Typically we experience regular slowdowns at this host about every 12 hours, around 11 in the morning and 11 at night (timezone permitting). However lately, the last week or two, I have noticed an increase in slowdowns and database errors. With that said, I just wanted to let everyone know that I am aware and am looking into it. In the meantime, I ask that you be patient with the site and report any significant issues here. Thanks!
Apparently, I was getting Facebook messages as well during all of this. I was on a 48 hour Facebook detox so I apologize for the lack of response there. That needed to happen though lol.
We under attack by some bandwidth sucking vampire? Was happening last night 9pm central and right now 10:14am central. =(
It happens many nights around that time. We are on a shared server so it really could be anyone we are sharing the server with. With that said, our host just decided to respond with a canned response. So I opened another ticket to let them know that I actually expect them to look at the problem. Im kinda pissed right now, if they continue to ignore the problem we may have to find a new host or consider a better (more expensive) hosting structure in general.
The thing is, I know we are riding the line of what can be done with shared hosting. Just dont BS me! I see two possible options if they respond saying that we are using too many resources: * Go to the Pro level, 5x performance, for $20 a month * Go VPS (Virtual Private Server) for $30 a month (likely more than we need but guaranteed more stable) Unfortunately, that means increasing our hosting cost by at least 4x
Alright, they have responded again and had some input on our database and table sizes. I am going to try and see what I can do to remedy that this weekend.
Just for general knowledge, what is our "operating budget" currently (per month) and keeping in mind your post above, what would the Best case scenario (unlimited funding) look like per month?
Also is there some other method we can add besides Pay Pal for OSD for at least one time donations? Been having issues with accessing Pay Pal for years and unfortunately I am unable to use it. :meh:
I'm open to set up any possible payment options, I've even had a few people send me personal checks over the years. Paypal is just the easiest to manage and using multiple services splits up the money which is sometimes difficult to recombine. Although, im not exactly happy with handling our donations using the paypal business model right now. Its even starting to threaten me to add a new credit card to the account, even though I don't want to do that. Here are a couple of ideas to kick around in the meantime: http://lifehacker.com/whats-the-best-way-to-send-money-online-1342156640 As far as operating costs right now, ever since switching away from vent its pretty low. Basic hosting fees, $5 a month + domain costs. Ideally we would be on a VPS at around $30 or less a month which would basically exceed our needs for quite some time.
May I suggest Venmo. It is basically PayPal (Bank to Bank), but with free personal transactions. It's available on iOS and Android (and maybe Windows Phones), and you can connect it to your bank account or debit card, and then just send money (up to some limit in the thousands) from user to user who can then immediately (on the next business day) cash out to real money (it's 1-1). I've been using it to coordinate "roommate" rent, bills, dinner dates with friends, purchases, etc. for over 2 years and it's worked perfectly. Here is a link to their website and FAQ: https://venmo.com/info/fees just as an option.
Sidebar: I've banned some spider IP's and have pruned users who have never posted and havent logged on in 90 days. Just a heads up is case anything arises.
Ugh, tried working on the site around 3-4am and it was painful. The site might be coming down throughout the day to sort some stuff out.
These spiders just keep pummeling us so im blocking a bunch of IPs at the host level now. 60 users online and 45 are spiders. Ridiculous.
It's a banfest up in here! Googlebot? Okay. Everyone else? BAN BAN BAN. edit: Oh, 4 googlebots? Nevermind, you are banned too.
At this rate all of Russia will be banned by the end of the day lol. It used to be all Chinese bots but apparently the Ruskies are upping the ante as of late.
Not a single bot farming our data and the site is just flying now. We will see how it goes throughout the night!
Site performance seems better than normal for a weekday morning. Although my work internet can bog down quite a bit so let me know what you think. Either way, it seems like yesterdays work was a success (for now). Ive also gotten really aggressive on tracking spiders and doing IP bans. Please keep your ear open in case any legit members happened to have an IP they use banned. Let me know and I can open a window for them. I did do a search to make sure nobody was logging in under these IPs, but you never know.
