Forum hosting changes

[barnabas1969]

I got a couple of MySQL errors a few minutes ago saying that there were too many connections. This happened when I tried to access http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums.

[holidayboy]

We've had several issues with the latest hosts and we're not happy with the level of service here so we'll be moving AGAIN soon!

No firm date yet but it will be in the next week or so - before the next invoice lands on the doormat.

More info as soon as a date/time has been chosen.

[STC]

TGB.tv

Transient Green Button

[holidayboy]

Apologies for the short notice but the server migration will happen later today (Sat 10th). I'll post again later with an exact time.

[holidayboy]

We'll be going offline for migration at 12:00 (UK time).

[holidayboy]

Test post

[holidayboy]

Anybody out there?

Files are still uploading so attachments etc might be missing for a while.

Please delete cookies etc if you have any difficulties logging in or posting.

[STC]

Barring a few config tweaks, we'd like to welcome you all to our new hosts for this forum.

Please let us know if you come across any oddities.

Thanks

(and cheers HB for doing all the dirty work)

TGB.tv

[mcewinter]

I can't login from my work PC. "Sorry, forums offline....". I logged out and cleared cookies to no avail. I can access from my phone browser however. Any insight?

[holidayboy]

You're being directed to our old host. I left the old forums in lock down just in case some users ended up there.

Try force refreshing the browser (Ctrl+f5 I think), or maybe ipconfig /flushdns in a cmd prompt window?

Maybe ask IT support if they can force a DNS update?

[STC]

To get you going you could temporarily add an entry in your hosts file:

Code: Select all

146.255.44.1 thegreenbutton.tv

[foxwood]

If he's having problems from a work PC, then it's likely that he's accessing the internet through a proxy server, in which case entries in the hosts file never come in to play.

Refreshing the browser is unlikely to help either, unless the proxy server happened to cache the old page on saturday morning when the move was underway, in which case a refresh might force the proxy to reload too, but it's more likely that the proxy has been misconfigured to ignote DNS TTL settings, in which case they might not be anything you can do until the proxy server decides to pay attention to the DNS update.

[STC]

^ Possibly. The changes for TGB to new hosts were made recently, and providers such as my local cable company, who do not offer proxy routing services, (which I don't query DNS through) still don't have the updated DNS info. Kind of strange. I'm hoping in the next 24 hours or so. I have setup a static route on my DNS server for similar issues such as these.

Give everything 72 hours, that's the ballpark IMO for the stragglers to catch up.

Our new hosts do appear to have quite a few enemies. Those companies make it hard and slow for DNS updates to propagate cleanly and quickly. They deliberately don't have optimized code for it to do so.
We just have to wait longer, but it will happen.

[edit] It looks like quite a few hits are still happening on the old server. That's shame
Unless you know ways to get out, you'd be pretty much SOL.

[STC]

I'm just imagining mce calling up IT at work and saying "Hey folks, please fix my leisuretime browsing problem"

[foxwood]

DNS updates don't "propagate". A DNS record contains a TTL entry that tells requesting DNS servers how long they can rely on the record they've been given. Usually you shorten that time a few days before making a change, so that instead of caching the response for a day, it will only be cached for a few minutes, so that when you make the change, end users get the new IP address pretty much immediately.

I don't know what the TTL was set to before the change, but I do know I got the "server is down" for service message early on Saturday morning, and then got through to the new site later that afternoon, so my guess that they TTL wasn't set to the 24 hours that it's set to now.

Unfortunately, some ISPs think that rules don't apply to them, and ignore DNS TTLs, and just cache DNS records for however long they feel like.

[STC]

Semantics: http://www.whatsmydns.net/

I have always referenced the delay in DNS info getting all around the Worlds' DNS servers and internal DNS servers as 'propagation'.
Referencing TTL values is just like looking at the numbers and saying that's what it 'should' do

Compounding this is that TTL doesn't really follow any forced rules and can't be attributed to what happens in real life. Look at my MS DNS server for instance.- It sits there for days without wanting to know before updating any DNS changes it sees fit. A LOT of companies use the same software and are also waiting, in limbo....

I agree about the 'rules'. Not every entity follows them.

[adam1991]

It took until late Sunday night US Eastern time for me to get to the new site.