Server outage every morning at 3am

Mr. Flibble

I take it that the servers do some maintenance every morning between 3 and 3.30am. Surely there would be a little less traffic at 4.30am or so. Any chance you could change the time when this happens?

Creamy Goodness

it's always asked, and the reason it's done at that time is because it have the least amount of traffic.

the admins have logs like you know.

Mr. Flibble

I wonder how they know this. Once 3am was chosen it would cause less traffic at that time.
Are there any threads with a good response from an admin?

Shiminay

I believe this was done before, you could try looking over old posts. However, believe it or not, the admins are actually professionals in the world of IT (for the most part) and even more surprisingly, this wouldn't be the first website they've put together and run...

Mr. Flibble

3am is my peak hour and no matter professional the admins are that isn't changing!

I would like to see proof that 3am has less traffic than 4am. I'm not calling you guys liars, I'm just naturally skeptical.

Can you suggest any keywords to search for old threads? I searched before creating this thread and couldn't find anything.

Ruu_Old

This was the latest thread on the issue(that I can find).

drive3331

I have a link for an earlier thread too March 2006

Diogenes

Mr. Flibble wrote:

3am is my peak hour and no matter professional the admins are that isn't changing!

Dear Boards please change everything to suit my needs.

In other news, I'd also like to see december be less cold dark and wintery.

I would like to see proof that 3am has less traffic than 4am. I'm not calling you guys liars, I'm just naturally skeptical.

I'm not calling you guys liars I just found a more polite way of calling you liars.

Rabies

Not a smart ass answer, but you have been here for 6yrs. Have you never seen threads like this in Feedback before?

Hagar

Complain Here

Terry

I, and many others, have requested this on several occasions. the overwhelming responce is "NO".

Diogenes

julep wrote:

I, and many others, have requested this on several occasions. the overwhelming responce is "NO".

Boards 3am outage. The admin's way of saying "Dude, like get some sleep"

Gordon

ecksor wrote:

I've checked the logs for the last year and the quietest time is consistently a period of time just after 3am when there are no log entries.

.

Nevyn

Yes but shockingly it is that way because of the 3am back up.

seamus

3am may be your peak hour, but 4am will be someone else's peak. And 5am someone else's peak hour. Between 2am and 6am, you can be pretty much guaranteed that there are only two groups of people on boards; Gamers and shift workers. They're here constantly between those hours, so no matter what hour the backup is at, there will be complaints.

markpb

seamus wrote:

3am may be your peak hour, but 4am will be someone else's peak. And 5am someone else's peak hour. Between 2am and 6am, you can be pretty much guaranteed that there are only two groups of people on boards; Gamers and shift workers. They're here constantly between those hours, so no matter what hour the backup is at, there will be complaints.

You forgot Ruu and the other expatriates

Terry

and alcoholics.

Rabies

markpb wrote:

You forgot Ruu and the other expatriates

I was about to say that.
Boards has reached a stage now where many of it's posters are based over seas. The down time would be more of a pain for us because it is definitly in our peak time. But it is only 30-35min, not long to wait for your next fix.

Lump

As other people have said just because 3am is the time you use boards, plenty of other people use it at 4am, 5am, 6am etc etc, people from all over the world access this site, and unless you want to potentially lose all your posts and the website to fall over, the database needs to be backed up.

Any chance you could change the time when this happens?

Our Survey Says: NA NA

CuLT

Lads, it's 30 minutes. Get a grip.

scojones

CuLT wrote:

Lads, it's 30 minutes. Get a grip.

QFT.

Stabshauptmann

FFS!!

Is this going to require another sticky at the top of this forum for people to stop asking this same question over and over.

Heres a suggestion. Put one sticky with all the really obvious and repetitive questions, call it "Read me if you're stupid" and then site ban anyone who asks one of the questions for 3 days.

For added effect call a gathering card after the first person to get banned.

Goodshape

How about custom avatars? (em.. for the non-subscribers I mean).

And oh, a karma system would be lovely.

It's a wonder nobody has thought of these things before. God, I'm dead clever, me.

Stargal

I find the 3am stoppage really useful actually - means it's definitely time to get off boards and get some sleep...

Mr. Flibble

Rabies wrote:

Not a smart ass answer, but you have been here for 6yrs. Have you never seen threads like this in Feedback before?

Nope, never been in this forum before. I don't really like it to tell the truth.

biko

This is now officially the latest "3am" thread that will be referred to next time,
and there will be a next time.

Sad Professor

Well... maybe if they brought the old search back...

*runs*

Ruu_Old

markpb wrote:

You forgot Ruu and the other expatriates

Ah no, thats when its time to get a cup of tea and a biccie. I cannae do without it until the next mod comes along to take over from me shift.

Hagar

Ah, Boards.ie, the Empire upon which the sun never sets.*



* We can't be trusted in the dark.

Talliesin

It's all true. I admit it.

*SOB*

I remember it all to my enduring shame.

There we all were in the Spin Solutions office* when it became apparant that backups would have to be done and that they'd have to put enough strain on the server as to bring it to a standstill.

And that was when DeVore got out the D-12.

Regi was furiously pointing to the graphs that showed that the quietest time on boards was indeed 4am. And indeed it also showed that Mr. Flibble wouldn't be as active online in 2006 as at 3am (statistics really do show a lot). But no, DeV was weilding that infernal dodecahedron like a, a, I don't know something infernal with 12 sides. He threw the die, and it came up at 3.

All you people who like to get a quick look in before work be glad it didn't land on 8 or 9.





* If you don't know what Spin Solutions was, ask a boards old timer.

Pighead

Talliesin wrote:

* If you don't know what Spin Solutions was, ask a boards old timer.

Hello Talliesin, how are you? What was Spin Solutions?

aidan_walsh

Pighead wrote:

Hello Talliesin, how are you? What was Spin Solutions?

DeVore and the others used to make tumble dryers before they heard about this internet lark. Then they opened their web development company, and called it Spin Solutions.

Ruu_Old

Pighead wrote:

Hello Talliesin, how are you? What was Spin Solutions?

The best damn internet dry cleaners there ever was! *wipes tear*

tba

We should live life on the edge and NEVER back up!

Talliesin

That's how it used to be done.

Many posts died.

Shiminay

Talliesin wrote:

That's how it used to be done.

Many posts died.

Or so the admins would have us believe...

[edit]OMFG, someone tried to shoot me, it must be an admin for revealing this most heinous of secrets!!! SPREAD THE WORD, IT'S A KONSPEARISSY!!![/edit]

Sarky

The "dead" posts were really relocated to a sweatshop in Turkmenistan, where they make iPod knockoffs day in, day out. The UN ignores my indignant letters

Rabies

I think we need a Dead Posts Society forum.
A place to discuss the past and find our inner self worth

regi

When we first started to backup, the default time of the scheduler was 3am. We've not changed it since.

Mr. Flibble

Lol at all the know-alls who made up reasons for the 3am time. Thanks for giving us the actual reason regi.

Can I suggest moving it to 4.15am. I would imagine that there are more posters still awake at 4am from the night before than there are people awaking at 4.30am the next day.

GoneShootin

seamus wrote:

3am may be your peak hour, but 4am will be someone else's peak. And 5am someone else's peak hour.

I'm always at my peak.

DeVore

Curiously, I run into the 3am backup quite a bit because of my sleeping pattern and "job". It has to be some time and thats the time we've chosen.

The good news is that it should be greatly reduced with the arrival of the new servers (mostly likely over the new year but who knows during the silly season).

DeV.

delly

I find the 3am rule great for knowing when its time to sleep...........or, just try and grab another quick game of Company of Heroes.

LuckyLloyd

Mr. Flibble wrote:

Lol at all the know-alls who made up reasons for the 3am time. Thanks for giving us the actual reason regi.

Can I suggest moving it to 4.15am. I would imagine that there are more posters still awake at 4am from the night before than there are people awaking at 4.30am the next day.

As a fellow Poker forum poster (and poker player) I am going to back up Mr. Fibble on his request: the 3am outage also annoys me as it tends to be around the time I get home on a lot of my work nights (too many tbh): and a quick peek at Boards before bed is always nice.

But you can’t suit everyone I suppose. And at least we have our health. Isn’t that the main thing after all?

DeVore

health is -EV

DeV.

LuckyLloyd

DeVore wrote:

health is -EV

DeV.

lol - wp Tom.

regi

I think I've only run into the 3am backup once in the last year (sad huh).

That one time I ran into it, I logged into the servers, stopped the backups, read boards and restarted the backup afterwards (even sadder)

Sarky

OMG abuse of powar!!!!

Sully

regi wrote:

I think I've only run into the 3am backup once in the last year (sad huh).

That one time I ran into it, I logged into the servers, stopped the backups, read boards and restarted the backup afterwards (even sadder)

Fantastic post

Anyway, the 3AM backup is what normally tells me "OK Sully, its time to go to bed." so I just obey and hit the sack.. Extending that would mean I get even less hours sleep! Anyway, those 3AM Lurkers could just say "Right, well boards will be down for a half hour so lets take a quick break, head to the kitchen and make us some Tea & Toast." and sure, slap on an episode of CSI Miami if they got the gift set from a lovely girlfriend this year

Surely loosing Boards for a half an hour is worth loosing a large chunk of boards if the servers die and the admins are like "We aint got no backups, cause we had to facilitate the 3AM dudes"!? Boards may be addictive, but chillax. A half hour away wont kill any brain cells or make you run riot demanding a boards fix. It could be a lot worse. Boards could have opening hours.. 9-5. How would you like that!? Ya. My point exactly.

Thank You and Good Night.

Random

regi wrote:

I think I've only run into the 3am backup once in the last year (sad huh).

That one time I ran into it, I logged into the servers, stopped the backups, read boards and restarted the backup afterwards (even sadder)

Maybe we should all get root then? Makes everyone happy

InFront

Oh no, it's actually gotten to the stage where not even the backup will send me to bed:o . Ah well it's just for the xmas hols.

Are you suuuure the quietest time is 3am? The night is young dudes!

PS: Backup is so 35 minutes and not 30