Posted on 10/25/2012 9:35:59 AM PDT by SMARTY
I am having a hard time with the FR site. It has been this way for a couple days.
It's slow, herky jerky and I get a lot of 'document not found' and 'error'.
What's going on? I can't do without FR during the election!
They want us to give money but won’t buy the servers to fix the problems, so I don’t know why I should give any money.
Solving this issue is not tough.
With a name like yours we were kinda looking for answers from you..../S
Yup....and has been for every debate, which makes me have FR withdrawals!
And I didn’t know soup was dumb.
But if your read my posts, you’ll know why libertarians and liberals are all alike.
If I read your posts, will I know why soup is dumb?
FR is in real trouble with no signs of resolution in sight. No change will eventually deliver no hope.
BUT, you are so right! To a lesser degree there are problems happening elsewhere on popular sites for our side. It behaves like a virus on my internet but it isn’t so as you say something, may be sun flares, but something IS going on.
I get better connections to lighter traffic sites, so capacity must be enormously strained. Every soul is online all the time.
“gonna ask you how much you give to the FR-eep- a-thons”
AS IF I would make that public information... duhhh
I think they gave Jim Thompson a job temporarily while they left town for vacation.
I’ve been getting “Failure to Connect to Web Server” messages since Monday. I have to hit the refresh button 3 or 4 times now before it will connect. I am having no problems with other sites.
A years or so previous, when FR was having similar sluggishness, JohnRob discovered it was something with some coding (the program). Once he corrected that, FR was loading rapidly.
==
If it is the increased activity during live events, I wonder whether they could create a ‘sub’ program.
During a major live event, traffic is directed to a sub location. Users could still post reference links to the existing FR database, however, those links would not necessarily be available for immediate opening.
Save the postings in the live event thread.
At the conclusion (say, 24 hours after the event), merge the ‘sub’ live thread with the main FR database for archiving and future reference.
==
Whatever the problem is, they need to resolve it. They are losing users. FR is a product, and it is currently a poor quality product.
You waited only 20 seconds? I just waited 90 for this click through! Sometimes I wait 2 minutes and still get a “cannot display web page” screen.
I have been having the same problems for the last two weeks and this is a new comouter.
I am very frustrated. Earlier in the day, say 7am, it isn’t as bad.
Don’t forget the significant number of FReepers, who, knowing the site is busy and running slowly, post one line vanities such as “OMG, I saw Biden pick his nose just now !!1!1!1,” and the other group, seeing the above, post vanities wondering if FR is running slowly due to a DOS attack.
You waited only 20 seconds? I just waited 90 for this click through! Sometimes I wait 2 minutes and still get a “cannot display web page” screen.
I have been having the same problems for the last two weeks and this is a new comouter.
I am very frustrated. Earlier in the day, say 7am, it isn’t as bad.
I’m still waiting for this comment to post, although I clicked post three minutes ago.
For what it’s worth department. As you can see Jim has addressed the issues but the problem/solution isn’t defined.
Pinging Jim for his info:
Per Jim Robinson on Tuesday, Oct. 23....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2948878/posts?page=130#130
...
Well, I’m very sorry about the slowdowns on the big traffic days but none of the above applies. We have a server system that we have built up over the years which has for the most part worked fine. There was no scientific study done to find out how much capacity we needed. We started on a leased server and all worked well for a couple years. When that ran out of steam we purchased two new servers and moved to another provider. Then a couple years later outgrew that and added a couple more servers. We continued adding or replacing servers every couple years until we had about a dozen of them and it became pretty complicated keeping it all up and running. Over the last few years more powerful servers have become available, so John has installed some of those and has taken some of the older failure prone servers out of service. I think we’re now down to about a half dozen servers and he’s moved to something called “virtual server,” I’m guessing to make it more manageable.
We simply do not have the financial wherewithal to hire a “professional staff.” I have 40 years of programming and software project management experience myself (mostly financial accounting systems on now antiquated DEC VAX mini-computers), but I’m not a hardware or systems software tech. John is. And he has 25 years experience providing tech services (built and operated his first online bbs system when he was 14). And he has done an outstanding job of building FR during the last fifteen years or so mostly by himself with no “professional” management or any staff whatsoever. He’s also rewritten all of my old software and added many more functions than I originally had. He also handles all of the hardware/software system maintenance and all other systems and programming tasks and systems security. He’s basically a one man shop.
But it does look like we’ve hit a major stumbling block and it is killing us. I had asked John a couple years ago what it would take to replace the entire hardware system with newer servers. He guessed at that time that we could probably replace the bulk of it for $15,000 or so. So last year when we were have so many crashes I decided that maybe we should tackle at least part of the task and decided to try to raise $12,000 by adding half of it to out first quarter’s fundraising goal and the other half to the second quarter. All went well the first quarter and we raised $6,000 for equipment (still sitting in the bank) but the second quarter I got so many complaints about our increased budget and accusations that I was ripping off the donors that I finally said the hell with it and cancelled the equipment portion of the fundraiser so we never brought in the second half. In fact we’ve reduced our second two quarterly fundraisers from our normal base a bit and decided to cut back where we could.
Unfortunately, I guess I jumped the gun on new hardware. Apparently John was not ready to tackle expanding or replacing the hardware yet. He’s still wrestling with systems software problems that would still be there even if he added more equipment.
And it’s not about ROI. We just haven’t solved the problem yet. The moment John discovers the problem and decides on the solution, we will purchase the equipment, change providers, go to “Cloud” or whatever the solution calls for. FR is far from being dead or irrelevant. As long as people yearn to be free, God willing, we will be here.
John is my partner. The hardware and systems software is his domain. I know absolutely nothing about either. I cannot order him around and I cannot offer him anything other than advice that is probably mostly irrelevant and I know he’s tired of me harping on him every day. It’s getting to the point that he doesn’t want to talk to me. He also has some difficult problems in his personal life right now that are taking a toll on him. Even so, I have complete confidence in his abilities to get the job done. He’s managed to solve all of our technical problems in the past and I’m sure he’ll get this one fixed too. I’m just praying that he gets it fixed before Nov 6. If not, it’s going to be hell around here for awhile.
By the way, Free Republic on facebook worked fairly well last night as a standby site. But there’s no place like home.
Prayers up.
P.S. If John does not use the $6,000 we have sitting in the bank for equipment we can either return it to the donors or reduce future freepathon goals or possibly just hold it in reserve. If what ails us doesn’t kill us, we will be growing again soon.
*****
and from this thread a few days earlier......
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2943599/posts?page=136#136
No excuses, no denials. The system is failing under peak loads. Don’t know why yet. I thought we might be able to solve it by beefing up the servers and the RAM, and raised $6,000 to do so, but guess John does not agree. He’s wrestling with some systems configuration problems at the moment and has not yet found the solution. Unfortunately, I cannot help him with these issues as they’re way over my abilities. I’ve asked him if bringing in a consultant will help, but he appears reluctant to do so. I’ve also asked him to come on to a thread to post the status and answer questions, but so far he hasn’t wanted to do that either. Hopefully he will eventually find the problem. Sorry about the slowdowns during the debates and praying we get it fixed soon. If we end up not needing the $6,000, I will offer to return it to the donors. But I’m still thinking we need to beef up the hardware.
end snip
and here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2945771/posts?page=259#259
and here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2943561/posts?page=1169#1169
Actual screenshot from a few moments ago...
TROUBLE WITH THE FR SITE?
10/25/2012 10:17:34 AM PDT · 29 of 29
TomGuy to Principled
DENIED! Allred Strikes Out, David Corn Weeps
10/25/2012 10:17:21 AM PDT · 60 of 60
Mrs. Frogjerk to robowombat
DENIED! Allred Strikes Out, David Corn Weeps (UPDATE: Allred,”The Globe ‘double-crossed’ me!”)
10/25/2012 10:17:19 AM PDT · 11 of 11
arrogantsob to jmstein7
Load balancing and the pipes are too small.
the website needs a real expert to fix the problem.
Whoever is in charge is obviously in over their head and in denial about it.
I always give $100.00 every FReepathon and lately I have been giving $150.00. I am going to send in another $50.00 next week to match the $100.00 I gave already during this FReepathon. FR has problems... it acts at times just like it did on the debate nights. I do not know where the problem lies but we certainly have problems.
LLS
Jim's been upfront about the problems, I'll certainly give him that. But having the entire site rest on the shoulders of one person is dangerous as hell. And it looks like that will continue for awhile yet. See these links for details:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2948878/posts?page=130#130
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2948878/posts?page=182#182
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2948878/posts?page=201#201
And this is the scary part:
Well, I’m very sorry but for good reason John has security locked down tight on FR’s hardware and software. I do not even have access myself and I’m senior partner. Appreciate the offers very much, but I can tell you from experience that there’s no way he’s going to allow anyone into the secure environment.
Probably not. I was just hoping for a quick explanation.
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