NEWS: Server Maintenance www.egosoft.com

Post by **BurnIt!** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 11:58

During maintenance and server moving of http://www.egosoft.com short downtimes of the website are to be expected today, Dec 31st, 2005.

Because of this it is also possible that the primary forum server at http://forum.egosoft.com cannot be reached for a few minutes.

However te secondary forum server at http://forum2.egosoft.com should remain available all along.

Player. · Post by **Player.** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 12:12

Yay site is being fixed

Go BurniIt

Cucumber King · Post by **Cucumber King** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 12:14

Is maintenance related to search function?!

Player. · Post by **Player.** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 12:16

maybe a Demo

shodan1138 · Post by **shodan1138** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 12:24

Player. wrote:maybe a Demo

Huh.

Post by **BurnIt!** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 12:35

No search function, no demo - just maintenance.
And server moving.

The website is moving to a different server - since DNS updates can take 3-48 hours to be distributed it may happen that the website cannot be reached for a while.

"site is being fixed"
Hm - I am not aware of any urgent issues that need to be fixed... last time I checked the site was working fine. Care to enlighten me?

Cucumber King · Post by **Cucumber King** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 12:37

...
we want to search!

edit:

The site is fine, I don't know any problem!

shodan1138 · Post by **shodan1138** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 12:40

BurnIt! wrote:No search function, no demo - just maintenance.

<X-Community> So, by that you mean, there *will* be a search function, and there *will* be a demo? Yay!

(I truely feel for ya, poor moderator-guy.)

Cucumber King · Post by **Cucumber King** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 12:44

shodan1138 wrote:
BurnIt! wrote:No search function, no demo - just maintenance.
<X-Community> So, by that you mean, there *will* be a search function, and there *will* be a demo? Yay!

(I truely feel for ya, poor moderator-guy.)

How did you come up with that?

shodan1138 · Post by **shodan1138** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 12:49

Cucumber King wrote: How did you come up with that?

Whoops!

Yes, thanks. I certainly see the mistake in my last posting.

I should've gone "poor admin-guy" instead of "poor moderator-guy". That little "Egosoft" badge under BurnIt's username confused me for a moment; it's not often we see actual site admins instead of moderators, who tend to wear the same badge.

Post by **BurnIt!** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 13:11

There will be a demo - but not today and not tomorrow or the day after.
Most of us try to get some rest over the holidays (believe it or not, this job can be quite stressful at times) that means except for a few moderators and the occasional admin that sacrifice their free time to keep up law and order here there is no one who would be able to release new patches or a demo at this time.

The search function had to be disabled because people using it caused the servers to break down - left with the options to either allow people to search but not use the forums because they were either offline or awfully slow OR allow people to use the forums, it's obvious which choice had to be made.
I am still looking into ways to combine these two options but until a suitable solution has been found I am afraid the current state will remain as is for another while.

Player. · Post by **Player.** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 13:14

No Problem a demo after the day after tomorrow yay

Anyway i agree the forums are a mess you should really hire more moderators

softweir · Post by **softweir** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 14:07

Player. wrote:Anyway i agree the forums are a mess you should really hire more moderators

"Hire"? Dontcha know the mods do it for free?

Player. · Post by **Player.** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 14:10

Of course i do!!!

DrunkenPirate · Post by **DrunkenPirate** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 14:22

Moderation is overrated, I admin 3 forums and that's no flower basket.

Cucumber King · Post by **Cucumber King** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 14:28

shodan1138 wrote:
Cucumber King wrote: How did you come up with that?

Whoops!

Yes, thanks. I certainly see the mistake in my last posting.

I should've gone "poor admin-guy" instead of "poor moderator-guy". That little "Egosoft" badge under BurnIt's username confused me for a moment; it's not often we see actual site admins instead of moderators, who tend to wear the same badge.

I didn't mean that, I meant that u said there will be a searchfunction and demo but at that point it wasn't clarified yet!

Player. · Post by **Player.** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 14:34

well esd is here so we are safe

Kaiser Kraft · Post by **Kaiser Kraft** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 19:32

Hi Burnit! Sorry to see you had to turn in today…I’m sure you will be rewarded for soldiering on and taking it in such good spirit! Some people would be really pissed at having to be at work!

Ok this Search problem…

Apart from times of high demand such as people checking in to see if a new patch has been posted the highest number of logged in users is approx 450 give or take 50 or so. I’m sure you have the stats to give an accurate number. But what ever it is in these modern times that is not a high user loading 1k plus maybe an issue for some sites.

User 1: Now if one user logged in and did a search and found what they were looking for and stayed in that thread and read the answer I guess the loading after the search would be as close to zero as you can get as he has had a resolution cached and only causes a loading when he moves on a page in the thread (minimal state) or searches again (high state)…He finds a satisfactory answer and pops off to continue his game (Zero Loading). Win Win situation!

User 2: Now if one user logged in and blow me he cant search for a specific string he now has to browse the forum (high loading) in frustration he wont settle on a thread (high loading) now he is at the point where he cant be arsed to look anymore he creates a new post (high loading) woopy doo it’s a unique question (acceptable loading) no unnecessary increase on the search engine data base! Oh dear his question is not so unique after all more of the same old same old (increased loading) more junk in the database for the poor little server. Lose lose situation? Oh and an unhappy forum user lose again.

Abnormal conditions when a patch is imminent should be a painless situation as they will check the sticky or worst case download the file neither of which should cripple the search engine as they are directed by a link I dont remember the server crashing when 1.3 was dropped on the server for download. (I may well have missed that event).

Now if we take user one and multiply them by lets say 500 we get a

Spoiler

Show

win win or do we?

Ok
Now we take user two and multiply them by oh lets say 300 we get a

Spoiler

Show

lose lose or do we?

Math was never my strong point. I'm sure one of the knowledgable users here can work out the correct formula.

Ok I really should not teach you to suck eggs here and I know its new year and all that jazz and I hope you manage to chill a little tonight.

I have no problem with you teaching me to suck eggs so please treat me as a punch bag and explain to me in basic English what the issue is…I am a techno nerd I’m so scared of high techeeeenes I wont buy a mobile phone that does anything more than phone people (which is really hard to find these days).

Please don’t take offence as this is not my intension I would just like to understand the issues here that’s all…Poor hardware? Poor search engine? What is wrong?

Four or Five hundred users under normal conditions should be doable.

Thanks for reading this that’s assuming you did.

Take it easy.

Player. · Post by **Player.** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 19:38

*Drums*

Post by **CBJ** » Sat, 31. Dec 05, 19:43

Kaiser Kraft wrote:User 2: Now if one user logged in and blow me he cant search for a specific string he now has to browse the forum (high loading) in frustration he wont settle on a thread (high loading) now he is at the point where he cant be arsed to look anymore he creates a new post (high loading) woopy doo it’s a unique question (acceptable loading) no unnecessary increase on the search engine data base! Oh dear his question is not so unique after all more of the same old same old (increased loading) more junk in the database for the poor little server..

Wrong on almost all counts I'm afraid. Browsing the forum, reading threads, creating a new post and adding threads to the database do not create even a tiny fraction of the database server load that a search of the database does.

You are really going to have to trust BurnIt! on this one. His statements are based not on theoretical calculations and incorrect assumptions, but on actual experience of the server grinding to a halt and analysing the causes.

Anyway, this maintenance is now over, so the thread heads south.