I had a lot of problems reading posts today...

.. ca. 10-11 AM MST. BBS still limited in how much traffic it will handle?

Phil

I'm not really complaining but just reporting in case it helps with the fix. I could not get on the BBS from 6 to 10:30 last night.

The ONLY fix is for us to get moved to a new server. Reporting problems with the current server doesn't help, thanks.

We're making some progress and I hope to have some good news on this soon.

So I won't bother to report that I couldn't enter the BB till past 2 PM Pacific today. I was going to put this after my statement, but then I realized I am not angry, I'm sad. Sad to see that this situation has been allowed to fester for so very long...Its dragging TUG down...

JMHO, of course.

Fern

Fern Modena said:

Sad to see that this situation has been allowed to fester for so very long...Its dragging TUG down...
Fern

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First, kudos to Doug. I know you put in lots of hard work on the boards, and I hope you know how much you're appreciated.

But I have to agree with Fern. I tried to get into the boards from 10am to 2pm PDT, without success. It's frustrating, and to amplify Fern's words, I no longer even try very often.

Makai Guy said:

The ONLY fix is for us to get moved to a new server. Reporting problems with the current server doesn't help, thanks.

We're making some progress and I hope to have some good news on this soon.

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Okay, this is probably going to sound like a pretty ignorant question but I am going to ask anyway. Why is it taking so long to move to a different server?

swift said:

Okay, this is probably going to sound like a pretty ignorant question but I am going to ask anyway. Why is it taking so long to move to a different server?

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Every setup, up til now, we have been on shared hosts where things were already set up for us and all we had to do was basically upload a few files, do a little fiddling around, and go.

Now, for the first time, this is our own private server, meaning we have to set everything up from scratch. We have no paid IT staff, just a few volunteers who work on their own time when they can, and who have had to feel their way along very slowly with the help of tech support and whatever online documentation we can find. It's not that hard, when you know how, but we went into this with nobody that knew how.

Thanks to lots of help from TUGger Scott Page in getting our mysql databases up and running, just tonight we have our first working vBulletin test installation actually running on the new server. Having some problems yet getting the email to work (essential for registration, thread notification, etc.), but hopefully that will get sorted out tomorrow. There's a lot of testing and verification that must be done yet, but we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Glad to hear that there's a light at the end of the tunnel...hopefully it will be all good from here on out.

Fern

Fern Modena said:

So I won't bother to report that I couldn't enter the BB till past 2 PM Pacific today. I was going to put this after my statement, but then I realized I am not angry, I'm sad. Sad to see that this situation has been allowed to fester for so very long...Its dragging TUG down...

JMHO, of course.

Fern

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This situation does not impact the member only sections of the website or ANY other area in fact....so while I agree with your frustration with this entire situation surrounding the BBS...the last little jab in there was unecessary.

JMHO of course.

Makai Guy said:

We have no paid IT staff, just a few volunteers who work on their own time when they can, and who have had to feel their way along very slowly with the help of tech support and whatever online documentation we can find. It's not that hard, when you know how, but we went into this with nobody that knew how.
l.

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Here is the problem.. Why can't Bill shell out some of the $$ he makes on membership fees and ads.. pay some staff and get it done?
www.timeshareforums.com doesnt seem to have these problems and they have avatars, updated classifieds, rentals, photoservers and only voluntary donations.

It has been my opinion that Bill could care less about this site and it's just a way to make a buck. I've emailed him about several issues in the past 3 years. Never heard back once.. I only get the "time to renew email"

Makai Guy said:

Every setup, up til now, we have been on shared hosts where things were already set up for us and all we had to do was basically upload a few files, do a little fiddling around, and go.

Now, for the first time, this is our own private server, meaning we have to set everything up from scratch. We have no paid IT staff, just a few volunteers who work on their own time when they can, and who have had to feel their way along very slowly with the help of tech support and whatever online documentation we can find. It's not that hard, when you know how, but we went into this with nobody that knew how.

Thanks to lots of help from TUGger Scott Page in getting our mysql databases up and running, just tonight we have our first working vBulletin test installation actually running on the new server. Having some problems yet getting the email to work (essential for registration, thread notification, etc.), but hopefully that will get sorted out tomorrow. There's a lot of testing and verification that must be done yet, but we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Click to expand...

Thanks for being so open about the problems and the actions being taken to resolve them Doug. The problems do seem to be taking a long time to resolve, but that is beyond your control as you have already explained. The apparent lack of willingness by the site owners to invest some hard cash to get a 'new' system up and running is disappointing to say the least. I am astonished that the core operations i.e. programming and system support for the site is left in the hands of volunteers. I have no doubt that these volunteers are very capable, but it does seem a strange way to run such a large setup.
That said, I believe it is more important to get things sorted properly and permanently than it is to get things sorted badly and quickly.
Comments along the lines of 'allowing the problem to fester' are the kind of snide remarks that do nothing to support the staff but everything to undermine their work and make them wonder if the effort is worthwhile.

Keitht said:

Thanks for being so open about the problems and the actions being taken to resolve them Doug. The problems do seem to be taking a long time to resolve, but that is beyond your control as you have already explained. The apparent lack of willingness by the site owners to invest some hard cash to get a 'new' system up and running is disappointing to say the least. I am astonished that the core operations i.e. programming and system support for the site is left in the hands of volunteers. I have no doubt that these volunteers are very capable, but it does seem a strange way to run such a large setup.
That said, I believe it is more important to get things sorted properly and permanently than it is to get things sorted badly and quickly.
Comments along the lines of 'allowing the problem to fester' are the kind of snide remarks that do nothing to support the staff but everything to undermine their work and make them wonder if the effort is worthwhile.

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I disagree. What's the difference between "allowing the problem to fester" and... "I am astonished that the core operations i.e. programming and system support for the site is left in the hands of volunteers" or..."it does seem a strange way to run such a large setup"?

You said your self how "disappointing" it is that the owner has not shelled out cash... etc. I don't see anything undermining about any of those statements.

Also, TUG Improvements states:
"This situation does not impact the member only sections of the website or ANY other area in fact."

I don't understand. Can you explain how "the situation" does not impact any area of the website. Thanks.

Kevin

CaliDave said:

Here is the problem.. Why can't Bill shell out some of the $$ he makes on membership fees and ads.. pay some staff and get it done?

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We purchased a new dedicated server just for this board as soon as we realized the problems with the move to the new host. If paying someone to come in and swap everything is the answer, then so be it. However Dave has been the administrator of this board for quite some time. I am certainly not going to go behind his back and tinker around with things. We underestimated the complexity of switching to a brand new dedicated server as mentioned earlier, its not quite as easy as simply installing Vbb and restoring from backup.

www.timeshareforums.com doesnt seem to have these problems and they have avatars, updated classifieds, rentals, photoservers and only voluntary donations.

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Im not sure how this is relavent, if we didnt have so many people active on the board here, we wouldnt have to have moved from the ORIGINAL server, nor would we have the problems with the current host, nor would we have to be moving to a new dedicated server just to support this board. Apples to oranges IMO.

It has been my opinion that Bill could care less about this site and it's just a way to make a buck. I've emailed him about several issues in the past 3 years. Never heard back once.. I only get the "time to renew email"

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While you are entitled to your opinion, and I wont get into this debate...I can assure you that I read every email that comes through tug2.net now and reply to those that warrant a response. I seriously doubt you have any idea of the volume of email that comes from running a site like this, but again..that isnt an answer to the current situation. However let me assure you that we do care about the site, and its members. If we didnt, none of the changes that are taking place would be.

All I can do is apologize for the BBS problems as of late. It is 100% obvious that moving the BBS to dreamhost was a catastrophic mistake that we are all paying for in one way or another and we are working to correct.

Kevin said:

Also, TUG Improvements states:
"This situation does not impact the member only sections of the website or ANY other area in fact."

I don't understand. Can you explain how "the situation" does not impact any area of the website. Thanks.

Kevin

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The BBS is hosted on a completely separate shared server managed by Dreamhost.com. It is the only section of the site that has had these problems...and they are 100% at the fault of Dreamhost. As we stated before, moving to them was the biggest mistake TUG has ever made in its existence and we are moving to correct that ASAP.

However just like the other forums mentioned in this thread the TUGBBS is free and open to the public, it requires no form of payment to participate (save a few sections that are member only). Every other part of TUG including the ratings and reviews, classifieds, etc do not experience these issues as they are not hosted on Dreamhost equipment.

I have no doubt many of you are beyond frustrated (actually I know this, because I read and reply to each of your emails about this subject). I can only apologize for this and assure you that it will be fixed as soon as physically possible.

We will also come up with something to (hopefully) make up for the inconvenience once it is corrected in an attempt to make amends for all the trouble this has caused so many of you.

Kevin said:

Also, TUG Improvements states:
"This situation does not impact the member only sections of the website or ANY other area in fact."

I don't understand. Can you explain how "the situation" does not impact any area of the website.

Click to expand...

He didn't say it doesn't affect "any area", he said it does not affect "any other area".

Those of us making extensive use of the bbs often to think of the bbs as being TUG. But in fact, the bbs is just one of the services provided by TUG. ALL of the other services (everthing whose URL does NOT begin with www.tugbbs.com) are located on different servers than the one that is giving us all the trouble with the bbs.