[booB]

Please stand by for quality
The server is currently unavailable while some routine nightly maintenance goes on behind the scenes. Ho hum. Check back in a few minutes, and we should be back up and running! In the meantime, why not make a sandwich, or learn to whittle?

I realize it's just a coincidence that I'm always browsing this forum at 2am eastern time, which is usually right after I get out of work, and I realize that I'm just a n00b (both on this forum and in the realm of adventure gaming in general)... but I'm getting REALLY sick of seeing this page. It always pops up when I'm right in the middle of reading/posting on the forum, or researching some obscure adventure game I've just heard about.

THE NIGHTLY MAINTENANCE MESSAGE MUST DIE!!!!!!!!!

(I am, of course, being tongue-in-cheek. I realize this maintenance has to happen in order to keep things running smoothly, and I applaud the good men and women who contribute to this website on the incredible job they have done. )

[tsa]

For me it's always at 8:00 in the morning. Even more annoying. Luckily it usually only takes 10 min or so.

[tabacco]

Hey, as the creator of that page, allow me to say a few words

The reason that downtime exists is to allow me to make db backups. The databases are quite large at this point, so it's basically mandatory that apache be offline while backups happen. I could, in theory, use mysqldump while the site is running, but because of the way mysqldump locks tables, it would basically kill the site anyway. If I had a second server, I could replicate the db to it and make backups from that, but I don't have the money to keep another server around just for replication for backups. Basically, with the hardware budget I have going, taking apache offline for 10 minutes is about the least painful option. (The script fires up lighttpd to serve that message across all virtualhosts on the machine, if you were going to ask)

And have you even tried to whittle?

[rlpw]

Originally Posted by tabacco

Hey, as the creator of that page, allow me to say a few words

The reason that downtime exists is to allow me to make db backups. The databases are quite large at this point, so it's basically mandatory that apache be offline while backups happen. I could, in theory, use mysqldump while the site is running, but because of the way mysqldump locks tables, it would basically kill the site anyway. If I had a second server, I could replicate the db to it and make backups from that, but I don't have the money to keep another server around just for replication for backups. Basically, with the hardware budget I have going, taking apache offline for 10 minutes is about the least painful option. (The script fires up lighttpd to serve that message across all virtualhosts on the machine, if you were going to ask)

And have you even tried to whittle?

And a fine job you fellows do tobacco.

[tsa]

Originally Posted by tabacco

And have you even tried to whittle?

I guess I have, back when I was a teenager. But after that, no.

[booB]

Originally Posted by tabacco

And have you even tried to whittle?

My doctors don't let me keep a knife in my room.

[Lucien21]

If you delete the thread must die thread the you would probably half the backup time

[tsa]

Good idea! That thread is full of nonsense anyway.

[Huz]

Perhaps you should schedule the backup for a different time each night, so that you don't continually inconvenience the same set of people.

Or, invent a mystery code to be expressed in day-of-month, hour-of-night-in-Pacific-Time pairs. The adventure gamer tenacious and dedicated enough to keep track of when the backup happens each night can solve the riddle and win a mystery prize!!! (The prize is the ability to feel smug about their problem-solving abilities, yet strangely hollow, almost as though they were wasting their life.)

[rlpw]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

If you delete the thread must die thread the you would probably half the backup time

Noooooooooooooooo!

[booB]

Originally Posted by Huz

Or, invent a mystery code to be expressed in day-of-month, hour-of-night-in-Pacific-Time pairs. The adventure gamer tenacious and dedicated enough to keep track of when the backup happens each night can solve the riddle and win a mystery prize!!! (The prize is the ability to feel smug about their problem-solving abilities, yet strangely hollow, almost as though they were wasting their life.)

Isn't that how we as adventure gamers feel already???

[SoccerDude28]

Just a simple suggestion for Thread Must Die (if it is consuming too much space). Can't we divide the thread into 2 and delete the old entries? I'm pretty sure that people won't bother to read the very old entries anyway.

[tabacco]

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but I just wanted to mention that tonight should have been the last of the nightly site outages. At long last, I have a second server to replicate the database to so I can take *it* down to do backups every night. Sorry fans of the blue terror, but from now on when you see it it means something bad has happened

[RLacey]

So now no one will learn to whittle?

It's a dying art, I tell thee...

[Trumgottist]

whittle |ˈwɪt(ə)l|
verb [ trans. ]
carve (wood) into an object by repeatedly cutting small slices from it.

???