Orchidgeeks down?

[brn_thmbs]

Originally Posted by Jayfar

I'm not sure my earlier note is relevant to this outage as by further probing I find the .html file with the "back in 24 hours" message was last modified in 2010

Same file can be used again, they probably have a stock 'brb' html file for outages that, just b/c it's posted doesn't mean any changes to the file have been saved since then. It's just a virtual directory default for such occasions.

Hopefully they can get everything back online in that time :-)

[Jayfar]

Originally Posted by brn_thmbs

Same file can be used again, they probably have a stock 'brb' html file for outages that, just b/c it's posted doesn't mean any changes to the file have been saved since then. It's just a virtual directory default for such occasions.

Hopefully they can get everything back online in that time :-)

Right, I did think of that. Problem is they have apache order of precedence set to prefer index.php over index.html, so unless you go to the trouble to append index.html in your browser address bar, you will never see the be right back page. Since it's a php-based site, no one would have it bookmarked to the index.html.

[Jayfar]

I don't know if their hosting service has anything to due with the issue this time, but a little research shows their previous multi-day outage was due to a mass migration of servers by Volume Drive, the hosting company Orchid Geeks uses, which appears to be on very shaky ground as a company. Apparently, that outage was due to Volume Drive's migration out of the BurstNet colocation space and there were allegedly money issues involved on the part of Volume Drive.

Interesting stuff from the Aug 23d outage:

VolumeDrive Down | August 2013 | Technology Plus

The story gets especially interesting starting with post #29 on this thread:

volumedrive down ? - Providers and Network Outages and Updates - Page 2 - Web Hosting Talk

Web Hosting Talk - View Single Post - volumedrive down ?

[blackvine]

Hoo boy - that does not sound good. Thanks, Jayfar.

[JungleMel]

Thanks for the info Jayfar, looks like we'll be waiting more than 24hrs

[Jayfar]

Geeks just came back up again sometime in the past half hour.

[fishmom]

Bumping this thread to find out if this is happening again? I get the whirling circle of doom when I try to get in.

[MrHappyRotter]

Originally Posted by fishmom

Bumping this thread to find out if this is happening again? I get the whirling circle of doom when I try to get in.

I haven't been back in quite some time, possibly since the last time it went down.

It's hard to take a website seriously when it's down more than a day, particularly when it's down for more than a week, with no warning and no Facebook/Twitter/Otherwise to inform users why it's down and for how long it is expected to be down.

So, I gave up on that place out of frustration alone. And from the past few times I've peeked back so did a heck of a lot of other people.

Maybe other forums will use that place as a lesson, and keep their users informed and up to date on happenings.

For what it's worth, it's down for me at the moment as well. Considering their track record of information, the site might be down for the hour, for the day, for the week, for the month, for the year, or permanently.

[gngrhill]

same here "this page cannot be displayed"

[katrina]

Yea, looks like it's down again. Last time it was a server issue...looks like it's not completely resolved. Fingers crossed it's fixed shortly.