Official Luthiers Forum!

Just a note:
We have had a few unexpected server outages and some very slow server speeds over the last three or four days.
We are pretty sure we have corrected what was causing this and hopefully we will not have any more interruptions.

Thanks.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Thanks for the update Lance! I thought it was just my crummy connection.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Thanks Lance, have missed the OLF when down but knew you guys would be on top of it.

Cheers

Kim

Great to know.  Now I hope the withdrawl twitching will go away quickly! 

Thanks, Lance.
I appreciate all the work it takes to keep something like the OLF going.
Regards
John

Thanks

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Hummmmmm....

Looks like we better try something else to fix the problem?

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Reguards,

Ken H

Given the circumstances, I think this latest outage came at a good time

Cheers

Kim

Yeah, clearly what we thought fixed it didn't.

We might be getting to a new solution in terms of software and host. I hate to say difinitively because some unknown "gotcha" could still crop up and sink the entire deal, but things are looking good. As a result the new company will provide both the hosting, the software and the customization we request (i.e. the functionality of a time elapse edit button).

If it continues to look like we may end up working with these folks we will probably continue as we are until this switch happens, if not, we will dig into the issue as to why the db keeps crashing. I suspect though that we are simply overwhelming Access.

There is no problem with the server, speed, or bandwidth. All of our problems are squarely rooted on that database and the cascading threads.

We are working toward a solution though.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Lance and Brock, you guys do a great job. Technical problems are inevitable. It surprises me that there are not more given the usage this site has.

Brock,

Thanks for the explanation! I’m sure you will resolve this issue.

Thanks again,

Robert

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Everything has beauty, But, not everyone see's it!

Brock... Just an FYI - depending on the version of access, you certainly can be overwhelming it, but... i am still running MS Access (2002) with little problems. I did have some problems running on older versions of windows and recently upgraded to a 2003 server and it completely got rid of the issues i was having. The older servers did not clean up the connections well and i inherited the code and only partially went through to make sure the connections were closed after the queries, but that certainly can hose the DB.

The main issue with access is the number of concurrent connections you can have, other than that, i have not had problems.

I do know that it is the building of the thread list that's killing you. When the DB crashes, then everything above the main discussion screams.

I would try modifying your queries just to return the titles of the threads and posts - no stats, no summaries and see what that does for performance.

If the program needs to caclulate all those stats for every post, every time it returns the list of messages, then there is a lot of overhead there. If the stats are kept on a table that is updated as posts are received than it shouldn't be an issue.

The same goes for the message summaries... when the list of messages comes up, one can use the mouse over and get a summary of each message without going to the post, so not only is the query returning the titles, but the body (or a truncated portion of it) with each title. You might want to turn that feature off and see if that helps.

Rob

I should have added that depending on your level of comfort that if you feel another set of eyes might help, feel free to PM me and we can set something up.

If you guys are geeks and wrote the code, feel free to tell me to MYOB.

Rob

Thanks Rob.

When we put up this version of the OLF we heavily modified the base Web Wiz code to create these cascading threads -- it was part of the previous version of the software and everyone felt culturally connected to it (much like how everyone currently feels so strongly about an edit button).

The problem is that the load this causes to the database is O? based on the number of page refreshes. We are literally seeing MILLIONS of transactions per hour during our busy period.

No doubt about it, the SQL code is inefficient -- we were warned when we implemented it. We knew this day would come.

What we DIDN'T count on was the difficulty these modifications (to the data stuctures) would cause in a smooth migration to another package.

We have taken a very serious look at two previous packages and the breakdown occurs when we need to import our existing member database and all associated fields, along with our archive of past messages.

Most companies either don't have the resources to help us with the integration, or offer a turn key solution and don't want to fool with helping us -- it just isn't in their business model.

However, we now have a company that seems confident that they can help us, and more than willing to stick by us to transition over to the new platform. They seem to have a nice stable of clients bigger than us and so far the support has been very good.

So let's keep our fingers crossed.   

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Thanks for this update Brock. It's good to hear what's going on behind the sceens. It helps us all to understand a bit more.

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I don't know if I'd be in the majority or not... But I'd vote just to archive this forum and start a new one from scratch. Then you can just pick the best forum software without regard for backwards compatibility to the old one. I think the initial hassle of getting new login names and passwords and looking back in the archives for older threads would be offset by the longterm advantages of having a more mainstream software, maybe something php-based. Our needs as a discussion forum are really not all that unique.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Jon, the new software is phpBB.
I know it would be quick and clean to do what you suggest, but we really want the transition to be seamless. Not even a need to re register. It can be done and as of yesterday the wheels have been put in motion.

I am confidant with the company that we have doing this. I sent a sample db to them a few weeks ago to test, and it worked out fine. So now the game plan is to recreate the environment just as we have it here (without cascading threads) and then once we have done that, lock the OLF to "read only" then grab the db, drop it in, update the name servers to point to the new site, then open the doors.

NOW with that said, its not going to happen over night, and there is a considerable cost involved. But we are on the path to improvement. Edit button here we come

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

That's great, best of both worlds then.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

[QUOTE=LanceK] .... So now the game plan is to recreate the environment just as we have it here (without cascading threads) and then once we have done that, lock the OLF to "read only" then grab the db, drop it in, update the name servers to point to the new site, then open the doors....
[/QUOTE]

Gee, Lance, you make it sound so simple!

Lance and Brock, thanks for the info. I've been curious about what you've been looking at, phpBB seems like a solid platform. Hope the switch-over doesn't require too much midnight oil.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Lance,
This means you will most likely be using a MySQL database instead of MS Access. I feel your (transition) pain; been there. They should be able to do transition seamlessly and limit the latency that the queries generate by replacing most with stored procedures. Bonus, it is more secure as well. Keep up the good work.
chris

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

Great work guys!

I think Bruce D was about to send out a search party (sort of) for me...I could not get in for days and check messages!! Thats prolly bad timing on my part...none-the-less, must have looked like some of us fell off the planet.

Mike

phpBB is junk. In the long run you'd be much better off going for either Invision or vBulletin. They are slow with bug fixes and history has shown it's very prone to hacking and spammers. The others are worth every penny.

I'm heavily involved with the operation of two large forums (one of which considerably larger than this site), both of which we've switched forum software on a few times. I know it's tempting to try and keep things consistent during the process for the sake of the community, but one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that 99.9% of members quickly adobt to new systems very easily. If members have to reregister, they'll reregister. If they genuinely value this community, then nothing will stop them coming back.

I would definitely urge you to port as much of the existing data over as you can (even if it's just the actual posts and nothing else) or if you can't simply start from scratch. I wouldn't be fussing around with custom conversions or any kinds of modifications in the process, for the simple reason that in the end it's not worth the time, effort and stress involved. If there's a prebuilt conversion system available, go with it, but otherwise a cut and run is the best approach.

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Richard
http://www.guitarmaker.com

[QUOTE=richo]

phpBB is junk.[/QUOTE]

You maybe right? But this is the software we have choose and the new site is already under way.

Thanks
LK

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com