High Load Errors are annoying...

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Crissa
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High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Crissa »

...Who do we complain to, exactly?

We really shouldn't be getting these messages at 3pm and 3am, and yet we do.

That's really bad load balancing on the part of bbboy.net for paid service.

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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by fbmf »

Crissa at [unixtime wrote:1196810747[/unixtime]]...Who do we complain to, exactly?


Zherog has complained on behalf of Nifty and I have complained on behalf of this message board both on the Bbboy Support Forums and via email. To know avail.

They blame it on spambots.

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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by JonSetanta »

Thanks, it's pissing me off too.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Maj »

Spambots my ass.

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Count Arioch the 28th
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

I think they should credit some money to your account every time someone can't get through to the boards.

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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

fbmf at [unixtime wrote:1196820518[/unixtime]]
They blame it on spambots.

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Even worse, actually. They typically blame it on "crawlers" for sites like Yahoo and Google.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

So, I learned today that Nifty gets the stupid "high load" errors because we use a lot of their resources. Here's the quote:

BbBoy wrote:our board is marked as one which is a particually high user of CPU and memory on the server in proportion to the number of visitors, so it is set to receive the "high load" notices at a lower threshold than other boards. That'd explain why your board perhaps sees it more often than others. You can automatically come off that list by reducing the amount of resources your board uses in proportion to the number of users. If you're a particually high resource abuser, you might perhaps be better off with hosting some board software on your own server, rather than using a shared board host such as this.


It was posted in this thread on the support forums, if anybody cares about the source...

I don't know if the Den is receiving the high load errors for the same reason. But it might be something to check into.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Surgo »

Of course, they don't bother saying how the hell we use so much CPU/memory despite our low number of visitors. The only way I can think of there is if people are constantly running their completely shitty search feature.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

Well, to be fair, I can't say for sure the Den falls into the same category. It's possible that the Den isn't classified under the anal rapage category, like Nifty is. But yeah - I can't even see how Nifty is using so many resources, frankly.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

Interestingly enough, Support has gone and deleted my thread where I was questioning them about the 500 errors and the "We don't give a fuck about you, but we'll say our servers are too busy" errors. I've sent a PM to find out why. If I don't have a satisfactory response tomorrow, I'll be restarting the thread.

Fucking fuckers....
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

Support has confirmed they deleted my thread about the downtime - even though there were still unanswered questions in it, from me as well as about people from four other communities.

So, other than knowing that we pay more a month for more bandwidth and still get butt fucked with more "server is down" messages, there's no new info.

I also received a warning because the thread existed. :bored:
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by fbmf »

You received a warning for starting a thread?

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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

So it would seem.

Does that beat the warning Frank received at WotC for telling somebody that couldn't out-Frank logic him? ;)
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

I just started a new thread on the support forums, in the vain attempt of getting answers on the downtime as well as the server too busy errors. I'll probably just get warned again, though.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Fwib »

Do they have a list of rules somewhere? Warning people about things you don't have up on a list of rules seems a little off.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

Just in case anybody here cares about how Support feels about things... Here's a link to the new thread I had created. If you don't want to go to the support forum, I can't blame you, here's my post:

me wrote:I still have unanswered questions from my thread about the downtime. Sadly, that thread was deleted - so if the answers were provided I didn't get a chance to see them before the action was taken. For reference, here's the post BbBoy made to that thread, which lead to the questions.

BbBoy at [unixtime wrote:1198972564[/unixtime]]Zherog,

I'm very sorry for any problems you've had today - my apologies. I'm still looking in to what might have happened, but unfortunately I wasn't around to see it myself. Still, I don't believe there are any long term issues here.

Anyway, regarding the tone of your messages, with all due respect may I suggest that if you feel you're not receiving the level of service you're paying for, you move your board to another service? You've only ever made one small payment to us (well, under your current username), so on the bright side, at least you haven't wasted a huge amount of your hard earned cash. ;) :) Your board is marked as one which is a particually high user of CPU and memory on the server in proportion to the number of visitors, so it is set to receive the "high load" notices at a lower threshold than other boards. That'd explain why your board perhaps sees it more often than others. You can automatically come off that list by reducing the amount of resources your board uses in proportion to the number of users. If you're a particually high resource abuser, you might perhaps be better off with hosting some board software on your own server, rather than using a shared board host such as this.

Back to today's apparant problem - if anyone has further details that haven't already been given I'd be very happy to receive them. At the moment I'm just seeing green lights. :)


That post is completely unedited. So, on to the questions, if I may. I'd like to start with questions about the downtimes.

Do we know what caused the downtimes on Dec 24th, Dec 29th, and Dec 30th?

Will any renumeration be given to customers because of these downtimes?

Is BbBoy aware that the e-mail address that appears when the 500 error comes up is invalid? The address listed is wwwadmin@bbboy.net. I humbly recommend that the code for the 500 error be altered to include a valid e-mail address so your clients may contact you during downtime.

*

Now, on to specific questions about the info in the post above, in regards to the "our servers are too busy" errors that have been on the rise. I've been told that BbBoy's previous post provided ample information. So perhaps I'm just a moron, but I don't think it does. So, in order to help me acquire the info I need, I'd like to ask additional questions, if I may.

BbBoy, from the post quoted above wrote:Your board is marked as one which is a particually high user of CPU and memory on the server in proportion to the number of visitors, so it is set to receive the "high load" notices at a lower threshold than other boards.


I would like more information about this, please.

Are you looking at active members, or registered members when you make this determination?

What sorts of activities contribute to the high CPU usage?

I was under the impression that we're on the variable plan. That is, the more resources we use (measured in bandwidth), the more we pay. If so, then why are we - in essence - paying a second time by receiving more "server load" messages than other boards?

Why weren't your clients - that is, the folks who opt to pay you to host their message boards - made aware of this policy to increase the number of "server load" errors based on usage, even though many already pay because they're on a variable plan?

My community is asking more questions, actually. And I have others. But we'll start here. I wouldn't want my limited ability to process data - which you seem to believe I have - to be overworked.

I'll be keeping a copy of this post, and any others I make to this thread, both publicly on my board as well as privately on my hard drive. I plan to do the same with replies. So, really, deleting it won't accomplish much. Instead, I'll hope you take this for what it's intended to be -- an invitation for you to explain a few things to your customers regarding the level of service recently.


They've locked the thread, with the following two replies:

BbAdmin, Jan 1 2008 12:14am wrote:With it being new year's it's not fair to leave this open, please refrain from posting about this again and be patient for a reply, I think BbBoy explained enough and I haven't read this thread Zherog, but I'm asking you to sit back and wait for a response and to drop the attitude. It's not necesary or appreciated.


BbAdmin, Jan 1 2008 10:22am wrote:And That is all there is to be said on this matter, please have a Happy and Safe New Year's everyone, we apologize for the downtime, but like stated above, we feel we've managed pretty well over the years and we think this member is overreacting big time, please don't let a little inconvience color the way you feel about our service. :smile:

As always if you need anything please post. We're here to help.


So there ya go. They're willing to tell their customers to fuck off, go somewhere else, and stop asking questions.

I've just sent a PM to them. I suspect I'll get another warning. At least this one would probably be deserved...

If anybody here wishes to go ask questions about the load errors, I certainly wouldn't mind other people pissing in support's Cheerios.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

The continuing story of the Mythical BbBoy "24/7 World Class" Support (their words in quotes, not mine).

Reply from BbAdmin via PM:

All you have to do is disable any uneeded features, that's it, I thought it was clearly explained, that this stuff is covered in my reply to you. Enough is fully enough, it's New Year's day and I have had enough of your condescending attitude Zherog, now turn off thread views and that will help, any other features you're not using, like dynamic profiles or other things, that's all you can do.

Stop beating a dead horse, I will not reply to any more questions like this posed with such a disdainful attitude. All it takes is some common sense.

BbAdmin


So... i lack common sense, as well as the ability to read her fucking mind.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Fwib »

I get that IRL - people expecting me to 'know what they mean' - but I'm not even paying those people money for a service.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

Yeah, so basically, the high load errors are (supposedly) caused by any particular forum using a lot of CPU time on their piece of shit server. Reducing that CPU usage should reduce the errors. How to reduce CPU usage should be common sense, and obvious to anybody. Supposedly.

As for the downtimes that have occurred, they deny two of them even happened, and don't seem willing to provide answers about the one they admit to (Dec 29th).

Fbmf -- If you wanna take up the cause of finding answers, please feel free. I don't expect I'll be getting any answers.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by MrWaeseL »

That post is the absolute proof that, no matter what nerds seem to think, social skills are much much more important than book smarts in any job, even one in IT.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

That's especially true for customer service jobs. I mean holy shit - she called one of her customers dumb and lacking common sense.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Jacob_Orlove »

So I went to the support forum, and they have an urgent "please read" link at the top about how they're going to be deleting some of the free boards they host. In September. Of 2003.

:confused:


edit: wow, I just read the thread you guys had on their ToU. They directed you to archive.org (!!!) to view their terms of service. That's awful.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Zherog »

"That's awful" defines their service very well. The only thing they're good at, in my experience, is fixing e-mail addresses of accounts - because until recently, a user couldn't do it themselves. Even now, you have to dig to find the page to do it.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by Absentminded_Wizard »

I wonder if somebody should link them to some of Frank's classic rants and say, "Now this is over-the-top attitude. Learn the difference." :tongue:

Seriously, if they think Z's posts were too full of attitude, these folks should avoid the internet. And they definitely shouldn't be working in customer support. By definition, people only talk to support when they have problems, and problems can make people a little snippy.
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Re: High Load Errors are annoying...

Post by tzor »

What really gets my goat is this ...

I haven't read this thread Zherog


You don't read the thread but you are the first to make a snap judgement on it? I'm serious when I say this is simply not acceptable.
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