Anyone else noticing that the forum is sometimes slow to load?

[WaterWitchin]

Well hmmmmmm. Since Marty pays all the expenses (no idea what it costs) and has a real business to take care of, I doubt he would see OB as a priority at the moment. If he does make any money after expenses on this website, I'm sure it's chump change compared to one's livelihood.

So yup, gotta agree to disagree on this one Ray. If it's a lucrative website, I guess you could always offer to take it over for the big bucks. Me, Imma just be grateful it exists, let Marty put the extra change in his pocket if there is any, and be occasionally inconvenienced by slow processes from time to time.

[SpclK]

I haven't seen the 503 error; however, what I experience is having to log in again after typing a rather lengthy reply or thread. The only way to get around this is to copy and paste my reply or post and log back in or click "back" a few times to get to the previous page I was on before I was logged out.

[WaterWitchin]

Originally Posted by SpclK

I haven't seen the 503 error; however, what I experience is having to log in again after typing a rather lengthy reply or thread. The only way to get around this is to copy and paste my reply or post and log back in or click "back" a few times to get to the previous page I was on before I was logged out.

A lot of times if I'm doing a looong post, I put it down on MSword, or carrier of choice. When finished, I paste to my reply. No reason to do a prolonged blahdeblah twice, Right?

[camille1585]

Originally Posted by SpclK

I haven't seen the 503 error; however, what I experience is having to log in again after typing a rather lengthy reply or thread. The only way to get around this is to copy and paste my reply or post and log back in or click "back" a few times to get to the previous page I was on before I was logged out.

That might actually be normal forum behavior. Do you log in every time you visit the forum? That would be the reason why. The login times out after a period of inactivity, with typing a lengthy post counting as that. If you login and click "remember me" under it you'll stay logged in for pretty much forever.

[neophyte]

I have noticed the forum being quite slow to load (especially when you first go onto the website). A couple days ago I got a 503 error message. It was the first time that happened in a while, but it has happened a bit more frequently in the past.

Here's some info from a Google search: A 503 Service Unavailable Error is an HTTP response status code indicating that a server is temporarily unable to handle the request. This may be due to the server being overloaded or down for maintenance.

When they say "the server is unable to handle the request," I believe they mean that the website is unable to load on your computer (the website has a server, and it can't connect to your laptop). Or something like that. It usually means that it's handling too many requests (ie., too many people are using the website at the same time). So unless we've all been having bad wifi lately or Marty's suddenly decided to take down the servers for maintenance intermittently, it's likely a malfunction on the server's end. The thing is, I just don't believe that the too many users thing is the root of this problem because there's a record of 2023 users online (unless either that's not real or I'm misinterpreting what that number means).

[camille1585]

Originally Posted by neophyte

When they say "the server is unable to handle the request," I believe they mean that the website is unable to load on your computer (the website has a server, and it can't connect to your laptop). Or something like that. It usually means that it's handling too many requests (ie., too many people are using the website at the same time). So unless we've all been having bad wifi lately or Marty's suddenly decided to take down the servers for maintenance intermittently, it's likely a malfunction on the server's end. The thing is, I just don't believe that the too many users thing is the root of this problem because there's a record of 2023 users online (unless either that's not real or I'm misinterpreting what that number means).

It's the opposite, your computer can't reach the server, or takes too long to reach it.

Yes, we had a record of 2023 users online (registered and lurkers), but this was also at the time when OB was hosted on a dedicated server, and Marty was regularily upgrading to bigger and better in order to deal with the traffic. If my memory is correct, the forum got transferred to the servers of Mist King, Marty's company, some years ago now. I don't know the configuration, but it could be extra traffic on Mist King slowing us down.

PS: I've given Marty a heads up and told him it was more of an annoyance rather than a real problem. I don't know if anything will happen, but at least he'll be aware of of the issues.

[neophyte]

Camille, thanks for the tech correction, hehe. The Mist King traffic's slowing us down makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the possible explanation.

[Fuerte Rav]

I've just had a 503 error message. Forum was quite slow this evening before that.

[Bobj.]

Same here in Mackay, Qld.
Cheers, Bobj.

[SouthPark]

Definitely ----- maybe within the last few days or even the last week, I eventually noticed that the "503
Service Unavailable" message comes up occasionally for orchidboard. For orchidboard only. Other websites - no problem. So something must have come up with the orchidboard server.

The nice thing is - it's intermittent, but at least still usable until the cause of the problem is identified and fixed up.