Author Topic: CathInfo hosting problems (Read 2545 times)

Matthew · « **on:** September 11, 2012, 09:53:50 PM »

CathInfo is getting SO big and SO popular, that it's causing a huge strain on my hosting server.

Fortunately, I'm a web developer and databases are part of my area of expertise, so I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

But don't be surprised if some people you were ignoring start showing up again, or if the ignore feature, or other features like the "country flag", start disappearing.

I'm going to try and preserve the important things -- the posts. Other things (PMs from 6 years ago) might have to go if they're causing the database to be slow.

But other conveniences -- like 10 posts per page, etc. might have to be changed to just 5 posts per page, to lessen the load on the server.

I just found out about this 15 minutes ago, so I'll be working on a perfect solution to this problem in the coming days.

ServusSpiritusSancti · « **Reply #1 on:** September 11, 2012, 09:56:05 PM »

I was wondering why the fourm was down earlier. Glad it's back up.

I wouldnt mind the ignore feature "disappearing" actually. But if it stays, that's fine too.

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #2 on:** September 11, 2012, 10:51:32 PM »

I hope my library isn't putting too much strain on the hosting server... :stare:

wallflower · « **Reply #3 on:** September 11, 2012, 10:51:33 PM »

I don't mind purging PMs. I've been wanting to but didn't see a way to select which to delete. It's either all at once or go through and open and delete each one individually.

Nadir · « **Reply #4 on:** September 11, 2012, 10:54:43 PM »

I was wondering if quoting unnecessarily long posts could somehow be avoided. Some people never delete what is unneeded from the quote. And they seem to use the quote button instead of the reply. Not a computer person but just thinking out loud what I've been mumbling under my breath.

Matthew · « **Reply #5 on:** September 11, 2012, 11:16:25 PM »

Quote from: Hobbledehoy

I hope my library isn't putting too much strain on the hosting server... :stare:

Not at all.

Hard drive space is NOT a problem. The issue is server resources (CPU, memory, etc.) in particular how much I hit up the database.

Everything is stored in the database -- posts, PMs, ignores, votes, likes/dislikes, you name it. (Actually, attachments like Hobble's scans are NOT stored in the database)

I'm determined to leave topics/posts alone. It's really nice to be able to look up old posts from 6 years ago.

* PMs have been trimmed to the past 40 days
* Likes/Dislikes have been trimmed to the past 60 days
* "Ignores" have been purged
* The "Country flag" feature has been removed. It was hit-and-miss anyhow.
* The system no longer calculates how many total likes/dislikes each post author has received. This was being done TEN TIMES on every page.

This should lessen the burden quite a bit.

I also put less posts on each "page", which should cause less server waste.

Matthew · « **Reply #6 on:** September 12, 2012, 02:05:32 AM »

Ok -- sorry about that outage.

If I had known that making a backup of the database would cause the site to be down for 2 hours, I certainly wouldn't have done it!

Anyhow, we're back now. Unless I didn't do a good enough job making the site faster, there shouldn't be any further outages.

Telesphorus · « **Reply #7 on:** September 12, 2012, 02:25:19 AM »

I hope you can refine some of these changes Matthew, because right now it looks like a hack-job.

chrstnoel1 · « **Reply #8 on:** September 12, 2012, 03:22:57 AM »

Quote from: Matthew

Ok -- sorry about that outage.

If I had known that making a backup of the database would cause the site to be down for 2 hours, I certainly wouldn't have done it!

Anyhow, we're back now. Unless I didn't do a good enough job making the site faster, there shouldn't be any further outages.

Gee! and I told my wife, maybe CathInfo was hacked! Ooops! you can never know. But I am glad it's back.

THANK YOU MATTHEW. :jumping2:

Ethelred · « **Reply #9 on:** September 12, 2012, 03:46:52 AM »

Quote from: chrstnoel1

Gee! and I told my wife, maybe CathInfo was hacked! Ooops! you can never know.

Yes, we never know. We know for sure that Cathinfo is under close observation by Krah and his Jєωιѕн backers, and I hope the heavy server load Matthew mentioned, is only from normal users.
Because although Krah is lousy with computers (see his initials in M$ Word files he writes for Fr Pfluger which are then used as official Menzingen docuмents), his backers know their tools and their enemies' atomic plant IT infrastructure.

So, let's be careful.

ServusSpiritusSancti · « **Reply #10 on:** September 12, 2012, 10:30:01 AM »

I'm hoping that the server allows us to go back to 10 posts per page instead of 5. Just 5 per page looks cheap and disorganized.

You could always delete accounts that haven't been active for a while, would that take some stress off the server?

Matthew · « **Reply #11 on:** September 12, 2012, 11:50:48 AM »

No, SS, CathInfo doesn't use "InvisionFree".

For those of us using regular forum software (as opposed to services like InvisionFree), we could have 2000 dead accounts and it wouldn't matter. They would take up about 200 KB of space total, which is like a speck of dust. Hard drive space is *never* an issue. Most webhosts allow UNLIMITED hard drive space these days.

Clare had to delete old accounts from IA because InvisionFree is only FREE if you have below a certain number of members.

There is only ONE thing that will help in CathInfo's case -- reducing hits on the database. That means many of the fancy features I've added to CathInfo need to be curtailed and/or removed.

I added these features when we weren't as popular and it didn't matter. But now it's more important to focus all resources on allowing the greatest number of people to use the site, as well as being able to keep all existing topics/posts.

Do you know how much computer-work it is to calculate the total likes/dislikes for EACH POSTER on a page with 10 posts? That's a HUGE amount of database work.

Now if about 15 members wanted to pay $10 a month, then I guess I could move to a dedicated server. But barring that, I'm really not interested.

And while we're on the topic, I'm also not interested in following Catholic Answers and Fisheaters down the "pester the membership for money" route. I'd rather keep CathInfo "free" (as in beer).

Maria Elizabeth · « **Reply #12 on:** September 13, 2012, 04:53:41 PM »

:smash-pc:

Perhaps if you sifted through the posts older than X time (say, older than 2009?) and archived the ones that aren't as "interesting", it wouldn't be such a load on the server?

Just a suggestion.

ServusSpiritusSancti · « **Reply #13 on:** September 13, 2012, 05:49:12 PM »

Quote

Just 5 per page looks cheap and disorganized.

Reading this again, I shouldn't have said this. That wasn't charitable. I didn't mean to be rude, but I know if someone said something on my forum looks "cheap" or "disorganized" I wouldn't take too kindly to it.

So I sincerely apologise for saying it.

Miseremini · « **Reply #14 on:** September 13, 2012, 06:00:59 PM »

:applause: Thank you for this wonderful site ! ! ! and all your hard work to keep it up and running. Being a new member I will miss the flags as it gave insight to opinions in different countries. Maybe under their user name people could put their country or state instead of the flag. They would still be annonomous. So many of us are isolated and it might give us a little encouragement to see comments from our general area. Again thank you.