Hi friends

You know of the Server Error problem of the site. I inspected everything, checked the log, fixed what could be wrong and the error persists. Searching on the net I found that it's probably due to the server bandwidth sucked by another site on the same computer.

Actually we're hosted by a company called Godaddy, they never helped me, not even showing me the server log, even if I'm a long time costumer that actually, for Posetteforever, is paying for a hosting plan using only a little fraction of the space and bandwidth available.

So I've decided to move to another hosting company. I've not choosen anything at the moment but I want to appraise you of THE PLAN

Actually I'm going to train school (if you don't know I'm a wannabe train driver) and I'm very busy during the week, my only real day home is sunday so a moving in these condition is problematic, but I'll stay home for a couple of weeks in August.

The plan is that I'll begin to work on it at about the 10th of August.
The site will be closed for some days, I hope no more of a  couple of days but it will take time.
The month of August in this emisphere is the middle of the summer, there are not many people around so it should be the right moment.


I'll probably take the occasion to upgrade the software, while here on Godaddy, once everything is fine I'll buy the web space from another company and then I'll transfer there all the files and the database.

In this transiction period I'll keep both the subscriptions, just in case something goes wrong and TEST the other hosting company buying only some months, and I mean that the site will be fully operational but in case we are not satisfied with the performances I can even move it elsewhere.

In the meantime I can keep the "old" place operational or with some function operational, but with a different name ( I own also posette.com ) just to keep you appraised.

What I want to say to you is this: I'll take the time to choose the right company, any suggestion is welcome, both in the USA or in Europe (Italy excluded because of the law of the country where I live ), there is not a big difference: I connect to Posetteforever while it is in Arizona with no problems (except for this new server error...) .

When I'll have some canditates I'll ask to some of you to test the connection on some sites that those companies host, in order to see if there are problems, difficult connections etc.

Once done, I'll transfer the files there, I'll change the setting of the domain name (posetteforever.com) in order to point there, the site will be available in few hours once I've uploaded all the files  (uploading the files will take long, very long...) and transfered the data to a new database (it will take even longer, I've to do it manually...). During the backup (the phase where I download all the files and the database) the site will be closed , when it will be reopened, while on Godaddy, everything that is added to it will be wiped out (that's normal, if I take a backup and upload it on a new place what you type on the old one will not be recorded), so probably I'll keep opened only one forum in our forum tree and the shoutbox).


For you NOTHING should change, the site will appear exactly like it is, but as always happens, something can be wrong so I'll ask you, as usual, to keep me appraised on errors or malfunctions.

I ask you to be patient about this server error, I'm making the steps to move elsewhere, but I've to do it when I've the time to do it, so that everything can go smoothly. Everything should take no more tha a couple of days, but knowing myself, I'll work on it night and day    

I think that there is enough time to alert everyone of you that what will happen is normal, the site will reopen soon, if there are problems, I can switch back because I'll not end the subscription on Godaddy untill everything is going smoothly with the new hosting, whatever it will be.

The site must run like a greased mechanism, so f*ck Godaddy and their crappy support center.

As usual, LONG LIVE POSETTEFOREVER

Tormie

Ok Davide! Sounds like a plan to me.   
Don't forget to screw the Porch light bulb back in when
we open the store up.

Three things:

1) Wherever we move it should be near sand... for my (ahem) sandbox.

2) I'm prepared to... er... clean out the contents of the fridge. You know, so it's lighter for the journey.

3) Has anyone done a count of the penguins?  Wouldn't do to lose a couple on the trek to greener pastures...

GrouchoC.

      

After a lot of researches on the net maybe I found that the problem is with the cache of the site. This issue is specific to Godaddy and affects a lot of other sites.

Anyway, I disabled the cache and made a couple of changes. The cache on this kind of sites writes in the hard disk of the server informations from the database in order to speed up the requests to the database itself, the site responds a little faster. I tested it without the cache and noticed no big differences, even because we don't have such a massive traffic   . I'm browsing the site a lot and noticed no server errors, but I don't know, because the error appears randomly, so the problem may be not be solved (tell me if it appears again).

In order to avoid charching too much the databases, I changed the "new messages" on the upper banner to the old style (you'll see "New (number)" at the upper right corner when there are new messages written in the forum) while the one the we used was more extensive, but the information were stored in site's database, while now they are stored in your cookies, it shouldn't be a big deal, as far as I know, we where probably the only phpBB site that used that feature.

Well, some other informations: our main page is a little "overloaded   " it gives back a lot of informations: random thumbnails from the album, new comments in the album, recent topic, shoutbox etc. etc. so the calls to the database are many, this is why, the first time you access the site, it can even take 30 seconds to load. If you find it boring, you can change the link to posetteforever to another page (for example the forum or the album). The time it takes to load the first page is the speed of the database of Godaddy ( ).

Now, why I insist on Godaddy? Problem is that I just renewed for two years and spent more than 200 dollars, I don't know if they would refund me . They are a lot of money for my empty pockets ... Nevertheless, if the site won't work properly, I'll move it as said in this topic.

Let me know if you meet again Mr. "Internal Server Error"

Meanwhile I'll continue the search on the internet in order to have better performances with what we have...

Nothing, today, morning time, it was running smoothly, now, night time, it's a mess. Probably it's a site on the same server that works on an American timezone, but who knows?

We're moving...