[2018-03-19] GT thread temporarily unavailable

sb56637 · 2018-03-19T18:24:55.000Z

Hi everyone,

The huge GT thread is temporarily unavailable due to some technical difficulties. Please do NOT create another thread to take its place, as the original one will be made available again later today.

Thanks, and sorry for the inconvenience!

thijsco19 · 2018-03-19T18:36:28.000Z

Did we break the forum?? :smiling_imp:

sb56637 · 2018-03-19T18:45:06.000Z

thijsco19:

Did we break the forum?? :smiling_imp:

More or less.

MichielSanders · 2018-03-19T18:56:28.000Z

Maybe an idea to post this also in a locked sticky in the blf special products section.
I don’t know if any of the low post members who signed up yust for the gt look over here.

Kingjohn · 2018-03-19T19:31:27.000Z

sb56637:

thijsco19:

Did we break the forum?? :smiling_imp:

More or less.

If the large number of postings is a unresolvable serious problem, we could close the old thread, open a new thread, add a link to the new thread in the last message of the old one and also in the original post.

The OP of the old should also be copied to the new thread….
Then we could continue with the next 19k messages

It’s no sexy solution, but I am sure everyone could live with it.
Such performance issues are sometimes hard to find and hard to solve…

everydaysurvivalgear · 2018-03-19T19:41:02.000Z

I’m sure Sb is already in there with he’s hammer and saw hacking away at a fix

emarkd · 2018-03-19T19:42:34.000Z

Kingjohn:

sb56637:

thijsco19:

Did we break the forum?? :smiling_imp:

More or less.

If the large number of postings is a unresolvable serious problem, we could close the old thread, open a new thread, add a link to the new thread in the last message of the old one and also in the original post.

That’s how lots of other forums do it, including that other popular flashlight place. One of my favorite flashlight’s discussion thread is up to #20 now. Agree its not especially elegant, but it works…

Kingjohn · 2018-03-19T20:10:55.000Z

emarkd:

Kingjohn:

sb56637:

thijsco19:

Did we break the forum?? :smiling_imp:

More or less.

If the large number of postings is a unresolvable serious problem, we could close the old thread, open a new thread, add a link to the new thread in the last message of the old one and also in the original post.

That’s how lots of other forums do it, including that other popular flashlight place. One of my favorite flashlight’s discussion thread is up to #20 now. Agree its not especially elegant, but it works…

It normally is a performance issue of the DB itself or the DB query.
So, to fix this, one has to optimize the application running on the DB.

Sometimes simply having more RAM available could help as a fast fix…
As long as it also can be utilized by the OS and the application.

sb56637, in case you can isolate this problem, whatever it was, please post it here!
I’m curious.

Lightbringer · 2018-03-19T20:16:22.000Z

I blame Pfizer…

MRsDNF · 2018-03-19T20:45:32.000Z

everydaysurvivalgear:

I’m sure Sb is already in there with he’s hammer and saw hacking away at a fix

I wonder if I lent sb my 9’’ angle grinder whether the job would get done quicker?

sb56637 · 2018-03-19T21:41:41.000Z

MRsDNF:

everydaysurvivalgear:

I’m sure Sb is already in there with he’s hammer and saw hacking away at a fix

I wonder if I lent sb my 9’’ angle grinder whether the job would get done quicker?

Not a bad idea. Another idea would be to make the delete button available to all users on all posts in the GT thread, would probably get the job done quicker.

sb56637 · 2018-03-19T21:52:00.000Z

Kingjohn:

It normally is a performance issue of the DB itself or the DB query.
So, to fix this, one has to optimize the application running on the DB.

Yep, this is exactly the case. And unfortunately DB optimization is WAYYYYY above my pay grade…

Sometimes simply having more RAM available could help as a fast fix…
As long as it also can be utilized by the OS and the application.

Right on. With more RAM I could increase the size of several very important caches that can save a lot of database requests, which are usually the most CPU-intensive.

The main issue is that the VM we’re running on has CPU burst capacity, but recently we’ve been bursting it almost all the time. This will soon lead to the host throttling us down to the baseline performance that I’m paying for, and when that happens a small spike in requests will flatline the whole system and basically bring the site to its knees. So I’m now looking at upgrading to a different service with dedicated CPU cores and a lot more RAM. But meanwhile I had to take the GT thread down to avoid using up all of our burst allowance.

I guess we’ve been doing pretty good thusfar with the fairly limited server resources we have. BLF gets well over 1 million hits per month (usually somewhere around 30k/day), and that’s just counting users that don’t run ad blockers (my only source of traffic stats is Google Adsense).

MichielSanders · 2018-03-19T21:59:56.000Z

Anywhere to donate for the upgrade?

sb56637 · 2018-03-19T22:04:21.000Z

MichielSanders:

Anywhere to donate for the upgrade?

Thanks a TON for offering! It’s really not so much a money question as it is finding time to do a migration. I do appreciate it if BLF users want to disable their ad blockers, as the ad banners comfortably cover the hosting and related costs.

Franz · 2018-03-19T22:20:02.000Z

I wonder why happened with the thread, I found it blown away like a birthday’s bladder filled with candies

Jiffy · 2018-03-19T22:31:46.000Z

Thanks for the update sb56637.

I vote just open new BLF GT part 2 thread?

g_sintornillos · 2018-03-19T22:50:17.000Z

sb56637:

I do appreciate it if BLF users want to disable their ad blockers, as the ad banners comfortably cover the hosting and related costs.

Done
I just disabled the ABP for the BLF site

xxx · 2018-03-19T23:55:35.000Z

Autolock thread when reaching some post numbers (5k, 10k, or 15k) with link to new thread and all page one post in new thread maybe??

sb56637 · 2018-03-20T03:06:41.000Z

OK, the GT thread is visible again, but only in read-only mode for the time being. Sorry for the inconvenience, I’m trying to gather performance data regarding this huge thread.