Site status 12/16/13: Still some connection errors

[RealBlackStuff]

Sorry Bill, but when is this effing server in Utah going to be thrown out?
It took me over FIVE minutes just to connect to forum.thinkpads.com/index.php
This server has been crap for MONTHS and is getting worse by the day!

Just to throw some reality in: this website cannot even CONNECT to yours: http://www.websitedown.info/forum.thinkpads.com

[frankiepankie]

The forum is also painfully slow to reach from the Netherlands.

This is what a traceroute looks like. It is always the 3rd last hop that gets a timeout.

Code: Select all

Trace route to forum.thinkpads.com [67.214.227.38]
with a maximum of 30 hops:


  6    32 ms    25 ms    20 ms  30gigabitethernet1-3.core1.ams1.he.net [195.69.145.150] 
  7    24 ms    23 ms    22 ms  10gigabitethernet1-4.core1.lon1.he.net [72.52.92.81] 
  8    91 ms    90 ms    99 ms  10gigabitethernet10-4.core1.nyc4.he.net [72.52.92.241] 
  9   112 ms   123 ms   124 ms  100gigabitethernet7-2.core1.chi1.he.net [184.105.223.161] 
 10   138 ms   136 ms   142 ms  10gigabitethernet3-2.core1.den1.he.net [184.105.213.86] 
 11   150 ms   156 ms   148 ms  10gigabitethernet1-2.core1.slc1.he.net [184.105.222.154] 
 12   180 ms   171 ms   167 ms  ace-data-centers-inc.10gigabitethernet1-4.core1.slc1.he.net [66.160.133.118] 
 13   189 ms   200 ms   205 ms  199-58-196-65.acedc.net [199.58.196.65] 
 14   158 ms   163 ms   149 ms  cust-veracity-vl451.ar01.prov.acedc.net [199.58.198.86] 
 15     *        *        *     Time-out 
 16   148 ms   150 ms   160 ms  67.214.240.74 
 17   164 ms   164 ms   147 ms  thinkpads.com [67.214.227.38] 

The trace is complete

I removed the first 5 lines because of my privacy

Also see the high response times when it leaves Amsterdam (6th hop)

[Temetka]

I don't know what is going on but for the last week, this site has been very very slow.

I have FiOS and every other site comes up very snappy. I am experiencing between 10 and 30 second waits to view new topics or posts. Sometimes I have to re-load the page. This is on different PC's at different physical locations as well. So I know it's not on my end.

I'm not complaining, just thought I would throw this out there for the admins to look into.

[jdhurst]

Earlier in this thread, speed was decent for me. But this past week or 10 days, it has been very slow for me as well.

Once in it seems to be decent again, but first access can take 60 seconds (rarely any more).

.... JDH

[crazeazn]

same goes here in texas

[mixz1]

Bad performance out of Cancun, Mexico, too. I've removed 2 hops for privacy, but they were 21 ms hops. Things really bog down north of the border. These reading are unique to this site.



3 94 ms 92 ms 94 ms bb-la-grand-5-pos0-14-5-0.uninet.net.mx [201.125.48.54]
4 93 ms * 91 ms Vlan553.icore1.EQL-LosAngeles.as6453.net [206.82.129.73]
5 92 ms 91 ms 91 ms te1-3-0d0.cir1.la3-ca.us.xo.net [205.158.79.205]

6 186 ms 126 ms 132 ms 207.88.14.209.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.14.209]
7 123 ms 186 ms 127 ms ae0d0.mcr1.saltlake2-ut.us.xo.net [216.156.0.6]

8 122 ms 111 ms 114 ms ip65-46-63-50.z63-46-65.customer.algx.net [65.46.63.50]
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 111 ms 110 ms 111 ms 67.214.240.74
12 111 ms 111 ms 111 ms thinkpads.com [67.214.227.38]

race complete.

[rkawakami]

Interesting. Here's a tracert I just performed here at work in Milpitas, CA (nothing removed for privacy ):

Tracing route to forum.thinkpads.com [67.214.227.38]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     4 ms     5 ms     4 ms  192.168.1.254
  2    10 ms    15 ms    13 ms  D32451FD.uspool.samsung.com [211.36.81.253]
  3    14 ms    16 ms    14 ms  211.189.41.169
  4    17 ms    17 ms    21 ms  u125.ppp66.samsung.co.kr [157.197.66.125]
  5    13 ms    13 ms    15 ms  u34.ppp66.samsung.co.kr [157.197.66.34]
  6    28 ms    22 ms    37 ms  10gigabitethernet7-3.core1.lax1.he.net [198.32.146.50]
  7    14 ms    20 ms    32 ms  10gigabitethernet1-3.core1.lax2.he.net [72.52.92.122]
  8    31 ms    33 ms    23 ms  10gigabitethernet3-1.core1.las1.he.net [184.105.222.162]
  9    43 ms    47 ms    48 ms  10gigabitethernet1-1.core1.slc1.he.net [184.105.222.158]
 10    57 ms    48 ms   104 ms  ace-data-centers-inc.10gigabitethernet1-4.core1.slc1.he.net [66.160.133.118]
 11    42 ms    51 ms    49 ms  199-58-196-65.acedc.net [199.58.196.65]
 12    45 ms    53 ms    48 ms  cust-veracity-vl451.ar01.prov.acedc.net [199.58.198.86]
 13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 14    50 ms    45 ms    44 ms  67.214.240.74
 15    70 ms    57 ms    78 ms  thinkpads.com [67.214.227.38]

Trace complete.

Corporate LAN goes to South Korea, comes back to the US via Hurricane Electric in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. Something in or after the Ace Data Centers server in Provo, UT is not responding to ICMP packets. The latencies don't look too bad, except for that third measurement at 66.160.133.118. In spite of these times, when I just previewed this post for the first time, it took about 30 seconds to get a response. Subsequent previews have been a little bit faster to almost no delay at all. I've blackholed the cdn.caspion.com server via an entry in my hosts file so that it is not contributing to the delay. During the delays, Firefox says it's waiting for forum.thinkpads.com.

[Tasurinchi]

From here, I get very different speeds during the day, sometimes responsive, sometimes slow as hell. What I find strange/funny is that after clicking on "logout" takes ages to log me out of the page.

[JaneL]

I was on vacation last week and don't think I accessed TPF at all until today. It's unacceptably slow this morning. Frankly, I think getting this fixed is a much higher priority than fiddling around with a new forum platform.

[dorronto]

ok, I'm in..

it's slow, slow, slow......sometimes I get error messages on my tablets.. second time works though...

it seems to be getting worse....this is not a "graphic intensive" site....

HELP....

Ron

[JaneL]

It's unacceptedly slow for me. I was in earlier this morning and tried to post a message. Got some kind of server issue message and just bailed. This is going to kill the forum if it keeps up.

[91011]

For me, it's pretty much been this way since the January crash.
Connection speed varies but doesn't seem to be time of day dependent, although the 'too many connections' error seems to happen more often in the mid-day.

[ajkula66]

This is going to kill the forum if it keeps up.

My thoughts eactly. And the traffic has been on the downside ever since the crash...

[RealBlackStuff]

Is anybody going to DO something about this disastrous behavior?

I get plenty of these messages as well:

General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysql4 ]

Too many connections [1040]

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.

Bill, Jane, Ray?

[rkawakami]

There's some discussions going on behind the scenes about upgrading the site's forum software. Forum is on a dedicated server with thinkpads.com so I don't think there's much that can be done hardware-wise to improve response times.

Just yesterday I received the first "too many connections" error message I've seen in months. Didn't think at the time to check to see how many users were logged in; I'll do that the next time it happens. It was pretty slow (10-25 second wait) at times but this morning it's fairly snappy (0-5 seconds). Be aware that I hit many pages when scanning/updating user profiles and moving spam, besides my normal thread reading/posting habits.

Just previewed this message 3 times before posting and it took 3 seconds, 6 seconds and 5 seconds.

edit: Checked the Who's online stats; 101 users, majority of them are spiders.

[jdhurst]

Bill - You may wish to comment about the long term viability of this forum, especially given that it is free. Some of us have donated, but successful forums either have a fee or some sort of sponsorship.

I use this forum and I stop in at the Lenovo forum from time to time. I do not mind volunteering time here, but I have no web or SQL skills or experience to volunteer.

I am a member at Experts Exchange. This is a paid forum that covers very wide ranging ground. I never collide with SQL experts even though I do quite well in the topics in which I participate. That is how wide ranging it is.

So with Lenovo now covering PC Support (thankless job, if I may say that), Experts Exchange covering a broad range of technical and some business topics, and then Seven Forums and the like covering specific topics such as Windows 7, does the Thinkpads Forum have a long term future? All the other forums above (excluding Thinkpads) have fees or sponsorship to keep them going. I don't think any of them are dependent on one or two persons.

It is just a thought on my part, and I am not advocating any particular position. Howver I would be interested in some comments.

.... JDH

[RealBlackStuff]

There's some discussions going on behind the scenes about upgrading the site's forum software.

Changing to Jelsoft's vBulletin would be nice, but not really required if the server is OK.

Forum is on a dedicated server with thinkpads.com so I don't think there's much that can be done hardware-wise to improve response times.

Wrong!
Moving the lot to a better organized hosting company with proper server-backup would make one HELL of a difference!
I might even go so far and suggest to host thinkpads.com in e.g. Germany or so, to stop the US government from prying and spying!
This company comes to mind: http://www.hostm.com/ (where I host my own websites)

[TuuS]

I'm sure you've all seen this error already, but figured I'd post a screenshot since it seems to be creeping up more often lately.

[rkawakami]

Yes I have . I've not received this message until today. I've already posted in the mod/admin forum about it. Bill says that there's a call into the server farm.

edit: Currently 91 users are logged in and the response time is pretty good at the moment.... Make that "fair-to-poor". This message took about 15 seconds to complete.

edit 6/19 @ 1:10PM PDT: 97 users and the response time is fair. At the most I've had to wait 7 or 8 seconds for pages to complete loading.
edit 6/19 @ 1:50PM PDT: 115 users and it took about 30 seconds to log out of the forum.

[crazeazn]

anybody else having an issue of getting PMs like a couple days after the fact?

[91011]

Today I've gotten five emails saying I have a new PM but the inbox is empty and the senders listed in the emails appear to be the same as PMs received beginning 5/17.

[crazeazn]

Today I've gotten five emails saying I have a new PM but the inbox is empty and the senders listed in the emails appear to be the same as PMs received beginning 5/17.

same just happened to me..it was all PMs from last week!

[ajkula66]

same just happened to me..it was all PMs from last week!

Yep, same here, along with multiple notifications for old posts/threads...

[mixz1]

Today I've gotten five emails saying I have a new PM but the inbox is empty and the senders listed in the emails appear to be the same as PMs received beginning 5/17.

Ditto. Seems as though since the crash the forum software has been in a steady state of degradation.

[mixz1]

This morning I received an email, the second and third lines of which read:

If you want to view the newest post made since your last visit, click the following link:

http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... 2&e=712352

Clicking on the link results in:

You are not authorised to read this forum.

The use of non-North American spelling notwithstanding, things are rapidly going FUBAR.

[rkawakami]

The use of non-North American spelling notwithstanding, things are rapidly going FUBAR.

Not really the case here. The post in question was a piece of spam that I moved to a forum that is not accessible to the public.

[mixz1]

I think all forums receive spam. I think all, or at least most forums remove spam. Do most forums send out this kind of notification for an administrator removed message? I would not have commented if I didn't think this unusual.

[rkawakami]

Well, it goes like this.. If a member subscribes to a thread AND a new post is made AND assuming that the email notification system is working properly , the email will be sent within a minute or two. If a mod or admin then sees the post and moves it out of public view (the preferred method here and what I did in this case at 2:24AM PDT; about 45 minutes after the fact), when you come along later and click on the link in the notification email, you'll be trying to access the post which is now residing in a special forum where only the mods and admins have access. Thus, the "you are not authorised" message.

Sorry about the British English spelling but it's the default behaviour .

[mixz1]

Thanks Ron. BTW, the spelling is the way the rest of the world spells it. The "z" is unique to North America.

[rkawakami]

"Now you can call me Ray, or you can call me J. but you doesn't hasta call me Ron" .

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_J._Johnson