Server Downtime

April 21, 2004 9:16 AM

Why the downtime? For the last week or so, Metafilter goes down at late morning GMT, and doesn't spring back to life until Late afternoon GMT. It seems too regular to be anything other than a deliberate act. Is it going to be a regular thing? How are us European MeFites going to waste time at work?
posted by seanyboy to Uptime at 9:16 AM (38 comments total)

Earlier, while MeFi was down, the status blog was down as well. Now, I notice that it redirects to MeFi itself. Not helpful.
posted by stonerose at 9:21 AM on April 21, 2004

* prints out dissertation, 600+ pages novel, 900+ pages epic poem, all written during MeFi downtime *
posted by matteo at 9:22 AM on April 21, 2004

I was just coming to MetaTalk to ask the same question. It seems to me that MeFi now has an opening time of noon EDT. Anytime before that I can't get the sites to load. Almost like magic the site can be viewed at noon. There are the rare days when I can get the site to load before noon, but like I said, they are rare.

Is the pancake-eating bunny that powers the site union or something? ;)
posted by terrapin at 9:23 AM on April 21, 2004

Thank christ. I thought it was just ME. (Or maybe specifically something to do with jackholes on my Comcast subnet or whatever.)
posted by cortex at 9:26 AM on April 21, 2004

Yeah, same problem here: I get a "connection refused" from when I first try in the morning until about 10-11 AM CDT. Is somebody on the west coast rebooting the server when they first get up or something?
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:27 AM on April 21, 2004

Is somebody on the west coast rebooting the server when they first get up or something?

You mean, like, Matt? It seems the downtime is fairly synonomous with sleepytime for west-coasters, no?
posted by LionIndex at 9:30 AM on April 21, 2004

Me too. What's up with that?
posted by widdershins at 9:31 AM on April 21, 2004

Why the downtime?

You fool! You have MeFi, but you want a MeFi that works? Take your pony requests elsewhere, you spoiled swinedog.
posted by Shane at 9:33 AM on April 21, 2004

Yeah, for the last few days the server has gone kaput right after I've gone to bed around midnight, then I restart it when I get up around 8am. It just died again after being up for only twenty minutes, so it looks like I still have issues with the server to work out.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:58 AM on April 21, 2004

Well, I'm a trained relationship counselor in case you need help with mediation.
posted by rocketman at 10:12 AM on April 21, 2004

*luxuriates in the knowledge that he is in a majority time zone for a change*
posted by i_cola at 10:56 AM on April 21, 2004

matt, don't you have auto-reboot on system failure?
posted by SpaceCadet at 11:16 AM on April 21, 2004

It's called "the server is in the closet of some guys apartment" blues.
posted by justgary at 11:30 AM on April 21, 2004

If Meta* were to go tits-up in a big way, ne'er to return, I might actually have to develop some sort of semblence of a life.

Matt, you can't allow that!
posted by five fresh fish at 11:57 AM on April 21, 2004

Is it just the web server or is it the whole machine?

I ask only for information.
posted by deadcowdan at 11:59 AM on April 21, 2004

template for future discussions on this subject:

* random IT suggestions
* in-the-closet jokes
* call for donations
* well-intentioned bitching
* indignant we-love-Matt comments
* if over 50 comments: insert standard quonsar belching
posted by scarabic at 11:59 AM on April 21, 2004

What, quonsar is too good to belch on shorter threads? Or are the belches simply substandard before 50 posts?
posted by konolia at 12:04 PM on April 21, 2004

Yeah, for the last few days the server has gone kaput right after I've gone to bed around midnight, then I restart it when I get up around 8am.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
posted by the fire you left me at 12:07 PM on April 21, 2004

Is it just the web server or is it the whole machine?

I'd also like to know. #mefi has taught me that there are a LOT of PHP/PostgreSQL people hereabouts, and based on previous PHP/PostgreSQL community-sites I've helped develop
I can't imagine coding a drop-in replacement for MeFi targeted at Apache/*nix to be an insanely difficult endeavour.
posted by Ryvar at 12:08 PM on April 21, 2004

Just the web server (IIS) is failing, and not coming back after failures even though it is set to restart itself when that happens.

I've been threatening to move to apache after putting it off for two years, but I might as well do it very soon.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:21 PM on April 21, 2004

Just the web server (IIS)

Ahhhhh. *nods head*

Yep. There's yer problem.
posted by petebest at 12:37 PM on April 21, 2004

Matt, how does it feel to be repairing a server while 17,332 people are looking over your shoulder?

(Reason #5 from "Wendell's Hundred Reasons Why He Isn't Doing Anything Serious With metalifter.com")
posted by wendell at 12:50 PM on April 21, 2004

guess we all have to move to america.
posted by sgt.serenity at 12:52 PM on April 21, 2004

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my [relaxed-fit, button-fly, size-38, in Wheat, ] trousers rolled.

-The Love Song of J Alfred Crew
posted by Shane at 1:07 PM on April 21, 2004

the server has gone kaput right after I've gone to bed

Clearly you just need to not go to bed! Sheesh!
posted by freebird at 3:22 PM on April 21, 2004

I thought my home network was on the fritz. Seeing as how metafilter's one of the very few sites I check obsessively, something like 30% of my browsing was affected.
posted by quasistoic at 3:32 PM on April 21, 2004

for the last few days the server has gone kaput right after I've gone to bed

mathowie gave a big yawn, and settled down to sleep.
And of course when mathowie goes to sleep, all his friends go to sleep too.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 3:54 PM on April 21, 2004

"We will find it, we will bind it
We will stick it with glue, glue, glue
We will stickle it, every little bit of it
We will fix it like new, new new."
posted by seanyboy at 4:08 PM on April 21, 2004 [1 favorite]

why is that eerily familiar, seanyboy? what's it from?
posted by amberglow at 4:39 PM on April 21, 2004

the mice
posted by SpaceCadet at 4:41 PM on April 21, 2004

Shane, I love the way that cartoon is explained: "Refers to popular men's and women's clothing catalogue, J. Crew, and to T.S. Eliot's poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”


Thank you New Yorker.
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:44 PM on April 21, 2004

I now live in fear that we are all a day dream of User #1. Either that or MetaFilter is becoming such a problem to Our Fearless Leader (Long May He Reign!) that He dreams of a world without MetaFilter when He sleeps and it is our reality.

Didn't Phillip K. Dick write a story about this?
posted by Dagobert at 11:44 PM on April 21, 2004

Reminds me of that time the web server vanished into thin air, and a piece of paper with "web server" scrawled in pencil appeared in its place.
posted by arto at 12:25 AM on April 22, 2004

wait a minute....phillip k. dick wrote bagpuss ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 1:07 AM on April 22, 2004

The signs are all there sgt; the disconnect from reality; the use of metaphor, especially with regard to Madeline as a source of knowledge; the humanity of the non-human characters trapped in a situation which appears to no longer have function (ie the shop no-one ever visits) whilst continuing to carry out their roles, and no doubt there are other things that the critically inclined reader could cast light on. I'm surprised you missed it.
posted by biffa at 1:58 AM on April 22, 2004

Don't you mean Emily, or have I totally lost track of this conversation?
posted by salmacis at 3:29 AM on April 22, 2004

template for future discussions on this subject:

* random IT suggestions

We use Servers Alive to monitor the webservers at work. It's configured to first ping the server, then check that IIS service is running, then check if a url contains a certain phrase. Each of these is a double-knock check and if the web checks go down then it restarts IIS and if that still doesn't help then it reboots the server. Finally we get a SMS telling what check failed. (This could be an IM or email instead.)

It's free for use up to 10 unique checks and can run as a windows service whenever the server starts. It would probably take an hour or so to install and configure so think of it as a Shetland.
posted by gi_wrighty at 3:46 AM on April 22, 2004

Emily was Bagpuss' owner and had limited interaction with the features characters, Madeline was the rag doll who would episodically provide a fable as a way to assist understanding and/or identification of the focal object.
posted by biffa at 4:06 AM on April 22, 2004