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FA Server Migration Status [UPDATED Sept 16]
12 years ago
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Journal Start
Our server migration went well (though a few hours over our estimate). We are currently running off Jake as our primary DB server, and Finn will be brought up later this coming week as our secondary DB.
Of note: we are making tweaks and fixing a few issues to improve stability and performance. We are aware of some occasional slowdowns and white screens which may affect users, but we should be able to smooth out over a few days. We apologize for the inconvenience, but are working towards fixing this as fast as we can.
In the mean time, we are continuing to ramp up speed and will bring the other half of our database and keep you updated.
Sep. 16, 10:23:27 UTC: Made several updates in the sessions related code that reduces locking contention on several key database tables. This should help reduce the lag during peak hours.
Of note: we are making tweaks and fixing a few issues to improve stability and performance. We are aware of some occasional slowdowns and white screens which may affect users, but we should be able to smooth out over a few days. We apologize for the inconvenience, but are working towards fixing this as fast as we can.
In the mean time, we are continuing to ramp up speed and will bring the other half of our database and keep you updated.
Sep. 16, 10:23:27 UTC: Made several updates in the sessions related code that reduces locking contention on several key database tables. This should help reduce the lag during peak hours.
LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY
I get it.
okay.
You just went there!
just waiting for all the hahwahers to pitch their fits now. xD
appreciate the update guys :)
I've been eager to use FA again.. * uwu*
the work. Have some kudos, and here's to a better-running FA.
FB.
ββββββββββ
The FA Writers Directory v 1.0
8D
I am dissapoint what kind of anti-pie establishment is this?!??!?!
i'm sure it's just an effect of the server migration, but i felt i should let you know :)
i cant wait till everything's finished :D i'm sure it's going to run better
Maybe your friend was just angry at his phone lol
I would like to be able to move certain characters and art into certain folders, it would be the most amazing development ever XD
But FA is already a free site that allows me to buy and post and sell art so I can't complain xD <3
babygurl its been so long <3 c:
Rofl
My comment was just meant to say "the chance that FA gets a new look or new 'stunning' features is the same big as the chance that FA will allow cub porn art again" in an ironic way.
It wasn't written with the intention to attack nor offend you.
The person you called a furfag was >agreeing< with you about FA needing to update the UI, and he was using sarcasm when he said "when Christmas and Easter are on the same day" which, as you said, it's obvious they're not on the same day so that was his sarcastic way of saying "they'll never do it." He was being sarcastic and insulting the site, NOT you, and you then proceeded to be hostile and insulting to him, and the others, who were trying to explain to you the mistake you made from the start.
So now, you have a string of comments where you are failing to understand everyone's explanation of how MaDrow's comment was sarcasm, and obvious just trolling, but then you go and dismiss someone ELSE as not knowing what sarcasm is. This makes you look ridiculous, and the only fix for that is to see this at last and acknowledge/apologize. Or you can keep disregarding it and continue to provide humor for people who like seeing someone make a fool of themselves.
Do you understand this yet? Please try re-reading these comments from the start, and read them as if A: MaDrow's comment was sarcastically saying FA will never make that update just as christmas and easter will never be the same day, and then everyone else is trying to explain to you that you missed his sarcasm. Because that's what was happening.
It really didn't make him look like a jackass to anybody else. And again, his sarcasm was not directed at YOU.
His comment was the same thing as if he'd said "Yes, the day Hell freezes over." It was a statement that very clearly indicated that he was saying it would never happen.
You misunderstood, which, hey, it happens, no big deal, but then when everyone tried to clarify your misunderstanding for you, you got defensive and only made yourself look like a jackass for going beyond simply the first misunderstanding, but then being dismissive and insulting to everyone else as you continued to fail to understand.
Now you've hidden the comments, which at least indicates you've realized you're the one who looks bad here, but the fact remains that you are STILL calling someone >else< a jackass rather than just simply accepting and saying "derp, shit, my mistake, sorry everybody" which would probably be more than enough for most of these people to just laugh and then forget about it without walking away thinking ill of you.
You've made a jackass of yourself. Nobody else here has done it to you or to themselves. It's a simple matter to acknowledge the mistake and say "oops, sorry people," and undo the silliness you brought on yourself. But you want to just hide it and keep calling other people names as if you were faultless. So okay.
Really cool that you named them that! ^__^
*standing applause*
What are 48 hours? :D
Seriously, what the FUCK have you been doing. You needed a whole week for a DB upgrade...seriously??? I am starting to belive that the developers behind th is site are sort-of noobs - a DB upgrade doesnt evne need more than a day...well, if you are smart that is x.x
Please do us all a favor and buy some able coders/maintainers. Because that was a frustrating week. "blabla 48 hours then we're back blablabla"...pfeh.
You gonna pay for them? They're not noobs - they're doing what they can with the limited resources that they can afford to provide you with a FREE SERVICE.
An example: The whole site is structured with one GIANT table. Good thing is, that it works. bad thing is, that it tripples the actualy written/produced (thru PHP) code - and causes longer rendering times for browsers. Its also a bigger file to send for the servers and a longer time to be processed on the server.
*shrug* I have seen developers who wanted to volonteer. But, FA went nuts and didnt allow them to help. Instead, some of the 3rd party written plugins for i.e. chrome were not just banned - but these people that used them were too. They dont provide any helper functions, API, to the site for 3rd party. So they had to write their own API from extracting the info from the page. That is a LOT of hard work...and it got banned. Fingers crossed, I still feel sorry for these developers.
What I however did understand is, that there is "someone donating to fa". I only heared that there is a company supporting FA. It came to my ears when the troubble about the babyfur things came around - in that wave, somebody told me that they had to act against it because of a company thats supporting them o.o"
So you mean, that the someone donating to fa is that ocmpany?
I would donate to fa, if they actually -did- something. But i honestly havent seen anything but the comission info tab that ever happened. Besides - they are blocking out 3rd party developers to make browser addons and alike, and apeparently not providing a clean API. So its on their own fault if they dont let others help them.
Dragoneer himself talked to me when that crap went down, wanting help chilling out the cub types. What happened was that AlertPay closed accounts with FA, IB, AND SF because someone pointed them to a specific image here on FA that had been made specifically to troll the anti-cub people. AlertPay had seen InkBunny back when it was still in closed Beta, when there was almost nothing BUT cub art because that just happened to be what the majority of Starling's inner circle of initial private testers had posted - and AlertPay had given the site their approval. They only had the stipulation that as long as no HUMAN characters were involved, they didn't give a shit about this cartoon animal stuff. So AP had given tacit approval/lack of concern over cub art.
When that one extreme image was shown to them, they shut down the three furry sites' accounts with no warning, and no chance to reconcile. AP was done and gone and out of the equation.
One of the OTHER payment processors FA used - NOT AlertPay - told Neer that they'd reinstate their account if they just had something in the terms prohibiting that content. That they knew the site can't catch everything users submit, but that for THEIR rules, they needed the site to not have it allowed in FA's rules. Neer was unable or unwilling to do several alternative options to process payment like IB and SF did to avoid having to ban something, so while the other two didn't have to ban cub, the ban was unavoidable HERE.
AlertPay didn't threaten to take FA to court, and they didn't say anything about re-opening FA's account if they banned cub. AP just pulled out and that was that, they were out of the equation, and were NOT part of why the cub ban had to happen because by that point banning it or not made no difference.
They have a whole network! other coding groups are dreaming of this, they have it. But apeparently they arent very able to maintain it - which is kinda sad x.x
I cant actualy run the site in firefox since I updated the browser on my laptop anymore it crashes (NOT KIDDING) its fine until I go on fA.
Loads of people would donate a few dollars if they felt it would get them a new UI, Heck I'd happily pay $20 dollars a year if it actually got things progressing on here.
I agree, especially on the last part.
But...I didnt get the browser part to be honest. ^^;
That's pretty good considering that.
1. There's a limited budget.
2. Staff aren't full time.
3. Staff are volunteers.
Seriously, this isn't google we're talking about...
Thus, its not the first time they went wrong like that.
They already did donations to get new things for the site, why not do donations to get people that know what they're doing?
There was a whole thing that happened back when they first got the new severs, back when the coders and programmers i know of were still in the team. dragoneer wouldnt let them add coding without checking it himself, and you can imagine how overwhelming that got for dragoneer!
Active coders can deliver up to a gazillion features to a site if they are really willing. But, checking all that, is insane.
Now it makes ense what is oging on with FA...I think dragoneer needs to get off his high steed there x3
Maybe a little bug me thinks ^^;
Keep up the great work, everyone! It is most appreciated by this grey muzzle.
These servers are in unacceptable condtion!
UNACCEPTABLE!
Dragoneer:Yes, just a harmless troll, for laughs; ahahaAHAHA HO HO HO!
Me: a heh heh heh...heh heh...
Dragoneer: 12 years banhammer; 7 years, no trial; come on, let's move it!
All your efforts and hard work are certainly appreciated by this particular dragon.
Thank you very much.
}:>
Works very slow for me so far^^; A very long page load(before it even starts loading, then it goes fast), clearing messages goes quite fine. Just for you to know a bit more:)
What database takes nearly a week to update?
And just how long is it going to be before any of those wheelbarrows of money you guys rake in from donations actually finds its way into useful endeavours, such as getting the base site code more streamlined and error-free?
And before anybody throws a shitstorm at me for being 'ungrateful', just save it. Throwing money at new hardware every few years is all well and good, and for all my harsh criticism, I can appreciate that hardware does have a shelf date. Eventually that shit needs replacing, and anybody that expects it to live forever is a goddamned fool.
HOWEVER, running the same outdated, bloated, bug-ridden slugcode on it is an exercise in futility. We're going around in circles, running the same patched-up code from six fucking years ago, and 'issue fixing' seems to be planted somewhere in the Whack-A-Mole school of thought. Don't let the staff fool you for a fucking second, people - they're more than content for you, the userbase, to continue shelling their useless asses out every time Dragoneer thinks it's time to add a few more gigabytes of RAM and a higher clocking CPU to the rack, while the actual meat and gravy of the site remains fucking untouched. This means they have absolutely minimal input to the site, with the maximum gain.
And it's not like we haven't seen this shit before: everybody knows of high-profile games like MechWarrior Online or Minecraft - you know, those games where the standard should be set for something truly amazing, but the devs are content to let the game run on the coding equivalent of shit on a plate. People bitch these games to oblivion and back for not putting their wages to use, and meanwhile you guys are content to piss away thousands with likewise no real benefit.
Let me make this clear, for the record: I'm not just being a bitch for the sake of bitching. The minute Dragoneer runs up and says 'hey, FA UI2.0 is in progress, we're rebuilding the code completely from scratch and we're learning from our mistakes, input would be great', my mouth will shut with a tooth-shattering force. As soon as the staff actually pull their fingers out and do something worthy of you, the users', time and money, I will be the first to stand up and say 'well done, you have my full support'. However, as we've seen from the past six or seven years, FA has simply swung from one disaster to the next, with ever-increasing bail-outs demanded of its users to keep it active instead of going under like the dinosaur it truly is. In this regard, FA is quite alike the 'too big to fail' banking systems that brought about the recent recession - everything fails sooner or later.
So, yes. Let the infuriated comments roll in. Please, it brings me great joy to see people blindly defending this bloated, under-maintained relic.
This is a great A++ rant people.
The issue here is that the staff are wasting donation money on unnecessary hardware upgrades - that often offer questionable, if indeed negligible performance improvements - instead of putting that money to much better use improving the code the site actually runs on.
Saying "well, it's better than nothing!" isn't helpful. Being an apologist and white-knighting the issue isn't helpful. At this point the issue is entirely inexcusable. They've had multiple opportunities to take the site and work out the base issues that cause these issues - remember that huge Viglink shitstorm? Or the multiple shitstorms we've had where people have breached FA's laughable security to steal email and password information?
This sort of stuff shouldn't even be happening. The site's essentially held together with spit and glue - any 'fixes' are simply the result of hasty patches designed to fix the issue at hand, rather than find the root of the issue and solve it, and more often than not those fixes will cause conflicts with other portions of the site later on down the line (slowdowns, security issues, etc) - and, rather than fix those issues, the site staff are content to throw your money at more hardware. That's the equivalent of buying a new computer every time it begins to slow down, rather than running a defrag process and cleaning up any extraneous data.
Personally, I'd prefer no FA at all, if the alternative is watching the site swing from mis-managed issue to mis-managed issue like some sort of drunken Tarzan at the cost of its userbase. Remember, your money keeps this site afloat, wouldn't you prefer it be spent responsibly? Wouldn't you be pissed if that money were squandered? I sure would.
I am just decent enough not to whine complain about a free service. Key word here being FREE. fA is not a business, but rather an individually run site. The staff doesn't HAVE to keep this site going. They do it because they WANT to.
And for your information, stating one's opinion is not "white knighting" - I am simply a laid back tolerant individual who is easy to please, isn't picky, and doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if fA's coding is old, I still greatly enjoy this site and the people here. When people donate to fA they donate of their own free will. Nobody is MAKING them pay money. If you donated and don't like how they used it, then too bad, too sad, it's gone, get over it.
I am here for the people and the art; not a bunch of fancy coding. What works, works; that simple. At least it is up and running, and that is all I ask. I am perfectly content with how it is and am not going to whine and cry for an update.
Honestly, if I pay for something, I don't care how the person uses it. I've paid for ad time on fA; several times, in fact. I paid for a service - which I was pleased with. What they do with the money once it is no longer in my hands is their concern; not mine.
I'm not going to waste my time and energy getting upset about how a furry art gallery is run/maintained. It's not worth my time when I can be focusing on other things. Like drawing and discovering awesome artists.
But it's not free. How absolutely dense do you have to be to completely miss the point here?
Furaffinity, if not for the influx of over-priced ad-space and occasional donation spree, is almost completely paid for by you, the user. And, maybe I'm just twisted here, but if I (or indeed, anybody else) pay for a service, I expect to get the best service that investment is capable of buying.
That does not mean getting impressed over a few new pieces of over-expensive, redundant hardware that might improve load times by perhaps a second over peak load sessions. That means expecting meaningful work being done to ensure that you, the user, have a safe, efficient experience every single time you use the site, for years to come. Throwing money at a few sticks of RAM and a better CPU does not address the underlying issues the site has, and there is only so much that hardware improvements can lend to site experience improvements. At this point FA is reaching the crest of how much of a performance gain new hardware will lend, which means that any further improvements are going to have to be done 'under the hood', so to speak.
Remember: you paid to keep this dinosaur afloat. Your money is what keeps the FA staff 'in business' - I don't think it's unreasonable at all to expect that the money you spent is used on a worthwhile project, instead of, I don't know, paying for more pictures of Dragoneer getting fisted? Are you honestly, honestly telling me, with a straight face, that you don't care if your investment is squandered?
A personal attack or insult would be along the lines of your comment here. You call someone a butthole and proceed to make numerous personal insults to him throughout your comment - which is a ToS violation, by the way.
So, the difference between personal insults and simply voicing valid non-personal criticism is the difference between your comment and his.
No site is free. SOMEONE is paying for it. If a person pays to run their site out of pocket and provide it at no cost to their users, that person has zero obligation to those users. If a site is paid for completely or in significant part by the users - as FA is - then the site DOES have an obligation to its users.
It does not matter that each and every user is not required to pay. What matters is that the site would not exist without user donations, and thus users DO have every right to voice valid criticisms.
"It's better than nothing, so everyone wanting any kinds of improvement needs to shut up and accept whatever they're given" has not EVER helped ANYTHING grow or improve in the history of EVER.
That was the whole point I was trying to get at.
Yeah I could have said it less flagrantly than I did, but my point still stands.
You've got a severe case of selective reading, however, so I'll water it down for you:
I don't have a vendetta against the staff. Hell, if I'd have met Dragoneer at AC, I'd have happily shook his hand and bought him a drink. My issue isn't with the staff, it's with their management of resources. This website relies on donations to remain operational, and it makes me quite angry to see people send money to keep the site up - only for those donations, sent in good faith, to be squandered on things that were never needed to begin with.
I do understand your point of view - you want to protect the people who provide this site - but frankly, this is the same attitude that creates these issues. When the staff mis-manage their resources, and have people stand up for them when they do, it allows them to keep mis-managing those resources. Nothing changes until people stand up and make it clear that this behaviour is not acceptable. And, again, I must stress: I am not making this criticism personal.
Frankly, I haven't spent a penny on FA - again, not through any personal misgivings I have regarding the site staff. My reasoning is simple: I simply refuse to give money to people who are going to squander it. If I were certain that those donations were going to be used in worthwhile ventures - such as providing a more stable base code for the site instead of spending it on unnecessary hardware upgrades - then I'd happily throw down a few dollars and think nothing of it. Until such a time as that comes around, my wallet remains closed, and I will continue to make this point known. You're perfectly welcome to disagree with me - however, I ask that in the future, you do so with a little less vitriol.
The difference is that some assumptions are based on the available given evidence (the observable state of the site, not just right now, but over the course of the past 6 or 7 years) measured against experience and awareness of situations like this involving coding and administrating of a site. Your position is not based on this. You want to believe they're all working as hard as they can, everyone wants to believe that, but this is not a belief based on actual evidence.
People who are remotely competent with coding work of this nature consistently and frequently speak up with the opinion that a site of this size with the available FREE volunteer resources this community has to offer, utilizing those resources to their utmost, yet still being as far behind and outdated as FA, is simply not possible.
Now keep in mind MOST of the administrative staff, Dragoneer included, have little to nothing to do with the actual coding of the site. So criticizing the site's code issues is not even a criticism of any staff members who don't have a hand in that, and shouldn't be taken as such.
Your point, and the point of everyone and anyone that tries to shush or silence or generally suppress the kinds of opinions and statements you're objecting to here, is that you like FA, you are more happy with FA than unhappy with it, you want to give the benefit of the doubt that everyone running this site is doing the best job possible, and you want to both show those people your support and shield them from negativity that may jeopardize their drive to continue providing this service to you. That's all well and good, and of course the best of intentions as motivation, but it is still a position based more on hope and faith than any real evidence.
Those who DO have more experience, both with this site's history and in the field of website coding and administration in general - in other words, people with a lot more solid ground supporting their perspective - have a different opinion to express. FA's biggest shortcoming has ALWAYS been a failure to sufficiently heed THOSE opinions and perspectives. At every step in FA's history, it has always come down to simply ignoring the people who know what they're talking about and are trying to help. And when someone is doing something detrimental to their own efforts, it is not possible be of real help by encouraging and supporting the detrimental actions they are taking. "Help," when someone is doing something wrong, will always mean trying to steer them away from that and towards a more desirable course of action instead.
If the guy driving the bus is about to drive you all into a wall - again - nobody is really helping by simply cheering him on and trying to shush anyone suggesting we turn to avoid hitting the wall.
fA may ask for donations, but you don't have to pay for the service. I mean $20 a month to have your banner ad visable to potentially hundreds of potential customers? That is EXTREMELY reasonable. ANY other site would charge WAY more! I pay for ads when I have the money. Because it is WORTH it.
It is not fA's fault that you donated to them. That is your problem, not theirs; and not mine, either. If you donated and you are pissed at what they used the donations for, too bad. From what I remember, they announced clearly what they needed the donations for; new equipment. And if you donated for new equipment, well - that is exactly what they got!
If you don't like what they use donations for, don't donate. That freaking simple. Don't go and donate - then have a whining bawwfest because they used the money to *ghasp* improve the site!
too bad, too sad, it's gone, get over it.
Great way to treat donators hunh.
What works, works
But it doesn't...
If I pay for something, I don't care how the person uses it.
I doubt you'd buy a commission from someone who spends that money on spends it on killing babies or something? Just an example, but you would be a direct enabler, and would be supporting that. Cmon.
I'm not going to waste my time and energy getting upset about how a furry art gallery is run/maintained.
You would make a great admin here...
Like I said,
You would make a great admin here
Thirty-one seconds. On a 10Mb/ps line. And that's only from when I started counting - I'd add another 20~ seconds to that tally.
One entire fucking minute to load a page up. Frankly, 'neer, I'd ask for a refund.
That, and everybody has been insanely active after fA was down for two days. I say give it a few days and all the errors and slow-downs should be fixed and improvements will then become more obvious.
I know that's not much info, but I hope it's in some way useful in locating the issue.
I should just wait, or there is a solution to fix it myself?
eat it <:
What time is it? Migration time!
alright then...
Now keep in mind I am not a defendant or proponent of the point... I just find that people come here just to complain hilarious.
Do you also go to indiegogo or kickstarter, then search for projects to complain about? Especially if you didn't donate?
If you don't like it, go away. It's ok to say hey I think you should fix the code base some, but to just whine and whine and whine.
The door is over there! You have like at least 4 or 5 other sites you can go to. WHY WASTE THE ENERGY TROLLING?
Please keep up the hilarious work, these arguments are like brain candy for my headmind!
P.S. Don't feed the Trolls
P.P.S. Except me, I can feed them. I got a degree online from Phoenix University, and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express!
Saphirè Sawtelle
Default 2013-09-16 Site Outage
We are aware of the current site outage and looking into the cause. We will keep you updated as more information comes to light.
Still waiting for that update...guess they don't even know....or perhaps have forgotten to bother to tell us.
I thought the "try again later" was the few days in read-only mode, and then it broke on the 16th and I thought they rolled back again
oh well, as long as the site runs i'm good with whatever
It wasn't that long ago that we didn't have search working...for YEARS.
and then there's meeting even the most minimally basic standards that any other remotely similar site of this type manages to meet - many with nowhere near half the userbase and available resources in both donations and willing, eager, competent and professional people offering to volunteer their time that FA has.
People can say that it's petty or whining to complain that the site isn't better than it is, but there's very few excuses for the site to NOT be better than it is, and those few excuses do have solutions to them.
fa has gone down enough so people are kinda used to it i guess?? ahaha
Most people either haven't been around long enough to see enough of a pattern of this sort of thing to have an issue the first few times they see problems. They like the site, and hey, it can't be easy running these things, so why quibble over a hiccup now and then, right? Then people who HAVE been around long enough and seen that this sort of thing is a long and consistent pattern tend to just figure there's no point saying anything because nothing will ever change.
The minority are the people who are aware of the site's history and yet still feel it worthwhile to speak up now and then to keep urging the site to change the pattern. Yes, it's mostly futile, but sometimes they surprise us, which makes the nudging worth the effort.
Nothing is ever fixed or improved by apathy.
OH WAIT, IT'S DONE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Please, 'neer, stop throwing money down the toilet for server upgrades and do something with the site code itself, instead.
The upgrade was to replace old and failing hardware and add capacity in the process. As far as we are aware it was a success.
I'm not grumbling. I appreciate the support staff and admins are overloaded and volunteers. But if I had a pressing ticket for threats made against me, I'd want that handled sooner. (My ticket is not about such a thing.)
Thank you to any admin who may see this and address it. :)
Now its just ridiculous, because in both instances its gonna wind up the same... Nothing will be done because both times they let my tickets sit so long the instances of action have been pushed off the screen or deleted, which isn't fair at all.
I hope you get someone to look at yours in due time. It seems to all be a matter of luck if the admins look at trouble tickets at all.
Take a lot of involvement and time.
Now for a long overdue software/UI update please...
I fear for your mental stability.
In less pessimistic news, the site's been working fantastically for me. Practically no lag at all.
The database is known to be several hundred gigabytes in size, to the degree that it was once said the notification table was nearly 400GB alone. That's probably millions of rows.
If you're really curious on how not to code a site, a long time ago the code for it got leaked. Most of the fatal errors that made the site hackable have been removed, but it's still based on bad programming techniques and work-arounds.
I don't suppose a future course of action could be updating the theme of the place... you know, making it look less 2001'ish? ^^;
Of course, needs come before wants I suppose. Keep up the good work!
Yet even larger websites out there (Ebay, Amazon, twitter, facebook, Google, MSN) have literally billions of views per day and manage to be speedy and responsive at all times.
And people still haven't figured out that the problem is FA it's self......
Way to be a dick ;)
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11754243/