"The server is too busy......."

[Navy Chief]

There are times when I go to sign onto the SOH site, and the message is displayed that says "the server is too busy; try later", or something to that effect.. But lately, the frequency of this happening has increased considerably. Any info? NC

[MrZippy]

I see it, too! Must be a busy day or maybe some site maintenance? :dizzy:

[oldmsgt]

I've been seeing that more frequently in the last few weeks as well Chief.

[stansdds]

I saw it again yesterday morning.

[MrZippy]

Happened 5 minutes ago!

81065

[wombat666]

It happens from time to time.
I just logged in right now without any problem.
:devilish:

[Navy Chief]

Yes it does happen every so often, but lately the frequency has increased greatly. NC

[WarHorse47]

Yep. Just happened to me five minutes ago, 6:05 pm Pacific Time on Sunday - only 8 members and 335 guests on line.

Does anyone have an idea what is going on?

[wombat666]

We have staff members who would usually be able to look into this area MIA for some weeks.
RL issues are impacting these people AFAIK.
:indecisiveness:

[lefty]

Ii's funny you guys have all started whingeing about this now. We in Western Europe have had the dreaded message for years - usually in the early morning our time.
It was always attributed to site maintenance, updates, etc., done at a time which inconvenienced the majority of users least.
It appears that the timing of this might have changed, for whatever reason.
Certainly I'm having no trouble this morning ! Posting at this hour used to be a no-no.

[Roxane-21]

Ii's funny you guys have all started whingeing about this now. We in Western Europe have had the dreaded message for years - usually in the early morning our time.
It was always attributed to site maintenance, updates, etc., done at a time which inconvenienced the majority of users least.
It appears that the timing of this might have changed, for whatever reason.
Certainly I'm having no trouble this morning ! Posting at this hour used to be a no-no.

Same here. It used to be quite impossible to access this website in the early hours, but I didn't face this issue for ages.

[WarHorse47]

Ii's funny you guys have all started whingeing about this now. Not really accurate. When I couldn't access this forum, I posted on the SOH Flight Center site. If you go there you'll see posts on this issue going back several years. :untroubled:

[Navy Chief]

It has happened to me three times today; most recently about a hour ago. NC

[Dangerousdave26]

Multiple times over the last few days I have been getting emails about high server loads. The culprit is mysql which is normal and 2 other process that I do not normally see as high.

I am looking into it.

[Navy Chief]

Multiple times over the last few days I have been getting emails about high server loads. The culprit is mysql which is normal and 2 other process that I do not normally see as high.

I am looking into it.

Appreciate your looking into it Dave. Thanks. Pete

[Dangerousdave26]

cross your fingers

I believe it was the same old problem of too many bots indexing the site. Over 400 in just a couple of IP Address ranges. I blocked them and have been monitoring it. So far it looks good.

I also learned a few things about the server load message. I have to contemplate how I address it.

[Dangerousdave26]

We got through the night pretty good but this morning I am still seeing some spikes in server loads.

[downwind]

Just piling on....I get these messages almost every day lately. (USA, Central states)

[Penzoil3]

Arizona here. I keep seeing it too. Thanks Dave, I know it's hard to keep up with.
Sue

[djs1]

South Yorkshire, UK, seven times today from approx 6.30am up to about 5 minutes ago.

[rohan]

and yesterday and today, the download speed from the library is down to about a quarter of that on a typical day before this week - - that is, about 40KB/sec today compared to 160KB/sec normally.

:banghead:

[MrZippy]

and yesterday and today, the download speed from the library is down to about a quarter of that on a typical day before this week - - that is, about 40KB/sec today compared to 160KB/sec normally.

:banghead:

Yep, I noticed that, also, yesterday! :dizzy:

[Dangerousdave26]

Yes that is by design to see if the total number of people downloading is causing the issue. Unfortunately there is no tool to tell me how many people are downloading.

When NC posted this thread the loads were spiking every hour. When I blocked the known problem IP Addresses the loads spiked every 2 hours.

The next change was to the download speeds which were trimmed across the board slightly. That did not really help we still had the same frequency. I then got draconian with the download speeds across the board just to see if that helped. That caused the spike frequency to go to every 3 hours.

The next thing I did was run a maintenance tool in the that repairs and optimizes the forum database tables. I have had to run that tool a couple times to clear out posting issues. That change 6 hours until the next spike.

I have some more testing to do this morning. After that we will adjust again. We are missing something that is the issue. I am not sure if all of these changes are fixing the issue or if they are just giving room for the issue to live on unnoticed.

Either way the move to the new server is coming and we have preparations to do related to that project.

[Dangerousdave26]

I found another possible culprit which could have been additive to the problem. The AV Scanner was using 30% of the system memory. I booted it out the door to see if that helps the issue. I just did that so now the clock starts again to see how things are running.

I will increase the server speeds if this turns out good.

[MrZippy]

All good, so far! :applause:

[Dangerousdave26]

Next step is a reboot which I will do in the early am my time.

[Dangerousdave26]

Next timer starts. The reboot just finished.

[Ivan]

Just saw it again a couple minutes ago.

[Dangerousdave26]

Yes the problem still persists and the final verdict on where the core of the problem is coming from is the download section.

Its has always been a problem when there is a new hot file. Now the normal daily load from the number of members downloading is really dragging down the server.

Look for notices about the new server. It was handed over to us the end of December. The plan was to have it in place in the month of January and that planned slipped by.

[Priller]

Downloading a file right now: speeds are horrible. make me thing of simviation...

Priller

[stansdds]

Very slow downloads, Simviation might actually be a bit faster.

[Dangerousdave26]

I will boost us up when I get us into the new server.

Yesterday when I checked we had served 800+ files for 45Gb in a 24 hour period. Today it is 947 files for 28.87 Gb just a few minutes ago.

The server is built and I am transferring files off this one and to the .net server to send them all to the new server. How long does it take to transfer 500Gb. We will see.

[Priller]

How long does it take to transfer 500Gb. We will see.

Over a network or the internet using copy software or commands? It all depends on your bandwidth of course, but my experience says more than a couple of hours, even when having super broadband.

Good luck Dave!!

Priller

[Priller]

A word of appreciation and congratulations to the SOH admin team for a seemingly uneventful server migration!

Working in IT support as I do, I know that these things are far from a sinecure, especially considering you migrated from a Windows server to a Linux server. (Linux being a very wise choice indeed)

So well done and thank you to the team!

Cheers,

Priller

[Navy Chief]

Yes, a big thank you for the smooth move! NC

[Priller]

Just downloaded a file, speeds are better than before the move: 500 Kbps+

Priller

[Dangerousdave26]

Try the next one and see what you get. I increased the allotments again.