What's up with ILX?

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posting times appear to be awry and new answers is not updating. This is partly a test to see where it appears in new answers.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:33 (twenty-four years ago)

Nowheresville, daddy-o

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:34 (twenty-four years ago)

Aha, we appear to be living in the past, june 27th 2001 to be precise.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:35 (twenty-four years ago)

Willoughby! Next stop: Willoughby!

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:36 (twenty-four years ago)

It's oddly light out for 10:35 p.m.

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:36 (twenty-four years ago)

yes it is appearing in new answers four years ago i guess

we must roust an admin out of porpid slumber

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:37 (twenty-four years ago)

This might have to wait until Australia shakes the dew off and gets to work

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:38 (twenty-four years ago)

Noodles may be able to fix it as well.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:38 (twenty-four years ago)

Australia! He's still in Saigon as far as I know.

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:39 (twenty-four years ago)

The past is a foreign country- they post things differently there.

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:39 (twenty-four years ago)

this is like when phil greenspun's dogs peed on the server!!

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:40 (twenty-four years ago)

Why not? It's well known that dogs do time travel. Cf Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman.

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 27 June 2001 03:44 (twenty-four years ago)

four years pass...

Somebody better save important recent threads in case the whole sucker goes down. I'm thinking of one or two in particular but I'm not going to say which.

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 18 July 2005 19:53 (twenty years ago)

huzzah

― Ed (dali), Monday, 18 July 2005 19:56 (twenty years ago)

We're back! But something seems slightly different. Who's the cute new Yeoman that just left the bridge, Lt. Sulu?

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 18 July 2005 20:00 (twenty years ago)

lots seem different to me. the regular posters are curiously absent since about a week ago. It feels different to me somehow. Anyone lese feel it or am I just paranoid?

― Wiggy (Wiggy), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 05:26 (twenty years ago)

It's not surprising that the atmosphere has been a bit subdued for a while.

Plus, of course, Ned is away travelling.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 07:38 (twenty years ago)

88 miles an hour!

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 19 July 2005 07:41 (twenty years ago)

I keeo getting Poxy fuled, I hate that message. :-(

― PinXorchiXoR (Pinkpanther), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 08:00 (twenty years ago)

I kinda like it. Lead On O Poxy Fule reminds me of Lead On, O Kinky Turtle, etc.

― Rum, Sodomy and the LAN (kate), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 08:03 (twenty years ago)

This may be a silly question but what would it actually take to stop ILX going down like this or getting poxyfule pwnage EVERY DAY due to increased requests in the States?

Lots of people donated before when server space/location was in jeopardy and Andrew was able to buy more powerful hardware, meaning things sped up and were generally better.

If people were to donate again, could anything be done to improve speed and uptime even more?

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 08:42 (twenty years ago)

take out more features from ilx maybe?

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:14 (twenty years ago)

Delete the USA?

― alext (alext), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:21 (twenty years ago)

Is it more a code issue or the massive bandwidth demands that is the problem? If the latter then donating towards a more powerful server/line /capacity seems possible (tho people probably wouldn't bother). Other hugely popular sites and communities don't break so often it seems. I am not an expert on these issues though - certainly not wrt ILX setup.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:24 (twenty years ago)

Perhaps be a bit more ruthless about the posting of graphics/images to the boards, since I would imagine these would probably use up quite a lot of bandwidth in themselves?

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:34 (twenty years ago)

is that actually the case, as they're all remote-hosted?

― toby (tsg20), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:37 (twenty years ago)

well no actually since all the images are actually hosted on other sites. in fact if we send all our posts as jpegs stored on our own servers, it'd probably relief some pressure from the ilx server itself.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:38 (twenty years ago)

relieve

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:38 (twenty years ago)

Doesn't it have to do with moderators doing *things* (like checking IPs or deleting threads or...)? That's what I read somewhere on ILX but I could be wrong of course. The downtime is always short these days, no?

― nathalie's body's designed for two (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:43 (twenty years ago)

Locking threads tends to bring ILX to it's knees, during BST/GMT afternoons at least. I probably shouldn't say this as it's effectively a tip-off for menk trolls everywhere.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:45 (twenty years ago)

oh wow. alext otm.

― ILX, Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:49 (twenty years ago)

I'm more than willing to contribute some money if it'd help. Then again maybe the downtime is good: we get more work done. heheh

― nathalie's body's designed for two (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:50 (twenty years ago)

Tom, delete US now please.

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:53 (twenty years ago)

big breasts v small breasts (23 new answers, 251 total)

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 09:54 (twenty years ago)

TS: Big Tits or Thin (41 new answers)

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:11 (twenty years ago)

If the latter then donating towards a more powerful server/line /capacity seems possible (tho people probably wouldn't bother)

i'm not sure: i think they would. both popbitch and b3ta have appealed for donations, and both got a good whack of cash. fuck it, if it was a choice between knackered ILX and a few quid, i know which i'd choose.

― grimly understands (grimlord), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:23 (twenty years ago)

i take it popbitch and b3ta don't poxyfule every day, so why does ILX?

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:36 (twenty years ago)

a) they both have rather more server power than ILX does?

b) it's a coding issue?

c) it's a backend efficiency issue?

(i'm guessing, really)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:38 (twenty years ago)

[looks around for jaunty alan or someone who can explain this stuff]

fact remains: with every post, the server capacity must be reducing. so at some point we're going to need to upgrade. call me old-fashioned, but it seems only right and proper that we, the users/community/whatever, dig deep. it's a bit like a steeple-restoration fund, innit?

perhaps we could have a tombola or a bring-and-buy sale. ned could sell locks of his hair. etc.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:47 (twenty years ago)

have you never read the story of samson?

if ned's hair falls, so falls the empire!!

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:48 (twenty years ago)

ForestPines, those are my guesses too, so I am suggesting we put that right by shelling out for an upgrade as was done before.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:50 (twenty years ago)

fact remains: with every post, the server capacity must be reducing.

That's true, at least in terms of disk space; but it doesn't necessarily explain why the server keeps poxy-fuling *now*.

I am suggesting we put that right by shelling out for an upgrade as was done before.

Suggesting we put Theory A right, you mean?

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:51 (twenty years ago)

If Ned is Victor Mature I'd like to meet Hedy Lamarr please!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:52 (twenty years ago)

fact remains: with every post, the server capacity must be reducing.

If this is a plea to make me post less, PHAT CHANCE. ;-)

― nathalie's body's designed for two (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:52 (twenty years ago)

xpost 2

if Theory A is indeed the reason yes, I mean (tho to be honest I wouldn't have thought it would be as the current server isn't THAT old).

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:53 (twenty years ago)

No, I would have thought it to be more likely to be one of the others myself; but not knowing anything about the code or the database it's hard to say.

(what database does ILX run on? I've a feeling it's MySQL but I don't know where I got that from)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:55 (twenty years ago)

Didn't we just do the new servers one year ago? It can't be that already.. Maybe the SEARCH feature is screwing us over a bit. Seems like searching during peak hours is very slow and causes the poxy fulery.

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 10:58 (twenty years ago)

forest pines is quite right. mysql. coding. efficiency. all that.

― Britain's Jauntiest Shepherd (Alan), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 11:00 (twenty years ago)

sorry Alan :(

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 11:06 (twenty years ago)

I've a feeling it's MySQL but I don't know where I got that from

Poxy Fule reveals all.

― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 11:07 (twenty years ago)

I seem to remember so much cash was raised last time we were able to get quite swanky servers. I'm not a technical person, though.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

We should orchestrate some kind of decentralised ILX. What's that? Shut up? OK.

― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 11:09 (twenty years ago)

i have a spare 1997-vintage powerbook and limited bandwidth. so, er, that's no use.

perhaps we should have a whipround to buy alan (or someone else who knows stuff) a month off work, so they can dedicate themself to spring-cleaning the code :)

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 11:12 (twenty years ago)

Poxy Fule reveals all.

So it does! That must have been lurking in my subconscious from numerous poxyfulings.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 11:14 (twenty years ago)

Delete the USA?

Yes.

― Leon C. (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 12:11 (twenty years ago)

i think proper coding is the key here.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 12:18 (twenty years ago)

Are there any queries that would be helped by additional indexing of the database's tables?

(does MySQL have a PostgreSQL-style EXPLAIN command to help you find this out?)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 12:26 (twenty years ago)

Do you think any of this has to do with the fact that the servers are in Australia? I mean, for most of us, that is very far away. I know the Interweb is one big happy global network that shouldn't matter where you are, but to get to Oz is going through a lot of hubs, nodes, etc, etc. I could be talking nonsense here. I wonder, do our Aussie ILXors get poxyfule messages regularly?

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 12:40 (twenty years ago)

Do you think any of this has to do with the fact that the servers are in Australia?

Nah.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 12:42 (twenty years ago)

trackbacks take a very long time.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 15:56 (twenty years ago)

Yes.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 16:04 (twenty years ago)

rmdir -s usa

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 16:05 (twenty years ago)

rmdir: invalid option -- s
Try `rmdir --help' for more information.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 17:45 (twenty years ago)

FUCKSOCKS

rm -rf usa

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 17:48 (twenty years ago)

Maybe the MySQL installation needs to be updated to a more modern version.

Also, I'm guessing there is some table level locking going on that is degrading performance during inserts and moderator actions.

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 17:52 (twenty years ago)

That sounds a plausible angle to explore - anyone know what level of locking MySQL uses? Record, page, table?

I'd be surprised if it's down to server muscle really, given what was bought not so long ago.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 17:57 (twenty years ago)

Table locking, last time I checked, so it's all about clever coding. Better servers won't help.

― grraham (noodles is a cunt), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 18:50 (twenty years ago)

Yep, that fits. Does 'last time I checked' imply that there are other options (or other defaults) on newer versions of MySQL, anything like that?

(ha, why am I acting as if I can guide discussion here? I know almost nothing of MySQL...)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 18:58 (twenty years ago)

A quick Google reveals InnoDB tables are available (and default) in newer versions of MySQL. Switching to them would solve all of ilx's problems (assuming they're still MyISAM). No built-in keyword searching/indexing, mind.

― grraham (noodles is a cunt), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 19:08 (twenty years ago)

oh, the irony of getting poxy fuled a few minutes ago while trying to go back to new answers from this thread :)

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 19:20 (twenty years ago)

It would seem to be scaling issues, but that's just a stab in the dark. It certainly seems as if the new answers page is generated dynamically on every load. With lots of users doing lots of loading, that's a lot of, er, load. Perhaps more cached pages? Who writes all this anyway?

― stet (stet), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 21:54 (twenty years ago)

do we have RSS feeds on ilx yet?

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 21:57 (twenty years ago)

we've had them for years! look at the bottom of the page!

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 23:29 (twenty years ago)

sorry for breaking ilx.

― cutty (mcutt), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 23:34 (twenty years ago)

Maybe I'm just geeky but despite not being a coder or knowing squat about databases, even I know the timeouts are purely load-on-database issues, and not bandwidth, number of hops, etc. The error that comes up tells you itself - too many queries on the database.

Is it possible things like search are being hammered a lot lately, for reasons Im sure I dont need to mention? :/ Are there audit logs of areas of load that can be assessed?

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 23:41 (twenty years ago)

for reference and speculation:

"
Warning: mysql_connect(): Too many connections in /home/ilx/dev/stable/boardfunctions.php on line 125
Problem loading page:
Unable to connect to SQL server. TURN BACK YOU POXY FULE."

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 00:37 (twenty years ago)

I'm going to switch everything from SAT 7 to SAT 9. Can somebody pull down the templates for the satellite feeds? I'm going to run a few profiles, see if I can't turn something up.

― Reiko Aylesworth (tracerhand), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 01:14 (twenty years ago)

I'm guessing that the poxyfuling is from contention for table locsk -- if ILX is using that. It may be using row level locking and still contending for updating of popular threads, etc. I am pretty sure there must be a table level lock in some of the admin code as I notice tons of poxy fuling whenever I ban someone from my circlejerk clubhouse.

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 01:18 (twenty years ago)

Aha! Let's all blame Jon!

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 07:44 (twenty years ago)

(I've just realised that by suggesting switching to InnoDB, given how much the new people hate me, they'll never do it. Sorry ILX)

― grraham (noodles is a cunt), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 08:24 (twenty years ago)

Graham, claiming they hate you, when you are using the login you are, is not going to fly.

Yes, it's the banning and locking out and so on that seems to cause the worst of the problems. Are you doing it a lot, Jon?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 11:11 (twenty years ago)

Why does it take so long? Is it because it first needs to wait for all transactions to finish in order to get a lock on the relevant tables?

(I'd imagine nearly all database transactions involve going through the table(s) holding the user info)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 11:14 (twenty years ago)

Many would, but most wouldn't involve writing to it, so wouldn't require locks.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 11:33 (twenty years ago)

No, but if the user-banning routine requires an *exclusive* lock, that will block all the other code that just wants to read the table.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 11:51 (twenty years ago)

(Martin, he earned the label through random hatefulness towards me)

The users table is only read once on the average page load, to check login details. I deliberately avoided doing joins against it when not necessary, so there shouldn't be any slow transactions it has to wait for to finish. This could be broken now, though.

― grraham (noodles is a cunt), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 11:55 (twenty years ago)

eight months pass...

The time stamp seems to have gone off by an hour sometime this evening.

― pixel farmer (Rock Hardy), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:06 (nineteen years ago)

the times, they are a changing, dj fuckface once sang

― charltonlido (gareth), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:16 (nineteen years ago)

pixel, BST in effekt!

― Yoo Doo Nut (donut), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:36 (nineteen years ago)

US DST in effekt next week tho

― Yoo Doo Nut (donut), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:36 (nineteen years ago)

'Cept The Standard Time They Get In Arizona

― Yoo Doo Nut (donut), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:36 (nineteen years ago)

bst this weekend also

― charltonlido (gareth), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:38 (nineteen years ago)

except the server is in Sydney... hmmm wait. or is it?

― Yoo Doo Nut (donut), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:38 (nineteen years ago)

The time would be out by an hour because:

- the server is in Melbourne
- daylight savings should have ended today
- it didn't because of the Commonwealth games (its been extended a week)
- unless you patched for that, it'd fuck up
- thus, it is outta whack. It'll come good next week unless someone fixes it sooner.

― Trayce (trayce), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:44 (nineteen years ago)

ilx0r, pwned by melbourne!!!

― haitch (haitch), Sunday, 26 March 2006 06:12 (nineteen years ago)

SHIT. thort i'd fixed this...

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Sunday, 26 March 2006 10:29 (nineteen years ago)

wait, the stamp on that post is ok. huh?

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Sunday, 26 March 2006 10:30 (nineteen years ago)

Rock Hardy is in AEST, that's set on the server with the offsets from UTC of

2005-10-29 16:00 ... 2006-03-25 16:00 = +11 hrs
2006-03-25 16:00 ... 2006-10-28 16:00 = +10 hrs

does what trayce is saying mean that 2006-03-25 should be put off for a week?

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Sunday, 26 March 2006 10:42 (nineteen years ago)

according to http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=152

Melbourne (AEST)

"DST ends on Sunday, 2 April 2006, 03:00 local daylight time
DST starts on Sunday, 29 October 2006, 02:00 local standard time"

which is different to every other year, so if i make this change on the server it should fix things...

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Sunday, 26 March 2006 10:45 (nineteen years ago)

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