SpursTalk Notice: 24-hour Downtime on Monday, Sept. 3

[timvp]

Edited:

SpursTalk.com will be offline for approximately 24 hours beginning at 3 AM CST on Monday, September 3rd. After nearly five years of continuous use, the current servers will be taken apart, tested, cleaned and upgraded. The upgrades (most notably 8GB more RAM and switching to SSD technology for data storage) are pretty costly for the server-grade hardware but the result should be much improved performance of the forum.

This will be the first part of a multiple step process that should bring about a much better user experience for everyone. In the next couple weeks or so, we'll also be upgrading the forum software, massively improving the search functionality, adding better chat features and a few other new aspects that will be announced soon.

Thank you for your patience during this upgrade process.

[TE]

:(:(:(

:depressed

24 hours....

[ElNono]

Thanks for the heads up... I'll stop the automated scripts trying to hack the site during the downtime :tu

[ElNono]

On a serious note, thanks to Muki, Slomo and any other fellas working behind the cameras to make this the best site evar... and obviously our benevolent overlords, timvp and Kori...

[BanditHiro]

lol Kool-Aid

[lefty]

Lol soccer forum


Shit :cry

[ElNono]

RMAO :lmao

[Jacob1983]

http://cdn.screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/24_s7_logo_f.jpg

[TE]

on a serious note, thanks to muki, slomo and any other fellas working behind the cameras to make this the best site evar... And obviously our benevolent overlords, timvp and kori...

+1

[Trainwreck2100]

hopefully by better functionality you mean "when you come back a certain asshole will be banned"

[FkLA]

Fuck, its the first day of school too. What site am I supposed to go on during class to help time go by quicker ?

[LkrFan]

24 hours is like an eternity. I'm used to seeing things get done in .4 ;)

I kid, I kid. :lol

[racm]

24 hours is like an eternity. I'm used to seeing things get done in .4 ;)

I kid, I kid. :lol
:lmao

[lakerhaterade]

24 hours is like an eternity. I'm used to seeing things get done in .4 ;)

I kid, I kid. :lol

Stfu bitch

[Venti Quattro]

Yahoo, I hope there would already be a mobile version and a dedicated Youtube button.

[Drachen]

Thanks for slomo, timvp, et al...


Hey, who wants to get the hopes of Spursreport up and go over there for 24 hours? Make them think that they are going to be relevant and all.

[Slomo]

Yahoo, I hope there would already be a mobile version and a dedicated Youtube button.

First we're going to let muki work his magic and upgrade the hardware and the system itself (OS upgrade, db update, new search engine...) which should boost the performance of the setup dramatically. Once we have a fast and stable forum, we will tackle the software upgrades of the forum itself. That will take more time and will be gradual, but without any major downtime (fingers crossed). It's during that period that we will polish the look and feel of the forum and add or reintroduce certain features.

A mobile version is definitely on the short list - but it will happen during phase 2.

[Venti Quattro]

we understand. And it's not like the full version is slow. Well I just disabled sigs and avatars so the gifs won't be too much of a problem when I'm on a mobile device.

[ducks]

will you ban certain posters and eliminate people with more then one screen name

[Killakobe81]

we understand. And it's not like the full version is slow. Well I just disabled sigs and avatars so the gifs won't be too much of a problem when I'm on a mobile device.

How do you do that, Venti?

[Venti Quattro]

How do you do that, Venti?

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/profile.php?do=editoptions

search for 'Thread Display Options'

[DMC]

hopefully by better functionality you mean "when you come back a certain asshole will be banned"
Why you gotta hate on me like det yo

[DMC]

will you ban certain posters and eliminate people with more then one screen name
Because you have to disassemble the server to remove those user names that are built up inside it.

[Drachen]

Because you have to disassemble the server to remove those user names that are built up inside it.

just use some canned air to get rid of them once you open up the case.

[loveforthegame]

Thanks to everyone who is making this happen. :tu

[benefactor]

:cryI miss the arcade:cry

[Trill Clinton]

i wouldn't mind seeing some reaction buttons under our posts. for instance, a "co-sign" button or a "like" or "dis-like" button for posts we agree or disagree with. maybe even a "lol" button for funny posts.

but i'm sure whatever you guys have in the works will be great. looking forward to the changes.

[ALVAREZ6]

What about thursday the 30th?

Where are us soccer fans to go to make fun of RMAO fans (lefty) as Barca waxes Real's ass at the Bernabeu?

[ElNono]

What about thursday the 30th?

Where are us soccer fans to go to make fun of RMAO fans (lefty) as Barca waxes Real's ass at the Bernabeu?

It can wait until friday, then we can LOL @ lefty much quicker, tbh

[George W Bush]

Ol Chumpy's head will explode now. He needs to pass 70k posts and get to 80k




I'm George W Bush and I approve these upgrades :tu

[thispego]

Some people here will kill themselves without spurstalk for 24 hours

[Venti Quattro]

:cryI miss the arcade:cry

:cry :cry Please bring back The Arcade :cry :cry

[Wild Cobra Kai]

Was the arcade dumped for performance reasons?

[Em-City]

looking forward to the changes if i can survive the next 24 hrs

[CubanMustGo]

SSD, props. That should really make things scream (not like they are anywhere close to slow now). Thanks to timvp, Kori, Slomo, and anyone else involved either technically or financially.

[benefactor]

Was the arcade dumped for performance reasons?
Someone used it to hack the site iirc.

[timvp]

Was the arcade dumped for performance reasons?

SpursTalk was hacked (http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=191775) about six months ago via an exploit in the arcade. We'll have to test it out but if the makers of the arcade app have patched up the exploits, we should be able to bring it back during this upgrade process :tu

[team-work]

SpursTalk was hacked (http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=191775) about six months ago via an exploit in the arcade. We'll have to test it out but if the makers of the arcade app have patched up the exploits, we should be able to bring it back during this upgrade process :tu

Thank you for your hard work, as always. It's never easy to run an Internet forum effectively as you do. Lurkers such as me just put your URL into "my favorites" and enjoy the end results, but in the background there's tremendous amount of work to be done.

:blah:blah:blah

[mouse]

will you ban certain posters and eliminate people with more then one screen name

+1

[mouse]

Hey, who wants to get the hopes of Spursreport up and go over there for 24 hours? Make them think that they are going to be relevant and all.

That sounds like a cool idea but it would take 24 hours to get approval to post and besides if you look in the forums now they already have 10 members and 900 guests

[mojorizen7]

"24 hours?!!..."
http://www.cornel1801.com/1/t/TITANIC/3-characters-pictures-quotes/Bernard-Hill-as-Captain-Edward-James-Smith.jpg

[JudynTX]

Will we get a feature where we can block Avante? :)

[xmas1997]

Some people always have to make things a competition.
I belong to, and like, both forums because there are good and bad things in, and about, both forums.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

Thank you soooooooo much to timvp, kori, slomo, and all the other people who work so hard to keep this wonderful community going.

I deeply appreciate all the work you do for us. :toast

[timvp]

The downtime that was schedule for tomorrow has been delayed. Apparently SpursTalk has become self-aware and didn't like the idea of being taken offline. We'll try again in about a week. I'll update this thread with a date once it's decided.

Apologies for the false alarm.

[Dex]

SpursTalk = SkyNet? :wow

[Muki]

I'm not sure I can find two new volunteers to go into the server room in such a short time. Not after what happened today anyway...

[Bruno]

Damn, I hope that you will be able to do relatively easily whatever you want to do.

When I see most of the other teams fans forum crashing after some games, I'm impressed by how robust ST is. It's even more impressing for a site without ads. Huge props to all the people that make it work both technically and financially.

[DeadlyDynasty]

Damn, I hope that you will be able to do relatively easily whatever you want to do.

When I see most of the other teams fans forum crashing after some games, I'm impressed by how robust ST is. It's even more impressing for a site without ads. Huge props to all the people that make it work both technically and financially.
You're welcome.

[Seventyniner]

You're welcome.

Do you play the role of the flaw that makes the masterpiece?

[CosmicCowboy]

I'm not sure I can find two new volunteers to go into the server room in such a short time. Not after what happened today anyway...

:lmao:lmao

[Obstructed_View]

Shit, now I have to move my schedule around. Oh yeah, I don't do anything.

[ElNono]

I'm not sure I can find two new volunteers to go into the server room in such a short time. Not after what happened today anyway...

:lol

I just had two drives going bad *today* on a 7+ year old RAID 5 setup... FML

Took 3+ hours to replace, rebuild and restore the whole thing... bad day to mess around with servers, tbh

[easy7]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo o

[Wild Cobra Kai]

The downtime that was schedule for tomorrow has been delayed. Apparently SpursTalk has become self-aware and didn't like the idea of being taken offline. We'll try again in about a week. I'll update this thread with a date once it's decided.

Apologies for the false alarm.


SpursTalk = SkyNet? :wow

Perhaps you could bring back the arcade...minus missile command?:wow

[TE]

1 hour...:(


Hey timvp, have you thought about adding a kudos function for posters?

[ElNono]

http://i49.tinypic.com/2cxt27q.png

[Wild Cobra Kai]

http://i49.tinypic.com/2cxt27q.png

:lol:rollin

[Wild Cobra Kai]

1 hour...:(


Hey timvp, have you thought about adding a kudos function for posters?

Did you notice the change in the thread title?

[dylankerouac]

Later everyone.

[Wild Cobra Kai]

People aren't noticing the subject change.

[Muki]

:lol

I just had two drives going bad *today* on a 7+ year old RAID 5 setup... FML

Took 3+ hours to replace, rebuild and restore the whole thing... bad day to mess around with servers, tbh

A few weeks ago I had both disks in RAID1 fail within two days. First disk died, replaced with a fresh one, rebuilt the array, the next morning the second original disk died. Three years old Seagate Constellation ES2 drives (supposedly "the good stuff", enterprise grade and all that) with consecutive serial numbers, both full of bad sectors and just out of warranty. Was not impressed.

[TDMVPDPOY]

wtf do you clowns have on RAID setup worth protecting anyway?? fkn wankers

[Muki]

RAID is not about data protection, but about data availability. If a drive dies in the SpursTalk database server, nobody will notice it and everything will keep on running even while I swap the failed drive for a good one.

[Drachen]

RAID is not about data protection, but about data availability. If a drive dies in the SpursTalk database server, nobody will notice it and everything will keep on running even while I swap the failed drive for a good one.

I think that he was asking the individual users as opposed to the site itself.

For me I have a mirroring raid array to protect my mp3s, and my pictures (mostly), also I have all of my school work, etc.

[Drom John]

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do, I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage -- I can't afford a carriage, But you'd look sweet upon the seat Of a bicycle built for two.

[Dex]

:lol

I just had two drives going bad *today* on a 7+ year old RAID 5 setup... FML

Took 3+ hours to replace, rebuild and restore the whole thing... bad day to mess around with servers, tbh

What platform are you running, out of curiosity?

[Muki]

I think that he was asking the individual users as opposed to the site itself.

For me I have a mirroring raid array to protect my mp3s, and my pictures (mostly), also I have all of my school work, etc.

I was referring to individual users too, and only used this site as an example.

Your array protects you from a single drive failure, but is vulnerable to motherboard (if it's a softraid/fakeraid) or raid controller (if it's a real raid) failure, and to the failure of both disks at the same time which is not as unlikely as it looks at the first glance. What's more important, it does not protect you at all from accidentally erasing e.g. your pictures by mistake. This is where the old adage "RAID is not backup" comes from. Having RAID is good, but having a reliable backup process on a secondary storage is even better. Doesn't have to be anything fancy for home use, even a simple USB drive that is synced once a week might be enough.

You can acquire the mp3s again, but you can't re-shoot all your pictures or rewrite your schoolwork, can you?

[Drachen]

I was referring to individual users too, and only used this site as an example.

Your array protects you from a single drive failure, but is vulnerable to motherboard (if it's a softraid/fakeraid) or raid controller (if it's a real raid) failure, and to the failure of both disks at the same time which is not as unlikely as it looks at the first glance. What's more important, it does not protect you at all from accidentally erasing e.g. your pictures by mistake. This is where the old adage "RAID is not backup" comes from. Having RAID is good, but having a reliable backup process on a secondary storage is even better. Doesn't have to be anything fancy for home use, even a simple USB drive that is synced once a week might be enough.

You can acquire the mp3s again, but you can't re-shoot all your pictures or rewrite your schoolwork, can you?

Well to be honest, all of my pics are on both my NAS and my laptop (and the more recent ones are also in my dropbox as I have auto upload) so it is kinda like what you describe, but I do have an extra usb drive that I am not doing anything with. Maybe if I can figure out how to automate that backup, I will do so.

[ElNono]

wtf do you clowns have on RAID setup worth protecting anyway?? fkn wankers

It was for work... in this case medical records.


What platform are you running, out of curiosity?

This specific box was running CentOS Linux with an Adaptec 3200S SCSI setup... RAID1 for the OS, RAID5 for the bulk data. On newer boxes we run either CentOS or FreeBSD depending on what's needed and use 3ware (now LSI) SATA cards for the hardware RAID. Gives us bigger sizes, cheaper drives, the ability to setup SSD raids, etc.

[ElNono]

I was referring to individual users too, and only used this site as an example.

Your array protects you from a single drive failure, but is vulnerable to motherboard (if it's a softraid/fakeraid) or raid controller (if it's a real raid) failure, and to the failure of both disks at the same time which is not as unlikely as it looks at the first glance. What's more important, it does not protect you at all from accidentally erasing e.g. your pictures by mistake. This is where the old adage "RAID is not backup" comes from. Having RAID is good, but having a reliable backup process on a secondary storage is even better. Doesn't have to be anything fancy for home use, even a simple USB drive that is synced once a week might be enough.

Agree, RAID is just availability. We backup nightly to rotating firewire HDDs. The backup drives not in use that night are stored on a fire-proof safe. If needed, we also backup offsite.

[Dex]

It was for work... in this case medical records.



This specific box was running CentOS Linux with an Adaptec 3200S SCSI setup... RAID1 for the OS, RAID5 for the bulk data. On newer boxes we run either CentOS or FreeBSD depending on what's needed and use 3ware (now LSI) SATA cards for the hardware RAID. Gives us bigger sizes, cheaper drives, the ability to setup SSD raids, etc.

Gotcha. Spoke with a fellow yesterday who had 2 drives drop on his old Xserve G5 MegaRAID, going through the whole rebuild and recovery bit. Fortunately, he was one of the techs who seemed to be worth his salt, because he actually had a *gasps* working and recent backup.

Just checking the size of the world, but guess it's not that small after all.

[ElNono]

Gotcha. Spoke with a fellow yesterday who had 2 drives drop on his old Xserve G5 MegaRAID, going through the whole rebuild and recovery bit. Fortunately, he was one of the techs who seemed to be worth his salt, because he actually had a *gasps* working and recent backup.

Just checking the size of the world, but guess it's not that small after all.

:lol yeah, I like the looks of the Xserve, and I actually develop on Macs all the time, but I rather have the servers running Linux or FreeBSD...

[mouse]

Funny how this upgrade is right after Mitt Romney was chosen for the Republican presidential candidate.

http://laist.com/attachments/la_tomdog/jesse_ventura_conspiracy_theory-truTV.jpg

[ducks]

he is an upgrade with what is in the office now but not by much

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

Can I RAID your FIREWIRE? :lmao

Sorry, I'm a tech noob.

Carry on. ;)

[timvp]

The downtime is now schedule for Monday, Sept. 3 beginning at 3 AM CST. The downtime is still estimated to take about 24 hours.

Happy Labor Day, tbh.

[Darkwaters]

LJ,

Do what you need to do. This site is great. Keep up the good work.

[timvp]

Bump. T-minus ~10 hours.

[lmbebo]

sigh. want am I to do? maybe work.

Or study..

Going to miss the updates to the Blatche thread.

[Dex]

sigh. want am I to do? maybe work.

Or study..

Going to miss the updates to the Blatche thread.

Spoiler alert: he won't be signed during the downtime.

[Wild Cobra Kai]

Spoiler alert: he won't be signed.

fify

[mouse]

The one night I get to stay up late.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/RackTheMouse/bored/kkk.jpg

[mouse]

Does anyone want to hang out at ClubSpurs during the down time?

http://www.clubspurs.com/

[Muki]

Bump. T-minus ~2 hours, I'm heading out to the data center now and the team is already in position...

[timvp]

Bump. T-minus ~2 hours, I'm heading out to the data center now and the team is already in position...

I'm going to ski down this Slovenian mountain one more time and then meet you at the datacenter. Hopefully the SpursTalk server is more receptive to change than it was last time . . .

[ElNono]

Snipers are in position... awaiting orders...

[mouse]

Can you at least put the TRoll forum on a temp server so Joe Chalupa and I can talk to our TRolls?

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/RackTheMouse/bored/000-troll.jpg

[timvp]

Welcome back :smokin

[TE]

That was long

[BruceBowenFan]

Longest 24 hours of my life lol

[pookenstein]

It felt like
GgeDh1WCyeM

[IronMaxipad]

Where's our soccer forum?!

:depressed

[ata]

First we're going to let muki work his magic and upgrade the hardware and the system itself (OS upgrade, db update, new search engine...) which should boost the performance of the setup dramatically. Once we have a fast and stable forum, we will tackle the software upgrades of the forum itself. That will take more time and will be gradual, but without any major downtime (fingers crossed). It's during that period that we will polish the look and feel of the forum and add or reintroduce certain features.

A mobile version is definitely on the short list - but it will happen during phase 2.

What about Paypal-donate button?

[mouse]

Wheres the Bowling forum?

[Fireball]

Welcome back ST!

[L.I.T]

I almost developed a social life.

[mouse]

I almost developed a social life.

You still can.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/jonbruner/files/2011/07/facebook_logo.jpg

[TE]

I almost developed a social life.

:lol

[Venti Quattro]

Holy shit the site is lightning fast :rollin

[Slomo]

Yep.

Moving/deleting threads, banning people, etc.. had become a real drag it took up to a minute for the server to update the database and the forum was frozen during that time.

Now I just permanently banned M>S and it took less than 2 seconds. Thanks Muki! :tu












:p:

[TDMVPDPOY]

so slomo

how many bots can this site hosts b4 its goes into locked mode like during the playoffs?

[AussieFanKurt]

Yep.

Moving/deleting threads, banning people, etc.. had become a real drag it took up to a minute for the server to update the database and the forum was frozen during that time.

Now I just permanently banned M>S and it took less than 2 seconds. Thanks Muki! :tu












:p:

Is it a joke or did you finally give M>S his wish of being banned

[mouse]

Holy shit the site is lightning fast :rollin

What was it before?

[Muki]

Longest 24 hours of my life lol

Funny, that's exactly what Jack Bauer said.... :)


What about Paypal-donate button?

There isn't one, but your could have joined Slomo and me downtown earlier today and bought us a cup of coffee :)

[Slomo]

so slomo

how many bots can this site hosts b4 its goes into locked mode like during the playoffs?

The problem is not the number of people accessing the forum, it's the size of the database. VBulletin is not the best application when it comes to handling large databases like ours (5,8M posts) so when a lot of people post or search at the same time VBulletin basically locks the database and then does the requests one by one and everybody waits until its done.

Now Muki has done a few thing to make everything faster (better hardware, newer OS, optimization of the setup....). Later he will upgrade the forum software and further optimize the whole thing, so that it can handle the current size even better. There is probably a limit of people that can be on the forum at the same time, but all the problems so far (previous upgrade included) have had to deal with the database size (and yes, one day we will again hit a magical size, where everything will start to slow down again).

And finally let me remind you that big commercial forums have the same problems, but they have both staff and budgets that deal with them. Spurstalk on the other hand has timvp and KoriEllis - so big props to them for financing a big forum like this out of their pockets.



Is it a joke or did you finally give M>S his wish of being banned

No just a joke :depressed

[Venti Quattro]

Why didn't you guys upgrade the forum software tho?

[timvp]

Why didn't you guys upgrade the forum software tho?


This will be the first part of a multiple step process that should bring about a much better user experience for everyone. In the next couple weeks or so, we'll also be upgrading the forum software, massively improving the search functionality, adding better chat features and a few other new aspects that will be announced soon.

That's next on the agenda. This step was mostly server related upgrades, which has done a lot to improve the speed of everything. Next up will be the forum software upgrade and that will impact the user experience much more noticeably. We don't have an exact timeline on when it will happen but hopefully it will be soon (it'll depend how long it takes to customize the new software).

[Muki]

Why didn't you guys upgrade the forum software tho?

Not yet - one step at a time. The forum software is just the tip of the iceberg, what was done over the last 24h was the fundamentals that make everything else possible.

[mavs>spurs]

Yep.

Moving/deleting threads, banning people, etc.. had become a real drag it took up to a minute for the server to update the database and the forum was frozen during that time.

Now I just permanently banned M>S and it took less than 2 seconds. Thanks Muki! :tu











:p:

nope you didn't have the balls

[Reck]

Are you guys tweeking the new server and so on?

Site has been pretty erratic today.

[Slomo]

nope you didn't have the balls

It doesn't take courage to click on a button from 6000 miles away, only a pussy would think that.

Let me educate you. Your existence on this board is a simple case of mind over matter - I don't mind and you don't matter.

[Slomo]

Are you guys tweeking the new server and so on?

Site has been pretty erratic today.

Yeah sorry about that. There are still a few things to adjust for optimum performance. In theory it shouldn't be too noticeable.

[mouse]

Your existence on this board is a simple case of mind over matter - I don't mind and you don't matter.


:lmao

ZkMiqpPDilw

[mavs>spurs]

It doesn't take courage to click on a button from 6000 miles away, only a pussy would think that.

Let me educate you. Your existence on this board is a simple case of mind over matter - I don't mind and you don't matter.

You were once in a picture with bigzak and it was impossible to tell who was bigger nuff said.

[benfti]

Been working beautifully for me on a number of devices today.

well done to all those concerned.

[Slomo]

You were once in a picture with bigzak and it was impossible to tell who was bigger nuff said.

Ah yes. The good old times. Have you seen the one where me and Zak are partying in London? That was a couple of fetching lads right there.

Don't know why you're bringing this up. Did you hope I would be offended by someone telling me how I looked? Seriously?

[spurs10]

Thanks for everyone's work on the board. Everything is working great!

[Brazil]

Thanks for everyone's work on the board. Everything is working great!

[DAF86]

It doesn't take courage to click on a button from 6000 miles away, only a pussy would think that.

Let me educate you. Your existence on this board is a simple case of mind over matter - I don't mind and you don't matter.

:lmao Boom roasted!

[mouse]

Thanks for everyone's work on the board. Everything is working great!

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/RackTheMouse/Kissing-ass.jpg


sorry couldn't resit.
:lmao















http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/RackTheMouse/bored/65.jpg

[flipspursfan]

slomo shitting on m>s

[velik_m]

The problem is not the number of people accessing the forum, it's the size of the database. VBulletin is not the best application when it comes to handling large databases like ours (5,8M posts) so when a lot of people post or search at the same time VBulletin basically locks the database and then does the requests one by one and everybody waits until its done.

It's time to upgrade the search engine. Perhaps:
https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php/350427-Sphinx-search-BETA-for-vBulletin-4.0 ?

[Slomo]

It's time to upgrade the search engine. Perhaps:
https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php/350427-Sphinx-search-BETA-for-vBulletin-4.0 ?


Well we said that software upgrades will follow the recent hardware and system upgrades....
;)

[spurs10]

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/RackTheMouse/Kissing-ass.jpg


sorry couldn't resit.
:lmao















http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p55/RackTheMouse/bored/65.jpg
:lol Is that Eric Idle?

[Venti Quattro]

Can you also make the YouTube windows bigger and in widescreen format? Thanks scros

[cantthinkofanything]

also upgrade the arcade. I've played all the games. And some of them are pretty glitchy.

[spurs_fan_in_exile]

Yeah, the arcade coming back?