Nifflas' Support Forum

General => About Nifflas' Website and Forum => Topic started by: Nifflas on December 09, 2009, 10:16:08

Title: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Nifflas on December 09, 2009, 10:16:08
I'm having enough problems with CPU throttling on hostmonster as it is (which is why it's going down randomly) but it's nothing compared to what the CPU usage will be after the release of Saira since more people come directly after a game release. The days after Saira's release are critical for the sales of the game, and I can't afford the risk of the page going down then. If all goes right the forums will then be back after a few days. In the meantime, you will of course be able to communicate through #niffchat, espernet (http://niffchat.greywool.com/).

It's very likely that once they go back online after Saira's release, the forum will only be accessible for logged in members. This will prevent that automated bots generate traffic. If I could only find more ways to reduce the CPU usage of this forum.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: SiamJai on December 09, 2009, 10:19:02
Sorry to hear that, but it's understandable. Good luck with the release! :)

*bookmarks the chat address*
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Nifflas on December 09, 2009, 10:21:14
I'll of course make sure the chat address is visible on the website.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: LPChip on December 09, 2009, 16:14:11
Nifflas, I can temporary host the website itself on my dutch server. You'll be ensured of uptime till you find something better. PM me if you're interested. :)
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: WatcherCCG on December 09, 2009, 16:14:32
Fair enough, Niff. Good luck with the sales! I don't have the money right now, but when I do, I'll give Saira a try.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Nifflas on December 09, 2009, 22:22:59
Quote from: LPChip on December 09, 2009, 16:14:11
Nifflas, I can temporary host the website itself on my dutch server. You'll be ensured of uptime till you find something better. PM me if you're interested. :)
I would be but I don't have the time to arrange it. I got to spend every hour tomorrow and on Saturday to get the game release stuff worked out. Thanks for the offer though!
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Exp HP on December 10, 2009, 01:46:49
After reading the topic a second time, let make sure I'm reading this correctly:  You're saying that the forums will be shut down temporarily to save bandwidth and avoid throttling, right?  The main site (http://nifflas.ni2.se/) will not be affected?

The first time I read this, I thought you were saying something to the effect of "I'm going to warn you that the server will most certainly experience severe downtime following the release of Saira," and that gave me the impression that the main site would be down, too (which left me confused as to where the game would be available for purchase/download... :huh:)
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: PONTO on December 10, 2009, 09:50:05
So I guess we should probably save the PMs you sent us with codes for the media somewhere else, such as a text file or something, as we won't have access to them later on, right?
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Nifflas on December 10, 2009, 12:17:34
Quote from: Exp HP on December 10, 2009, 01:46:49
After reading the topic a second time, let make sure I'm reading this correctly:  You're saying that the forums will be shut down temporarily to save bandwidth and avoid throttling, right?  The main site (http://nifflas.ni2.se/) will not be affected?

The first time I read this, I thought you were saying something to the effect of "I'm going to warn you that the server will most certainly experience severe downtime following the release of Saira," and that gave me the impression that the main site would be down, too (which left me confused as to where the game would be available for purchase/download... :huh:)

Bandwidth is no problem, but cpu throttling is. If I didn't take down the forum, I would risk downtime during the most critical period for the game release. There are just precautions that I have to take to be absolutely sure that everything will work.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Exp HP on December 10, 2009, 14:48:51
As a suggestion, perhaps a warning of this could be placed in one of the banners on the forum's front page so that Guests and other users who don't necessarily check the About Nifflas' Website board are aware the forum will be offline?
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Nifflas on December 10, 2009, 15:08:50
They will get that information from the website though.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Exp HP on December 10, 2009, 15:18:40
Fair enough.
I'll stop bugging you, now.*

*Statement is subject to change.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Purple Pineapple on December 11, 2009, 01:10:48
Quote from: LPChip on December 09, 2009, 16:14:11
Nifflas, I can temporary host the website itself on my dutch server. You'll be ensured of uptime till you find something better. PM me if you're interested. :)
Spell check is gone. Lol @ IE users. :P Also, what happened to all the avvies?

EDIT: To quote some examples
Spoiler: (click to show/hide)

EDIT2: Ack. Can't view forum when logged out!
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Gorfinhofin on December 11, 2009, 03:01:34
Everything looks fine to me. Must be something on your end.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Mathexpert on December 11, 2009, 03:02:45
I have that problem too...
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Gorfinhofin on December 11, 2009, 03:14:15
Okay, now I'm seeing messed-upness.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Exp HP on December 11, 2009, 03:31:17
When I first returned, I noticed that some people had avatars, and others didn't.  Most of the people with avatars had corrupted ones.

Case and point: Look at Evil.  Evil has a (corrupted) avatar, but (s)he has not been active since December 06, 2009, 02:16:09, which was before the switch.  As you can see, (s)he did not yet set up his/her avvie back up.

Mine was not here when I arrived, so I reuploaded.  Mine looks fine now.  I'll bet most of us with okay avatars reuploaded, and all of us with corrupted ones already had them when they arrived.  Also, it seems that the GIFs are the ones that got corrupted, and the PNGs are the ones that didn't transfer.


Also in clear absence are attachments and the favicon.  But that seems to be it.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: LPChip on December 11, 2009, 10:11:12
I'll look into it tonight.

I have moved our forum to my website, and during the transfer, something went wrong I guess.

You can upload your avatar to fix it, but I'll see if I can download them again and upload it again to my server. Perhaps it'll fix the issue, but possibly its beyond my capabilities.

Also, this does mean that the forum won't go offline at all!
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: WatcherCCG on December 11, 2009, 10:30:05
Many thanks, LP. Many thanks. And Merry Christmas.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: googoogjoob on December 11, 2009, 15:46:49
Characters with umlauts appear as ?s (for me at least). (For example. (http://nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php?action=profile;u=21))
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: LPChip on December 11, 2009, 17:58:56
This appears to be due to the export of the database from smf.

I can manually fix this, but I have no idea on how to prevent this.

I also don't see a way to fix the avatars. I did what I thought was the right thing, and nothing changed.

I currently don't have time to look into it more, so I'd like to ask everyone to upload their avatar once more.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Salmoneous on December 15, 2009, 07:38:22
Spellcheck is gone. like dude no! I can't survive without spellcheck please put it back or I leave.
(now I don't know if I spelled right.)
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: LPChip on December 15, 2009, 09:21:16
Hmm... I guess Nifflas disabled it on his old forum before I switched everything to my host. Let me find that setting...

EDIT: I can't find the setting :o I'll ask Paula where to change this.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: LimeLemon on December 15, 2009, 10:25:45
The following error or errors occurred while posting this message:
Your session timed out while posting. Please try to re-submit your message.

Session verification failed. Please try logging out and back in again, and then try again.

THAT THINGS HAPPEN ALL THE TIME! It was just a little in the beginning, then more and more, and now I can barely post. It's a miracle that I've been able to both post and edit this.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: LPChip on December 15, 2009, 10:39:36
That shouldn't happen. Can you clear your cookies and temporary internet files? It seems that they're corrupted.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Razzorman on December 15, 2009, 15:44:56
Quote from: Salmoneous on December 15, 2009, 07:38:22
Spellcheck is gone. like dude no! I can't survive without spellcheck please put it back or I leave.
(now I don't know if I spelled right.)

Firefox has a pretty good spellchecker add-on. You could use that instead of the forum's built in checker.
https://addons.mozilla.org/sv-SE/firefox/addon/3497 (https://addons.mozilla.org/sv-SE/firefox/addon/3497)
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: LPChip on December 15, 2009, 17:15:06
Quote from: Salmoneous on December 15, 2009, 07:38:22
Spellcheck is gone. like dude no! I can't survive without spellcheck please put it back or I leave.
(now I don't know if I spelled right.)

I've got a PM from Paula. The spell checker is enabled, but it is very well possible that my server somehow doesn't allow it to be run. I never use the spell checker, as Opera has one build-in that works very well too.

So for now, we'll have to do without. You might be able to use other browsers with a built in spell checker to support your needs.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: The stickman on December 16, 2009, 03:33:21
Safari has quite a nice spell-checker, and you can run Safari on Windows as well as Mac.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: LPChip on December 16, 2009, 23:25:18
Yay, I found the problem for all the avatars and attachments that got corrupted during the transfer. Everything is restored. now. If things appear wrong, try force refreshing the webpage (ctrl-f5)
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: .viR on December 17, 2009, 20:32:35
I kinda liked my messed up avatar.
 :D
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Evil on December 17, 2009, 21:24:56
what did they look like?
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Exp HP on December 17, 2009, 23:00:28
Here's my best attempt at reproducing what they looked like from memory.

.viR's was actually really cool, because despite being screwed up it was still animated (most of the animated avvies froze).
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: AA on December 18, 2009, 12:28:02
Thank you LPChip. I hadn't saved my avatar so I couldn't reupload it.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: LPChip on December 18, 2009, 13:01:52
You're welcome. :)
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: googoogjoob on December 18, 2009, 20:09:10
Quote from: .viR on December 17, 2009, 20:32:35
I kinda liked my messed up avatar.
 :D

I saved it because it was so awesome.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Miss Paula on January 25, 2010, 00:19:56
So, I unstickied this, since it doesn't apply either way, but will this forum move back to Nifflas' own hosting anytime soon? X)
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: LPChip on January 25, 2010, 00:40:16
I can't answer this.

Nifflas asked me if I minded hosting this a bit longer on my server.

I have absolutely no problem with doing so. My hosting supports it, and it doesn't cost me anything extra as I need the space anyway.
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: Miss Paula on January 25, 2010, 00:56:21
well, that IS an answer. :P
Title: Re: Forums to be offline for a few days after the release of Saira
Post by: LPChip on January 25, 2010, 16:21:37
I could also answer: Nifflas mentioned that he's happy about the change. But that still doesn't tell me if he wants to swap back to his hosting soon or not.

So I still can't answer it. Not in much detail at least...