Posted on 10/11/2012 9:54:00 PM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark
I have to ask this very seriously, do you know that this site has been completely unusable to perhaps thousands and thousands of others during either the first Presidential or Vice-Presidential debate and for an hour or so after their respective conclusions?
This has never happened in previous election cycles during debates, election night results or during large breaking news events. Slow? Yes. Unusable, no.
I've had multiple tabs opened for the debates this year and the FR one just wheel spin, wheel spin, wheel spin... blank page, no progress bar moving on the address bar. It's just the internet equivalent of dead air for hours.
If you're getting this during a VP debate I fully expect this site to be dead and inaccessible from 6PM-4AM election night.
Update us would you? What's going on?
Sorry, I’m fresh out of ideas. I’m sure John will get it solved, but I don’t know when. I’m hoping there are still enough people donating to keep FR going through this rough spot.
Denial of Service attacks, perhaps?
I've already purposed that I won't even waste my time coming here for the next presidential debate.
Sorry for my little rant...just a bit frustrated. And yes, I will be making my donation.
No, it’s just election year traffic IMHO.
Jim, I would doubt it’s through put. Can you tell if you’re being attacked. The timing is... interesting.
Being an IT professional, I would suggest that he run it in the cloud, that way it scales, is reliable, and it can add servers dynamically....I do this all the time for customers who have much bigger problems.....
Amazon, Azure, etc.
There are always a lot of freepers and lurkers here at any one time. It has been consistent that on things that could hurt Dims, the site is slow.
It doesn’t seem to be a lack of server power as JimRob said on the live thread that they were operating no where near capacity. It must be a network bottleneck of some sort.
I’d say it’s going to take a careful step-by-step approach to pin the problem down. It would be easier to do it when the servers are under heavy load. You could then change things one at a time to find out what’s going wrong. Not sure how to put such a load on the servers unless you were to trouble shoot during a debate, and that would cause lots of grief.
Perhaps a limited DOS attack by a group of freepers in the wee hours could put enough load to help diagnose this?
Network problems are not my strong suit, I work on embedded stuff and it’s far removed from such a topic....just thinking out loud here.
Most conservative posters and lurkers come when big news is happening. Like now. Occam’s razor.
That sounds well-reasoned!
Can you rent cloud capacity by the hour?
No, no, no.. Bandwidth and/or the inability for the FR scripts to handle a flood of posts simultaneously. Too many viewers attempting to post simultaneously!
Jim, with all due respect you need to consider a professional hosting option if you’re still physically hosting this on a set of machines you’re actually reaching out and maintaining.
If you’re getting hit with DNS attacks during these times, which would not surprise me, so would any number of political sites on the right and left. I lurk on maybe 12-15 sites during peak times and this is the only one where uptime is an issue.
Been a registered and paying member since 2000. I love this site. But it’s gotta get some major improvement. Not just performance, but the forums and everything need to be upgraded to newer formats and platforms. Now, I end up on twitter during major events to get my news and commentary. I hope they can fix this, but frankly this site looks and operates like it did when I joined in 2000.
Only downside to the cloud environment is that you’re at the mercy of your host node. Then again, I do favor dedicated hardware so I’m a bit bias in that regard.
If your having trouble getting on FR. Do what quite a few female freepers do....clean house, use the washing machine, take the clothes out of the dryer and fold. If its a real long time, scrub the kitchen floor.....:O)
It seems like the OP was asking about the relationship between donations and performance.
There is some relationship, right?
host node begone! Dynamic IP provisioning is what they do now, along with load balancers!
Donate more!
This site is beyond slow even in off peak hours.
Too bad all of those Mitt supporters have been tossed off the site.
What’s the Point of Donating If We Can’t Access This Site at Peak Times?
“Donate more!”
Sorry, the Conservative in me has been conditioned to believe that unless the proposed solution is different than the the one being tried throwing money at it won’t change anything.
Are we sure that this is all the fault of FR? I’m no expert, but I never, ever have a hard time getting on FR or posting, no matter what’s going on. Sure, sometimes it’s a little slow, but I never have to wait more than five seconds or so. And I don’t have fancy machinery at all. But I live near DC, Verizon is my broadband carrier, and I have to share my bandwidth with a son who’s gaming. So is it possible that some of the people who are having trouble are having trouble with their particular route to the California servers of FR?
I dunno, just a thought. It’s just that some of us never have a problem, there has to be an explanation for that.
yes it is..
That depends on what the meaning of “All” is.
Years back, I was in charge of a site that faced millions of hits during competitions. We had what sounds like a similar problem. The server and even network seemed to be operating well and handling the volume. It was the software we had installed to track hits that was hanging up and bringing things to a crawl. I wish I could remember the specific software.
Squarespace offers 24/7 support UNLIMITED bandwidth, UNLIMITED storage for $16.00 a month. Running a secure web site shouldn’t be a big deal in today’s technology.
This could be a personal problem though, after giving up on FR I tried to turn on the tv and found my satellite box was broken. I was almost desperate enough to resort to smoke signals :)
While we are all gathered here, is your name on the list of monthly donors?
It’s about damned time!
No, it is not.
I only see some names appear to bitch about something, they never take part in anything else.
I couldn’t get on either but I’m not complaining. It’s because there were so many concerned posters, this website could not handle them all. To me, it’s a good thing. It means we are very concerned about the political situation we face today. I went over to the political section of www.citydata.com to make my feelings felt. See my post under Vinyly and ‘That Ryan/Bidden Debate Tonight’. Which you all too must get on to make your feelings felt vs. the left-wingers. We are nearly all conservative here, but over there you get to rumble and ruffle the hair of left wingnuts.
I've been on here since 2000 and only very rarely have I had access trouble. I do remember though when people would forget to turn off a BOLD tag and every post after that would be bold until someone switched it off. Those were good days.
You are correct that the problem needs to be addressed though. It is a fun time to be able to come here during an event. I'm sure JimRob will figure out something. FR has been worth every donation I have made.
I don’t know if others have noticed but it is not only during big events. It also seems to happen much more when there are Freepathons.
I’ve wondered if there are disgruntled ex-freepers that might get a jolly off running a DOS. Especially during fund-raising and large events.
PING
If denial of service is a problem, FR could make connections secure at login and IP whitelist forum usage. Could even use certificates installed on server and in browser.
That 9/11 thread is amazing history. It wouldn’t be possible with FR unable to handle a lot of people wanting to post at once. I’m sad about next week and election night. I miss FR.
I bet there would be a ton of solid donations if there were an explanation and guarantee that FR would be able to handle huge volumes on big days.
Why can some chat rooms hold thousands of people? There must be a solution. And I’d love to help pay for it, once it’s explained.
We can be pretty sure of one thing, Romney's choice of Paul Ryan was the result of conservative efforts. Without that he may well have picked someone far less conservative.
Ace of Spades and Hot Air had similar problems last night. Not fair to rip on FR.
Well, we could fill up the pages with all kinds of ads from anyone and everyone, even those who have agenda’s we don’t care for.
A ford logo here, a Solyndra logo there...pretty soon we are Huffington post and have to listen to drivel from idiots.
You want it this way or Huffpo?
I know, you were just venting. hell, even I do it.
Long live Jim Thompson!!!
Understood, but on the other side, Jum keeps taking flak from always “begging for money” and many work very hard to keep FR funded and free from becoming a commercial-ridden site. If you want to belong to an exclusive club, you need to make sure it is properly funded.
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