Finaly the website is back up and running yay!

[backburner26]

I was worried about the site yesterday when i couldent acces it from any browser. Im happy to see its back up and running again.

[Unas]

Yes, sorry about that - the company hosting the AAO server had a networking problem, and it took one day for them to react...
So technically AAO was still running but couldn't be accessed by anyone, not even me.

Hopefully it won't happen again, but unfortunately I have no control over that :-/

[backburner26]

Yes, sorry about that - the company hosting the AAO server had a networking problem, and it took one day for them to react...
So technically AAO was still running but couldn't be accessed by anyone, not even me.

Hopefully it won't happen again, but unfortunately I have no control over that :-/

Ok. Glad to see it working again.

[GanonZD]

Well, actually, now that we're at it, I find that the website is down quite often. It would seem that the hoster is not as stable as it should be. Don't you have some alternative?

[drvonkitty]

Well, actually, now that we're at it, I find that the website is down quite often. It would seem that the hoster is not as stable as it should be. Don't you have some alternative?

Are you sure it's the website's end that's the problem? Everytime it's down, there's websites that allow you to check if it's the website that's down or if it's an issue on your end.

[kwando1313]

AAO doesn't go down on my end. Pretty sure it's a you issue, considering, well... I go on AAO a craz amount. xP

Though, speaking of which, is there a way that this type of stuff can get better communicated with us AAO users? Because... I was getting a little worried when none of the mods knew about the situation at hand, the lack of updated, in addition to the more than 24 hours of downtime...

[Phantom]

If you want the admin to communicate to the AAO users when stuff like this happens, they can post up some 404 custom page error when it's on their end.

[Unas]

Well, actually, now that we're at it, I find that the website is down quite often. It would seem that the hoster is not as stable as it should be. Don't you have some alternative?

AAO is not down that often... It's been quite stable for a while (except for the occasional reboots of the server when I update system components, but those are not too frequent and only take a few minutes). However, the fact that it took a whole day to get any support from the hosting company - for a trivial matter that happened to be fixed in a few seconds when they actually paid attention to our request - annoyed me quite a bit.
I'm contemplating the idea of moving AAO to a different host, which has a much better reputation in terms of service, though rather costly.

That being said, moving AAO around is a long and complex operation, due to the huge size of the trial and forum database - and some may remember that it didn't go so well last time I did it a few years ago... So I will not move AAO on a whim, I'll take a few months to consider all options and find the best one.

Though, speaking of which, is there a way that this type of stuff can get better communicated with us AAO users? Because... I was getting a little worried when none of the mods knew about the situation at hand, the lack of updated, in addition to the more than 24 hours of downtime...

Erm, well... The problem here was that the AAO server was completely cut away from the network, so inaccessible to everyone including me.
When you tried accessing AAO, your browser could only get an error mentioning that no server could be reached at AAO's address.
There was technically nothing I could do to warn users, since everything happened outside of the server, so outside of my control (in fact, the server itself kept running normally all the time).

Also, with the server out of reach, I didn't have access to the forum database - so I couldn't send mass emails to members to keep them informed.

This kind of limits the options

[kwando1313]

Ah, ok. I just presumed that you would have the contact info of the admins/mods and could email them about it or something...

[Phantom]

Surely there's a script/app out there that can check in on the uptime/downtime of the AAO website, and if down, send a message to the relevant staff of this predicament (such as on your gmail contact list Unas)

And if the staff wants to get in on yalls xat and make the announcement that yes the server's down, do so.

The problem that is annoying is not knowing IF AAO is down because its the user's end (the browser being glitchy, their ISP being sucky), OR legitimately on AAO's end.

[Unas]

Ah, ok. I just presumed that you would have the contact info of the admins/mods and could email them about it or something...

Ah, yes, I could have mailed the mods... But what I meant is that I couldn't have mailed the users.

[kwando1313]

Ah, ok. I just presumed that you would have the contact info of the admins/mods and could email them about it or something...

Ah, yes, I could have mailed the mods... But what I meant is that I couldn't have mailed the users.

Well, that's understandable enough. But, it was more the fact that none of the mods knew what was happening that was a little worrisome, that's all.