Our servers are back up!
Earlier today (about 12 hours before this story), our site had a server crash. Early attempts to restart things (bouncing fluorine and hydrogen) were unsuccessful. (Thanks chromas and janrinok for your efforts!)
Fortunately, the system is usually lightly-loaded at this time, so relatively few people were affected.
Then mechanicjay came on the scene and was able to restart helium and neon. Then the rest of the servers for the site successfully came on-line.
Through it all, we retained access to IRC (thanks Deucalion!) and e-mail (thanks audioguy!).
There may be some lingering hiccups as slashd (which handles scheduled tasks -- think cron) plods through those tasks in due time.
We thank you for your patience during this time and send our thanks to all who notified us (politely!) about the outage on IRC and through e-mails.
Please join me in thanking all those who lent a hand through this period! You ROCK! =)
We return you to your regularly-scheduled stories.
--martyb
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 12 2022, @08:10PM (9 children)
Thanks for keeping the site up, guys!
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by crm114 on Saturday February 12 2022, @08:21PM (4 children)
+1 to the Thanks!
(Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday February 12 2022, @08:38PM (3 children)
LOL! We *try*; (there are plenty of early-mornings and late-nights) so the thanks are very much appreciated!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday February 13 2022, @02:24AM (2 children)
More thanks from me. I have no complaints, and would sure miss this place if it disappeared (for more than a few hours, anyway!)
Hats off to all of you for all you do.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday February 13 2022, @02:18PM (1 child)
Thanh you for the very kind works!
That sums up my perspective, too. That's largely the reason I reached out and volunteered to help on the site! I did NOT know in advance what I could do to help. After being vetted as to my skills and motivation, I found myself among staff who were welcoming and supportive. I asked MANY questions and have learned (and am still learning!) so much!
You can join, too =)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday February 13 2022, @04:01PM
Alas, not in my skillset. But yours are awesome. You guys took that clanking monstrosity and turned it into a work of art.
BTW there's a Stylish skin called "SoylentNews Night Mode Red" that makes it beautiful to look at too.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by martyb on Saturday February 12 2022, @08:33PM (2 children)
Speaking on behalf of the team... thank YOU!
teamwork++
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday February 12 2022, @08:47PM (1 child)
I recommend that the compensation of all unpaid volunteers be doubled!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday February 12 2022, @08:56PM
Doubled?!
Really? Woo Hoo!
;)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 1) by pen-helm on Sunday February 13 2022, @01:52AM
Yes, thanks guys! I hope you can get some sleep!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2022, @08:45PM (2 children)
Are we going to get superbowl IRC channel this year?
(Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Saturday February 12 2022, @09:06PM (1 child)
It's is the works!
The main holdup is getting a laptop (that I last used for the prior Super Bowl) up and working. (I use my TV as my primary computer monitor because I do not watch much TV.) I'd like to watch the big game AND chat on IRC at the same time.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 13 2022, @10:08PM
So? What 's up?
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Saturday February 12 2022, @10:12PM (1 child)
I can get back to feeding my procrastination habit. Soylent is one of my go-to sites.
(Score: 4, Funny) by martyb on Saturday February 12 2022, @10:43PM
Why not put off your procrastination... until tomorrow?
;)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2022, @11:37PM (3 children)
Was this the doing of nasty people who have been banned? Is SoylentNews under attack, by more than the usual Nazis and incels?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by martyb on Sunday February 13 2022, @04:14AM (2 children)
To my knowledge, it just "happened". I'm told there was no "smoking gun" in the log files. When I started here, the code was lacking in formal, rigorous testing. I've personally detected and reported well over 200 bugs. I'd not be surprised if there were more bugs lurking out there.
As you may recall, in the early days of the site, uptime was measured in hours. I think we're doing pretty well, all-in-all.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday February 13 2022, @10:00AM (1 child)
Hats off to anyone brave and audacious enough to maintain anything written in Perl :-)
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday February 13 2022, @02:54PM
Agreed, but I found it was not all THAT difficult.
I had some self-taught Perl knowledge before joining the site -- from about 20 years ago. I struggle with the single-character syntax forms for referencing things like pointers, arrays, and the like. The code is well-enough designed and organized that I can generally follow the intent. I have actually coded a few small enhancement, too!
All it took was some interest and curiosity!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 13 2022, @01:25AM (1 child)
Perhaps you should consider moving your infrastructure to Azure?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 13 2022, @02:23AM
So it is an attack by nasty people!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 13 2022, @02:04AM (2 children)
Only us second rate users in Europe then. Long day of 500 errors. I had to do actual stuff!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Common Joe on Sunday February 13 2022, @04:08AM (1 child)
I had to laugh at this statement. I'm one of the people living in Europe and also had to find "actual stuff" to do for a bit.
To martyb (who emailed me back with an update) and the rest of the volunteers: The site being down was no biggie. We the users know this site is run by volunteers. I'm always very grateful (and in awe) for the efforts that are put in. SoylentNews is still one of the best places on the Internet (the best?) where I feel most at home. I sometimes read a bit of Slashdot or Gizmodo or Ars Technica or Reddit or plenty of other places. None of them really feel like home to me like SoylentNews does. So, a hearty big thank you to the volunteers and the other users on this site who help me feel that way.
For years, I've wished that I could help more by donating financially and donating time. Alas, for the moment, that is not to be. [Checking wallet.] Well... actually, I seem to have a couple of extra bucks this month. How unusual. I'll see if my spouse has plans for that when she wakes up and if not, I'll donate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by martyb on Sunday February 13 2022, @04:25AM
Thanks for that! It truly is a labor of love. Love, most especially, for the sense of community here.
I found your very kind works most encouraging and appreciated.
May we continue to earn your trust and support in the years ahead!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Sunday February 13 2022, @08:04AM (5 children)
It sounds like the problem with your servers was... ahem... elementary.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday February 13 2022, @08:51AM (3 children)
Correct.
When you have a sys-admin available many problems become trivial. However, both of ours were fast asleep as it was nighttime in their part of the world. They have lives, jobs, families just like the rest of us and we do not expect 24 hour coverage from them. They are volunteers.
Access to the servers is, quite correctly, very restricted and though there are some limited actions that other staff can take to rectify some faults in this case the necessary action required a sys-admin. When mechanicjay got our message he reacted immediately. He quickly diagnosed the problem and recovered the system.
Many problems are elementary when one knows what one is doing. Fortunately, mechanincjay does!
When us amateurs start poking things with a long stick it usually doesn't help them very much. We now have to work out WHY the problem occurred in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 13 2022, @09:04AM
Right, Ari!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pTamok on Sunday February 13 2022, @12:02PM
It looks like SoylentNews managed to let a chaos monkey [gremlin.com] loose.
(Score: 1) by istartedi on Sunday February 13 2022, @08:27PM
With all due respect, WhoooOOSH!
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday February 13 2022, @09:58AM
I see what you did there!
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].