What's happened to atari-forum.com?

[68000]

I've been unable to log into www.atari-forum.com for the past 4 days or so -does anyone know what's going on and if someone responsible is trying to fix it?

[kodak80]

Same here. No idea why. I think it is pretty poor hosting service to allow someones web site to be offline for an extended period.

[exxosuk]

IIRC Darren said it was something like the data base was defragging and caused the problem. I'm sure he will post here anyway. Does seem like a hugely powered server in anycase

[lp060]

He said something about raising a support ticket, it appears to be beyond his control. I've not been able to access it for about 3 days now, it just hangs and eventually says connection reset.

[+DarkLord]

Same here...

[68000]

Perhaps time to look for another server host...

IIRC this isn't the first time it's been difficult/impossible to log into atari-forum.com

[exxosuk]

https://webhostinggeeks.com/user-reviews/1and1/

 

I only pay $30 a year for my VPS and that one flys along. Fantastic quick support aswell. I'd consider paying for for first year on a VPS if it means getting the forum running properly again. Its a invaluable resource for the Atari-community and seems like its gone to the dogs a bit over the past few months No disrespect to Darren of course, its the hosting company which seems terrible to me.

Edited June 21, 2015 by exxosuk

[68000]

Agree completely about it being an invaluable resource! But I don't feel you, Exxosuk, should pay for it all alone although that's a very kind offer to consider.

 

How about the owner set up a Paypal "donation" account and we all chip in a little bit. I don't know how many forum members there are but I'm sure we'd be able to cover all expenses together

It's a pity if the owner (or some other kind individual) should cover all the expenses alone in order to keep it going (for a couple of years until he/she gets fed up and the whole thing gets closed down for good)

.... and with a more efficient and stable running server we might even get increased activity and new members!

Edited June 21, 2015 by 68000

[exxosuk]

There is a donation thing for people to donate to running costs on the forum. So that is in place already. I sent some $$ a couple years ago towards running costs. Though I guess if a better host is required, then it may need more donations. I guess it also depends on how much space and bandwidth the site takes. Can't image much of either really. I tested a lot of VPS's out about 18 months ago, for speed, and support, there are some relatively cheap and good servers out there. I don't know if AF is a VPS or a basic webhost package, but there are really good unlimited packages I have come across also. It could just be a donation vs quality of host issue, I don't know whats really going on behind the scenes.

[68000]

If the owner is reading, perhaps we could get to know a bit more about what's going on and what's needed.

[kodak80]

An email on the status would have been useful on what is happening and an ETA on fix

[fedepede04]

hi

i could log on here tonight

[exxosuk]

forum seems to be back working again.

[68000]

Yes!!! Finally

That's great news, but it would still be great if the owner would post something somewhere about why this is happening all the time and what can be done about it.

[exxosuk]

and its down again

[Albert]

It's working again. It was timing out on me for a bit.

 

..Al

[+Tillek]

Now I'm having trouble with it all of the sudden. Same as before.

[Clint Thompson]

Yeah, same here. It'll eventually return...

[exxosuk]

its been up/down every couple of hours. Maybe someone is flood attacking the forum ? or some idiot is trying to download the entire thing opening up 100's of connections. I've had that happen on my site in the past. Site was still running, but took about 2 hours to actually respond to a request.

[+remowilliams]

At least it was up long enough for me to see the news about the new MiST minimig AGA core

[ataricrypt]

It's down for me, just as I needed to grab some info from older PMs... darn! :-(

[68000]

It's like a yo-yo

It's obvious that the server needs fixing/changing or whatever or people will eventually just give up on the whole thing.

How do we get in touch with the owner?

[exxosuk]

I've asked, needless to say hes knows about it and trying to get it fixed.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I asked Dal about is forum attacked by some hackers, but he did not respond. And it was because mine site was, on previous host . There is some script around, what infects mostly php files, and then antivirus SW (Avast for instance) simply blocks those pages. And fixing it may be pretty time consuming since there are many-many php scripts in some forum. What bothers me is how they managed to achieve ftp access, and how spread is this new, in fact really pointless attacking, because don't see any benefit for anyone in it.

If it is host problem, then really should move on other, because forum is barely usable - yesterday I was not able to perform simple posting, it froze again after some minutes.

[exxosuk]

Dal said he is working on it, but so far rebooting the server is the only thing which seems to work. Its not a flood attack, there is hardly any bandwidth being used. I've offered to host the forum on another server to see if that solves the problem, but I think Dal is waiting for the host to reply to his ticket. I think AF needs a new host IMHO. I run my site on a cheap VPS host and it works good.