Recurring Site Outages Information Within

A lot of people have noticed that the site has been having serious issues as of late. These outages will appear slightly different depending on web browsers used or other slight differences from user to user, but generally take the form of:

• A "connection refused" error;
• A blank white screen when loading the site;
• Clicking a link on the page will act as if the link is loading, but will eventually stop without loading anything new;
• A "timeout exceeded" error;
• And, most often, a SQL error that results in data not showing up on a page (on the main site) or a white screen with lots of text you probably can't decipher (when on the forums).

I want you to know now that the reason for these problems is simple. I'm jerking all of you around for my own personal amusement.

No, not really. The real reason that the site is going down at random times is that for some reason there is a fluctuating server load on our the computer that holds all of the CoN data (as well as the data for my personal site and other projects I have going, so know from that I take this issue quite seriously). As you may know, CoN hosts on a shared server that, by nature, other sites "share." See where they get the name? As best as I can discern, one of the sites on the server with us is doing something that is causing the high load from time to time. It could be a matter of some web developer who simply doesn't know what he or she is doing, and has coded a script that overloads the CPU. It could be something more nefarious, like someone using an account fraudulently to bounce spam. It could be someone using the control panel to back up their site much more often than is necessary. It could be a lot of things, and unfortunately I am not in a position to research and resolve the problem myself - or else it would be done already.

It seems that the host has some idea about the source of the problem and the staff are actively working to resolve it. I don't have a better timeframe than that at this time. At this time, I have two options to proceed and am weighing them to see which will be most beneficial to us.

And that's about it. I just wanted to let you guys know that we're not leaving you out in the cold here. But there might be questions still, and I welcome those. I'll start.

Q: What are the two options you have?
A: Simply put, stay on this server or ask to be moved to another server on the farm. Each has pros and cons.

Q: Why don't you buy a better server?
A: Again, to put it concisely, money. I'd love to have a virtual private or total-private server, but those are quite expensive; generally they're two to three times the cost per month as what I pay now. Maybe someday fibreoptic will be nice and affordable and I can set up an *nix box in my home office, eh?

The floor is yours. Discuss.