Indeed it was... fixed now, thanks for the heads up.


----------



## danchapps

Blistering fast now, thanks Mike.


Dan


----------



## Mike Baker

No faster for me 


-Dead


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Deadpan said:
			
		

> No faster for me
> 
> 
> -Dead



Why not feed that hamster, might make your speed increase  ;D


----------



## Mike Baker

NFLD Sapper said:
			
		

> Why not feed that hamster, might make your speed increase  ;D


For your information, Skip ran away from home, my mom said 


-Deadpan


----------



## X Royal

Working much better here now.


----------



## Mike Baker

X Royal said:
			
		

> Working much better here now.


Same for me.


-Deadpan


----------



## Edward Campbell

The site seems intermittently sluggish this morning - downright slow, now and again.

Seems the same on both my Windows and Linux boxes.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Glad to hear, not for your misfortune of course Edward, but I thought it was this Via Rail wireless connection. Considering it's a mobile connection though, it's pretty fair.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Still fast here in "no bottled water cause I live in the new shacks, but whole base is on boil water warning" Oromocto


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's fine here, again, now, too.

Where's that "shrugs shoulders" smiley?


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Dunno


----------



## Mike Baker

This is the best I've seen it in weeks.


-Deadpan


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Well, there was a connection down... but it's back now.


----------



## tango22a

Couldn't get on at 2300 hrs yesterday, but seems to be fine now.

Cheers,

tango22a


----------



## George Wallace

I'm sitting here waiting for the site speed to slow down or the site to go down, as the sky's black and we get hail the size of golfballs.  It's 1615 hrs and I have to turn the lights on.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

George I'm sitting in my office watching the lightning and hail too.  Saw a couple strikes "right" outside my window (100-200m and immediate bang)... quite a show!


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Down to the batcave with you then George  ;D


----------



## George Wallace

Good thing you have built-in redundancy and power backup. If this keeps up for forty days and forty nights, and the sewers back up, we'll be in trouble.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

No we're OK there too... I have the server on one of the old "black Betty" air mattresses.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

So in other words it will just float away then  ;D


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yep. Might need some longer extension cords I guess.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Or it might just be a "floater"  ;D


----------



## George Wallace

Will you have to measure that cord in Cubits?

Would that also make this a "Pirate Site" ?

Just lost power.......&^%*(%

Had to find some back up power.......and plug the modem in.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Had 3-4 power bumps at home, but the UPS has kept things smooth for us online so far.


----------



## PMedMoe

I've only had one power outage here (near Bank & Hunt Club) so far. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




It was pretty dark at about 1610 with all the street lights on.  Site speed is okay, though.  ;D


----------



## armyvern

George Wallace said:
			
		

> I'm sitting here waiting for the site speed to slow down or the site to go down, as the sky's black and we get hail the size of golfballs.  It's 1615 hrs and I have to turn the lights on.



I must have brought the hail to your location from Sturgis with me!!  > Baseball sized, and still in the ditch the next morning despite the 100 degree temperatures ...

Here is an example of our Hail Protection System on one of the bikes - lovingly provided by Clothe the Motorcyles:


----------



## danchapps

Not only is CTM practical, but very fashionable too! Speed fine here, how's the weather now?


----------



## Edward Campbell

Sloooow this morning (0600 Hrs Eastern).

I can get on, at a very low speed, from the Linux box using Opera; cannot get on using Linux/Firefox. Nothing possible on the Windows box with any of the three browsers (IE7, Firefox or Opera).


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

One connection was down... it's up now.


----------



## Edward Campbell

That was it!

It's all good again (0620 Hrs) on all boxes/browsers - even IE7, which I normally use only to check when Army.ca is slow or down.

Thanks, Mike.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Dropped connection, again?

Symptoms are familiar: works on one box (Linux/Opera) but not on Linux/Firefox or other box (Windows/Firefox).


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yep... and we're back.


----------



## Old Sweat

Okay, for the last while the site speed was like 417 at rush hour. It is better now.


----------



## Mike Baker

Yesterday, I thought that the site was down. I usually use I/E, so I tried Safari, which, to my surprise, loaded up Army.ca very fast. 

Today, it works on I/E, but is a tiny bit faster on Safari.


-Deadpan

Edit because I can't spell :


----------



## George Wallace

Is it only me, or does the whole Internet seem to be slow lately (not just army.ca)?


----------



## Rodahn

Server wouldn't even load this AM about 0500 local, kept getting the "server timed out" message.


----------



## George Wallace

SaaLooooooow!  This Morning.


----------



## dangerboy

It seems to have picked up now, unless of course Base Shilo just lucked out and have the sweet connection.


----------



## kratz

I think you are getting lucky dangerboy.   ;D


----------



## Mike Baker

Any one else find the site slow? Or is it just me?


-Deadpan


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Seems fine from my neck of the woods.


----------



## Mike Baker

It's like it goes from good and fast, to crawling along.


Weird.
-Dead


----------



## armyvern

Holy crap.

The speed here this morning is quicker than I remember it being in months!! 

It's like lightening!!


----------



## Mike Baker

It's really fast here too. One of the best times I've seen it.


-Dead


----------



## Mike Baker

Okay now the site is very very slow.


-Dead


----------



## Rodahn

Working fine out here on the wet coast.....


----------



## armyvern

Working absolutely fine here too.


----------



## Mike Baker

Dang, only me then I guess.

-Dead


----------



## George Wallace

Deadpan said:
			
		

> Dang, only me then I guess.
> 
> -Dead



Perhaps one of those "Black Submarines" accidentally clipped the Underwater Cable to the Rock, cutting your reception.


----------



## Mike Baker

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Perhaps one of those "Black Submarines" accidentally clipped the Underwater Cable to the Rock, cutting your reception.


 


George, I'm paranoid enough now, and you come along to tell me there are other things then the Black Helos 

 ;D
-Dead


----------



## armyvern

Deadpan said:
			
		

> George, I'm paranoid enough now, and you come along to tell me there are other things then the Black Helos
> 
> ;D
> -Dead



We know you're paranoid --- we can tell by the look on your face that our spycam is beaming into us.


----------



## Mike Baker

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> We know you're paranoid --- we can tell by the look on your face that our spycam is beaming into us.


Oh gosh! I better run!



-Deadpan


----------



## George Wallace

Deadpan said:
			
		

> Oh gosh! I better run!
> 
> 
> 
> -Deadpan



You can run; but you can't hide.   ;D


----------



## Mike Baker

George Wallace said:
			
		

> You can run; but you can't hide.   ;D



....Mommy!!

;D
-Deadpan


----------



## George Wallace

Deadpan said:
			
		

> ....Mommy!!
> 
> ;D
> -Deadpan



Oh!  That pink house down the street.........with the purple shutters..............Don't go there.


----------



## Mike Baker

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Oh!  That pink house down the street.........with the purple shutters..............Don't go there.


No, no that isn't the best idea now ;D


Site is flying now!
-Dead


----------



## George Wallace

Deadpan said:
			
		

> No, no that isn't the best idea now ;D
> 
> 
> Site is flying now!
> -Dead



I guess Johnny Quest came to your rescue.   ;D


----------



## Mike Baker

George Wallace said:
			
		

> I guess Johnny Quest came to your rescue.   ;D


:rofl:

-Dead


----------



## George Wallace

Alright!

Who put the Gerbils to bed and brought out the "Night Shift Turtles"?


----------



## armyvern

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Alright!
> 
> Who put the Gerbils to bed and brought out the "Night Shift Turtles"?



I'm thinking ... Gere?  >

It's _sloooow_ here too.


----------



## NL_engineer

same here


----------



## George Wallace

No indication of DSL lines down.

697 online tops    in the last .16 minute.


----------



## NL_engineer

speeding up for me now  ;D


----------



## danchapps

I caught a turtle last year when fishing, it had a shell about 2 feet wide across, even that sucker moved faster than this site has been the last little while. Could have been that I pulled him away from breakfast with the Mrs and he was pretty ticked off. Night.


----------



## George Wallace

Site Speed has been fluctuating in the last half hour or so.


----------



## armyvern

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Site Speed has been fluctuating in the last half hour or so.



Same thing here.

Server's doing it's back-up apparently.


----------



## George Wallace

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> Same thing here.
> 
> Server's doing it's back-up apparently.



Could be.


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's (normally) fast on Linux/Opera, _slooooow_ as molasses on Windows/Firefox.

Dropped connection, too?


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Seems fine from the ROCK


----------



## dangerboy

She is running slow for me out in MB, but I just figured it was like me still trying to wake up.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

There was a connection down... it's back now.


----------



## armyvern

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> There was a connection down... it's back now.



It crashed about 0650hrs (0550hrs your local); I was exasperated.  :-[


----------



## Edward Campbell

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> It crashed about 0650hrs (0550hrs your local); I was exasperated.  :-[



Earlier, I think. I saw problems at 0530.

Mike: should we revisit the idea of a backup server in a location with better landline _survivability_?


----------



## Rodahn

Everything appears to be fine now, working great here.


----------



## George Wallace

Well.  Site speeds are still fluctuating here.  Sitting watching the clock as Spell Check loads.


----------



## GUNS

Here on the Rock its fine.


----------



## Mike Baker

Fine for me too, now.


-Dead


----------



## GUNS

Here in Canada's most easterly province-the site is dead slow.


----------



## leroi

A little on the slow side here in Guelph...


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Not tearing up the track in SW Ont either.


----------



## Franko

Extremely slow here....

Regards


----------



## Edward Campbell

Different strokes:

It's very, very fast here (downtown Ottawa) on Windows/Chrome (Google's brand new (still in _Beta_) browser);

It's fast on Linux/Opera;

It's pretty fast on Linux/Firefox; and

It's even pretty quick on Windows/IE7 - which is usually my slowpoke.


----------



## 1feral1

Greeting to all smiling members,

Yesterday here in Australia it was hopeless, and even this am at home before work it was playing up, but now does not seem too bad.

Happy days to all,

OWDU


----------



## Mike Baker

Not too bad for me, nor was it most of the day.


-Dead


----------



## danchapps

Was slow about 12:30 Edmonton time, but I'm not sure if it was me being at work causing it.


----------



## GUNS

Here in Canada's most easterly province-site speed is back to normal.


----------



## McG

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> They won't care, but we'll be cut out of all Yahoo! search results.


I see Yahoo bots swarming, but no speed issues here.  Did you find safer a way to let them?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Just some performance tweaks here and there to make it a bit more manageable when they descend on us.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Something has slowed the site down now (1645 Eastern) compared to just an hour or two earlier today.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Something has slowed the site down now (1645 Eastern) compared to just an hour or two earlier today.



A bit late but site seems ok at this time.


----------



## Dissident

For some reason this morning the site security certificate was not recognize by my browser (Firefox 3.0) and I had to establish an exception. This happened after I typed http://army.ca in my browser.

Is it just me?


----------



## George Wallace

I'm not using Firefox, but IE7, however, this morning I had 12 updates to MS programs and had to reboot.  When I did, all my settings had been changed for my browser.  Could it be that some of your cookies had been removed in a similar situation?


----------



## Edward Campbell

Have we dropped a connection again?

I can get on and post, albeit slowly, from one box (Linux/Opera) but not from the other (MS/Chrome or MS/Firefox).

The rest of the Internet is fast from both boxes/all browsers.


----------



## leroi

Yes, it's slow in Guelph today ...


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yeah a connection was down, but it's back up now.


----------



## Edward Campbell

While the *login* and *navigation* speeds are great again I have noted - over the past few days - that the time involved in actually adding a post to a thread, even a short post, has gotten quite long - several seconds vs nearly instantaneous for most of my time (years) on Army.ca.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I was doing some maintenance last night which casued some slowdowns... but it should be OK now.

Edit: That post went in fast enough...


----------



## armyvern

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> I was doing some maintenance last night which casued some slowdowns... but it should be OK now.
> 
> Edit: That post went in fast enough...



Something else has just happened ...

The site has just slowed down BIG time here in Gagtown (no typo); perhaps soon to be renamed by me to "Lagtown".  :-[


----------



## George Wallace

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> Something else has just happened ...
> 
> The site has just slowed down BIG time here in Gagtown (no typo); perhaps soon to be renamed by me to "Lagtown".  :-[



I noticed when I logged on, that the whole lnternet was slow, not just milnet.ca, army.ca, navy.ca, and air-force.ca (whichever one you have set as your preferences).


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's still fast here (Ottawa) and my last post went up fast. The 'long time to post' problem was evident Fri, 12 Sep, yesterday, 13 Sep, and earlier this morning.


----------



## George Wallace

Was the site down for an hour or so, or was it just my Firewall?


----------



## Mike Baker

Fine here.

-Deadpan


----------



## 1feral1

Today its been crap here in Australia, but it does have its moments, overall very slow, at times it does nothing but idle while trying to open a thread etc.

OWDU


----------



## Mike Baker

Just got really slow for me, but otherwise today was great for speed.

-Dead


----------



## Klinkaroo

Little slow during peak hours (IE lunch break), on 10mb/sec cable from Rimouski (google if you don't know where it is )


----------



## Eye In The Sky

Hmm...very slow...

Like cold molasses going uphill backwards on a January morning describe it??


----------



## Rodahn

Fairly slow out here on the wet coast this AM......


----------



## Edward Campbell

Verrrrry sloo0ow here in  Ottawa on both Linux/Firefox and MS/Chrome.


----------



## tango22a

Same here!!

tango22a


----------



## stryte

Slowest it has ever been here in Regina. It literally took me about 2 minutes for spell check to load on my last post. Using my work computer so I am running IE.


----------



## Mike Baker

It's flying here on my part of the Rock.

Beav


----------



## George Wallace

Pilon said:
			
		

> Slowest it has ever been here in Regina. It literally took me about 2 minutes for spell check to load on my last post. Using my work computer so I am running IE.



Well!  Working on a Saturday.  A Thanksgiving weekend Saturday, at that.  Must be those SaskTel Network Managers diverting some of the "juice" to slow cook their turkeys.   ;D


----------



## stryte

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Well!  Working on a Saturday.  A Thanksgiving weekend Saturday, at that.  Must be those SaskTel Network Managers diverting some of the "juice" to slow cook their turkeys.   ;D



No kidding, who does SaskTel think they are capping my internet speed for their own benefit? Bell?  

Actually it is a lot faster already. So either you pushed "the button" to boost the signal, SaskTel turned off their slow cookers in fear of the public finding out and privatizing them or I am paranoid.  :-\


----------



## tango22a

Mike:

Veeeery slooow here at this time!

tango22a


----------



## Eye In The Sky

same here.


----------



## karl28

Yes it's verry slow here to


----------



## Edward Campbell

Dropped connection again?

Unavailable or very slow with Windows/Chrome; slow or OK with Linux/Firefox at 0815 Hrs (Eastern).


----------



## karl28

Yeah it is a little slow right now .


----------



## Rodahn

Tried logging in at 0430 local and all I got was the gateway time out message....


----------



## tango22a

Mike:

Couldn't even get on at 0615hrs and is very slow loading at this time.

tango22a


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

There was a connection down for about 30 mins this morning... everything else should be "normal" now though. (Note: normal may be slow ).


----------



## Mike Baker

It was super slow at some points last night into this morning for me on the Rock.


Beav


----------



## GUNS

1230hrs (Rock time)- all normal


----------



## 1feral1

From Australia today, the absolute worst!

Timed out mostly, and here at home very VERY slow.

OWDU


----------



## Old Sweat

Reaaaally slow at 0615. Timed out display for every thread I attempt to read, then a connection the next time I try it.


----------



## Edward Campbell

0645Hrs (Eastern): Cannot connect at all on Windows/Chrome; connection is slow on Linux/Firefox but once on pages open quickly.

The local radio says there are, _comme de habitude_, power outages _waaaaaaay_ out there in rural Ontario, where Mike Bobbitt lives.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Nope, the power is on here, but one connection was down. I've reconnected it, so we're back to full speed.


----------



## GAP

vastly improved!!! Thanks Mike


----------



## tango22a

Mike:
Couldn't even get on after 2200hrs last night. Tried several times but all I got was Reset Message. Seems to be fine today.

tango22a


----------



## Old Sweat

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> 0645Hrs (Eastern): Cannot connect at all on Windows/Chrome; connection is slow on Linux/Firefox but once on pages open quickly.
> 
> The local radio says there are, _comme de habitude_, power outages _waaaaaaay_ out there in rural Ontario, where Mike Bobbitt lives.



Nope, the power is on here, but one connection was down. I've reconnected it, so we're back to full speed. 

Mike, we country bumpkins have to learn not to keep the cows in the kitchen during the winter, or else they blunder around pulling plugs and licking the dishes and, well you know.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks OS, I'll keep that in mind for the next time! Was nice having fresh milk in my coffee though!


----------



## Mike Baker

The site is flying here now!


EDIT: Its now 1723 hrs, and it's at a crawl!


----------



## Edward Campbell

Have we dropped one connection again?

Army.ca is as quick to load and navigate through as normal on my Linux/Firefox box but very _slooooow_ on the Windows/Chrome box. The rest of the Internet is normal on both.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Both connections are up and running fine. (Now, anyway...)


----------



## Mike Baker

Super slow for me, 0937, on the Rock.


----------



## George Wallace

Something is sucking the life out of the Net this morning............I feel I have time to drive to the Beer Store and back before this post will be loaded onto the site........Perhaps an idea.    ;D


----------



## manhole

very slow here, too, this morning.   seems to take forever......beer store, eh?   that sounds like a plan worth persuing however I do have some nice home-made brew here which I could sample while waiting for the next topic to load........ ;D


----------



## Nfld Sapper

I've seen paint dry faster  ;D


----------



## PMedMoe

Very slow here too......


----------



## Mike Baker

It's good for me now.


----------



## PMedMoe

Faster here too, except for the replying part.  It sped up immediately after I posted here.

Kind of like when your car is making a noise and you take it to a mechanic and it doesn't make the noise anymore.  :-[


----------



## Celticgirl

PMedMoe said:
			
		

> Faster here too, except for the replying part.  It sped up immediately after I posted here.
> 
> Kind of like when your car is making a noise and you take it to a mechanic and it doesn't make the noise anymore.  :-[



Haha  ;D  Just to make a liar out of you, right?


----------



## Old Sweat

Mike, I think the cow is still in the kitchen.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Blocked another IP, hopefully it improves the speed.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Blocked another IP, hopefully it improves the speed.



Speed bumps seem to have dissipated.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Blocked another IP, hopefully it improves the speed.



Something worked; it's moving along nicely now - on both OS/Browser combos.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Do we have a dropped connection again?

I cannot even get on with my MS/Chrome box. Access is slow with the Linux/Firefox machine but good once I', in *Forums*.


----------



## Edward Campbell

And, suddenly, all is good again at 1240 Hrs (EST).


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

We did momentarily, but we're back now.


----------



## 1feral1

Its been a bastard here, but for some reason, on and off.

OWDU


----------



## Edward Campbell

Have we dropped a connection again (at around 1400 Hrs Eastern)?

I can post from Navy.ca but not from Army.ca or Milnet.ca - the rest of the net is fine.


----------



## Mike Baker

It seems to work fine here.


----------



## Edward Campbell

It is a classic dropped connection problem for me, here in Texas: I can login and post to Army.ca from my Linux/Firefox box but I cannot get in at all on the Windows/Chrome machine. I can, however, get into Navy.ca on the Windows box.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yep, one connection was down... it's back now.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Thanks, Mike; it's fine now. I'm back to my familiar Army green again.


----------



## Occam

Okay, I've tried two different computers and I'm pretty sure the problem isn't on my end.  Is anyone else experiencing pages that hang for 5-15 seconds?  Main page loads okay, but forum listings and threads are hanging while loading up.

If it helps any, all the HTML above (but not including) the "News: All users must adhere to the Milnet.ca Conduct Guidelines." code displays right away, but everything else is delayed.

Edit:  Didn't notice that the text in the News: line was randomly selected.  It's the same line that the Search window is located on.


----------



## Niteshade

Mine is zinging along fine...

Nites


----------



## Occam

Hmmm....did virus and spyware scan, nada.  Reset router and cable modem, nada.  Three different browsers, all do the same thing.  Very strange...


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Sounds like your ISP.


----------



## Occam

That was my next line of thought.  I just changed from Rogers' DNS server to OpenDNS (after procrastinating for months in doing so), no change at all.  Slow link from Rogers to one of the site's advertisers?  I dunno.  This is the only site that is acting up...


----------



## Rocketryan

Occam, I'm getting the same problems your describing


----------



## Occam

Rocketryan said:
			
		

> Occam, I'm getting the same problems your describing



Rogers customer?


----------



## Rocketryan

Sympatico


----------



## Occam

Hmmmm....well, I'm glad I'm not going crazy, but I'm also no closer to the cause.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Occam,

I think there was a problem last night... seems to have largely been resolved now.


----------



## Occam

Yes, seems okay now.  Thanks.


----------



## muskrat89

I was experiencing it as well.


----------



## George Wallace

Well, I am a Bell Sympatico customer, and it is slow to load for me and has been for the past twelve or so hours.


----------



## 1feral1

Seems to come and go here today. Earlier it did not even want to load, and other times took a few minutes to turn a page.


----------



## George Wallace

Seems that with the setting of the sun, site speed is really slowing down.........Is the internet getting cold and flowing like molassis in January, or is it being overloaded by holiday surfers?


----------



## GAP

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Seems that with the setting of the sun, site speed is really slowing down.........Is the internet getting cold and flowing like molassis in January,



Well....it is -31 C outside with -41 C windchill......probably....


----------



## Rifleman62

Slow in San Antonio, TX. and GAP, I do not miss the Wpg winters at all. Even my new residence in West Bank (soon to be West Kelowna, BC) is having record cold/snow.


----------



## George Wallace

Crap.  Pages sure load slow tonight.  Seems like it is taking at least 30 seconds (seems like 5 minutes) to load a page.  In that time two people can post in the "So there I was" thread.


----------



## PMedMoe

Yep, just got slow for me, too.  Funny, as I was reading George's post, it was going pretty fast.  Delayed reaction?


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Yeah slow for me on Vista/IE 8 beta and IE 7.......


----------



## Mike Baker

Fine for me.


----------



## karl28

ITs been working fine for me all day . I have XP with IE7


----------



## tango22a

Mike:

Really,Really SLOW here. Using XP Pro and Firefox. Has been slow since yesterday morning.

Cheers,

tango22a


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yeah I noticed that earlier today, but things seem to be fine now. (For me at least)


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's been mostly good here in Texas, Mike, using MS _Vista_ and _Chrome_, but today, right now (1515 Hrs CST) it is painfully slow - a full 30 seconds or more to load a page or make a post.


----------



## Edward Campbell

In fact it took about 2.5 minutes and two tries (I got a "This web page is not available" error message) to post my last message.


----------



## dapaterson

Is the site getting hammered by interest in the court proceedings in Petawawa?  That was my first suspicion...


----------



## PMedMoe

Yep, just came up super slow and timed out the connection here.  Then fast, then slow, then faster....you get the picture.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

It is painfully slow... not sure what the cause is at this point but I'm checking into it.


----------



## Old Sweat

It was really slow, in fact I gave up a few times, over the last hour or so, but it seems better now.


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's going in double quick time right now (15:50 CST).


----------



## 1feral1

Its been an absolute shocker down here this am, so slow, I've walked away and come back, and its till trying to turn a page. A bit better now, but still slow.

Regards,

Wes


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's up and down like a hooker's knickers on a pay night! It's slow then, five minutes later, quick again, then slow, then ... you get the picture.


----------



## GAP

It's reasonable now, but it took me 11 minutes to make a post about an hour ago....


----------



## GAP

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> It's up and down like a hooker's knickers on a pay night!



Gotta ask....is that because you were waiting? or watching everyone waiting.....


----------



## tango22a

Mike:

Still VEEERY SLOOOOOOW here for third day running.

tango22a


----------



## Nfld Sapper

zipping along nicely here on the rock with Vista/IE 8 beta 2


----------



## George Wallace

Still running at odd speeds for me.  Long pauses, and then sudden spurts.  

Must be pacing itself.    ;D


----------



## Edward Campbell

It was very slow yesterday afternoon (1800 Hrs CST); it takes about 20 secs to load a page this morning.

The rest of the Internet is fine.


----------



## George Wallace

Must be a sign that it is getting frigid out your way Mike........the site is freezing up.


----------



## Edward Campbell

At 1830 CST it's fast, again, after a day of frustratingly slow page loads.

Like George, I blame the weather up there ... It was 72oF here at about 1700.  ;D


----------



## George Wallace

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> At 1830 CST it's fast, again, after a day of frustratingly slow page loads.
> 
> Like George, I blame the weather up there ... It was 72oF here at about 1700.  ;D



Are you insinuating that the site speed speeds up the further south you are and the warmer the clime?   ;D


----------



## Edward Campbell

Actually, Army.ca has been *frustrating* for the last several days (maybe more than a week). While the rest of the Internet is consistently fast on my system down here, Army.ca's speed goes up and down and then up and down again - like the knickers of that woman of ill repute I mentioned a couple of days back.

Given the performance of the rest of the net, I must conclude that something is not quite _right_ with the site or with Mike's connections - good ol' Bell.


----------



## Edward Campbell

After a fast start this morning (here in warm, sunny Texas) we're back to 15-30 seconds being required to load a page or post a message at 1155 Hrs CST.


----------



## ironduke57

Really slow here for some time now. (DE)

Regards,
ironduke57


----------



## George Wallace

The whole internet is slow this frigid night.  Frustrating.  May have to crawl into bed with


----------



## Nfld Sapper

George Wallace said:
			
		

> The whole internet is slow this frigid night.  Frustrating.  May have to crawl into bed with



Did you forget to change the hamster on the wheel again?

Cruising along fine here.....


----------



## Edward Campbell

The Internet is fine down here (where it is a mild (60oF) evening) - even Army.ca is a bit faster than usual, but not nearly as fast as it was in late fall.


----------



## kkwd

The only page I can get to load is air-force.ca. All others of the Milnet family are not loading. I can access all the forums through air-force.ca as well.


----------



## kkwd

Now I can access the milnet and navy home pages but I can't access the forums through them. I can still access the forums through air-force. I still can't find hide nor hair of the army home page.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Superfast from the rock on army.ca


----------



## kkwd

I restarted my computer and still no army.ca. I renewed my IP address with the same result. I flushed my dns cache and suddenly army.ca showed up. I can access the forums through air-force milnet and army home pages but not navy right now. Well 3 out of 4 ain't bad.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

One of our 2 DSL connections was down again... it's back now. Sorry for the delay folks!


----------



## kkwd

I guess air-force.ca was still available to me last night because it has a different IP address than the other home pages.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Actually they all share both IPs. When your browser looks up air-force.ca, it get back both IPs, and then just picks one to use for that domain. If it picks the one that's up, you're in business. If it picks the one that's down, you'll time out or take a really long time to fail over to the correct IP. That's why one domain may appear to work while another doesn't. It's not a perfect system by far, but it keeps us going when one connection goes down at least.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Army.ca is very slow again - 30± secs (more + than -) to load a page.

The rest of the Internet is fast as normal here in warm (55oF at 0730 Hrs) sunny Dallas.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Fine from The Rock.


----------



## George Wallace

Site speed seems to be fluctuating.  Some pages load quickly, while others take approx 30 seconds.


----------



## Yrys

I had problems with the site speed yesterday in my usual browser (camino).
I change for Safari and things are better.


----------



## danchapps

Feels like the speed of sloth tonight here in Edmonton.


----------



## danchapps

Much faster now. Weird.


----------



## Marshall

I only ever find it to lag when I refresh the page (using F5), but If I refresh it by pressing the HOME tab its bing bang zap'n fast haha.


----------



## muskrat89

Site has been hanging up on me all weekend it seems. Anyone else?


----------



## geo

had trouble this morning... but OK now.


----------



## Sigs Pig

Mine is the opposite. Was fine this morning and now is a 20 sec wait per msg.!
The main page opens lickity split though.

ME


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yeah it has been very slow... A quick check seems to point the finger at the advertising server... if that's the case, subscribers won't notice any slowdown... It's almost like I planned it! 

Any subscribers want to verify?


----------



## PMedMoe

Seems pretty good to me, Mike.


----------



## kratz

The site speed was crusing along an hour ago and now it is slower then dial-up.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yeah now we have a connection down... working on getting it back up...


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Haven't noticed it on my end.....


----------



## Dissident

Quite slow here.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

It's back... we should be more or less normal. For here, anyway.


----------



## Mike Baker

Ach, still isn't good here.


----------



## Yrys

Marshall said:
			
		

> Was the site just down for a tad or was it just me?



Nah, just you  !


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yep, it was down... decided to do a thorough disk check this morning. First one in a while, and it came up clean.


----------



## Marshall

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Yep, it was down... decided to do a thorough disk check this morning. First one in a while, and it came up clean.



Ah. Good good. Just making sure my internet was not spooked again  ;D


----------



## George Wallace

Looks like half the site is down and many are experiencing trouble posting and/or opening up pages.


----------



## karl28

Seems good here but its now 12pm in Ont .


----------



## NL_engineer

the site seems to bog down then speed up for me


----------



## Nfld Sapper

No problems as of 1330hrs NST.


----------



## danchapps

Very slow in Edmonton.


----------



## George Wallace

One of the connections is down, so many are having trouble posting and opening or refreshing pages.


----------



## ironduke57

Why happens something like this always when Mike is not at home for some day´s?  ;D
Who has cursed him and Army.ca? >

BTW: Here it is fast.

SCNR,
ironduke57


----------



## Mike Baker

Not that great on my end at all.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Still flying along fine at 1617hrs NST


----------



## PMedMoe

Checked the site around 1500 my time and it was working fine.  Now it is painfully slow...... :'(


----------



## Michael OLeary

It's been fast and slooooooow on a minute to minute basis.


----------



## HItorMiss

The site is all kinds of messed up for me, has been all day!


Either the site is down or it loads with serious errors on every page if it loads at all.


----------



## Mike Baker

It's terrible for me now. Took 5 minutes to load this page.


----------



## danchapps

Great for me now.


----------



## PMedMoe

Still very slow for me.  The pages seem to load okay if I use the "double click" but posting a response is like molasses going uphill in January.


----------



## Mike Baker

Me too, Moe. There was a bit last night when I couldn't get on at all.


----------



## karl28

IT was extreamly slow to load the home page of army.ca but now that I am on it seems alright .


----------



## McG

The network is 50% down and this problem has been acknowledged.  Further reporting is not required at this time.  The staff will let you know when we are fully back up.

We can all probably help mitigate the temporary bandwidth shortage by not making posts which do not contribute anything of value (like hour-to-hour geo-referenced site speed performance reviews) until the issue has been resolved.  

Cheers.


----------



## geo

geo-referenced ???
You talkin about me again ?


----------



## PMedMoe

Speed is *far* better for me now, but posting remains weirdly slow.  The page will indicate that it's loading but it never seems to move past the posting stage, however, when I open the sub-board, there's my post.   ???


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

It's all fixed up now, sorry folks. Next time before I go away maybe I'll post instructions on how to temporarily avoid the problem when it happens. It's manual changes on your own computer to trick it into believing that Army.ca onlu *has* one connection, so it never tries the one that's down and therefore goes as fast as can be expected on a single connection.


----------



## danchapps

Thanks Mike!

Has anyone told you that you rock absolutely lately? Because you do! (Thanks again for all the great work you do, I don't think you hear that enough)


----------



## George Wallace

Site speed is all wonky right now, at this location.  Anyone else experiencing the "hot and cold running water" effects?


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Did we drop a connection again  ???


----------



## Mike Baker

It's fine for me.


----------



## tango22a

Mike:

Site really has the slows from my area. Using XP Pro and Firefox.

tango22a


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

No obvious problems here... Anyone else seeing problems?


----------



## tango22a

Mike

Much better now...may have been a local problem>

Cheers,

tango22a


----------



## Edward Campbell

Do we have another dropped connection?

I can login, navigate and post from here (Dallas, TX), albeit very slowly, on Air-Force.ca and Navy.ca but not on Army.ca or Milnet.ca.


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse

DSL down


----------



## PMedMoe

Yep, it's been pretty slow here this morning.  I had to access the site with the "old" address.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yep, a connection went down... sorry it took a couple of hours for me to notice.


----------



## George Wallace

Seems the site is falling asleep.......and loading slooooooowly and then wakingupandloading quickly.........then dozing off again.......


----------



## Edward Campbell

The site has gone slow over the past half hour or so (since about 0730 Central Time). Surely that's not another _April Fool_ prank.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Sadly no... any slowness is legitimate. Can't say that about much else today.


----------



## kratz

All day pages have either not been loading or only portions of pages (only this site). This evening the porblem is worse with no connection to the site at all at times.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I've seen things a bit slow but not worse than that in the last couple of hours. Must be luck of the draw.

(No, I'm not sitting right next to the server, though sometimes that's why it's fast for me. )


----------



## 1feral1

kratz said:
			
		

> All day pages have either not been loading or only portions of pages (only this site). This evening the porblem is worse with no connection to the site at all at times.



I have been having the same problems and overall recent performance has been about a 3/10.

Quite frustrating  :nod:

OWDU


----------



## FastEddy

Overwatch Downunder said:
			
		

> I have been having the same problems and overall recent performance has been about a 3/10.
> 
> Quite frustrating  :nod:
> 
> OWDU




Of course its slow, look how far it has to go. ;D

Cheers.


----------



## kratz

I found the problem. A few days ago I upgraded to IE8 and thought nothing of it as everything was working well. I had never thought to use the new function, "Compatibility View". I reset my browser defaults this morning and clicked on that option and now Navy.ca is running smooth again. So it was defiantly my system and not the site. I hope this helps anyone else with similar problems.


----------



## mediocre1

If it is what milnet can  offer, no complaints. Thanks for the free membership although I intend to donate 5 bucks a month or more if things go well for me.


----------



## George Wallace

Must be a lot of web crawlers out tonight.  Site seems to be sluggish.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Must be a lot of web crawlers out tonight.  Site seems to be sluggish.



There seems to be about 50 on the site tonight



> Yahoo! (13), MSN (10), Google, Cuil (6), Baidu (13), Ask (6), Alexa


----------



## 1feral1

Again last night the site just idled, and I could not even amend a post until about 5 hrs later.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Could you connect at all, or was it just really (really, really) slow?


----------



## 1feral1

The site let me in over time, and let me post. I went to amend, and it began to open, but 20 mins later was still in the process. I then got out, tried again. The site let me in, very slowly, then when I went to get into that thread, it again idled, and in over 10 mins, did nothing. Hence I got out, and came back later.

Its slow right now, but a 1000% better than yesterday.


Cheers,

Wes


----------



## George Wallace

Is one or more DSL connection down?

Bell Linemen at work somewhere nearby?


----------



## Taoye

This site's been loading real slow for me, too. 

The rest of the Internet is doing fine.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

No technical problems, so I think we're just pushing our connection limits.


----------



## PMedMoe

It's working better for me today than it has the last few days.  No time outs or anything, it's just been slow.


----------



## George Wallace

Did the DSL Connection just go out to a restaurant for dinner?


----------



## Old Sweat

Several times in the last few days, including this morning, I have been unable to log onto the main page. However I have been able to access the site via Current Unread Topics.


----------



## geo

The site is zipping along quite nicely this morning


----------



## GAP

For the last 4 or 5 days the pages have taken forever to load....they load, but sloooowwwww.......


----------



## 1feral1

Outragously slow here, so much it has frustrated me beyond hope.

That being said, tomorrow is another day.

OWDU


----------



## freakerz

Staff should check out Slicehost, cheap and awesome! :nod:

Although not Canadian... but most Canadian web hosts aren't worth it, they overcharge so much.


----------



## George Wallace

freakerz said:
			
		

> Staff should check out Slicehost, cheap and awesome! :nod:
> 
> Although not Canadian... but most Canadian web hosts aren't worth it, they overcharge so much.



I may suggest that you go back and do some reading of this topic, and get an idea of where the problems actually lie.  I don't think a web host is the problem........more like Bell Service and Bell transmission lines.


----------



## freakerz

It's fast right now, so it's dependent on the time of the day? I'ld say it gets slow from 9AM EST to 2AM EST. During that period there's double (over 250) the amount of users currently (~130) connected.. I keep reading about the DSL connection, is the whole network (Army, Navy, AF, Milnet) powered by DSL connections from Bell? Otherwise, I'm on a university campus so there shouldn't be throttling (downloads or other sites are fast any time of the day).


----------



## George Wallace

If you do some reading about the site, you will discover that Army/Navy/Air Force/Milnet is one site in actual fact, which allows you the options to view in your preferred "Element".  The site owner runs the site off a desktop in his basement connected to two DSL lines in a rural area.   This is not a large conglomerate site with vast resources.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

freakerz,

Thanks for the info. Offsite hosting seems to be the "best" solution to residential DSL woes, so I'm definitely in the market. It's a matter of being able to afford decent hosted hardware, so disk or memory doesn't become the next bottleneck. 

I'll check in to Slicehost...


Cheers
Mike


----------



## Nfld Sapper

freakerz said:
			
		

> Staff should check out Slicehost, cheap and awesome! :nod:
> 
> Although not Canadian... but most Canadian web hosts aren't worth it, they overcharge so much.



How about then making a donation to the site to help off set this cost.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> freakerz,
> 
> Thanks for the info. Offsite hosting seems to be the "best" solution to residential DSL woes, so I'm definitely in the market. It's a matter of being able to afford decent hosted hardware, so disk or memory doesn't become the next bottleneck.
> 
> I'll check in to Slicehost...
> 
> 
> Cheers
> Mike



Mike from the Slicehost site:

Our Plans
Plan RAM Storage BW Monthly Cost 
256 slice 256MB 10GB 100GB $20 
512 slice 512MB 20GB 200GB $38  
1GB slice 1024MB 40GB 400GB $70  
2GB slice 2048MB 80GB 800GB $130  
4GB slice 4096MB 160GB 1600GB $250 
8GB slice 8192MB 320GB 2000GB $450 
15.5GB slice 15872MB 620GB 2000GB $800 

Included in Every Slice™
Full root access and rebooting
Choice of Linux distro
Dedicated IP address and Tier-1 redundant bandwidth
RAID-10 disk storage
Reserved RAM
Guaranteed CPU share and more when available
4-core servers running Xen virtualization instances
Slicehost management portal for reboots and software installs
Mobile management portal for smartphones
Ajax console access
Bootable rescue mode
Private IPs for inter-slice communication
HA capabilities via shared IPs
Machines running with fixed usage limits, below full capacity


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks Sapper, I just checked that out. We're running off the equivalent of a 4Gb slice now... so the hardware is quite capable, but the network connection is the bottleneck. It'd be far outside our budget to get comparable hardware with a better connection through Slicehost. A 2Gb slice is closer to our range, so I guess I'd need to figure out if the hardware becomes the bottleneck at that point...


----------



## freakerz

They have a forum too, maybe you can ask other owners, my sites aren't big enough to compare  

What's the load on your server with 4gb of ram... if the forum needs that much, dayum! (unless you run multiple sites or most services)

Also you could go with shared hosting, it's much cheaper, but what's the fun in that?  ;D


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yeah we run pretty close to the limit most times. Here's the current snapshot:

MemTotal:      4061812 kB
MemFree:         99312 kB

Now mind you, Linux doesn't deallocate memory until it needs it, so that may be a bit misleading. The big consumer is MySQL and the mail services... once you stack on mimedefang, clamav, spamd etc it all adds up pretty qiuckly. CPU load is almost always low (> 0.7) unless a big job is running (E.G. backup).


----------



## George Wallace

The Gerbils don't have their tag team timing down pat tonight.  The site seems to be running a bit slow at times.  Sporadic.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

One connection was down... I cracked the whip and got it going again.


----------



## PMedMoe

Thank you!!  I was getting the time out page every time!  :'(


----------



## George Wallace

PMedMoe said:
			
		

> Thank you!!  I was getting the time out page every time!  :'(



I couldn't even load the main page.  Very frustrating.  Now I have lots of catching up to do.   ;D


----------



## Mike Baker

Huh, it was fine for me.


FH


----------



## George Wallace

Running sporadically right now/Hot and Cold.


----------



## McG

I have my defaults set to view 50 posts per page.  I notice things are a little slow, but not too bad.


----------



## Occam

Things were flying this morning, but now they've gone back to a crawl again.  There's quite a delay in response.


----------



## PMedMoe

George Wallace said:
			
		

> I couldn't even load the main page.  Very frustrating.  Now I have lots of catching up to do.   ;D



Actually, neither could I.  I used the "old" address to get the main page and got nowhere after that.


----------



## George Wallace

Is it my computer (Yesterday Ontario Hydro had a millisecond spike, just after I had removed an N/S batt from my APS to get replaced today - Murphy's Law.) or is the site slow ?


----------



## Yrys

It wasn't slow for me earlier, but the pages dowloaded stangely (text upon text,
until fully dowloaded). It is ok now for me.


----------



## PMedMoe

Anyone else having pages load extremely slow today??  It was kind of hit and miss at work today which I blamed on the DWAN, but now I'm home and it's no better.  :'(


----------



## Edward Campbell

The site has been painfully slow this morning, on both my Linux/Firefox and Windows (_Vista_)/Chrome boxes.

There are infrequent and intermittent burst of "normal" speed.


----------



## Edward Campbell

It "feels" like a dropped connection at the server: fast on my Linux/Firefox box using Milnet.ca while impossible to load Army.ca on the same machine, but OK on Army.ca using Windows/Chrome and impossible to load Navy.ca from that box.

BTW: the rest of the Internet is fine on both my machines so I'm guessing *my* connection is OK. (No "otherenditis" here!)


----------



## NL_engineer

The site is flying for me, despite my slooooooooooow sandbox connection.


----------



## PMedMoe

Yep, slow for me, too.  Last night was absolutely crazy, the site wasn't even coming up in it's usual format.  ???


----------



## Edward Campbell

Still the same for me:

+ Internet (except for Mike's server) is fine; and

+ Three tabs open on browser - Navy.ca came up fast (I'm posting on that tab), Army.ca and Milnet.ca not even loading took more than 30 seconds to load.


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse

A connection is done.....passing info to Mike now.


----------



## kkwd

The home pages of the Milnet family won't load for me but when I go straight to the forums they load quickly.


----------



## PMedMoe

Took me almost an hour to get on.  I finally refreshed my network connection and no problem now.


----------



## Harris

I just talked to Mike (He's on the road) and he's now aware of the issue.  Normally I could have fixed the issue myself, but my logon no longer works.  (My access is by IP and it has probably changed recently).  He will try to get on and sort things out soonest.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks Todd, I was able to get the second connection back up and running agian via my phone, so we should be at full power now.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Looks like we are Mike.  :nod:


----------



## tango22a

Mike: 

Veeeeerrrrrryyyyy Sssssllllloooowwww !!!!! at this time. Took near 7 minutes to load. Using XP Pro and Firefox 3.5.


tango22a


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

All systems are go... actually I'm finding it a bit faster than normal this morning! I am doing some gallery re-work but that should cause only brief performance drops.


----------



## George Wallace

Must be the different servers we are passing through, as it is sloooooooow here too.

Must be all those people checking their Michael Jackson Lottery numbers.


----------



## Old Sweat

I have not been able to log onto the main page for close to a month. Instead I have been joining the net by logging onto current unread topics using the history of my last 300 posts thingy. This really does not pose a problem other than seeing who else is on and checking the normal stuff on the home page.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Can everyone get to the following top-level sites:

http://milnet.ca
http://army.ca
http://navy.ca
http://air-force.ca

If one or more is 'out' for you, we may have a DNS problem of some sort.


----------



## Occam

All sites good from Ottawa, Mike.


----------



## GAP

OK from Wpg


----------



## 1feral1

For weeks now its been ver very slow (from home). I do have broadband, and often it idles and does not open even after several tries.

From work, I don't know because someone decided to block it force wide, and it is now unaccessable thru the DRN.


Cheers,

Wes


----------



## George Wallace

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Can everyone get to the following top-level sites:
> 
> http://milnet.ca
> http://army.ca
> http://navy.ca
> http://air-force.ca
> 
> If one or more is 'out' for you, we may have a DNS problem of some sort.



The shortest time I got was 30 seconds to load one of those sites.  It just took 55 seconds to load army.ca completely.


----------



## PMedMoe

All slow to load for me, but that's probably the Rogers High Speed Lite.  :-\  But they did load.


----------



## George Wallace

I see the site is back up.

I have lost the site several times in the last several days.  It was totally down for about fifteen minutes, just in the last hour.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

That was me... rebooted it before I go on the road tomorrow, so you know it'll be down as soon as I leave.


----------



## Scratch_043

I have been having a very sluggish response for about a week now, specific to this site, as facebook, as well as other forums work flawlessly.


----------



## 1feral1

Absolutely shocking from here.

Took 15 mins to get on this am.

OWDU


----------



## ironduke57

All okay from here. (DE)

Regards,
ironduke57


----------



## FastEddy

Overwatch Downunder said:
			
		

> Absolutely shocking from here.
> 
> Took 15 mins to get on this am.
> 
> OWDU




WES. how many times have I told you, its your PC you've got to turn on. not your Radio. ;D

But seriously, getting on has been a bit slow, but back to original or next page or change Topic has really been a problem here in Montreal.

Cheers.


----------



## NL_engineer

Is it just me or is the site super fast now? (and I'm on the crappy at best army sat connection)


----------



## Edward Campbell

NL_engineer said:
			
		

> Is it just me or is the site super fast now? (and I'm on the crappy at best army sat connection)



At this very moment, it's just you. The site speed goes up and down like a _you know who_'s drawers of paynight. It's been that way for weeks now. I blame it all on Dave.


----------



## NL_engineer

Well as long as it stays like it for the next hour, so I can enjoy the AC, and not the high 30 temperatures outside at the moment.


----------



## PMedMoe

Anyone else getting serious "load lag" tonight?  It's s-l-o-o-o-o-w.


----------



## George Wallace

Good.  It isn't just me.


----------



## Eye In The Sky

I am on a GP-Net machine in Winnipeg...its faster here tonight than its been on my PC back home in NS lately.  I am assuming you guys *might* be on the same ISP in Ont...maybe they are having issues?


----------



## PMedMoe

Eye In The Sky said:
			
		

> I am on a GP-Net machine in Winnipeg...its faster here tonight than its been on my PC back home in NS lately.  I am assuming you guys *might* be on the same ISP in Ont...maybe they are having issues?



No, other sites are loading fine.


----------



## Roy Harding

The site has been _painfully_ slow for me since Sunday.  All four iterations of the site are the same.

This is not the case on other internet sites - so it's not me.


Roy


----------



## mariomike

Roy Harding said:
			
		

> All four iterations of the site are the same.



Thanks, Roy! I learned another new word today. Iteration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iteration


----------



## PMedMoe

This is the first time I have been able to log on today.  Horrifying, the withdrawal.....

I found myself looking at Lovely Listing - Odd finds in real estate.  Real estate listings gone bad!!


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

One of our DSL connections was down for a bit... it's been back up since about 1030 ET.


----------



## PMedMoe

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> One of our DSL connections was down for a bit... it's been back up since about 1030 ET.



Well, it must not have kicked in at my place until later.... :crybaby:

Admittedly, I haven't tried to log on since about 1130.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

OK, I've made some additional changes... it's unlikely to have made things much better, but I want to be sure I haven't made them worse.  Anyone noticing any big changes in speed since 2000 ET today?


----------



## GAP

Pages are loading about twice of fast as normal for me.....hmmm....is it Mike's changes or the drugs I'm on..... :


----------



## PMedMoe

For the past two days, the site has been running hot and cold for me.  Slightly better at work.
Some pages take ages to load, particularly when replying to a post.
I also find that sometimes the pages only load part way.
Strange......    :blotto:


----------



## Edward Campbell

PMedMoe said:
			
		

> For the past two days, the site has been running hot and cold for me.  Slightly better at work.
> Some pages take ages to load, particularly when replying to a post.
> I also find that sometimes the pages only load part way.
> Strange......    :blotto:




Almost exactly the same for me - also in Ottawa. The rest of the Internet is normal.


----------



## PMedMoe

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Almost exactly the same for me - also in Ottawa. The rest of the Internet is normal.



Yes, mine too.  OF course, right after I posted that, the site became super fast.   :   

ERC, are you on Rogers as well??


----------



## Edward Campbell

I'm on Bell, I get my Internet via VDSL (TV + Internet + wirline phone over twisted pair phone line) so it is, normally, very quick.

I suspect that the _crawlers_ and _spiders_ and so on that prowl the web on behalf of big search engines (and others?) are part of the problem - but when the site is slow I always forget to look at the "Who is on line" thingy. It's my _Somezeimer's_ - sorta like _Alzheimer's_ but I only forget the really important stuff when it is likely to be most embarrassing ... or convenient.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Army.ca is slow to very slow right now (1900 Hrs) in Ottawa.

I see this: Yahoo! (13), MSN (15), Google (AdSense), Google (3),


----------



## tango22a

All day long it has been up and down just like a wh*re's drawers! At present it is slower than molasses in January. I've encountered all kinds of problems. I hope it gets better.....can't get any worse.


tango22a


----------



## Bass ackwards

For the last week, I've been experiencing the exact same conditions here that E.R. Campbell and PMedMoe have been reporting. 
For whatever it's worth, I'm in Northern Manitoba, with a DSL connection through MTS (Manitoba Telephone Service).


----------



## mariomike

tango22a said:
			
		

> All day long it has been up and down just like a wh*re's drawers!
> tango22a



T22A, you took the words right out of my mouth!


----------



## Edward Campbell

Site is moderately slow right now (nearly 0500 Hrs in Ottawa) (I'm a very early riser!); it is 'normally' quite quick in the early AM. I see this: 120 Guests, 10 Users (0 Buddies, 21 Spiders, 1 Hidden)


----------



## Dissident

Site is slow here from Richmond.


----------



## kratz

Pages are hanging for minutes to load, for the past few hours.


----------



## tango22a

Sorry Mike:

I've seen faster snail races!


tango22a


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Well, I think we may have reached the point where we need to look at improving our lot in life.

For those of you who don't care about the technical details, skip ahead to my next reply.

For those who like to sink their teeth into the nuts and bolts, read on.

Right now, we are on Eastlink's Business Static 10 program. That gives us [theoretical] 10mbps download and 1mbps upload speeds. Normally that would work out just fine, but in our case, we do a heck of a lot more "uploading" than "downloading". (That is, every page requested is an upload, but the request itself is a download.) So while we have a 10:1 ratio of down to up available, our actual usage is probably more like 1:10, with a lot more data going out to the 'net than coming in from it.

What this means in practical terms is that our upload pipe is constantly full, and packets are often held up waiting to get "out". Sometimes they are held up so long that the user's system on the other end gives up waiting and times out.

I have contacted Eastlink and asked about redistributing the 10:1 a bit more equably for our needs. This is something they technically _can_ do, but they won't do it. They have specific plans and that's all they'll provide... I can understand that, most businesses won't do a "one off" like that.

Unfortunately we need a business plan because the residential plans block certain ports (TCP 25/SMTP for example, which means we wouldn't be able to run a mail server). We also need a "static" plan because using dynamic IPs mean that we'd be frequently "moving" on the 'net. While Dynamic DNS solutions exist out there, I've never had much luck with them... they usually end up with a complex config and some downtime when a new IP is leased. That means we are limited to the "Business Static" options.

After looking at the problem from a few different angles, I've narrowed it down to a couple of different possibilities:


Bump up to the next Business Static plan with Eastlink. This incurs an extra $45+ tax per month, taking our ISP bill from $118.65 to $169.50 (a diff of $50.85 monthly). This approach takes us from 10:1 to 10:1.5. Doesn't seem like much, but it adds 50% to our currently overburdened upload bandwidth. The setup for this is a single phone call, and the change would be nearly immediate.

Move Army.ca et al. to a service provider. A while back someone suggested Slicehost and I've been looking into them on and off. A 2Gb slice with them would be a step down from the hardware we currently run on... Let's look at it piece by piece. The 2Gb slice would be 1/2 the RAM we currently use, 2Gb vs. 4Gb. We typically do not max out our RAM use, but we do come close. Right now we're at 96.11% memory used, though this can be a bit deceiving on Linux... RAM is only freed up when it's needed. I expect we could get by with 2Gb with some adjustments. 80Gb of disk space could be a bit of a squeeze. We currently use about 100Gb but aren't "careful" with it so we could probably trim down without too much difference. Total monthly bandwidth is 800Gb and we rarely top out 200Gb, so lots of room to grow there. This is also a shared virtual server, so while we'd be getting our "dedicated server," it would be just part of a larger, shared physical piece of hardware. That might have some performance implications.

The good news is that the actual throughput is very high. For the 2Gb slice it would be 40mbps upload and effectively unlimited download. Now, can slicehost actually deliver those speeds? Doubtful, but I'm sure it would be better than the 10:1 we're getting now.

Now here's the rub: setup for this option would be significant. It would require all current Army.ca pages, databases, services, etc. to be migrated to a slicehost server. Not only that, but some things would need to be reconfigured to take the reduced disk and memory into account. All in all this is a significant task and given my "personal" bandwidth  it could take weeks or months to complete.

In terms of price, it's $130USD/month, or roughly the same as the Eastlink option above, however this is another consideration. During the cutover period, we'd have to pay for our current connection _and_ the Slicehost service. That would effectively double our Internet bill, which is not something we would want to do for very long!

So the summary of options is, we can get a quick 50% boost to our biggest pain point, or we can move everything to a very fast pipe on lower grade hardware. Both options are roughly equal in cost. Having spent some time considering the options, I am in favour of the first.

Bumping up our upload throughput to 1.5mbps is a quick and easy win, and if it doesn't have the desired effect, we can simply step back to our current plan or kick off something with Slicehost in parallel.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

OK, for those of you who skipped ahead, here's where we stand. For an extra $50.85/month, we can improve our existing Internet connection by up to 50%.

Annually, that works out to $610.20, or roughly 20 new subscribers in order to sustain the service indefinitely. Many of our heavy users are already subscribers - thanks for giving us the funds to get where we are today! To put things into perspective, every post in the last 2 pages of this thread has been from a Subscriber!

I'll use this as an opportunity to urge others to consider subscribing. In addition to helping the site in a very quantifiable way, you also get a site challenge coin, shirt and sticker. Furthermore, subscribers get access to a Facebook-esque status field, all site ads are removed, and they have additional permissions and rights not available to normal users. For a full list, please see the details page on becoming a subscriber.

If we can round up 20 new subscribers, I'll bump us up to the next tier with our ISP and hopefully the log jam will break.

Thanks in advance for your support!


Cheers
Mike


----------



## tango22a

Mike:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not challenging your math, but it appears to me that to earn the required amount you would require 20 + 1 new subscribers.

Either that or you raise the tariff for new members to say $40 to $50 per year effective 1JAN10. If necessary I am willing to send another cheque to top up my dues for two years.


tango22a


----------



## tango22a

Mike:

Sorry if I started a S**tstorm by advocating an increase in dues. IMHO this site is worth a H*ll of a lot more than $30 per year. I know that you are attempting to provide max service at the minimum cost, but either we get more members or the site continues the way it is. Forgive me but I don't consider this a viable option.

If a member can't afford the increase honestly, IMHO he/she/it should pay what they can.

IF somebody has a problem with this they can PM me and we'll keep the flamefest from wasting bandwith.

Thanks,


tango22a


----------



## mellian

I will subscribe as soon as I possibly can financially (along with another website presently active on).


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

lol, thanks tango... caught me on that one. Your math is solid and the price isn't going up.

Clearly I needed to take my socks off for that last post. 

mellian (and others), it's not meant to be a guilt trip. There are many valid reasons why subscribing is impractical for people. However for those who enjoy the site and have the means, it does help quite a bit. I'll never judge those who don't subscribe... like I said, it's just not always practical.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

tango22a said:
			
		

> Sorry if I started a S**tstorm by advocating an increase in dues. IMHO this site is worth a H*ll of a lot more than $30 per year.



Not at all, discussion like this is always good. I'm trying hard to keep subscriptions accessible and attractive to users here... part of that is keeping the price down and the other part is offering a decent service to subscribers, without making regular users feel like they're second class citizens.

Frankly, I _should_ be focusing on advertising to support the site. As it stands we have only a few advertisers. CPGear is our largest, but they sponsor the monthly contests, so the site doesn't bank anything as a result. The remaining advertisers come and go on a regular basis but don't add much to the coffers.

Before the alarm bells go off, I will not jam the site full of ads... what you see now is all there will be for the foreseeable future. However we could benefit from more advertisers using the existing space.

I've been working on a plan to entice a few larger organizations to jump in with some advertising, but as I mentioned, it's slow going so far. Ultimately, this kind of sponsorship would be the way to go as it takes the burden of improving the site off the users.

We have an extremely focused, well informed audience here that is a marketing boon for certain organizations... problem is they don't know we exist or what the options are, but I'm working to change that.


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse

Mike, money order for $200 on the way this afternoon.
Upon receiving send me 2 xxl running shirts, an xl golf shirt [2xl if you find one] and a grey xxl hoodie and put the rest towards continuing my subscription.

[I will send you a PM about this also but the fact is I'm not afraid to 'guilt' people]


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks Bruce!


----------



## GAP

Hey....hoodies?   How much are they.....(I need that 2XL by the way....)?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

You bet I do! I have 2XL in black with the Army.ca logo and in grey with the Milnet.ca logo for $40. There are also a few other odds and sods in "the store":

http://milnet.ca/store/


----------



## GAP

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> You bet I do! I have 2XL in black with the Army.ca logo and in grey with the Milnet.ca logo for $40. There are also a few other odds and sods in "the store":
> 
> http://milnet.ca/store/



Just sent a confirming email with address details and also sent an email M.O. for the $$

Thanks
Gord

ps: order page is great, except there is no option to order without paypal or CC upfront....I generally pay by Email M.O. so I have to do it this way....thanks again.


----------



## 1feral1

Jut after 0500 here on Sat, 07 Nov. Although I am not at home (in Brisbane at a a mates place - gunshow today  ) the site has been performing very poor, either timing out, or taking a very long time to open just to make a post. Currently took about 7 minutes to get on to this topic.

Been up since 0300, I hate sleeping on a fart infested old couch and not having my own bed, but gunshows come only 2 or 3 times a year.

Regards,

OWDU


----------



## George Wallace

I'm finding site speed to be sporadic, with pages sometimes only half loading.


----------



## 1feral1

From down here, again the performance has been rather disappointing. Things half load, or are super slow, or don't load at all, and keep timing out.

Frustrating to say the least, and I hope this ongoing problem can be overcome in the near future.

OWDU


----------



## Antoine

BTW, at the University of British Columbia, the site speed is slow for the last couple of months. I am wondering if there is a filter or a priority level on their web network (if possible) but I can listen to CBC on-line without problem.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I'm quite certain the problem is the limited upload bandwidth of our current connection. There may be other issues at play as well, but none will really be a factor until we address this issue.


----------



## GAP

Could your ISP be throttling you? or Your ISP's supplier throttling them? This dramatic drop in speed seemed to come on pretty quick


----------



## Occam

Throttling isn't the problem.  Mike gives a technical description of the problem earlier in the thread.


----------



## GAP

Occam said:
			
		

> Throttling isn't the problem.  Mike gives a technical description of the problem earlier in the thread.


I read that.....

That does not explain the dramatic decrease in bandwidth....


----------



## Journeyman

GAP said:
			
		

> That does not explain the dramatic decrease in bandwidth....


Because Mike is back in the Maritimes, he was to work through a party-line  >


----------



## Occam

GAP said:
			
		

> I read that.....
> 
> That does not explain the dramatic decrease in bandwidth....



From what I gather, when Mike was in Ontario, he was running off 2 x 800 Kbps (uplink) DSL lines, which would give a theoretical max of 1.6 Mbps uplink.  He's now on a different ISP in Nova Scotia under a rate plan which only provides 1 Mbps uplink.  There's your decrease in bandwidth.

The only throttling Eastlink does is to limit the users to the rate plan that they're paying for.


----------



## GAP

Soooo.....based on Mike's explanation re: the costs....why are we not having an annual fundraiser from all the addicts? 

Call it the "09/10 Bandwidth Drive"or something equally innocuous...... ;D


Hmmm...900 per year at $10 per addict....we need 90 addicts willing to enter a 90 step program..............


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Actually we're only in need of $600/year or 20 new subscribers at $30/year. We've had 2 new ones already, which is good, though we lost one during the same period, so we're "up" one subscriber so far.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Time for another update...

We lost one more subscriber this week, but received a generous $200 donation from another subscriber, which put us well ahead of the game. (Thanks!)

I've been thinking about this and I feel we're at a bit of a catch 22... It's difficult to commit to supporting a site like this when you're not sure of the results, especially when the current performance is low. With that in mind, I've decided to take the plunge, in the hopes that an increase in site speed will draw out some new subscribers.

As of a few minutes ago, I upgraded our account to include 50% more upload bandwidth. This change should be effective within the next 20-30 minutes, and I'm expecting, will have a noticeable effect on our speed.

I'm _hoping_ that this performance boost may be a deciding factor for some potential subscribers who may still be on the fence. That is, the boost is a practical way of showing how subscribers benefit the site. We have enough money in the bank to cover off about 3 months of the higher speed plan and I'm hoping that a few more will take the plunge to help us stay with it even longer.

Thanks again to all those who have helped support the site!


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I wanted to explain another factor in the site speed, but wanted to keep it somewhat separate from the conversation above, so I'm replying once more.

As a subscriber, all advertising is disabled. The intent of this is to provide a small "thank-you" to those who've helped support the site. You've already shown your commitment, there's no need to badger you for more. 

However I've discovered there is an unexpected side-effect. We use a hosted service for our advertising, so when you see an ad, it's not actually from "our server" but from another one out there in the great unknown.

At times, the connection to that advertising server can be slow. What you'll see in these cases is that the page will partially loads, and then pause. If this pause occurs where an ad exists, then this is likely the issue you are seeing. What this means is that even if our pages are loading fast, there may be delays while the ads are fetched. As subscribers do not have to fetch these ads, the only delays they see are our own. (Hopefully these delays have no been reduced.)

Now I am looking in to solutions to this problem... I don't want to give the impression that I'm encouraging this kind of issue to punish regular users. In fact, what I *really* want to do is to get a sense for how widespread the issue really is, and to explain why some people may be seeing delays while others are not.

As an aside, I highly recommend that everyone has a good adblocker installed which would help not only here, but for all sites you visit. I know... as someone selling ad space this is not good business, but I'm more interested in providing a useful service than turning a profit.

At any rate, that's the explanation... if anyone has any questions or feedback I'd be happy to discuss it further.


Cheers
Mike


----------



## George Wallace

Not seeing any increase in speed yet......


----------



## Bass ackwards

Mike, correct me if I'm wrong, but whenever someone actually clicks on an ad posted on this site, doesn't that add a penny or two to your account ?
I can't speak for the other subscribers, but most of the ads I see before I log in are usually interesting military-related things that I'd be inclined to look at anyways. For my money, if those ads are a reliable source of revenue, then feel free to not block them from the subscribers' side of things. 

PS: site very slow here this evening. I'm having to hit "refresh" quite often just to get a page to load. No biggie though...
I'm tenacious.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I've made some adjustments that may help the speed... here's hoping!

With regards to the advertising, it's sold in blocks of views or clicks, so sometimes clicking helps, sometimes just loading a page helps.


----------



## hmorneau

To me it doesn't look like a bandwidth issue, more like a server speed issue (Mysql database overloaded with request) or high server load. It's look like you are on a dedicated server, maybe the time to upgrade to an high end server or do some server optimization or change provider. You can get good server for cheap in 2009.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Hi hmorneau, thanks for the feedback... but what are you basing it on? The server rarely has a load average that peaks above .8, doesn't use any of the allocated swap space and generally does not have any locked mysql connections. I'm certainly open to feedback but everything I've examined to date tells me the server can't be overloaded as our connection prevents that level of traffic from getting through.


----------



## hmorneau

First, for the bandwidth, what I can recommand you if you have a specific bandwidth allocation (exemple 1mbit), it's to monitor your server with snmpd and you can graph your usage with http://odmon.com (it use Cacti and it's free). So the graph will clearly show you if the bandwidth is a problem. Cacti can also monitor other stuff, like server load, cpu usage, mem usage, apache process, mysql, etc. Just look at it.

Second, for the speed issue, you can check on http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?board=86.25 
Also take a look in litespeed 
Also try incrasing the number of child process, it sometimes help with forum since it does lots of request.
Also install Zendoptimizer if it's not allready done.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks hmorneau. I've gone over the server itself with a fine toothed comb, it still has processing power to spare. The bandwidth between the server and the router it's connected to would also show as "OK" because the bottleneck is between the router and the rest of the world.

For example, the results of http://www.speedtest.net/ show a dowload speed of ~5Mb/s and an upload speed of ~0.1Mb/s while Army.ca is connected and running. That tells me that there is very little available throughput on the upload pipe, which is where we need it most.

If I unplug Army.ca (sorry guys... it's in the name of science) and re-run the test, I get results of ~5Mb/s and 0.6Mb/s respectively. I've also done some testing on packet latency and inbound is fine, but outbound has some serious delays.

Frankly 0.6Mb/s is low based on what I expected to see there, it should reach a theoretical max of 1.5, though that's never the reality of a cable connection.


----------



## Bass ackwards

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> I've made some adjustments that may help the speed... here's hoping!
> 
> With regards to the advertising, it's sold in blocks of views or clicks, so sometimes clicking helps, sometimes just loading a page helps.



You must have done something right, Mike: it's running a lot faster for me this evening.


----------



## hmorneau

You run the website from an home server?? You need to look no futher.

What is your budget to run this website? You can get a dedicated server for $50/month or a VPS for $25/month and it will run much faster.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I'm all ears... do you have some references for these hosted services? I've looked at slicehost but even the 2Gb slice would be a step down from the server hardware we have now. If you have a cheaper alternative I'd love to hear it.

Thanks
Mike


----------



## hmorneau

Slicehost it's a rackspace company (that's why it's more expensive), they have a good network (the best in USA) but they charge for it.

I need two thing, Server configuration that you need, budget, and where you want it hosted (USA or Canada)

Hugues


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Hi Hugues,

Thanks for your assistance on this. Here are the specs for our current system:

Processors:           2 x Intel Dual Core Xeon 5150 2.66ghz 1333mhz FSB
Memory:               4Gb (2x2Gb) DDR2-667 RAM
Motherboard:         Asus DSBF-D/SAS Server Motherboard ---- Dual Xeon Socket 771, Intel 5000P, 1333FSB, 8D. DDR2, ATI ES1000
Power Supplies:     550 Watt EPS Power Supply
Hard Disk Drives:    ST3500630AS SEAGATE 500G 7200RPM SATA-300 16M
Case:                   TITAN550 SERVER BOX ANTEC TITAN 550W EATX

This hardware is approaching 3 years old, but is still quite suitable for our needs in terms of capacity. The physical hosting location is not an issue, it can be hosted in Canada or the US. I'd prefer a Canadian company just to keep it in the economy, but can't really afford to back that preference up with a big price tag.

Our monthly budget is about $150.

Unfortunately, it's impractical to host the current hardware in a datacentre, as it can't be rebooted remotely. (It needs console input to start up.)


Thanks!
Mike


----------



## Rifleman62

Very fast this am in the USA.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

It seems to come and go. I haven't figured out the correlation yet.


----------



## George Wallace

Very frustrating this morning.     Slow loading.   Pages not loading.  Pages half-loading.


----------



## Kat Stevens

Very slow for the past few days, to the point of aggravation.  As George said, half loading, slow loading, server timeouts.


----------



## Journeyman

It's been consistently slow out in Prince George where I'm visiting.

But after breakfast with caesars and last night's UFC, followed by what can only be described as 'watching people (several wearing mirrored sunglasses [WTF?]) line-dancing to rock music while kicking beer bottles across the dance floor'....my speed isn't too quick this morning either   :blotto:


----------



## Bass ackwards

Ditto to George's and Kat's last posts this morning when I was on , but it seems fine this evening.


----------



## hmorneau

Hi,

Sorry, was away in the last days.

Your server specs don't seem to be the issue for me. It's maybe a server configuration problem, but in that case your load will go much higher than just 0.8. Probably the bandwidth. I have see server over 25 of load and working faster than this forum...

With a $150 you have many possibility, it's a good budget. 

1. Host your server in colocation. That's the worst scenario to me... The datacenter will host it, but if you have an hardware issue, you will have to go to the datacenter, or they will have to ship you the server back or some offer remote hand service, but it's always in the +$100/hour. So it can become expensive really fast, and since it's not the hardware that the datacenter use, they may not have the good hardware to fix it. For the remote reboot, it's not a problem, APC do some remote reboot power bar (check the AP7900)

2. Get a dedicated server. First, you can get a pretty good server for around $100/month hosted in Montreal, and for approx $50/month more get a good server management. So you will have dedicated staff that will be able to monitor and deal with your server. So you will never loose any more time on this trying to figure what's going on, you just send in a ticket and a tech will look at your issue.

3. Webhosting, it's maybe a good alternative too, some company are offering some great solution, no hassle, you just use the system as a service. But I don't know how much it can cost to host a forum like this, I will need more information to figure that out. But most of those serious host are in USA. We can maybe get a free trial for 30 days to know if it's works and how much it can cost for the next month. (probably in the $100/month range)

#3 would be the best solution, less trouble, just enjoying your website. They manage the website backup, server update, etc. 

Sorry for my english...


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Hi Hugues,

Thanks for the info... your English is much better than my French, so no need to apologize. 

The colocation option is a non-starter for me. As I mentioned I cannot reboot the server remotely... it's not that I can't issue the command - I can very easily. But without someone sitting right there with a keyboard in hand to push the boot process forward, it will never get past the BIOS screen.

I've tried a few webhosting solutions... my experience to date is that they simply can't deliver the throughput that I need. For example I have a dreamhost.com account that has "unlimited" bandwidth, but their connections speeds are throttled and slow, so they wouldn't even be able to deliver what I'm seeing today, let alone an improvement. Plus, it's a shared environment where I don't have root access... That cuts down on some of the "extras" that I can manage.

If you know the name of a good dedicated server host, I'd be very interested in learning more. I'm OK doing the server management, all I *really* need is a decent system connected to a fast Internet pipe.

You can get a sense for our current usage by seeing some basic statistics here: http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/72578.0


Thanks again
Mike


----------



## hmorneau

Was not talking about webhosting like Dreamhost, for sure you can't host a forum like this on a shared account. What I was talking about, it's more what we call "Cloud Hosting". So you pay for the ressource that you use, and yes, it can handle much bigger website than this one.


----------



## Bin-Rat

Morning...

Well yes it was slow for myself, kinda lagged out at a few spots, but I like the new Design/template....

Now as for a Possibility of a new site, something I can throw in here, as to something you can research see if it meets your needs.
I am looking into it now, doing my own research on it, But Ummm I came across a site in which you can subscribe to what they call a online pc
https://www.zazeen.com/OnlinePC.html

in which it seems to be like a VPN or VM where it runs Ubuntu Desktop, so you can ssh into the machines desktop and what you do there 
runs at there speed of service, as in Downloading a file say from home you have a 10/1 connection, takes I dunno 30 Seconds, on there's if you get the 
Ultimate it's a 50 meg down 50 meg upload, so Umm, well you can figure the speed difference, but the file goes to your online PC, and if later on you want
to download it to your system you can.

It supports SFTP as well, and you also have root access, cause I noticed the one remark you mentioned about root access...
Reading the Forums, you can pretty much add anything you want, (linux based as it's Ubuntu) I guess even windows stuff under wine, you just need to install wine, but basically you can install anything, 

there bandwidth well checking your link to how much you use looks like an average of 130gig a month, with there packages it goes from 1 terabyte to 6 terabyte of bandwidth, and HD allocations from a 450 gig to 1.5 terabyte.

Speeds are from 10/5 on low, or ultimate is like 100/100 Mbps on a 12 month it's $84.95

But anyhow, the link is there, you can do some research see if that might not be something to look at, that's all on what I can tell you, as I said I
am just getting into researching it myself, so... Just another option.

Have a good one..


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Mike you tinkering in here? site is very slow/not loading at all................. and other users are having problems too.........


----------



## Fishbone Jones

I was hoping it wasn't just me. This is driving me nuts.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

I blame his party line

 ;D


----------



## Strike

I'm sure this is how a crack addict feels when going through withdrawal.

Not sure if it's the site or my own system -- I'm on wireless through a tower.  I know things slow down here at night, but this is getting to be ridiculous.  I've seen dial-up move faster than this site.


----------



## danchapps

Strike said:
			
		

> I'm sure this is how a crack addict feels when going through withdrawal.
> 
> Not sure if it's the site or my own system -- I'm on wireless through a tower.  I know things slow down here at night, but this is getting to be ridiculous.  I've seen dial-up move faster than this site.



I'm by Londonderry and my Shaw is running fine, except for my router dropping me now and then. Maybe it's your tower. It's actually running fast for me right now.


----------



## Strike

Chapeski said:
			
		

> I'm by Londonderry and my Shaw is running fine, except for my router dropping me now and then. Maybe it's your tower. It's actually running fast for me right now.



I hate you all....


----------



## armyvern

Strike said:
			
		

> I hate you all....



It's not just you Strike.

I've been here all freakin night and I've only managed to get pages to fully load twice (this being one of them)... if this doesn't time out before it allows me to post.

I'm getting error messages galore and am having to refresh constantly and only the first one or two posts in a thread will load after 20 or so refreshes. I'm getting really frustrated. Crack addict indeed.



> Line: 472
> Char: 11
> Error: Expected ':'
> Code: 0
> 
> OR
> 
> Line: 38 (or 43 or 26 [just pick one])
> Char: 0
> Error: 'mm_script' not recognized



Arghhhh. making caffeine now, as I can't have the crack.  :'(


----------



## Journeyman

First the new colour scheme (which has improved wonderfully from the initial changes   ), and now the pages not loading.  _~sigh~_
Are we going to have to drag you back to Ontari-ari-o?


Of course, being an 'always a bright side' kind of guy, when the site locks up I don't have to see the waste of bandwidth and oxygen by the AmmoTards   ;D


----------



## George Wallace

I logged on at around 3 pm and it is now 5:30 and some pages have still not fully loaded.  

Next question:  What is with the scroll bars on the right hand side of the screen after some of the posts?  I first noticed them when I went to a person's profile and read their posts, and found it really annoying........Now I see them to the right of Strike, Army Vern and Journeyman's three posts above.   Is this "tweak" one of the things making the site go "wonky"?


----------



## danchapps

Strike said:
			
		

> I hate you all....



You know what's funny Strike? Right after I made that post, my site speed s**t the bed. Isn't any better tonight either


----------



## muskrat89

Wicked slow here pretty much since the "big change". Almost intolerable


----------



## 1feral1

Finally on. I have tried to log on for several days from time to time as I had borrowed a lap top, and it would just sit there and idle.

My normal computer had crashed, and I am finally getting a new one on the weekend ($850 later).

OWDU


----------



## leroi

Overwatch,

I was beginning to worry about your safety & welfare because we haven't been receiving the usual 'sunnier-than-thou-by-the-pool'  ;D weather reports from down under--now that I know it was just a glitch in the inter connectivity matrix I'm not so worried!

How is the weather down your way? It's dismal/dreary here in southwestern Ontario and we haven't seen the sun for about 4 weeks--give or take an hour of sunshine here and there.

The day began with picture-postcard-bigger-than-life frothy, lacy snowflakes but by noon it was pure rain. Yuck!

Say hello to the koalas for us; take your medicinal aussie eucalyptus and take care!


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Well, I'm finally experiencing things "from the outside" and the speed is definitely inconsistent. I've got a couple irons in the fire about improving that but unfortunately I'm on the road this week and next so I won't be able to get much done for a while yet. Please bear with me, I'll try to make it worth your while. 


Cheers
Mike


----------



## 1feral1

Well Leroi,

Todays SITREP is excellent.

This afternoon I finally got my computer, and its running fine so far. had the arvo off, and made a few calls and my PC was in, so the bloke just dropped it off not long ago.

About the weather, its warm, about 31 by 0830 this am, and topped out around 37 or so, but the humidity is a shocker. Yes, I've been in for a swim, water temp a happy 30C.

So, I have a lot of catching up to do with friends on here (they know who they are), a mate leaves for En Zed, so going to yet another social occasion as per last nights funfest of a blokey night out w/bbq, snags, rissoles on crusty bread rolls, smothered in fried onions and bbq sauce. Of course much merry cheer with icey cold XXXX Gold.

Saturday wiull envolve a Sea-Doo trip up Pummicestone Passage, to Fort Bribie for some exploring at this WW2 fortification, with bunkers, coastal gun positions etc.  Lots of military history around here, especially Americans, as the island was a major training area for the big push against the Japs to our north.

Will get some pics of the journey, as it will involve a few cold drinks and some food, and good company of mates.

Regards,

OWDU


----------



## George Wallace

The site seems to have gone all wonky in the last few hours.  Pages are slow to load, or only partially load.  Some pages need to be refreshed several times to load.  Spell Check loads very slow.  Some new posts time out, so copy and save before you hit POST in case this may happen and you loose your post (especially if you had a case of verbal diariea).


----------



## Nfld Sapper

George Wallace said:
			
		

> The site seems to have gone all wonky in the last few hours.  Pages are slow to load, or only partially load.  Some pages need to be refreshed several times to load.  Spell Check loads very slow.  Some new posts time out, so copy and save before you hit POST in case this may happen and you loose your post (especially if you had a case of verbal diariea).



Good and I thought it was only my connection that had problems....


----------



## George Wallace

WOW!  Just made a post and was waiting for it to time out and be lost.  The site was running smoothly until a little after 0900 EST and 200 Guests/Users online.......then everything slowed down.


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse

Flying for me.

If it stays like this I might actually get some "janitorial" work done.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

It must be crawling now... something's choked the internet connection down to near zero. Plans are still afoot to get us moved to a proper data centre, but I'm not there yet...


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Seems alright right now from the rock.

 :christmas happy:


----------



## George Wallace

Whoa!   Site slowed right down to a crawl there, when I made my last post.


I see Mike has been tinkering........New buttons on each Forum:   "Unread Posts"








Or did I just never notice them before?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

They've been there for quite a while... but Merry Christmas anyway.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Good news folks... within a week or so we should be hosted in a proper datacenter with much improved connection speeds. The exact move date is not firmed up yet and there will be some down time when it happens, but things should be *much* improved once we're in our new home.

Thanks for your patience, just a little longer!


----------



## MasterInstructor

Great to hear! Good luck with big move!


----------



## 1feral1

I am lucky I got in tonight, its 1800 AEST, 31 Jan 10.

This keeps popping up not allowing me to accsess any of my previous posts - "An Error Has Occurred! The server is currently under high stress. Please try again shortly."

Anyone else having issues with this and a similar message.

OWDU


----------



## George Wallace

Site speed is really fluctuating from extremely slow/frozen to almost normal/acceptable.


----------



## Eye In The Sky

Over the past 24 hours, I would say it has been painfully slow for me up until the past few minutes.  Slow enough that I couldn't wait any longer for the site to load to so I could check out this thread.

This morning, I would have described it as "slower than cold molasses going uphill backwards on a January morning"  ;D.

Seems normal now though.


----------



## 1feral1

For a long time now, speed has been very poor (here) at the best of times, often even after 15 mins with no action on still tryting to open a page, usually the home main one, it often never fully loads.

I would say almost 90% of the time it is extremly/outragously slow, the remaining 10% frozen/idle. That being said, one  log on last week it was pretty much normal, but that was short lived.

Its not my PC, this one is new, and any other site I go to is fast as per normal.

I hope that one day these shorfalls WRT speed can be just a bad memory.

OWDU


----------



## FastEddy

Overwatch Downunder said:
			
		

> For a long time now, speed has been very poor (here) at the best of times, often even after 15 mins with no action on still tryting to open a page, usually the home main one, it often never fully loads.
> 
> I would say almost 90% of the time it is extremly/outragously slow, the remaining 10% frozen/idle. That being said, one  log on last week it was pretty much normal, but that was short lived.
> 
> Its not my PC, this one is new, and any other site I go to is fast as per normal.
> 
> I hope that one day these shorfalls WRT speed can be just a bad memory.
> 
> OWDU



Sorry Mike, here in Montreal, I have to echo the above to the letter. 

Cheers.


----------



## tango22a

Mike:

Up and down like a Wh*re's drawers here!!


tango22a


----------



## PMedMoe

Last night was the (lately) typical slow loading, half-loading, etc.  This morning, I was unable to get the site at all for awhile, but now it seems to be working quite well.  Did a little tweaking, Mike?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yeah, but it didn't seem to help. The move to the datacenter is still our best bet, but it's taking longer than originally planned to organize.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Site is painfully slow to load, lots of half loaded/not loading at all pages or the site just crashes on me...... rest of the interweb is fine though......


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

"It's not you, it's me."


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> "It's not you, it's me."




Think you might need to invest in some "Gremlins be gone"......

 ;D


----------



## Kat Stevens

It's not just slow, it's Sofa King slow.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

A quick update on the Plague (thanks Vern). Our future datacenter is moving to a new building, and we're moving in after that. I don't have a definite ETA on the move yet but I know the datacenter owners are looking at moving quickly. I'll keep you updated as I learn more.

In the mean time, try to stay patient!


Cheers
Mike


----------



## Eye In The Sky

Holy ba-jesus!  Site is running *like the good 'ol days* for me this morning!   :nod:


----------



## muskrat89

Best its been in weeks/months

*whew*


----------



## tango22a

"Holy Snappin' A$$holes, Batman!!!"

From the ridiculous to the sublime!!!


tango22a


P.S.: Thanks Mike......Whoopee!!!


----------



## 1feral1

1. The webpage "army.ca" cannot be foundDNS error occurred. Server cannot be found. The link may be broken.

2. Lately the speed on here has never been so slow, pages not fully loading and waiting literally 5 mins to turn a page.

3. Or going to post, then having para one come up.

4. Totally frustrating.

5. Time wise, its 2242h local AET, Tuesday night, which puts it at 0642h, Tuesday morning CST. Not that time has anything to do with it?

6. Para one is a new issue, and has been on/off for the past few days now at any time, my am or my pm.

I am ADSL.

Anyone getting the same? 

OWDU


----------



## GAP

No, mine this AM is going good, with the exception of the occasional hang when loading a thread....usually comes up with a refresh.


----------



## Edward Campbell

GAP said:
			
		

> No, mine this AM is going good, with the exception of the occasional hang when loading a thread....usually comes up with a refresh.




Same for me, and it has been that way, in the mornings (Central Time) anyway, for a week or so.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

OWDU, let me know if the DNS problems continue... we shouldn't be seeing anything like that and it could be indicative of a bigger (and new) problem, if it continues.


----------



## Old Sweat

There was a short period shortly after 0600 Central (or 0800 Atlantic) during which I got a "cannot load" signal for two threads, and then after I signed off, for the main site when I attempted to sign on again as a test. It could not have lasted for more than a couple of minutes as the next attempt to sign on was successful.


----------



## 1feral1

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> OWDU, let me know if the DNS problems continue... we shouldn't be seeing anything like that and it could be indicative of a bigger (and new) problem, if it continues.



Will do Mike, still very very slow now here now. Its 1720h Wed AET, thats 0129h Wed CST in Canada.

Regards,

Wes


----------



## Rifleman62

Mike, the slow site speed are a pain for participants and potential members. I use the site that follows to verify that my internet provider is delivering what I am paying for. Shaw has a site like this, but why ask your provider to verify their service!

If the members here passed on the info that follows, would it help track down the perpetual slow site speed? Different computers (well/not well maintained), operating systems, distance, etc all tested from one source. My laptop is squeaky clean utilizing these free Products:

http://www.piriform.com/

Defragger and CCleaner

Test Site: http://www.speedtest.net/

You should be able to find a server for your test. I selected Sidney, NS as the end point as I thought Mike is near there. From my current location it is 2380 miles to Sidney.

Test info: Laptop, Windows XP, Wireless G (this is important due to different speeds G or i.e. N run, or hard cable direct to your computer). Results from San Antonio to Houston TX (local) are in the second column

Results: Down load speed: 9.92 Mb/s           15.19 Mb/s
             Up load speed:      0.48 Mb/s             0.46 Mb/s
             Ping                          85 ms                   27 ms

This means I can download a MP3 file (5MB) in 3 seconds, a Video Clip (35MB) in 25 seconds, etc.
On the site there is a separate Ping Test with more info.


----------



## Edward Campbell

It is quite painfully slow to load pages this morning, contrary to my normal experience.

Using the site provided by Rifleman62 I confirmed that my connection, here in Dallas TX, is quite respectable:

     + Download: 4.68 M/bs = 9 sec for the MP3 file and 60 sec for the video clip

     + Upload: 0.55 M/bs


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Rifleman,

I've run a number of speed tests already, and unfortunately they indicate that we're just seeing heavy use. That is, when I run a speedtest, it often drops down to near zero for upload speeds. If I then unplug Army.ca (sorry folks!) we get pretty close to the full 10 down/1.5 up that we're paying for.


----------



## 1feral1

Its real slow here and the past two days really not much better, even right now to post this, I let it sit as I fed my cats, and its just brought up the posting format now.  It seems to be getting worse, although on the rare occasion it has been fine, but overall, very slow in responding, loading half pages, etc.




OWDU


----------



## 1feral1

I just had this rsponse while trying to get to a forum..... 

"An Error Has Occurred! The server is currently under high stress. Please try again shortly."

High stress? Crikey!


If this can happen on an early Monday morning at 0 dark 30, when the majority of the nation is sleeping, what is next?

Seems this site is getting far worse than it ever has been - speed wise.

I do hope this can be overcome, as it seems to be one obstical after another. Lately posting pages only come up half filled and sit and idle, and it often takes me 3 or 4 tries (or worse I leave) by simply trying to navigate and do the basics.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Wes,

O'Dark 30 is when I schedule all the backups, verification tasks, etc... so the server was actually busy, but with admin tasks, not with users. It's pretty much a shot directly at anyone down under... not intentional though!


----------



## Rifleman62

Took about 30 minutes to post this up until I hit "Post", but you probably know this.


----------



## mariomike

Rifleman62 said:
			
		

> Took about 30 minutes to post this up until I hit "Post", but you probably know this.



You could have ordered a pizza delivery while waiting, R62. <just joking>


----------



## Edward Campbell

It's up and down like you-know-who's knickers on paynight.

Right now it is fine; a hour or so ago I was like Rifleman62.


----------



## 1feral1

As per usual its absolutly patheticlly slow here  

OWDU


----------



## 1feral1

The 'high stress' menu has come up again just now. Anyone else getting this same feature?

OWDU


----------



## Edward Campbell

Actually it is nice and quick, the 'old normal,' from here in Texas, right now.

But as I said before: up and down at, seemingly, random.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

OWDU, it shouldn't be 'high stress' during the day like that - even if it is early. I'll check into it. Thanks for the heads up.


----------



## observor 69

Mike, FYI I got site under stress when I went to check "new replies to your posts."

Cheers


----------



## armyvern

Well the site seems to be working perfectly for me today ... knock knock knock ...

But, for the last two weeks I have had nothing but issues with it. I've spent umpteen hours here pressing "refresh" in absolutely futile attempts to get pages to load. I've managed to get only a few posts to take out of the dozens I've attempted. 

I've been getting "scripting" errors, "server time-out errors", "server under heavy load" errors amongst a few others. 

All my other sites have been working fine.

Today though --- seems good, so I am finally getting to read those threads (lots of them!!) that I've only been able to get the first post to show up for over the past couple of weeks.

As a side-note, I have this site set into my trusted sites too ... yet my computer is still blocking some scripts from it ... a google search says that's because of problems with the site's scripting rather than my settings (which I input into the TT) ??? Anyone know how I can get that confirmed that it isn't "me" or recommend how I can fix it?


----------



## Rifleman62

Great down here this am.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Fine here (Dallas, TX) at 0740 (Central) too.


----------



## Occam

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> As a side-note, I have this site set into my trusted sites too ... yet my computer is still blocking some scripts from it ... a google search says that's because of problems with the site's scripting rather than my settings (which I input into the TT) ??? Anyone know how I can get that confirmed that it isn't "me" or recommend how I can fix it?



Are you on your own personal computer on the internet, or a DND PC on the DWAN?  You referred to "TT", which usually means trouble ticket, which would suggest a DWAN PC, and you would have very little to no control over the firewall/browser settings in that case.

If you're on your own PC, what OS/browser are you running?  This site should run just fine on browser defaults, and that includes IE 7 and 8, Firefox, and Google Chrome - all of which I use on a regular basis.


----------



## armyvern

Occam said:
			
		

> Are you on your own personal computer on the internet, or a DND PC on the DWAN?  You referred to "TT", which usually means trouble ticket, which would suggest a DWAN PC, and you would have very little to no control over the firewall/browser settings in that case.
> 
> If you're on your own PC, what OS/browser are you running?  This site should run just fine on browser defaults, and that includes IE 7 and 8, Firefox, and Google Chrome - all of which I use on a regular basis.



I'm on a personal laptop.

I'm running Vista (only because it came with the laptop). IE8 (in compatability mode because the army.ca screen is all f'd up when not in compatibility mode). It is running on browser defaults and has been added to my trusted sites.

Every other site and forum that I visit --- works perfectly fine.

It's only dot cee eh that does not. It is today, but the past two weeks have been absolute heck.


----------



## GAP

My posts are timing out in about 2 minutes.....


----------



## 40below

I use some six different computers at home and work on four different regular Internet connections  both wired and wireless including one dedicated T-1 at work, running everything from various Mac OSX flavours to XP to Linux on one dual-boot machine and the hang time for this site on days it decides to be pokey is consistently awful in an entirely inconsistent way - meaning when it's slow, it's unusable for any of my computers on any of my networks at any physical location so it's the site's problem, not the user's. I also suspect it's a scripting issue.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

The speed is definitely our issue. The scripting... not sure of that. Bear in mind that the DWAN blindly strips out a lot of Javascript etc. so certain features may be flakey or not work at all when logged in from there. It also may be that because of the (sometimes terrible) speed, the page doesn't completely load. In those cases, it's possible that the scripts on the page error out, if they are only partly loaded.


----------



## CFR FCS

Mike, 
Love the site, hate the variations in speed. I wrote a nice note which I hope to replicate but the system timed out and I lost it. Two questions for you on site speed. 

One - I for one and it appears many others remain logged on 24/7 even if we are not actually at the keyboard. Does that slow things down? Should we be told to log out after each session? 
Two - I normally lurk about in the Recruiting forums as it is my area of expertise at the moment. I noticed there are many many pages of info / posts that are woefully out of date. Any plan to cut through that clag and send the out of date and in some cases inaccurate posts either to the shredder or into a legacy vault whenere they could be searched but not uploaded all the time? 

Just trying to help. Let me know if you want to discuss further. Have a great day. 

CFR FCS


----------



## GAP

You volunteering?    ;D

If I remember correctly there was some vague chat about that a long while back, but the impression I get, is that at present, the Mods have got their hands full just keeping up with the ditzzies out there.....


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Hi CFR,

For your first question, staying logged in doesn't consume any site resources, so it's OK to do that. You only draw from the site when you're actually visiting pages and reading threads.

For the second, GAP's pretty much got it... from time to time the Staff will go through and clean things out... believe it or not, the Recruiting board has been done a few times already. It's a neverending job though, and very time consuming because we try to retain useful threads while cleaning up outdated or repetitive ones. That means reviewing *everything* before taking action, which is a huge task. Our goal though is to ensure we have the best information possible, at the end of the day.

The speed problems are simply because our usage currently outstrips our capacity. The ball is firmly in my court to fix that, and while I have several irons in the fire, it's going more slowly than I'd hoped.


----------



## FastEddy

Hi Mike,

Sorry to report, logging on times still very long or the progress bar just freezes , stating waiting for site response. Which at times just won't connect.

Also a new development, I can't seem to stay logged in, I check in (or try) every day, sometimes three times to see if anything new. But finally when I log in its always as Guest. Then if I want the current short list, I have to Log out and immediately Log in, then sometimes (see para one) happens.

The above occurs at no specific time or day.

If equipment and its cost is the problem. IMO a nominal charge for the privilege of posting or submissions should be charged and mandatory. Access and viewing free.

The Milnet Charge is more than reasonable, plus it gives you the right to complain. ;D


Cheers

Now 6.35am since the above submitted. Now I thought I had lost the above post as when I pressed "Post" the progress bar filled halfway and froze my PC and I had to restart to get control.

Now I just Logged on to try and re-post the above , much to my surprise there it was.

Again I was not logged in and had to re-login as mentioned above.

All other sites like, Paypal, GamersGate, Scotia Bank when clicked on just snap in , in seconds.

Cheers.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Eddy,

The site speed is definitely a known problem... for the login issue, do you clear cookies or have cookie security settings enabled on your browser? The site uses cookies to keep you logged in, but if those cookies are being discarded by your browser, it would explain what you're seeing.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Not sure if its the old "its not you but me" thing......

Mike, currently as of 1628 NDT site loads slower than drying paint and growing grass....

Also the following error is reported at the bottom of IE 8...



> Webpage error details
> 
> User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; InfoPath.2; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.1.3)
> Timestamp: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:56:11 UTC
> 
> 
> Message: Expected ':'
> Line: 471
> Char: 11
> Code: 0
> URI: http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php?action=post;topic=66086.900;num_replies=905
> 
> 
> Message: Object expected
> Line: 554
> Char: 1
> Code: 0
> URI: http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php?action=post;topic=66086.900;num_replies=905


----------



## armyvern

Hey Fast Eddy,

I couldn't get onto the site just after midnight either. I also lagged in a very big way between 0500-0530 this am ... then just gave up.

It just took me upteen "refreshs" to get into this thread to post; I began approx 1 hour ago when I got back to the shacks from class.

Here's a copy of one of the error messages that I recd about 45 minutes ago while trying to get in Mike - if it helps.



> Webpage error details
> 
> User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.0.0; .NET CLR 3.0.30729)
> Timestamp: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:15:16 UTC
> 
> Message: 'mm_style' is undefined
> Line: 43
> Char: 1
> Code: 0
> URI: http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/23172.0/topicseen.html



And this one too (on the bottom of my page now; guess I will copy this whole post ... in case I get the server time-out error):


> Webpage error details
> 
> User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.1; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.4; OfficeLivePatch.0.0; .NET CLR 3.0.30729)
> Timestamp: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:58:51 UTC
> 
> Message: Expected ':'
> Line: 471
> Char: 11
> Code: 0
> URI: http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php?action=post;topic=66086.0;num_replies=906


----------



## FastEddy

Thanks Mike,

Problem solved, it was the Cookies. For awhile now, at the end of Day I've been running Ace Utility's (which has option to remove all Cookies).

Cheers.


----------



## Kat Stevens

Average load time for any page on the site today is 12 mins.  fastest was a whisker under 2 mins, slowest was an agonizing 23.5 mins  (yes, I timed it).


----------



## Greymatters

I'm noticing a differences in loading times between the Army.ca and Milnet.ca sites - if I access through Army.ca its a lot faster than through Milnet.ca.

Is there an actual difference with the server for each, or do those Army electrons just run a little faster than the Milnet ones... ?


----------



## GAP

Greymatters said:
			
		

> I'm noticing a differences in loading times between the Army.ca and Milnet.ca sites - if I access through Army.ca its a lot faster than through Milnet.ca.
> 
> Is there an actual difference with the server for each, or do those Army electrons just run a little faster than the Milnet ones... ?



Well, you gotta take into account Milnet Users electrons are REMF's and only qualify for the lesser medal, so why should they work as hard as Army electrons.....just for bling?  ;D


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Greymatters, both are just different names for the same thing, so there shouldn't be a difference in load times.


----------



## Edward Campbell

In the _bad old days_, when Mike had two connections, my _symptom_ for "one connection down" was that I could load, say, Army.ca but not Navy.ca. It was, I believe, just the luck of the draw log-in, i.e. I found myself, quite by accident, at either the head or tail of the queue.

The site is, still, sporadic. Often, as now, pages load and refresh quickly; five minutes later I will have to force a 'reload' two or three times. As I have described it before, it is like _you-know-who's_ knickers on a pay-night.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

I've finally pulled the trigger on a faster service. It's going to take some time to convert things over, and for a portion of that at least, the current server will be unavailable. I don't have an ETA yet, though I'd like to wrap it up this long weekend. Unfortunately, our current slow connection means transferring the data onto the new server is going to take some time.

Please bear with me, I promise it will be worth the wait.

Cheers
Mike


----------



## GAP

Should we have another fundraising drive....fast connections are great, but like anything else...it's not free, nor cheap....


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks GAP, I appreciate the thought. There's enough money in the bank to start paying for the new service, so I'd like to get cut over and working... then if people see it as "a good thing" maybe they'll be willing to chip in.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Good to hear Mike, I will be able to give you a test from Europe between 6-27 April if you want.....


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Good news folks... Most of the cutover is now complete. There is plenty that still doesn't work, but I'll pick away at that over the coming days. For now, the forums should more or less be in tact and hopefully, a heck of a lot faster.

Please report any problems here or directly to me via PM.

Enjoy!


----------



## vonGarvin

Lightning fast tonight!  YAAAY


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

...and the plan is, lightning fast from here on out.

My sincere thanks and apologies to all who have put up with the excruciating speeds for the last 6+ months.


----------



## GAP

WOW!!!


----------



## Old Sweat

Boy, the withdrawal pains are over.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Thanks, Mike; much appreciated.


----------



## tomahawk6

Great job Mike. Spent the last two days without army.ca and it was horrible.


----------



## freakerz

Holy crap, it is much faster! w00t


----------



## Nfld Sapper

WOW nice new flux capacitor...... ;D


----------



## SARgirl

WAY TO GO MIKE!!!  Wonderful! Super!  FANTASTIC!  Now pages load in seconds, instead of taking a piece of forever.  Thank you.


----------



## leroi

Thanks Mike! 

It's a heck of a lot faster.

~Lotsa chocolate Easter eggs for you!!


----------



## GAP

You are probably aware of this Mike, but the spellchecker icon does not show when you are posting...


----------



## 1feral1

Faster is great news, strangly enough I have spent about 30 hrs in army.ca withdrawl, as the DNS error has been coming up since early yesterday morning, which meant zero access to this site.

Was anyone else experiencing this tempory loss of the site?

OWDU


----------



## GAP

everyone


----------



## 1feral1

Thanks for the info GAP, just had a look at the unread posts, and there definatly was a gap (no pun intended ) ;Dd in timings.

Cheers,

Wes


----------



## leroi

Overwatch Downunder said:
			
		

> Thanks for the info GAP, just had a look at the unread posts, and there definatly was a gap (no pun intended ) ;Dd in timings.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Wes



Wes, it's amazing how much this place is like a cozy armchair, isn't it?

I didn't know Mike was working on the site and had to contact someone in Northern Ontario to find out if I was the only person affected.

~Was worried.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Wes,

I took the whole thing down and transferred it over to a new server... just finished the initial stages tonight.

GAP, thanks for the note about spell checker, I hadn't noticed. Iyt shud bee fyxd nao.


----------



## cn

Overwatch Downunder said:
			
		

> Faster is great news, strangly enough I have spent about 30 hrs in army.ca withdrawl, as the DNS error has been coming up since early yesterday morning, which meant zero access to this site.
> 
> Was anyone else experiencing this tempory loss of the site?
> 
> OWDU



Yes, I was trying to get on the site earlier in the day and got the DNS error message several times but this new speed was worth it.  Very nice not having to wait for a page to load piece by piece.


----------



## 1feral1

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Wes,
> 
> I took the whole thing down and transferred it over to a new server... just finished the initial stages tonight.



Good to see Mike. A much waited improvement, as this ongoing battle with delays was depressing to say the least.

Looking forward to 'speedier' times ahead.

Cheers,

Wes


----------



## PMedMoe

Super fast, Mike.  Thanks for the fix!!  :nod:


----------



## PuckChaser

The speed difference is like going from Dialup to DSL... great job!


----------



## Bubbs25

Great job on getting the site up to speed so to speak,
and yes like someone said " Its like Going from dial up to DSL". 
Keep up the good work.


----------



## Edward Campbell

This is a major step for Army.ca (and Navy.ca and the others, too). We've come a long, long way in the last few years, from a PC in the basement to a properly _hosted_ server.

It is also a major financial commitment on Mike Bobbitt's part; he is, essentially, providing a _service_ to *all* of us at his own expense. We subscribers help, but not I am certain that is not enough to cover all the ongoing operating costs. That's because we are *too few*.

I appreciate that not everyone can give, not even a little, but those of us who can should and those of us who are subscribers should consider adding an extra donation without asking for any _swag_ in return.

My  :2c: and my sincere thanks to Mike - and to Mrs. Bobbitt for putting up with all this time and effort on his part.


----------



## mariomike

Thank you to our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Bobbitt, for this major improvement to Milnet.ca.


----------



## Kirkhill

Brilliantly done Mike.

Cheers.


----------



## fischer10

Awesome work with the site speed! Loads super fast now  ;D


----------



## karl28

The site is amazingly fast now  great job mike and staff on the upgrade  .


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse

Yeehaw!!!!!


----------



## Sorcerer-tech

Great job on the site Mike, awesome not having to wait for the pages to load so slowly anymore.  Thanks


----------



## freakerz

Just confirming, search function is not working at this point, right?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Not yet... I deleted the search index as that would have added significantly to the data transfer. I'm rebuilding it now, at around 20%. Should be done in a day or so.

In the mean time, you can use this:

http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=001303416948774225061:qhcx9pz3dku


----------



## George Wallace

Site speed is phenomenal.

I just went from page 1 to page 2 of Recent Posts and was greeted with "Page not available, Server Busy" and hit refresh and got to the page.  That was odd.  Not getting to the page, but finding the Server busy, and less than 380 persons on the site.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

George, there are still a few wrinkles to iron out. I'm seeing the occasional database problem too... haven't tracked down the source yet, but I will.


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Just got the same error Mike,



> Connection Problems
> Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again later.



Live from YHZ.......


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

That's the one. Seems to come on briefly and then disappear. Nothing obvious yet...


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> That's the one. Seems to come on briefly and then disappear. Nothing obvious yet...



Ok.....must be that random gremlin that made it through the data transfer......


----------



## GAP

All of a sudden posts are timing out.(like after about 5 sec....I copy & pasted the post to beat the timer...it didn't work)   ...is it something you are doing with the upgrade? 

All of sudden I can post again....maybe it's just me..... :


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I'm rebuilding the search index which may be adding load to the server. But there's definitely the odd problem still lurking. Hopefully they all sum up to less than the speed problems we had, plus I should be able to knock at least a few of these issues out over the coming weeks.


----------



## 1feral1

Meanwhile, here in the Lucky Country, army.ca is like greased lightening for speed these days.

It's pretty much instant!

Lov'n it! (Isn't that a McDonalds thing)

OWDU


----------



## karl28

OVD  
                 " Lovin it "   I do believe that is a Mcdonalds saying but Army.ca is better for you than Mcdonalds  :nod:


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Good news... the database timeouts (See "Connection Problems" above) should be a thing of the past. It was a simple matter of tuning some database parameters to accommodate our heavy use.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Well, looks like we had a problem last night. The server load went through the roof and things slowed to a crawl (at best). I'm investigating now...


----------



## PMedMoe

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Well, looks like we had a problem last night. The server load went through the roof and things slowed to a crawl (at best). I'm investigating now...


Yes, it took me from about 0645 until now (trying intermittently) to get on the site.  I even tried on our internet computer and no dice.


----------



## GAP

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Well, looks like we had a problem last night. The server load went through the roof and things slowed to a crawl (at best). I'm investigating now...



All the server customers doing their nightly backup at the same time?


----------



## George Wallace

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Well, looks like we had a problem last night. The server load went through the roof and things slowed to a crawl (at best). I'm investigating now...



Was that due to an increase in viewers or a ghost in the system?


----------



## kkwd

The server was down at 5 eastern time this morning.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

It wasn't external (other site backups) or a heavy user load... it was something internal to the system going haywire. Probably a misconfigured setting for the web server or database... either way it got stuck in a state it couldn't automatically recover from. "Next time" (and there is always a next time) the system should detect this problem early on and head it off within a few minutes. The site will be down for that period while it fixes the problem, but at least it won't be a runaway gun for hours on end.

In the mean time I'll try to figure out what's going on.

I didn't expect the server move would solve every problem, but at least we're fast when we're up.


----------



## GAP

Mike...the lettering of black on green in army.ca isn't working....I'm typing blind, cause I can't see a thing  ;D


----------



## Edward Campbell

But it sure would be nice to have black lettering inside quote boxes.

I like a green/red/black colour scheme but I agree with GAP - contrast is needed for the text.


----------



## George Wallace

I agree.  It is, however, an improvement to the quotes.  

Other parts of the site seem to be a little wonky.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

The black is temporary... It's like whack-a-mole... I touch one thing, and something else pops up needing my attention.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Black is gone, and hopefully the quote boxes are easier to read too...


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

More problems last night... a different flavour, but it seems it caused the server to be unavailable for a few hours. I'll work on figuring out what happened and see if I can avoid the same thing next time.

Sorry folks, there are a few bumps on this road I guess...


----------



## GAP

Ahhh well, if you didn't have bad days, how would you know when you are having a good day?


----------



## mariomike

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> It is also a major financial commitment on Mike Bobbitt's part; he is, essentially, providing a _service_ to *all* of us at his own expense. We subscribers help, but not I am certain that is not enough to cover all the ongoing operating costs. That's because we are *too few*.



Just to echo what Mr. Campbell said. If you use the site, please consider supporting it.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

A painful learning process I'm afraid... Every night we get a runaway gun and the script that tries to get that under control doesn't always work... the result is the site sometimes dies and stays dead until I fix it.

I've adjusted the cooldown script and hopefully this is the last time we'll see this particular problem.

The runaway gun is still the core issue... Looks like we simply run out of resources at times.


----------



## PMedMoe

Mike, not sure if it's the server or just being on the DWAN, but the last couple of days it takes me a few tries to get the site up in the morning.  Usually get an error message first, then the server busy one and then finally on.

Perhaps it needs coffee like the rest of us??


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Mmm, interesting... we should be up and fast (except when we're not ). Anyone else seeing this?


----------



## George Wallace

Site was just down for a couple minutes .....................


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Yep, it was another automatic cooldown...


----------



## owa

I find between 11 AM and 3 AM EST, I'm unable to get on the site.  It just keeps loading and eventually tells me there's an error.

Maybe this was touched on earlier, but I thought I should mention it.

Although, I know the site loads A LOT faster during the day then it ever did since I've signed up.  So touche for that!


----------



## 1feral1

From down here, right now its the return of the dark times, things half loading, timing out, and or idling, plus the past two nights (your time), no site at all.

Cheers,

Wes


----------



## Edward Campbell

Everything is fine great here (Texas for a few more days)  - whenever the site is up and running, which is, typically, after about 0630 Hrs (Central).


----------



## George Wallace

owa said:
			
		

> I find between 11 AM and 3 AM EST, I'm unable to get on the site.



 ???

11 AM
12 PM
  1 PM
  2 PM
  3 PM
  4 PM
  5 PM
  6 PM
  7 PM
  8 PM
  9 PM
10 PM
11 PM
12 AM
  1 AM
  2 AM
  3 AM

WOW!  16 hours without army.ca.  How do you do it?    >



In all seriousness; Mike backs up the site in the late hours of the night, when few are online, and with the recent move, he has also run into other issues.  I am sure that when he finishes debugging the programning we will see less and less of these problems.


----------



## karl28

It's been working great here haven't had any problems at all .


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I also discovered that due to timezone differences the backups were running early... they should now be shifted back to the wee hours of the morning.


----------



## kkwd

I don't know if this is related to the server movement or not. Looking at the "Recent Visitors Came From..." section on the right of the page I noticed a lot of entries from dating sites. The sites appear multiple times. The first time I noticed it was when a Brazilian mail order bride site was listed there 8 times or so. How do those sites appear? I would figure those results were only from search sites. I just refreshed and the same site appeared 7 times.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

kkwd,

It's a cheap trick that some sites use to get their names out there... they "visit" your site and leave their address as the referer so it shows up in logs, etc.


----------



## George Wallace

The site has gone down a couple of times today.  Lengths have varied.


----------



## GAP

kkwd said:
			
		

> I don't know if this is related to the server movement or not. Looking at the "Recent Visitors Came From..." section on the right of the page I noticed a lot of entries from dating sites. The sites appear multiple times. The first time I noticed it was when a Brazilian mail order bride site was listed there 8 times or so. How do those sites appear? I would figure those results were only from search sites. I just refreshed and the same site appeared 7 times.



did you order a bride while you were refreshing?.... ;D


----------



## Occam

George Wallace said:
			
		

> The site has gone down a couple of times today.  Lengths have varied.



I think I can expand on that a little, if it helps.

I've noticed a few times now in the last couple of days, it appears as though the site has partially frozen.  I can refresh the main page successfully, but am completely unable to access any of the threads via the main page - they don't even appear to be attempting to load.  However, if I click on a user who has made a recent post, I can pull up their profile, and view the post they made to the thread.  Eventually, attempts to refresh the main page result in the server busy message.  Then the site comes back and all seems to be well again.

What I know about databases will fit into a thimble, but it appears that certain methods of accessing the forum continue to work, while others are frozen.

Anyone else seeing the same behaviour?


----------



## armyvern

Well, the "search" function seems to be working again --- perhaps Mike was working on that and that is what caused today's (and last evenings) lags?  ???

Seems to be going like rockets here this afternoon.


----------



## GAP

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> Well, the "search" function seems to be working again --- perhaps Mike was working on that and that is what caused today's (and last evenings) lags?  ???
> 
> Seems to be going like rockets here this afternoon.



Stay Away From the Photo Gallery!!!  ;D


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Search is working, but the server still runs out of gas on occasion and has to cool down. For the time being, we're going to have to suffer through outages... they should be infrequent and short (a few minutes, a couple of times a day) until we have the resources to afford better.


----------



## dangerboy

This morning recieving a lot of "Server Busy" errors do not know if that is the DIN being difficult or not.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

We had a few outages at roughly  1320, 1235, 1125 ET today. Each time the outage should have lasted no more than 3 minutes.


----------



## gt102

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> We had a few outages at roughly  1320, 1235, 1125 ET today. Each time the outage should have lasted no more than 3 minutes.



It was a terrible time. What the heck was I supposed to do at work?!

 ;D


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

While I realize there are still some issues to resolve, I thought I'd drop in with some good news. According to the statistics, our usage has risen dramatically since the site move.

Yesterday for example, we set a record high for "page views" since January 2009, and earlier this month hit a record for logged in users since last August. We're now serving up an average of 5Gb of data per day, compared to an average of 3.38 last month. Since we have hit these milestones less than 2 weeks after the move, I would imagine we're set to break all records in the months to come.

Thanks for sticking around and helping to make Army.ca successful!


Cheers
Mike


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Mike, just poping on from Europe and the site is just flying...... good job on moving the servers......


----------



## Chico M

I have noticed a big improvement....much faster !

Cheers :yellow:


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Almost a month between posts in this thread... I think we've set a record! Glad to see things have bee (more or less) stable and speedy.


----------



## GAP

Now, what about the additional costs.....this is not a freebee....do we need to encourage subscriptions, do an annual funding drive to compensate the cost differential, all that stuff?


----------



## George Wallace

Looks like the site is getting "stressed" out again......trouble loading pages.


----------



## PMedMoe

Mine's been a tad slow at times, but other than that, it's okay.


----------



## navymich

Lost mine completely for about 5 minutes, with a white page coming saying it was temporarily unavailable.  AO was down too.


----------



## MPwannabe

The same thing has been happening to me. I'm no programmer, but isn't this a server problem or something?


----------



## Eye In The Sky

I've noticed recently that I get the "server is under high stress" message a lot when trying to get on New Replies to posts, etc.  I've noticed is usually happens when there is a high (700+) amount of *guests* logged on.  

Has there been any thought to limiting the amount of concurrent guest connections and would this make the attached pic *go away*?


----------



## Robert0288

I see it a surprising amount in the very early hours of the morning too.


----------



## Scott

Donations would help!


----------



## jlv031

Perhaps it's the working hours of all those chinese spies


----------



## Kirkhill

Scott said:
			
		

> Donations would help!



Scott, How much do you need to raise?


----------



## Scott

When I last spoke to Mike, to renew my subscription and send a little extra along, he said that money would help, but time is the main thing. Then he made it clear that he doesn't turn a profit with the place - a true labour of love. So, considering this, I think anything folks can give will help.

I'm sure Mike will be along and maybe he can offer insight into what the upgrades cost.

Thanks for asking!


----------



## Eye In The Sky

Got the same *message* again a few times over...and then looked at the "guest" numbers...thought this would be a good example.


----------



## PuckChaser

Didn't see that the spiders were that busy here. Maybe this could help? http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2067357/Bye-bye-Crawler-Blocking-the-Parasites At least block Baidu.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

I apologize for the recent server performance issues. It seems to be a recurring issue that pops up from time to time and has a number of root causes including increased general usage (including spiders, but mostly from real people). We have also been running the same server specs for 2 years now, a time when our user base was much smaller and the site was moderately less active. We still have another year to go on our server hosting plan, which means a couple things.

First, we must make do for another year on the existing hardware. So far we have been able to do "OK" but only by occasionally investing time in server optimization (caching, database performance tuning, sit optimization etc.). This is the stuff that takes a great deal of time (and usually trial and error) to complete. I've just finished another round of this and so far the server's performance has stabilized. (Fingers crossed, and thanks for your patience in the meantime.)

The other thing it means is that we will soon need to be in "fundraising mode" to help pay for the up front cost of our server platform. This cost is used to secure a term contract, giving us much cheaper usage over time. Last time, this cost was $1,200 USD. To renew the same server platform, we are looking at $1,028 USD. (See http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/, under Reserved Instances. We are currently on m1.large, Heavy Utilization, General Purpose.) Given that we are struggling to keep up with the current load, signing up for the same tier again - for 2015 to 2018 - would be a mistake. In order to keep pace with increasing performance demands, we are looking at a m3.xlarge ($1,922) or even m3.2xlarge ($3,844).

Both of these platform upgrades come with increased up front and hourly costs. In addition to fundraising to pay the initial cost, we are looking at doubling or almost quadrupling our monthly costs to migrate to these new platforms respectively. As you can see, we are going to have to do some planning to ensure we keep pace with our growth.

It's also interesting to note that our current hosting plan is partially billed on utilization/traffic, and our original forecast of $50 / month has risen to over $150 / month. I have taken some steps to reduce our storage and cut this cost a bit, but the bulk of the increase comes from the increased site traffic.

We now top out at almost 500Gb per month, where 2 years ago when we signed up we barely broke 160Gb per month. The good news is, we are getting popular!

In the mean time, please bear with us as we come up with a viable plan to move forward.


Thanks
Mike


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## Mike Bobbitt

...and bear with me as I do one final round of server maintenance which is causing a high load. Should be done later on this morning.


----------



## Old Sweat

There must be a message in this; when I tried to read your message, I got the server too busy response. I'll blame it on Bruce.


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## Mike Bobbitt

I'm recompressing images on the server to save bandwidth, so that's keeping things busy for a bit. Should be done soon.


----------



## Sharp

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Folks,
> 
> I apologize for the recent server performance issues. It seems to be a recurring issue that pops up from time to time and has a number of root causes including increased general usage (including spiders, but mostly from real people). We have also been running the same server specs for 2 years now, a time when our user base was much smaller and the site was moderately less active. We still have another year to go on our server hosting plan, which means a couple things.
> 
> First, we must make do for another year on the existing hardware. So far we have been able to do "OK" but only by occasionally investing time in server optimization (caching, database performance tuning, sit optimization etc.). This is the stuff that takes a great deal of time (and usually trial and error) to complete. I've just finished another round of this and so far the server's performance has stabilized. (Fingers crossed, and thanks for your patience in the meantime.)
> 
> The other thing it means is that we will soon need to be in "fundraising mode" to help pay for the up front cost of our server platform. This cost is used to secure a term contract, giving us much cheaper usage over time. Last time, this cost was $1,200 USD. To renew the same server platform, we are looking at $1,028 USD. (See http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/, under Reserved Instances. We are currently on m1.large, Heavy Utilization, General Purpose.) Given that we are struggling to keep up with the current load, signing up for the same tier again - for 2015 to 2018 - would be a mistake. In order to keep pace with increasing performance demands, we are looking at a m3.xlarge ($1,922) or even m3.2xlarge ($3,844).
> 
> Both of these platform upgrades come with increased up front and hourly costs. In addition to fundraising to pay the initial cost, we are looking at doubling or almost quadrupling our monthly costs to migrate to these new platforms respectively. As you can see, we are going to have to do some planning to ensure we keep pace with our growth.
> 
> It's also interesting to note that our current hosting plan is partially billed on utilization/traffic, and our original forecast of $50 / month has risen to over $150 / month. I have taken some steps to reduce our storage and cut this cost a bit, but the bulk of the increase comes from the increased site traffic.
> 
> We now top out at almost 500Gb per month, where 2 years ago when we signed up we barely broke 160Gb per month. The good news is, we are getting popular!
> 
> In the mean time, please bear with us as we come up with a viable plan to move forward.
> 
> 
> Thanks
> Mike



Would running ads on the site be worthwhile?

If there are ads, then I haven't seen them.


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## Nfld Sapper

If you are a subscriber to the site you will not see any ads....that being said...

If you like the site please subscribe, for your fee you get:

First year: A subscription item (see list above), Army.ca temporary tattoos, and an Army.ca badge, mailed to your door *
All external site advertising will be disabled
Your account will be publicly "tagged" as a Milnet.ca Subscriber
Access to a "Subscribers Only" forum
Ability to post events to the forum calendar **
Ability to edit existing Quotes in the Military Quote database **
Ability to edit existing Definitions in the Military Terms database **
Ability to delete your own posts
Ability to Request Notifications on New Topics (Subscribe to a forum)
Ability to edit photo information and comments in the Photo Gallery
Unlimited Personal Message storage
Ability to set your own unique "personal status" visible to all users

* Canada only, users from other countries may need to pay additional shipping. Item size and colour preference will be honoured based on available stocks. If your selection is not available you will be contacted and may elect for an alternate choice or to wait for the next re-order. 

** Any submissions or modifications may be rejected if they are deemed unsuitable. 

Note: The services and features available to subscribers are subject to change at any time without notice. Historically, this has meant the addition of a few small features here and there. 

So please go to Army.ca	Subscriptions and subscribe now.....


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Sharp said:
			
		

> Would running ads on the site be worthwhile?
> 
> If there are ads, then I haven't seen them.



Advertising is already running on the site, but if you have an ad blocker you may not see it. (I had to disable my ad blocker so I can monitor the ads.)

Advertising is one of my favourite ways to make money because it doesn't draw funds from end users. As much as possible, I'd like to keep this a free/voluntary support service and paid advertising plays nicely into that. With that said, if anyone is able to leverage advertising out of their unit kit shop or favourite gear retailer that would help a lot. Ad campaigns start as low as $20.


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## Sharp

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Advertising is already running on the site, but if you have an ad blocker you may not see it. (I had to disable my ad blocker so I can monitor the ads.)
> 
> Advertising is one of my favourite ways to make money because it doesn't draw funds from end users. As much as possible, I'd like to keep this a free/voluntary support service and paid advertising plays nicely into that. With that said, if anyone is able to leverage advertising out of their unit kit shop or favourite gear retailer that would help a lot. Ad campaigns start as low as $20.



When I get home, I'll add this site to my adblocker's whitelist. I would encourage others to do the same.

A donation system is always a great way of getting support. Another idea would be to include a service of some kind available on the site. A "premium" option for example.

Edit, just read the post 2 posts above. I'm an idiot, lol.


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## J.J

What about limiting posts for nonsubscribers? For instance, only 25 posts without a subscription.


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## vonGarvin

I'm really getting frustrated with hitting the same message over and over.


I know that this only affects me, but sometimes you just gotta vent


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## kratz

Unemployed and then as a student, I know I owe back subscriptions....but the time outs are frustrating.


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## Journeyman

Hitting the refresh button, I feel like Sheldon






Penny......Penny........Penny


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## dapaterson

Journeyman said:
			
		

> Hitting the refresh button, I feel like Sheldon



Well, work on the social skills a bit.


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## Journeyman

Small steps.....


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## JoeDos

It's not much but I donated $2 for now, whenever my tax refund gets here it will be a little more then a lousy $2.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks for the donations and recent subscriptions. I've made minor progress with the issue, the site should be "usable with mild frustration" now as opposed to "causes rage". I'm hoping to get back to a "encourages trolling" level of performance soon.


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## Edward Campbell




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## my72jeep

I made a $40 donation to the mess fund hope it helps.


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## Drag

Donated $50.  Hope it helps!


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## Mike Bobbitt

It truly does, thank you all for the support. As I type this, I'm watching the server load rise again, but my I feel like I am closing in on the cause. It seems to be related to a recent PHP upgrade, and specifically to the gd image module. Yes, it seems to be very aptly named.


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## Old Sweat

$50.00 by paypal, Mike.


----------



## tomahawk6

Mike I would suggest Burstnet Managed Servers.They have a variety of plans including closeout servers and virtual private servers.

http://burst.net/servers.php

http://burst.net/winvps.php


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks for the info, I'll definitely look into it as an option.

In the mean time, I think I have been able to affect a mild performance improvement on the server. Fingers crossed!


----------



## Kat Stevens

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Thanks for the info, I'll definitely look into it as an option.
> 
> In the mean time, I think I have been able to affect a mild performance improvement on the server. Fingers crossed!



Situation;  No change here, still can't access "show new replies to your posts"


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## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

You may notice some changes today. In an effort to help spread the load evenly across all sites, when the server is under heavy load you may automatically be transferred to a different site to keep things balanced. The general idea is to fool the server into thinking that each of the site (Army.ca, Navy.ca, Air-Force.ca and Milnet.ca) are under equal load, as opposed to having one (usually Army.ca) "redline" and cause server load problems.

Note that the content remains the same, and no further changes to the site are required. Early tests indicate that this move - while introducing a minor interruption at times - is having a positive effect on server performance.


Cheers and thanks for your patience,

Mike


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## Edward Campbell

1 April 2014!


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## Nfld Sapper




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## Journeyman

Can we request to have the Navy screen inflicted upon us for April Fools' Day?  I know it's the Airforce birthday, but their pastel, powder blue colour scheme is just painfully lame.


Although I now have further insight into why there are so many "Army guys are picking on me" posts from the zoomies; it's the testosterone-draining colour.  Mind you, you have to give them credit for typing with a limp wrist.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Journeyman said:
			
		

> Can we request to have the Navy screen inflicted upon us for April Fools' Day?  I know it's the Airforce birthday, but their pastel, powder blue colour scheme is just painfully lame.
> 
> 
> Although I now have further insight into why there are so many "Army guys are picking on me" posts from the zoomies; it's the testosterone-draining colour.  Mind you, you have to give them credit for typing with a limp wrist.




If you think this is bad, you should have been up earlier. When he was setting this up the pages _cycled_ - Milnet, Army, then Navy and then Air-Force, in sequence - as one tried to post something!


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## Edward Campbell

I have an idea ...

Let's change the Air-Force page colours to a green scheme.  :nod:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Oh, and Happy Birthday, RCAF.


----------



## PPCLI Guy

Journeyman said:
			
		

> Although I now have further insight into why there are so many "Army guys are picking on me" posts from the zoomies; it's the testosterone-draining colour.  Mind you, you have to give them credit for typing with a limp wrist.



Me too!  Mind you, I failed the Aircrew Medical - it turns out that my testicles were too big....


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## SeaKingTacco

Maybe, those weren't testicles...


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## Strike

SeaKingTacco said:
			
		

> Maybe, those weren't testicles...



Ewww to both of you.


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## George Wallace

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> I have an idea ...
> 
> Let's change the Air-Force page colours to a green scheme.  :nod:
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> Oh, and Happy Birthday, RCAF.



That would make the Tac Hel guys happy.


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## Nfld Sapper

Nice to see the green machine is back.....


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## Edward Campbell

NFLD Sapper said:
			
		

> Nice to see the green machine is back.....




Yes, it's afternoon in NS! Thank heavens.


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## Mike Bobbitt

I'm going to jinx it and say that we have made a small increment of progress here again. After another series of changes yesterday, the server load seems to be settling in to a more reasonable level.

Thanks for your patience all!


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## Nfld Sapper

Quick rub this....







 ;D


----------



## WPJ

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> I'm going to jinx it and say that we have made a small increment of progress here again. After another series of changes yesterday, the server load seems to be settling in to a more reasonable level.
> 
> Thanks for your patience all!



Doing awesome Mike, AO is still a little tough to get into but it seems once you get in you can play for a bit. Its just I lost my pays played streak....oh well its for the good of the system at a whole so no complaints 

great job.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

WPJ said:
			
		

> Doing awesome Mike, AO is still a little tough to get into but it seems once you get in you can play for a bit. Its just I lost my pays played streak....oh well its for the good of the system at a whole so no complaints
> 
> great job.



Well that's hardly fair. I've reconnected everyone to their longest streak.


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## WPJ

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Well that's hardly fair. I've reconnected everyone to their longest streak.



Thanks mike, I must have missed a day then during the conversion as it said I missed CR time, no worries it just gives me anther challenge to do.

Thanks again for your hard work


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## Eye In The Sky

Quick question;  would limiting the number of "guests" that can be on the server at any one time help?  Every time there is a lot of "server is busy" "search has been temporarily disabled" error messages, there seems to be 700+ "quests" on the site.


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## George Wallace

Eye In The Sky said:
			
		

> Quick question;  would limiting the number of "guests" that can be on the server at any one time help?  Every time there is a lot of "server is busy" "search has been temporarily disabled" error messages, there seems to be 700+ "quests" on the site.



Not Mike and the technical expert, but there are numerous "guests" registering onto the site daily.  Many are Spammers.  Many are bots.  Somehow creating code that tries to determine who and who not to allow access to the site, limiting them may in turn cause more system load.


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## tomahawk6

In support of George's idea to limit guests,whats the chance of limiting the board to members only.I am also a member at Lightfighter and you cant read the forum without joining.


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## Kat Stevens

Getting worse for me the last three or four days, 8 out of 10 clicks lands me on the EFF YOU page.


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## McG

It seems to have been a difficult day for the server.


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## kratz

3rd attempt to read the site is the charm.
This is my 1st time logging into Milnet.ca   ;D


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## Crispy Bacon

This seems to happen to me more when I click "show new replies to your posts" vs when I click "show unread posts since last visit." Not sure if that helps with finding the underlying cause.


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## FJAG

Have had a rough month actually. "Unread posts" are generally easy to get to but the "new replies to your posts" and the "search" function has been mostly inaccessible for weeks requiring numerous retries.

I know its been hard work for you and I certainly appreciate your efforts but I think whatever fixes have been made over the last few months are not solving the problem.

 :cheers:


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## Fishbone Jones

Not being a programming whiz, I can only speculate what would help solve the situation.

Donations everyone, it takes money to run a site as great as this.

Don't be shy and step right up. I'm sure any amount would help.

An EMT to Mike at mike@milnet.ca would likely be appreciated.


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## Nfld Sapper

recceguy said:
			
		

> Not being a programming whiz, I can only speculate what would help solve the situation.
> 
> Donations everyone, it takes money to run a site as great as this.
> 
> Don't be shy and step right up. I'm sure any amount would help.
> 
> An EMT to Mike at mike@milnet.ca would likely be appreciated.



 :goodpost:

Also.....

You can subscribe

Q: What does a subscription entitle me to? 
A: As a new Subscriber, you get the following:
First year: A subscription item (see list above), Army.ca temporary tattoos, and an Army.ca badge, mailed to your door *
All external site advertising will be disabled
Your account will be publicly "tagged" as a Milnet.ca Subscriber
Access to a "Subscribers Only" forum
Ability to post events to the forum calendar **
Ability to edit existing Quotes in the Military Quote database **
Ability to edit existing Definitions in the Military Terms database **
Ability to delete your own posts
Ability to Request Notifications on New Topics (Subscribe to a forum)
Ability to edit photo information and comments in the Photo Gallery
Unlimited Personal Message storage
Ability to set your own unique "personal status" visible to all users
* Canada only, users from other countries may need to pay additional shipping. Item size and colour preference will be honoured based on available stocks. If your selection is not available you will be contacted and may elect for an alternate choice or to wait for the next re-order. 

** Any submissions or modifications may be rejected if they are deemed unsuitable. 

Note: The services and features available to subscribers are subject to change at any time without notice. Historically, this has meant the addition of a few small features here and there.


----------



## JoeDos

I subscribed to the site because I want to help, hopefully we see a better response from the servers soon.


----------



## Journeyman

recceguy said:
			
		

> An EMT to Mike at mike@milnet.ca would likely be appreciated.


I don't think he's ready for a Paramedic _just_ yet -- a Jack Daniels maybe, but not an EMT.   ;D


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## observor 69

I haven't ben able to have "show new replies to your posts" come up on my screen for about two weeks. 
Is it me being stupid or is there some change I didn't pickup on?

Thanks


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## Mike Bobbitt

I've spent more time over the last few days trying to find the source of the problem. Made some changes that will definitely help (even if it's only a tiny bit) and will keep digging to find improvements.

I know a part of the cause is the terribly inefficient coding for AO (who wrote that anyway?) It may be time to wind things up there as it's a drain on resources and hasn't generated any revenue since 2012.


----------



## ModlrMike

Well, we have essentially stood the mission down...


On a serious note, perhaps the large number of visitors has something to do with it? I logged on this morning to find 950 guests and 45 users. Surely there is some way to limit the number of guest accounts? Perhaps a simple ratio where the guest numbers are limited by the user numbers? Or better yet, a cap on the number of guests that can access the page at any given moment.


----------



## observor 69

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> I've spent more time over the last few days trying to find the source of the problem. Made some changes that will definitely help (even if it's only a tiny bit) and will keep digging to find improvements.
> 
> I know a part of the cause is the terribly inefficient coding for AO (who wrote that anyway?) It may be time to wind things up there as it's a drain on resources and hasn't generated any revenue since 2012.



Thanks Mike for everything you do.
May the force be with you.


----------



## Colin Parkinson

funny for me it's mostly "Show new replies " gets me the server understress message, but "Unread posts" seems to work fine, 95% of the time.


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## Journeyman

I saw the thread title and assumed it was about a waitress during TGIF     ;D


----------



## PPCLI Guy

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> I know a part of the cause is the terribly inefficient coding for AO (who wrote that anyway?) It may be time to wind things up there as it's a drain on resources and hasn't generated any revenue since 2012.



I wondered about that....


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## Fishbone Jones

Mike
Sent you a PM.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Folks, a quick note about some changes to the server. Previously, when the load was high, the server would shut down services to help keep things under control. It wasn't very smart about how it did this, shutting down services globally for everyone. I have now added some "smarts" to the system, so it balances load based on some additional criteria. Don't worry too much about the numbers, other than to give you a sense for the scale, but the site will now "go on hold" for folks according to the following requirements:


Guests: 10+
Logged in Users: 15+
Subscribers: 25+
Admins: N/A

I should also add that this change was made to just one layer of the "load levelling" here. Items like search and unread replies will still go on hold as before. This is a function of the forum software, not the "blunt object override" that I had previously implemented and now improved.

I'm going to monitor this approach to see how it works, but hopefully it will help improve site availability for us.

Thanks again for your patience all!


Cheers
Mike


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## Bruce Monkhouse

Thank YOU Mike for giving up your free time for the site.


----------

