Hey everyone, just wanted to give a heads up that there will be some down time soon. The OS that the server is on is going end of life soon, so we need to upgrade. Unfortunately, in this case, that means that we have to take it down and deploy a new server because of the version that we're moving to.
What does this mean? Well, I don't anticipate this taking an incredibly long time, but the site will be down while this is happening. We'll have the URL redirect to a Wordpress blog that we have set up for situations where there is an extended down time. You can watch for updates there in case something majorly breaks, but you can also hop in the Discord or follow the site on Twitter as well to get additional updates or if you want to hang with the community while this is being worked on.
Sorry in advance for the inconvenience, but hang with us while we get this done and we'll be back soon. So, while you may end up changing inputs temporarily, be sure to change it back to channel 3 when we return.
So, we have some word from the web host. After my investigation, I found that one of our drives had some bad sectors. After unmounting it, the site seems to be running much better. Good news is that it was our backup drive, so none of the site data should be damaged. They will be replacing the drive, but in order to do so, they will need to power down our server to swap out the drive.
We have this planned for Wednesday during the day. Most of you will probably be at work or school, so there shouldn't be many that this will affect. We will be making solid backups ahead of time, just in case. 
So, to sum it up, site is having planned downtime to resolve a hardware issue that should help our performance once it is resolved. It'll be down Wednesday during the day and hopefully back up by that night. I don't have a time as of right now, but we'll redirect somewhere.
Go ahead, kick it over to channel 4 for a little bit on Wednesday, but be sure to bring it back over to channel 3 soon!
The site is going down again.
Now, breathe.
This is planned downtime and it's for the better. Our host recently merged with another company and, along with this, they are changing our server configuration. We were on a VPS with 1GB of RAM and a meager 20GB of drive space. We are moving to a dedicated server with 4GB of RAM and dual 500GB drives! More everything! This should allow us to remain stable and hopefully lessen the database connection issues we have been experiencing.
This all goes down Saturday night at 10PM Central US time (3AM GMT). We will be placing the entire site in a maintenance mode. We did it Saturday night in case there were problems so we could have Sunday to fix it, again, if needed.
If you need your fix right away, please go ahead and bookmark this page to get to the IRC room.
See you when we're back!
Sorry about the downtime. The SQL server unexpectedly shut down. Without that up, well, the site doesn't work. Anywho, we're back up. Hooray!
Keep it tuned to channel three!
Sorry about the downtime this morning. We had a log overflow and it has since been cleared. We're smooth sailing again now. For those of you who we greatly inconvenienced, we'll try not to do that again.
Keep it tuned to channel 3!
Sorry about that, a process went zombie and since the Black Perl and I are either going to school full time or working full time, we were not aware of the issue. Needless to say, it is fixed and all is better. Sorry of you that could not get to your beloved RF Generation.
As many of you probably know, RF Generation was down for much of April and May, as we experienced growing pains. We thought we'd be okay, but we were slammed by the traffic monster and we had to move from a shared host all the way to a dedicated host. As you probably can figure, we here at RF Generation have been made aware of the fact that some people worry that we might just get up and never return, and we'd like to clear some things up.
Some people worry still that RF Generation is going to pack up and leave in the not too distant future. It saddens me that our recent downtime has caused this fear to arise. We tried very hard to communicate through our emergency blog what was happening with the site. Unfortunately, we were under the impression that we'd be on the dedicated server much sooner than we eventually were. As such, rfgeneration.com for a while pointed to nothing instead of the emergency blog or the real site. We're certainly sorry about that, but I can tell you that we've now gone over four weeks without going down, and I can say that I, along with probably the rest of you, are extremely happy with the fact that we're on this wonderful dedicated host. It's not cheap, but this dedicated server ensures that RF Generation will be around for the long haul.
RF Generation would never just get up and disappear. Too many people have put so much into this site for it just to go away. It would be too great of a disservice to the people who have put their heart into this website. RF Generation is truly the community's website, and no one has the right to take it away from you guys. We'll do everything we can to keep running for years and years to come, and right now with the new server we're confident that we'll be around for a long time.
We need your help, please let those who think we've gone and kicked the bucket know otherwise. Let the world know that we're not dead, and we're back and better than ever. A lot of exciting new things are cooking right now. It's definitely a time to be excited. Share that excitement! Let's make RF Generation THE Classic and Modern Gaming Databases. As a community, we'll be sure that everyone keeps it tuned to channel three.
Sincerely,
David Murnan
Site Director, RF Generation
[img width=600 height=200]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/11628Zombies.jpg[/img]
Two weeks. Damn. It’s been a painful, painful two weeks, and the culmination of a painful month of ups and downs after being kicked off our shared host. It’s okay though, we’re on a dedicated server now, and it better keep us up now. Needless to say the downtime was a harsh time for many. RF Generation was down! Oh my God! What was one to do? Where was one to get their fix? What is this… world outside of RF Generation?
Continue reading So, we were down for a while, how did you stay busy?
As you may or may not have noticed, RF Generation over the last month has had its ups and downs regarding whether or not the site was actually up. This rollercoaster ride started when our shared host realized that we are not some small site and decided that we needed to castrate the site. Well, we’re not a big fan of removing features on the site, so we looked for a new host, one where we could stay in the long run. Fortunately, we found that host, and he is one heck of a host. Now, we at RF Generation run a site that is 90% custom (the other 10% is the forum), and when we went to the new host we thought that our site would be okay on something that emulates a dedicated server, or so we thought. It turns out that an emulated dedicated server, commonly referred to as a VPS, does have issues that can affect the entire server. Turns out that we affected the server, three times, and for that reason we had make some changes.
Unfortunately, no single script can be singled out as the prime offender of our problems. If you want to get rid of the prime offenders, you’d be saying goodbye to the forum and collection tools. We’re not in the business of removing features from the site, so we decided to follow the dedicated route. What does that mean? Well, aside from the six fold increase in server costs, we’re now on our own server. That means that we have full access to the resources of the server, and when something goes horribly wrong, we’re not adversely affecting other users of the server. Of course, we hope that now that we’re on the dedicated host nothing terrible will happen, but we’ll prepare for anything.
Some of you offered alternatives to moving to a dedicated server, and we considered them greatly. Unfortunately, our site is a monster, and moving any part of the operation to a shared host would be a risky venture. RF Generation has already been on two oversellers, and we’re done with that, we felt that we needed a solution that wouldn’t lead us to worry about whether or not the site would be up the next day. Certainly, however, we appreciate the kind gestures offered by those individuals.
It might take a week or two to get things running up to speed. If the site crashes, it will be down for a few hours, rather than several days. We don’t anticipate the site crashing, but then we didn’t anticipate us crashing over the last month a total of three times. You might notice that certain things are not quite back. I can confirm that the site statistics page is currently being reworked, as it makes servers cry. Luckily, I don’t think many of you were aware of the site statistics page, so I don’t imagine many tears will be shed regarding that. The main site right bar is also slightly castrated, but then I hate the right bar with an utmost passion. I’m in the process of figuring out what to do with that to make life better. So, most things are back, while other things may be gone for a while, but all the features you know and love are still here. Who knows, there might even be new features in the future.
The future… what does that hold for RF Generation? Well, now that we’re on the new server you might see us add some new features. A game progress tracker is pretty high on my list of things to add. Eddie has his own list of things work on, but then, I must be frank about this. We’ve added lots of new features to the site. Some, like the blog, might cater to a small group of people, while others like database improvements, might be a bit more general. It’s frustrating when these new features are added after lots of requests and then they are not used. How I long for a fleshed out Euro games database. The infrastructure is there, now let’s make that happen. Using the features that we provide is a great way to encourage the programmers to add more and more features. Things like a game progress tracker don’t get coded in a day, and take a lot of planning to do. Give us some encouragement by using the features that we have coded under your request.
As you may have noted, the costs of the server have increased six-fold. You might be wondering if you can help out with the server costs. The short answer is yes, please do. $1080 a year shouldered by a few people is a lot of money to be spending, especially when two of the people are college students. We have a donation page, and we certainly hope that you’ll visit it. We’ll keep you all posted on fund raising efforts. Any money donated to RF Generation will be used solely for the continued operation and betterment of the site. If you donate, there will be placed in the donor category, and there might be some perks associated with that. We’re trying to figure that out still, but we’re trying to make it worthwhile. Because of circumstances, we are going to redefine what being a donor means. Previously, donors sort of stayed in the member group forever. Now, donors will be designated donors for a period of one year from the time of their donation. After that time, they will still be recognized as a previous donor in some form, but any extra perks of being a donor will no longer be available. Donating so much money in a calendar year might result in some RF Generation branded gear. Specifics of that to be worked out later.
RF Generation is the product of the blood, sweat and tears of the entire community. It truly is the community’s website. Look at what we’ve as a community has done. Think about what we can do into the future. Bright times lie ahead, and together, we will all make RF Generation THE classic and modern video games database.
Sincerely,
David Murnan
Site Director, RF Generation
Ed Note: This article was written right after our site came back up around April 8, but it still applies.
After a week of being in a “bricked” state, we’re on our way to coming back to normal. You may be wondering why we were down for a week, let me tell you why.
On Monday, March 31, we noticed that the site was running a bit slow, in true fashion on our server. I thought it would be a good idea to let our host know that the site was running slow, and as such I sent a ticket to our host asking them to look into it, as we have in the past. Well, I thought everything would go just like it has in the past… boy, was I wrong.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008. A high holy day on RF Generation. We’re a big fan of the day, and we tend to go over the top. Well, we did our thing, and I went to sleep. I went to class in the morning, only to get a message from Tynstar letting me know that “the site was down.” Now, we do our jokes on April 1, but we generally don’t brick our site (we learned better… thanks Pretty Generation). So, imagine my surprise when I find out, via my close personal friend who you may know as The Black Perl or Database Director that our host has said that we’ve exceeded our resources, and as such bricked our forum database. To get that database back, we had to pretty much disable the site while we “found a solution”.
See, the thing is… we were on a bona-fide overseller… someone who promises the world for a low price. We were aware of this fact, but we stayed on the site because the ride has for the while been a smooth sailing. Well, that ended Tuesday, when our host realized that we were using the server to its fullest ability. Never mind the fact that for weeks it “was not our problem” when the site was unresponsive as heck. But, our host either had some pariah or just wanted a scapegoat to blame for the issues… that happened to be us. After fighting with our host for over a day, we got our databases back, and we came to a decision.
We decided to move hosts. The time of risking it on a shared host needed to end, and we made the choice to move to a virtual private server (VPS). A VPS is the solution in between shared hosting and dedicated hosting. It takes a while to set these servers up, so we were down for the time that we’ve seen. But, we’re back, and we’re pleased as punch that you’re still here.
Some of you have asked about how they could help. Our server costs have officially quadrupled. So yeah, donations are probably going to be accepted. We’re not going to run donations year round, but at strategic points during the year. More info on that later, but for now, just know that our focus is getting the site back to 100% operation and continuing to serve you, our community.
We want to thank you all for your patience during our downtime. At this time, the future looks bright, and we certainly hope that you continue to keep it tuned to channel 3.
Sincerely,
David Murnan
Site Director, RF Generation
We'd like to apologize for the recent downtime. A combination of events made things turn south here at RF Generation. At this time, most things are back, but we're feverishly going to attempt to bring back most everything. In the process, we're trying very hard to optimize existing processes so that your visit to RF Generation is a pleasant and quickly loading experience.
It's possible that you might find parse errors on occasion while we try to fix things. The site also may become unresponsive late at night, but it might not. We hope to get things running 100% as soon as possible.
So, I imagine that many of you have noticed the periodic slowness over the past few weeks. So have we. Today seemed to be the worst of the worst in terms of downtime. Being down over 10 hours is unacceptable, and we hope our host understands that. Recently, we switched servers to a new server, with more power... blah blah blah. You'd think that would make the site faster, right? Apparently not. It should be noted that we have not made live any new features since our switch. So, in theory, our site should have had a flawless transition. Unfortunately, it's been anything but, and we've been working with our hosts to rectify the situation.
We're as frustrated as you are when it comes to this issue, and we as much as you want it resolved. Hopefully our host can get the tweaks on the new server to be identical to the old server, as right now either our traffic patterns or someone else's traffic patterns are doing major stress upon the server. We think it's someone else, but regardless, we hope that our host will fix the issue in an expedient and proper manner.
|
