The forum was down for about 18 hours from Dec 22-23. As you may or may not have noticed, the rest of the site was unaffected. Due to similar problems in the past, the forum database user account is now distinct from the database user account used by the rest of the code on the site. It is through this means that my host and I were able to determine that the cause of the problem was exclusively within the forum code, and to keep the rest of the site running while we focused on the forum.

As much as I would love to scapegoate the phpBB code, the fact is, I didn't have the most recent version installed. We were running v3.0.4, even though v3.0.5 was released back in May and v3.0.6 was released about a month ago. I should say, however, that scanning through the release notes and bug fixes for both 3.0.5 and 3.0.6 doesn't reveal any obvious causes of the problem we experienced.

One major drawback about shared hosting is that I don't get to see all the error logs to help me figure out what went wrong. I have to try and sort it out based on whatever my host e-mails me, which sometimes isn't all that much, as in this case. I can't say I blame him, because in his eyes, I'm the bad guy who just crashed a server and affected a whole bunch of his other clients.

Anyway, we are up to date now. Let me know if you notice and problems with the forum, and cross your fingers that our shot in the dark has hit it's mark.

Sandy

Oh... the agony! I have been pressing F5 eighteen hours straight! Now I can finally sleep.

Thomas

Glad to see it back up!

A few minutes I started browsing the forums again naturally, like nothing was ever wrong. Then I realize, "Hey! The forums are back up!"

Thanks a lot for your work, Sandy!

ok... who shared publicly their STL files again and caused this blackout? Drew? Was it you again with that Examinx?





LOL!!!!


Pantazis

I kept trying to log in like every half an hour. I think that I was the first person to make a post after the forum came back up.

Alex

The forum was back faster than expected. Nice job!

Thanks for getting it back up quickly Sandy.

Thanks for getting it back up sandy

I had an new private message and i couldnt check it, it was painful

thanks, i missed this place!

-Clay

Thank God! Great job Sandy!


I was like "OMG OMG OMG! My friends? My dear dear friends? Where are you? WHERE??? NO! I can't lose you. I won't!! Your not gone! WAKE UP!!!".....

uhhh. You guys don't need to tell anybody about this right?

Thanks Sandy!

I wish you a puzzle under the christmas tree for every hour of bug fixing.

We don't neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed to but.......................................

*runs to tell everyone*

Alex

Its ok theres a place for people like you

Sorry ive been watching a lot of batman lately

Posts from 'General Puzzle Topics' and 'Puzzle Building and Modding' aren't showing up in the 'View active topics' list.

Seconded. I have the same problem.

Thanks guys. Fixed!

Sandy

I don't know if this problem is related to the previous outage on Dec. 22-23, 2009, but I can't see new messages from the Off-Topic board when I press the "View active topics" link. I can, however, see new messages appear in the sidebar (COMMUNITY section). The sidebar was how I noticed the problem - messages that were said to be new in the sidebar didn't show up in my list of active topics.

I personally like it this way. If I wanted to see all the random and mostly useless post (no offense to anyone making them) then I would rather look for them when I want to than always see them getting in the way of the real reason for this forum: Twisty Puzzles.

Fixed... with apologies to monkeyman!

Sandy