EMERGENCY: New Server Needed or Daily Heights goes...

dailyheights

.... DOWN, DOWN, like Rock Lobster. Within hours from now.

This is a completely idiotic situation, but dailyheights has been banned by its current webhost for "abuse," which apparently means, "using the bandwidth you paid for." Congratulations for hitting this site like nobody's business, but now you need to bail out dailyheights for all your wanton clicking and reloading.

Please see below, and look at how nice I was to this guy:

--

dailyheights: My blog, dailyheights.com, is suddenly suspended, and it says contact billing department. I tried to "unsuspend" in my "host manager" page, but it says the account is locked by root user, and the reason for the suspension is "CPU overload". What does that mean?


You are now speaking with Russell of Technical Support.

dailyheights: hey

Russell: Hello

dailyheights: sorry to bother you so late but the account is registering as suspended

Russell: That means account was suspended for abuse.

dailyheights: hmm... ok

Russell: mt.cgi killing our server and mysql. Perhaps you need a dedicated server for your site.

dailyheights: I see. Can we work something out until I find something tomorrow AM? Obviously this isn't a situation I would like to continue!

dailyheights: And forgive me for being so ignorant, but why is using a blog "abuse"? I'm not over my quota by a longshot.

Russell: Please submit tt to helpdesk

Russell: The blog using 1/5 of all service resources. This is prohibited on shared servers.

dailyheights: Is somebody there now to accept the TT?

Russell: Someone will repond within 12 hours for sure. You need abuse details, right?

dailyheights: Russell, what would it take to get my site unsuspended right now? I'll gladly put in the TT, but I just want to have the blog continue. If it's not resolved in 24 hours, you can suspend it again.

Russell: I can unsuspend website, but it might go down again. This is automatic process. You'd better fix perl/mysql scripts asap.

dailyheights: OK, thanks! I'll put in the TT for abuse details. Please unsuspend the website and I'll work on getting a dedicated server now. Thanks.

Russell: You're welcome. Site has been unsuspended.

dailyheights: thanks!

dailyheights: I appreciate it.

Russell: Not a problem..

daveb

You might wanna get a new host, these guys are reactionary assholes it seems. They could have at least opened a dialogue with you. I use bluehost.com, they're cool. Dreamhost.com is another highly rated one and is very pro-blog supportive. Screw these jerks.

sje

I've been using hostproof.com for about 6 years, Extremely professional, and I never have down time. Highly, highly recommended.

daveb

another thing to do is check movabletype.org for supported partners. I did that with WordPress.org after really bad moments with hostinglite.com. Bluehost was at the top of the list and it's been good so far.

dailyheights

I think the problem is that this site tears through a lot of bandwidth, so while sje may have great luck with hostproof.com, they may balk at putting dailyheights.com on a shared server. And a dedicated server is an expense that would severely dampen my enthusiasm for continuing this site.

I'm currently trying to figure out what kind of server load DH is creating, so I can take this info to another webhost's sales department; could this info be found through cpanel somehow?

daveb

Russell: mt.cgi killing our server and mysql. Perhaps you need a dedicated server for your site.

....You'd better fix perl/mysql scripts asap.

I'd hazard a guess that it's not as much the bandwidth as something with SQL, possibly on their end, but rather than fix it, they just want it to go away. Pretty typical.

sje

You can always see exactly how much BW {and a shitload of other info} you're using with Hostproof's Cpanel. It's the most comnprehensive Cpanel I've ever used. Really, email him and find out. I promise this is not a "crackerjack" or "hobby blog" host.

metulj

Contact me at tobychek!!!@!!!gmail.com. I can point you toward a hosting service we use for higher bandwidth solutions. Dedicated box and 200GB transfer a month for $50 a month with mysql yada yada. It is your box and you can do as you please. This means administer it too!

As for the mt.cgi causing him mysql problems, do not discount the possibility that he has underallocated disk space on /var or whatever filesystem he put his mysql dir and mysql is freaking out because of it. Shared servers suck. You can have your own for low money and not worry about that shit.

daniel

Start a DropCash campaign to raise some money for new hosting. I'd gladly donate a few dollars to help the cause.

Also, there are some people on an unnamed website that you might know about that run web hosting centers - I'll put a post up there asking for more info.

carnivore

I would definitely be willing to pony up some dough to keep the site alive. What kind of expenses do you think would be required? Do you think you could do it with donations from us alone?

emily

I'm surprised that they're making it sound like the blog is the problem and not the message boards. Surely there's more overall data to be stored, and activity, over here, because so many more people have posting access on this part? Or is MT inefficient somehow? On the other hand, the blog does go back way farther. As an LJer, I intentionally don't know anything about the workings of MT.

My hosting is with aplus.net. I mostly use it for email so I don't have nearly the load the this site would have, but they NEVER seem to go down (like 15 minutes every 3-6 months) and their customer service seems good.

daveb

EmilyM wrote: I'm surprised that they're making it sound like the blog is the problem and not the message boards. Surely there's more overall data to be stored, and activity, over here, because so many more people have posting access on this part? Or is MT inefficient somehow? On the other hand, the blog does go back way farther. As an LJer, I intentionally don't know anything about the workings of MT.

My hosting is with aplus.net. I mostly use it for email so I don't have nearly the load the this site would have, but they NEVER seem to go down (like 15 minutes every 3-6 months) and their customer service seems good.

I've had very bad problems with Aplus. Also, they're business practices are wicked evil. I dropped them last year.

alafairnadia

EmilyM wrote: As an LJer, I intentionally don't know anything about the workings of MT.

totally. I can't even figure out how to program my LJ layout. (and I work in tech, go figure)

oh, and DH -- let us know if you need some $$. I have zero knowledge but I do have a few dollars in my pocket that I'd be happy to share. this site has somehow turned me into a psychotic neighborhood freak. I want to stay that way forever.

emily

daveb wrote: I've had very bad problems with Aplus. Also, they're business practices are wicked evil. I dropped them last year.

Really? Do tell (PM if you want). I've never had problems but am curious about the evil business practices.

Alafairnadia--the key to successful LJ customization (by a lazy person like me, anyway) is to pick a layout that's popular among people who have actually learned the insane bastard language used to control the layouts. For example, I now use "Component" and by going to the group "component_help" have been able to do all sorts of things by borrowing blocks of code that people post publicly--full of instructions like "decomment this line if you want your IM info to appear in the profile component." What's weird and difficult about it is that sometimes the easiest-looking things are hardest to implement and vice-versa. Right now I probably have my busiest layout ever, but it's actually one of the simplest.

Re: funds for DH. I wonder if we could have a bake sale, or a RPS fundraiser or something.

daveb

I think an overhaul, software update, cleaning and relocation to a new host is going to fix the problem more than money. To that end, I'm always around to help out.

alafairnadia

EmilyM wrote: Alafairnadia--the key to successful LJ customization (by a lazy person like me, anyway) is to pick a layout that's popular among people who have actually learned the insane bastard language used to control the layouts. For example, I now use "Component" and by going to the group "component_help" have been able to do all sorts of things by borrowing blocks of code that people post publicly--full of instructions like "decomment this line if you want your IM info to appear in the profile component." What's weird and difficult about it is that sometimes the easiest-looking things are hardest to implement and vice-versa. Right now I probably have my busiest layout ever, but it's actually one of the simplest.

I'm also incredibly lazy. really. you'd be shocked at some of the stuff I do to avoid figuring things out, especially when I'm not getting paid. but still, this is good information -- if I decide to spend some time revamping my LJ, I'll employ this tactic. looting & pillaging has been how I've learned every other programming language I've employed in my lifetime, no reason to stop now.

dailyheights

Thanks to 11238 for an amazing donation...! she has definitely made the search for a new webhost easier. A couple of you have offered to make donations. [email protected] is set up to receive donations, so you could use that for now. However, like Dave said, technical expertise is also appreciated, as we may be making big changes around here soon.

dailyheights

EmilyM wrote: I'm surprised that they're making it sound like the blog is the problem and not the message boards. Surely there's more overall data to be stored, and activity, over here, because so many more people have posting access on this part? Or is MT inefficient somehow? On the other hand, the blog does go back way farther. As an LJer, I intentionally don't know anything about the workings of MT.

The problem with MT is that the blog pages are generated dynamically, so each time you go to a dailyheights.com blog page, the page is built from scratch.

On the other hand, this bulletin board gets at least 6 times the reloads compared with the blog - you load the blog once or twice and read, while the bulletin board is a continual reload. So I'm eagerly awaiting my "abuse report" to find out what constitutes "abuse" more.

bluedove

alafairnadia wrote: this site has somehow turned me into a psychotic neighborhood freak. I want to stay that way forever.

Glad to know it's not just me

daniel

The problem with MT is that the blog pages are generated dynamically, so each time you go to a dailyheights.com blog page, the page is built from scratch.

I believe you can set MT to work in a cached mode, where the front page is a static html file, which gets re-generated once every minute or so, rather than everytime the front page is hit.

daveb

daniel wrote:

The problem with MT is that the blog pages are generated dynamically, so each time you go to a dailyheights.com blog page, the page is built from scratch.

I believe you can set MT to work in a cached mode, where the front page is a static html file, which gets re-generated once every minute or so, rather than everytime the front page is hit.

You can do the entire site static. It used to be that by default it was static and you had to manually tweak it to be semi dynamic.

daveb

So...any news on the situation?

dailyheights

I just sent them a really nasty note and now I'm regretting it. I'm frantically backing up data directories in case they shut me down suddenly.

In other news, I'm pretty stunned by the outpouring of support in the form of donations from you guys... Will address this properly as soon as the crisis abates...

daveb

dailyheights wrote: I just sent them a really nasty note and now I'm regretting it. I'm frantically backing up data directories in case they shut me down suddenly.

In other news, I'm pretty stunned by the outpouring of support in the form of donations from you guys... Will address this properly as soon as the crisis abates...

Don't regret it, they deserve it, but at the same time, back dat shit up. I'm here to help with whatever.