# Server busy



## GrondramB

I've occasionally seen some messages like this










With the new owners are there plans for more servers?


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## rhuntington3

And I just lost the forum for several minutes. None of the pages would load.


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## GrondramB

rhuntington3 said:


> And I just lost the forum for several minutes. None of the pages would load.


I was looking at the TCF traffic on Alexa - it looks like it used to be 10 times as high - you'd think it would not be a fundamental limitation - maybe something is wrong.


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## mrmike

I've gotten server busy search disabled messages a half-dozen times today. I do not usually see this message. The annoying thing is that it seems to set the "visited" flag when this happens so that when the load goes down, all the threads are marked read and I don't see them on a search for new content. Waah. Just another data point.


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## wscannell

mrmike said:


> I've gotten server busy search disabled messages a half-dozen times today. I do not usually see this message. The annoying thing is that it seems to set the "visited" flag when this happens so that when the load goes down, all the threads are marked read and I don't see them on a search for new content. Waah. Just another data point.


I have been getting blank pages or timeouts over the last 30-60 minutes.


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## mrmike

And here we go again. Last two days it's been ludicrous. Honestly, guys, is something up?


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## Bilbrey

mrmike said:


> I've gotten server busy search disabled messages a half-dozen times today. I do not usually see this message. The annoying thing is that it seems to set the "visited" flag when this happens so that when the load goes down, all the threads are marked read and I don't see them on a search for new content. Waah. Just another data point.


Thanks, I had been wondering why my notification was wonky.

And I'll add my voice to almost unusable forum access. 
That was why I looked around for a thread like this...


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## latrobe7

I don't understand why this is so frequent - this site is down more than any other site I visit. Is it just TCF, or are other forums like this, too (this is the only one I regularly visit)?

It's frustrating when you type a reply then hit 'post', and it just hangs, then your post doesn't show up... I wonder if this one will make it!


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## Jeff Block

Greetings, fellow funseekers...

I just wanted to let you all know that we're on it. When we purchased TiVo Community, we knew that there would be a fairly immediate need to bring vBulletin up to the latest version, and address a few of these performance concerns. So that's what we're doing.

We are currently working on the following three upgrades that will hopefully address this and a few of the other concerns we've heard expressed by the community...


We are preparing to upgrade to the latest in vBulletin goodness: v3.6.8.
By popular demand, we are in the process of creating a new batch of skins, including some new non-orange options never before seen on the site.
Lastly, we are upgrading the underlying hardware to address performance concerns such as the ones that motivated this thread.

These changes will be in effect soon, and will hopefully serve to improve your experience on the community. We're excited about them, and hope you are too.

If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to send me a private message or post a reply.

See you around the community,

-Jeff


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## scottjf8

Good news, Jeff!


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## rhuntington3

Great news, Jeff! Thank you for the update!


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## richsadams

It's really frustrating when you want to read/post/rant/help and get a very slow or no response...which seems to be the norm more and more these days. As a matter of fact it happened while making this post. Guess it means that the site is continuing to become more and more popular. :up: 

Thanks Jeff...much appreciated.


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## sushikitten

Still getting tons of time outs, server down, and I just tried to search and I was told nope, server load too high. 

Are we any closer to a solution?


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## richsadams

jenhudson said:


> Still getting tons of time outs, server down, and I just tried to search and I was told nope, server load too high.
> 
> Are we any closer to a solution?


Yep...this is getting really frustrating. 

Although it can be erratic, I've found that there is at least one specific time when things go south...around 11:55 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. and then around midnight PDT. No idea why, but I can almost set my clock by it!

My advice? Don't worry so much about updating the forum skin and options...we can live with them. Move this puppy to a server with the processing speed, memory and capacity to handle the peak loads.

Its getting to be almost as slow and unreliable as the TiVo web site itself! 

Thanks. :up:


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## TIVO_GUY_HERE

Between 3:15 and 3:30PM Central Time here, you can set your watch by it.


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## richsadams

TIVO_GUY_HERE said:


> Between 3:15 and 3:30PM Central Time here, you can set your watch by it.


Funny you mention that...I just noticed it at the exact same time here (PDT that is). Might not have been on at that time very much before.

Also noted that it's been plain awful today. Timeouts, slow response, no response, "Server Too Busy"...yuck! 

P.S. This is karma...when I tried to post this message...guess what? Server busy error. Pitiful.


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## richsadams

Ive also noticed that Im now receiving an e-mail for every single post being added to threads Im subscribed to.  

Before they would only generate an e-mail for the most recent post and no more. You had to log on to that thread to reactivate the generation of e-mail messages. If you didnt you were basically unsubscribed from that thread until you did log onto it again.

I wonder if everyone is seeing that and that all of this activity accounts for the more recent slow downs and timeouts? 

I know when I was running web servers that e-mail accounted for a huge amount of processing power and memory usage. With recent software upgrade problems, the activity on the forum has really increased. Hopefully the new owners will take the time to find a server with more capacity. This is getting really, really aggravating.


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## Bilbrey

I've been hit and miss on thread notification. Sometimes I don't get a notification, but a few days later I will get one and find out that I missed a few days of a thread.


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## richsadams

Bilbrey said:


> I've been hit and miss on thread notification. Sometimes I don't get a notification, but a few days later I will get one and find out that I missed a few days of a thread.


That's happened to me as well...no e-mail at all and later I find that someone has responded to something I wrote and thinks Im ignoring them.

Other times I've gotten several copies of the same e-mail. At first I thought it was due to the OP re-editing the content. But then I started looking at the copies and they were identical.

Strange.


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## waldingrl

Thanks, Jeff!

Any idea how long before we're back full force? These downtimes are actually causing me to get work done and now they're suspicious.


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## richsadams

waldingrl said:


> Thanks, Jeff!
> 
> Any idea how long before we're back full force? These downtimes are actually causing me to get work done and now they're suspicious.


Ha! You mean _real_ work?! Good one! 

Today has been more than frustrating w/continual "Server Busy" messages and the site being totally unreachable repeatedly. Sigh.


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## Bilbrey

Yep, got this earlier today:


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## David Bott

Just an update for Jeff is away...New server is done and testing on the conversion to the new version of Vb is on the way. (As well testing on the new server.) At the same time the new style is almost done along with the new two new color choices. I do think they are looking at the first weekend in November. (They have spent considerable resources on this upgrade.)

Look for a full update to come next week from Jeff.


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## waldingrl

Thanks for the update, David.


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## richsadams

David Bott said:


> Just an update for Jeff is away...New server is done and testing on the conversion to the new version of Vb is on the way. (As well testing on the new server.) At the same time the new style is almost done along with the new two new color choices. I do think they are looking at the first weekend in November. (They have spent considerable resources on this upgrade.)
> 
> Look for a full update to come next week from Jeff.


Thanks very much David...you can never have too much communication. :up:


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## rkester

Based on the Server Busy messages I am getting many times a day every day now, an upgrade is definitely going to be welcomed!

Is it done yet?
Is it done yet?
Now?
Maybe now?
Is it done now?


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## mwhip

What do you guys have back there handling this? A spider monkey on a commodore 64? Are you upgrading it to a chimp on a 386?


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## Mike Lang

mwhip said:


> Are you upgrading it to a chimp on a 386?


If you're volunteering, bring a 386.


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## rkester

I've always wondered how much processing power a site with this kind of traffic requires, what kind of bandwidth, etc. I know it's not some dude with a old linux box running off his home DSL for sure.


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## richsadams

mwhip said:


> What do you guys have back there handling this? A spider monkey on a commodore 64? Are you upgrading it to a chimp on a 386?


HA! ROFLMO...actually out loud! Good one! 

The site has really been pretty pathetic today...miserably slow or unreachable. Hopefully it's due to some behind the scenes work on the new one. :up:


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## mwhip

Mike Lang said:


> If you're volunteering, bring a 386.


Sure and mine is more "capable" than theirs.


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## dswallow

It's been degrading for a couple weeks; it seems to happen a lot more often and throughout the day instead of at specific times.


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## rhuntington3

Yesterday and today in particular have been quite bad.


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## mrmike

Rant: Once again I do a "New Posts", I get the server busy screen, I wait a while, do it again and instead of 3 hours of New Posts, I get the 10 minutes since I tried and failed. AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH. There. I'm done now.


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## IJustLikeTivo

This is getting pretty pathetic. I'm not sure what they're doing or not doing but they need to stop do or not doing it soon.


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## richsadams

IJustLikeTivo said:


> This is getting pretty pathetic. I'm not sure what they're doing or not doing but they need to stop do or not doing it soon.


AMEN! :up: :up:


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## Jeff Block

Hi, gang...

Sorry I've been MIA. I was on vacation last week, and am just getting through the huge pile of email that awaited my return. I wanted to post quickly and assure the community that we are aware of the performance issues on the site, and that the long-awaited upgrade designed to address these issues is coming. In fact, we should see it in the next week or two, as David indicated.

Just be patient a bit longer, and we'll get things fixed up right nice. (Yes, I headed to the south for vacation.)  

Thanks, all!

-Jeff


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## richsadams

Jeff Block said:


> Hi, gang...
> 
> Sorry I've been MIA. I was on vacation last week, and am just getting through the huge pile of email that awaited my return. I wanted to post quickly and assure the community that we are aware of the performance issues on the site, and that the long-awaited upgrade designed to address these issues is coming. In fact, we should see it in the next week or two, as David indicated.
> 
> Just be patient a bit longer, and we'll get things fixed up right nice. (Yes, I headed to the south for vacation.)
> 
> Thanks, all!
> 
> -Jeff


Thanks very much for the update Jeff. Know you have a lot on your plate...but we just need the site to be reliable. Making it do more and look nice will be, well, nice...but having it available is most important IMHO.


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## steve614

So what new goodies are in the newer version of vBulletin?
Ability to show pics w/o having to host a site?
More emoticon smilies?


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## Deacon West

http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-P8086-2-8...oryZ1247QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

37 of these bad boys available. I'm just sayin'.


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## sushikitten

Searching has been currently disabled. This automatically happens when the server is under high load levels. When the load level drops to a safe point, the search feature will again be available. Thank you.


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## richsadams

jenhudson said:


> Searching has been currently disabled. This automatically happens when the server is under high load levels. When the load level drops to a safe point, the search feature will again be available. Thank you.


Thank you for the notice.

I think we're curious as to what constitutes "high load levels"? I've seen the site slow down or become completely inaccessible when there were 300 people on line as well as 1,300. Or is it relative to the other web sites and programs that are running on the same server the TCF is using. 

AND is there any news as to when we can expect the promised improvements?

Thanks again!


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## sushikitten

That wasn't actually a notice from me, LOL. That was the error I got for about 5 straight minutes while I was trying to search.


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## richsadams

jenhudson said:


> That wasn't actually a notice from me, LOL. That was the error I got for about 5 straight minutes while I was trying to search.


DOH! 

So _when _ should we expect those improvements again?


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## bareyb

Wow. I sure hope you guys are going to get the new servers online soon. This is getting ridiculous. I'm trying to solve a guide data problem with TivoJerry and the sites been giving me "Too Busy" messages off and on all afternoon. Even trying to post THIS message has kicked me out twice. Any ETA on when the site will be back up to par?


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## richsadams

Just a note of thanks for getting things back to normal server-wise and the upgrade to the forum. There have been a few occasions where things didn't respond or were slow in the first couple of days. But now it seems like everything is functioning five by five.

Having owned/operated servers and forums I know it was as big a pain or bigger on your end than ours...so thanks again for your hard work! :up: :up:


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## GrondramB

richsadams said:


> Just a note of thanks for getting things back to normal server-wise and the upgrade to the forum. There have been a few occasions where things didn't respond or were slow in the first couple of days. But now it seems like everything is functioning five by five.


Yep. The forum looks better. The forum works better. The database and server seem smooth and well suited - a really good job all around. Thank you.


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## Bilbrey

Yes, I've noticed much, much better [email protected]# $ %JL O#$ %O )TYQ E).........

Just kidding, things are much better! Thanks!


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