Other Forum Issues

[ookpik]

It looks like WRC is hosted by GoDaddy.  They should have enough horsepower in their data centre to support WRC, but clearly there is an issue somewhere.

They should. But here's the "dirty little secret" of the shared hosting business. They all advertise "unlimited" resources like bandwidth, data, etc. Obviously they can't really provide that if everyone takes advantage of unlimited resources. To keep costs down they put customers on shared servers, hoping that it will all average out. 

But if you have one or a few sites that are poorly configured or overloaded they'll affect service for everyone on that shared server. Sometimes it's a configuration issue that the offending customer can correct. Even so the host service provider has to detect that there's an issue and contact that site about it (and hope that the customer's technical people know what they're doing.) 

Other times it's a customer whose needs have grown beyond the abilities of a few dollars a month shared service can provide. Understandably they may not want to spend more when they've been promised "unlimited."

This is much like a buffet or all-you-can-eat restaurant. One or two hungry students who aim to get good value for their money may be tolerable. But an invasion by a horde of them may be quite a different matter. The manager of the restaurant then has three options; (1) ask the abusers to show consideration for others, (2) throw them out or (3) take a hands-off approach and simply provide less food to others.

When the hosting service (or restauranteur) is getting paid relatively little they're not likely to do much unless lots of other customers complain. That's why I'm wondering what actions WRC has taken so far.
 

If the MySQL database is WRC's own, it could be some kind of MySQL (configuration?) problem as well.

Generally the shared host provides the mySQL (and other) infrastructure as part of their service offering. If there's a configuration problem it could be under their control or some setting that's accessible to each customer. If the latter the problem could be with WRC or, more likely, some other customer.

It's possible, but unlikely, that this issue is caused by WRC. I suspect that this site is too low volume compared to affect the averages.

I have been meaning to contribute toward the costs but I have to admit that I haven't done so yet ...  

I notice WRC has a donation page that uses PayPal. Is this anonymous, i.e. does PayPal identify the donor to WRC by username or by real name?

[Spokes]

These MySQL connection errors have become increasingly frequent, as have slowdowns and timeouts in general. I realize this forum is free and that the cost of operating it has to come from somewhere. I appreciate the efforts and financial support of those behind this forum. My intent isn't to criticize but to (hopefully) help resolve these issues.

FWIW I've been involved for many years with another website that operates on the same principles as WRC, i.e. free to all thanks to the personal financial support of a few. We've always run on a shoe string budget that necessitated the use of a "cheap" shared host service like http://www.bluehost.com/. We've experienced similar slowdowns and timeouts. Occasionally this was due to a configuration issue with our host service provider. But most often it's been due to one or more other sites that are hosted on the same server as ours. It took persistent reports of service issues to the hosting company, including provision of statistical proof of service degradation, to get them to address the issue. I have no idea if they intervened with the offending site or simply moved us to a different host. The point is that the squeaking wheel gets the grease. 

I wonder if the management of WRC could comment on how aware they are of current service issues and what they're doing to address them. What can we do to help (e.g. money, reports of service issues, etc.)?

I've noticed increased issues lately too, although I admit I haven't been on the site as much lately due to being out of town.  

The site is indeed hosted by GoDaddy as someone mentioned.  I'm going to get in touch with them to find out what the issue is.  As the summer progresses if it isn't solved I'll be looking into other options.

I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a tech genius.  I have some knowledge of this stuff, but not a ton.  If changes are made I'll be asking for help.  That being said, we're not working with unlimited resources here.  I pay for this site out of my own pocket.  A couple of donations have helped (THANK YOU again!) but it's not like funds are unlimited.

Continuing to report service issues is helpful as it gives me data when finding a solution.  As for money, if an increased service package is needed, that's something that will be addressed.  But I don't think we're getting enough traffic to necessitate that. 

I have not reached out to GoDaddy as of yet, that's the next step.

[Spokes]

It looks like WRC is hosted by GoDaddy.  They should have enough horsepower in their data centre to support WRC, but clearly there is an issue somewhere.  If the MySQL database is WRC's own, it could be some kind of MySQL (configuration?) problem as well.

I have been meaning to contribute toward the costs but I have to admit that I haven't done so yet ...  

Everything is hosted on GoDaddy. The database is through them as well.

I'm just a guy who put something together quick when WW went down and I've been trying to learn as I go. The great thing is that by the sounds of things there are some knowledgeable people around.

[Spokes]

It looks like WRC is hosted by GoDaddy.  They should have enough horsepower in their data centre to support WRC, but clearly there is an issue somewhere.

They should. But here's the "dirty little secret" of the shared hosting business. They all advertise "unlimited" resources like bandwidth, data, etc. Obviously they can't really provide that if everyone takes advantage of unlimited resources. To keep costs down they put customers on shared servers, hoping that it will all average out. 

But if you have one or a few sites that are poorly configured or overloaded they'll affect service for everyone on that shared server. Sometimes it's a configuration issue that the offending customer can correct. Even so the host service provider has to detect that there's an issue and contact that site about it (and hope that the customer's technical people know what they're doing.) 

Other times it's a customer whose needs have grown beyond the abilities of a few dollars a month shared service can provide. Understandably they may not want to spend more when they've been promised "unlimited."

This is much like a buffet or all-you-can-eat restaurant. One or two hungry students who aim to get good value for their money may be tolerable. But an invasion by a horde of them may be quite a different matter. The manager of the restaurant then has three options; (1) ask the abusers to show consideration for others, (2) throw them out or (3) take a hands-off approach and simply provide less food to others.

When the hosting service (or restauranteur) is getting paid relatively little they're not likely to do much unless lots of other customers complain. That's why I'm wondering what actions WRC has taken so far.
 

If the MySQL database is WRC's own, it could be some kind of MySQL (configuration?) problem as well.

Generally the shared host provides the mySQL (and other) infrastructure as part of their service offering. If there's a configuration problem it could be under their control or some setting that's accessible to each customer. If the latter the problem could be with WRC or, more likely, some other customer.

It's possible, but unlikely, that this issue is caused by WRC. I suspect that this site is too low volume compared to affect the averages.

I have been meaning to contribute toward the costs but I have to admit that I haven't done so yet ...  

I notice WRC has a donation page that uses PayPal. Is this anonymous, i.e. does PayPal identify the donor to WRC by username or by real name?

Thanks for that breakdown of how the hosting company works.  That makes a lot of sense now.  

The mySQL infrastructure is indeed a part of their service offering.  When I get in contact with them, should I instruct them to focus their energy there?

The donation page can be anonymous or not.  If you want it to be, simply log out and make the donation, or if you don't want to be, stay logged in.

[ookpik]

Thanks for that breakdown of how the hosting company works.  That makes a lot of sense now.  

The mySQL infrastructure is indeed a part of their service offering.  When I get in contact with them, should I instruct them to focus their energy there?

The donation page can be anonymous or not.  If you want it to be, simply log out and make the donation, or if you don't want to be, stay logged in.

First, thank you again for taking the initiative to start this site as well as for your dedication and financial support to keep it operational.

The more information you can provide GoDaddy, the better. Screen shots such as the MySQL error that tomh009 provided above would be useful. So would reports from the user community of excessive delays and timeouts, e.g. "date/time taking 10 to 20 seconds to get a response." You might want to set up a dedicated thread for this so as not to clutter this one. Let's see how they respond to solid, objective reports.

Incidentally I don't think MySQL is causing these problems. It's more likely reporting errors because it's a victim of an ovreloaded system. After all I'm seeing slowdowns and timeouts that don't result in MySQL messages. Presumably these occur when some other component of the forum infrastructure is the victim. But that's just a guess on my part.

Thanks also for the info about how to anonymize donations. Please keep us apprised of what we can do to help.

[Spokes]

So I just talked to the people at GoDaddy, like ookpik guessed, the issues aren't mySQL related, but traffic related.  We're getting a lot more users than I ever anticpated.  While that's amazing, it's also an issue.  On a shared server that results in some times that are quite laggy.  He suggested moving to a VPS set up, something I had not ever thought about, and frankly I'm not sure if right now I can manage due to the cost.

Please continue to give us any problem times as that will help to make a decision.  I've set up a thread about server issues here

Thanks to everyone for being patient and making this site so great!

[tomh009]

So I just talked to the people at GoDaddy, like ookpik guessed, the issues aren't mySQL related, but traffic related.  We're getting a lot more users than I ever anticpated.  While that's amazing, it's also an issue.  On a shared server that results in some times that are quite laggy.  He suggested moving to a VPS set up, something I had not ever thought about, and frankly I'm not sure if right now I can manage due to the cost.

Please continue to give us any problem times as that will help to make a decision.  I've set up a thread about server issues here

Thanks to everyone for being patient and making this site so great!

I agree it's traffic-related, but it's specifically MySQL that's responding slowly, based on the error messages.  It's the MySQL server (that's shared with other web sites) that's overloaded, so it's not just WRC traffic that's the problem.

Back in the old days (5-10 years ago) I ran a database-intensive web site with close to 10M page views/month (each one resulting in multiple database queries).  It all ran on a single MySQL server, and not expensive hardware, either (we did our own hosting, but didn't have much of a budget).  I don't think WRC's load should be even close at this point.

The trouble with switching providers is that there is no guarantee the new one will be better.  Or that they will stay better.

[tomh009]

One more thought: I suspect that we are running MyBB 1.6 as version 1.8 was not released until September last year. 1.8 should have a number of performance improvements, which really means that it will put less load on the MySQL server. So if it is 1.6 currently, an upgrade would definitely be worth trying.

[Spokes]

1.8 came out just prior to doing the new site design Oct 1. We're running 1.8.x whatever the new update is.

[tomh009]

OK, that's good. (Well, at least it's one less thing to investigate.)

[kwliving]

So I just talked to the people at GoDaddy, like ookpik guessed, the issues aren't mySQL related, but traffic related.  We're getting a lot more users than I ever anticpated.  While that's amazing, it's also an issue.  On a shared server that results in some times that are quite laggy.  He suggested moving to a VPS set up, something I had not ever thought about, and frankly I'm not sure if right now I can manage due to the cost.

I'm not surprised it was suggested you spend more money to solve the problem. I was with GoDaddy for a blog that didn't have much traffic and still had occasional timeouts. For now, I'd suggest you insist it is them causing the problem.

[taylortbb]

He suggested moving to a VPS set up, something I had not ever thought about, and frankly I'm not sure if right now I can manage due to the cost.

GoDaddy may not be best place to get a VPS (they're actually known for being pretty terrible in every way, but that's not the point here...). A GoDaddy VPS is $34/month for 1GB of RAM, while Linode is only $10/month for the same. Yet Linode has much better customer service, less overloaded servers, etc. It's targeted at a more technical audience, but I think there's a few members here that could help out with that (myself included).

[tomh009]

He suggested moving to a VPS set up, something I had not ever thought about, and frankly I'm not sure if right now I can manage due to the cost.

GoDaddy may not be best place to get a VPS (they're actually known for being pretty terrible in every way, but that's not the point here...). A GoDaddy VPS is $34/month for 1GB of RAM, while Linode is only $10/month for the same. Yet Linode has much better customer service, less overloaded servers, etc. It's targeted at a more technical audience, but I think there's a few members here that could help out with that (myself included).

The $34 is a managed VPS, unmanaged VPS (similar to Linode) is $20.

But I do agree that GoDaddy isn't necessarily the best choice for the long term.

[Spokes]

Thanks for all of the advice everyone, much appreciated!

[Canard]

"Quick Edit" doesn't seem to work with Chrome.