Sorry for the downtime

[Scott Alden]

It obviously took a lot longer to get what we wanted working... I
blame Sackson (the server... not the man).

[Mohrlock]

All good Aldie :) *shakes fist at Sackson*

[aliquis]

On Mar 22, 12:35 pm, Scott Alden <scott.al...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It obviously took a lot longer to get what we wanted working... I
> blame Sackson (the server... not the man).

Noooooooooo!

[Maarten]

What is, in broad terms, causing all this downtime? Its length is quite unusual. In another message you mentioned RAID rebuilding, that doesn't sound like something you want to do often...



Maarten

[ShadowHeart]

Pretty sure everyones gone to bed lol, I hate being soo addicted to
this site lol.

[PzVIE]

I never was a fan of Sid Sackson ...

[ShadowHeart]

***listens to the echo of his voice off of the empty servers*** even
the crickets have abandoned us.

[ousgg]

I shall destroy my new copy of Acquire (arrived this morning) in
protest against Sackson!

Er... or perhaps I won't...

[aramis]

14+ hours of downtime???
Time to protest somehow!

[peacmyer]

Thanks for the update, Aldie! I'll just go play ASL now....

[Grimwold]

This better be a pretty spectacular April Fool you're preparing... to
be worth all this downtime :p

[jegan22280]

Has anyone noticed the date/time stamp on this post?

I hope the database is ok.

[jegan22280]

[Debbie Ridpath Ohi]

Good luck with the site update! Fingers crossed very hard.

Guess I'm going to have to give in to the call of Dragonvale on my iPad instead (my young nephew got me hooked, curse him! :-)

Debbie

(BGG: "Inkygirl")

[storms...@gmail.com]

You could always read the 2 reviews I've posted over at my site,
www.theboardgamereviewer.com. I'll be adding more. Follow me on
Twitter @bgamereviewer

[crsluggo]

Wishing the best of luck to the BGG IT team!

[Mat Nowak]

Funny how I just picked up Can't Stop last night too. Guess the server can't stop acting up as well. :P

[DKahnt]

SACKSOOOONNNNN!!!!

[Shadow Hexagram]

ARGH!!!! Already feeling some RPGG PbF withdrawal symptoms!

No, honestly, best of luck with the maintenance / update / invocation to all the Great Old Ones and the Ruinous Powers altogether.

On Saturday, March 31, 2012 3:50:27 PM UTC+2, DKahnt wrote:

SACKSOOOONNNNN!!!!

[Garfink]

I hope the April Fools joke is worth it!

[PeakHope]

I totally understand the need for maintenance. And I totally
understand working on a tight budget. And I totally understand things
taking longer than expected. I work in IT, and totally hate having to
work on servers, and especially production servers with the pressure
of knowing there are people waiting for them to come back up.

What I'm not too happy about is that the last two outages have not
been announced accurately. Plus, it would be better for us users if
you could "under-promise and overdeliver", rather than the other way
around.

For this one, instead of saying "intermittent outages Friday and
Saturday", it would have been better to let us know you were doing
some "major" systems work, and that BGG would likely be down "most of
Friday and Saturday". Then, if it happened to only take a few hours,
we would all be thrilled and praising you for working so quickly. To
me, "intermittent" sounded like it might be down a few minutes at a
time, or maybe a couple hours here, and a couple hours there.

In the previous outage, you referred to it as "scheduled maintenance",
but since it was only scheduled less than a day in advance, that's not
the term I would have used. I would have referred to it as "emergency
maintenance" or "necessary repairs".

So, in the future please:
1. Let us know in advance the scope of the work being done
2. Overestimate how long it will take, and hopefully come back earlier
than expected
3. Fix the subscriptions bug so I actually get notified of outages in
advance

Thanks,

Kevin

[JediPearce]

Geek rage! haha

[B Eng-Kohn]

Are we going to get a microbadge?!? :)

[Mohrlock]

Kevin, the scope of the work being done by all intentions according to the information that has been shared with us was meant to be minimal.

As someone who knows the intracacies of server maintenance you should be aware that the unexpected can arise. I'm sure if they had intentions of a long downtime we'd have been made aware.

Normally when maintenance comes up someone lets us know what is going on here on this board. If Aldie or anyone could have predicted the multiple problems that have arisen during this maintenance I'm certain we would have been told.

All we can do is sit back and hope for the best that things get better & back up soon. We can suggest all we want but at the end of the day BGG is not a subscription-based service - it is free with the option to donate. As such they do what they can, when they can with what they have.

[eddys...@hotmail.com]

On Mar 31, 4:41 pm, Mohrlock <mohr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> As someone who knows the intracacies of server maintenance you should be aware that the unexpected can arise. I'm sure if they had intentions of a long downtime we'd have been made aware.

Exactly.

Over 2 decades in IT has taught me that Murphy's Law isn't optional,
it's the Law.

Hope everything is back up soon as I've got 2 wins to record from last
night's gamenight :)

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[Mathew H-E]

On Mar 31, 7:41 am, Mohrlock <mohr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> All we can do is sit back and hope for the best that things get
better & back up soon. We can suggest all we want but at the end of
the day BGG is not a subscription-based service - it is free with the
option to donate. As such they do what they can, when they can with
what they have.

I really want to thumb the last two posts--especially Mohrlock's. The
above is exactly what I wanted to say.

Thanks BGG for everything! Hope the system work goes well for you guys
without too much stress.

[desertfox2004]

Ah, this is no big thing - I have an all-day session of Axis & Allies
1940 Global starting in two hours anyways, so no time to be surfing
the 'Geek. When that's done, I'll check back (and hopefully be
recording a smashing Allied victory!)

The rest of you guys - stop waiting for BGG to come back up - get out
there and play a game! :-)

Regards,
Leo-desertfox2004-Zappa

[PeakHope]

> As someone who knows the intracacies of server maintenance you should be aware that the unexpected can arise.

Absolutely. Something that should have taken 5 minutes can end up
taking hours. Stuff happens. I have no problem with that. None at all.

> Kevin, the scope of the work being done by all intentions according to the information that has been shared with us was meant to be minimal.

I have to disagree there. I didn't/don't have access to the
announcement on BGG, but according to the "Heads up" thread here: "
We're performing hardware upgrades...as we switch out old servers for
new ones, replace hard drives, and migrate databases." And I can't
find it now, but another post here on google explained that just
backing up the database requires the site to be down for a few hours,
and went into more detail about the planned work. It sounded pretty
major, not minimal. The more I heard, the less it sounded like it
would only involve "intermittent" outages.

My suggestions were intentionally zero-cost process improvements
(except for the subscription bug fix thing).

[eracer68]

I like the idea of a microbadge. "I survived the BGG outrage of 2012".
The humanity.

Like others have mentioned. Aldie's post is from the 22nd and doesn't
refer to this outage. Not unless BGG has been down the last 9 days and
I was just hallucinating all those awesome and witty posts I made. The
awesome and witty part does make it likely I've been hallucinating.

In other areas of distress, why no "preview button" Google Groups?!

[cpf]

What's the rage? BGG is a free service, and it's absolutely amazing that they are working on it like they do. i know it suck to have it down, i havnt get the chance to check some rules issues because of it today, but blaming them the way you do is just sounding very ungrateful.

if you have a paid service like World of Warcraft, then i would say u are justified. but free site? come on!

[Mohrlock]

Erik the actual post/s relating to this downtime are elsewhere - just seems people decided to start commenting on this thread as well despite it being from last week's downtime :)

[Meshell Brown]

Me too!!! =)

On Mar 31, 2:54 pm, Shadow Hexagram <yohann.delala...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[familywontplay]

I remember the older days when it used to go down for maintenance on a regular basis.  It doesn't happen that frequently any more, and this is the longest inconvenience I can remember since those times.  This has been a big improvement.  I am thankful to have this free site that I use several times daily--and yes, I do donate and it is my biggest online bargain.  I am sorry to see it down, but have loads of patience for this problem. 

[Jasta6]

Actually this down time have given me the opportunity to finish up my
variant for "B-17: Queen of the Skies."

Good luck with finishing up the upgrades and I am sure the new
equipment will be great!

Jim P (jasta6)

PS; To all 281st BG (V) personal I am ready to post mission 90 as soon
as BGG is operational, so be ready...

[James Pink]

Actually this down time has given me the opportunity to finish up my
variant for "B-17: Queen of the Skies." My time has been well spent
last night and this morning.

[JoergH]

Am Samstag, 31. März 2012 17:26:56 UTC+2 schrieb Erik Racer:

I like the idea of a microbadge. "I survived the BGG outrage of 2012".
The humanity.

Microbadge? +1 from me :D 

[Michael Green]

I didn't realize that no access to BGG was going to totally and
utterly ruin your Friday/Saturday.

[joe...@googlemail.com]

Guys and gals,

you have all been living in a dream world any only now your interface
was unplugged... Don't you REALIZE???
Look around you, there is a Sun actually shining (well, now it is
below the horizon, but still).

Get out and enjoy!

(I will read my unread rules for... say... Ora et Laboraa... yes...
yessss my preciousss....).

[MagicAces]

Nice