Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
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Registered: 05-12-2005
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Over the last week or 10 days, I constantly can't connect to the site (or in-game, to the demos for example). I was wondering if this was a known issue or whether it's my bb provider?

What's bizarre is it seems to occur around the same time each evening (8-9 pm-ish) for approw 15-20 minutes. It does happen at other times too so maybe I'm imagining the predictability.

What's also strange is that once it comes back up, there'll be new unread posts, seeming to indicate it might be a local issue [?]

Tim
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I am having the same problem. According to my logging, it stops at http:// u15151503.onlinehome-server.com/. Is that your provider perhaps?

miketo
Level: Delver

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I've observed the same problem, primarily with getting into the forum. The main forum page appears, but delving (heh) into topic areas or individual threads will time out.

I haven't noticed a particular time of day when this happens. I'm pretty sure it's not my backbone provider; my home and my employer are on two very different backbones. Potentially it could be my laptop (XP SP2 + Firefox 1.5.0.3), but it could be sunspots too. Or voodoo. Or a high fat-and-sugar diet. With Windows software on my end, it could be just about anything.

miketo
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In an attempt to be more helpful, if it's on the server end, my first guesses would be:

Corrupted index files for the forum software
Flaky RAM
NIC starting to die

Ezlo
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I was just going to mention that, for me it happens around three to four PM. I live in EST.

larrymurk
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It does seem the the site is down now and again. Clearly the site was just down. There's a gap in posts from

1:16PM to 3:57 PM EST.

ChrisB
Level: Delver

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Yes have been having same problem over last week - when eventually linked fully there are several members online - perhaps it is an issue with the capacity - is DROD/Caravelnet becoming a victim of its own success?

Chris

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[Last edited by ChrisB at 05-13-2006 03:39 PM]

Syntax
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Speaking of the devil, the site was down from around 4am GMT, and the high score pages is still unavailable. Would it be possible just to get a quick feedback on what happened?

Nothing worse than the combination of insomnia, and DROD being unavailable...

Mattcrampy
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Schik says it's a hardware problem. We apparantly are pushing the CaravelNet server a little hard, but then Schik implied that a strong breeze would push the CaravelNet server too hard. So everybody has to buy TCB, 'kay?

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Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
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Was wondering whether the "View all high scores" arrows may be overkill for now then? The down-times and the arrows seem to coincide somewhat.

Schik
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Syntax wrote:
Was wondering whether the "View all high scores" arrows may be overkill for now then? The down-times and the arrows seem to coincide somewhat.

Heh. Nah, that's quite minor. The highscores page is down for now simply for some testing. I'm closely monitoring performance and trying to spot (and fix) any slow operations.

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Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
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Semi-seriously, maybe we could have an "Email me when the site is back up" tick box in the profile?

[EDIT]

Reason being, my F5 button is wearing out, and the constant fluctuation between hope and disappointment could result in long-term manic-depressive tendencies...

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[Last edited by Syntax at 05-12-2006 02:49 PM]

Schik
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Syntax wrote:
Reason being, my F5 button is wearing out, and the constant fluctuation between hope and disappointment could result in long-term manic-depressive tendencies...

I believe I've figured out why the server is having performance issues.

I'll post on this Board when the highscores page is back up. Don't hold your breath - I need some decent statistics for how the site is running without that and other things I've disabled, then I'll probably re-enable things one at a time and see how it affects the server.

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Tim
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Schik wrote:
I'll post on this Board when the highscores page is back up. Don't hold your breath - I need some decent statistics for how the site is running without that and other things I've disabled, then I'll probably re-enable things one at a time and see how it affects the server.

Perhaps you could put this up as an announcement somewhere else as well?
(I was thinking about the announcement thing on the top of the main forum page.)

silver
Level: Smitemaster
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sniff. I knew I should have written down the page when I had access to it.

because I'm starting over a new computer without access to my old one (and thus my saved games), the only list I had of holds I hadn't played or finished was at the bottom of my high score list.


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Tahnan
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Is the high score page being down related to the first-place-for-one-move-demos thing that keeps happening ingame?

michthro
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Tahnan wrote:
Is the high score page being down related to the first-place-for-one-move-demos thing that keeps happening ingame?

As far as I know, that's a deliberate change, since the spider has to check that 1-move scores are in fact valid before the room is removed. These demos are eventually removed.

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
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Was wondering if there was any update on this? Day 3 without DROD, weekend gone and... well... I'm struggling to cope

Tahnan
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michthro wrote:

Tahnan wrote:
Is the high score page being down related to the first-place-for-one-move-demos thing that keeps happening ingame?

As far as I know, that's a deliberate change, since the spider has to check that 1-move scores are in fact valid before the room is removed. These demos are eventually removed.

So it also has to check new demos on rooms that it's already seen one-move demos for?

eytanz
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Tahnan wrote:

michthro wrote:

Tahnan wrote:
Is the high score page being down related to the first-place-for-one-move-demos thing that keeps happening ingame?

As far as I know, that's a deliberate change, since the spider has to check that 1-move scores are in fact valid before the room is removed. These demos are eventually removed.

So it also has to check new demos on rooms that it's already seen one-move demos for?

Well, until it verifies a 1-move demo, it will accept other demos for that room. Once it verifies it then then the room will be removed.

However, one other thing that happened recently is that all the unsolvable holds that have been fixed lost the information about which rooms shouldn't be scored, so all the 1-move rooms in those holds need to be reverified.

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AlefBet
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I wonder if one-move demos could be given priority, since they're probably relatively cheap to verify and you only need to verify one per room.

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Schik
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Hey all,

I've re-enabled the highscores page. If I see it causing big problems, I'll take it back down after a bit, but otherwise I'll just be grabbing statistics to see how it affects things.

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jbluestein
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Schik wrote:
Hey all,

I've re-enabled the highscores page. If I see it causing big problems, I'll take it back down after a bit, but otherwise I'll just be grabbing statistics to see how it affects things.

Out of curiosity, what sort of problems was the High Scores page causing? Was it a problem with the implementation itself, or is there some sort of behavior from Forum members that was related to the High Scores page...that we should try to avoid?

Josh

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Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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jbluestein wrote:

Schik wrote:
Hey all,

I've re-enabled the highscores page. If I see it causing big problems, I'll take it back down after a bit, but otherwise I'll just be grabbing statistics to see how it affects things.

Out of curiosity, what sort of problems was the High Scores page causing? Was it a problem with the implementation itself, or is there some sort of behavior from Forum members that was related to the High Scores page...that we should try to avoid?

Josh

Hmmm... I'd say the answer is just "don't worry about it." There's no way I could get *every* user to use the page in a certain way that works well for *me*. So either way, I need to come up with a technological solution. Use it as you want to use it, and I'll use the data I'm gathering to determine what needs to be optimized the most.

____________________________
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--Mahatma Gandhi

silver
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 915
Registered: 01-18-2005
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at least 50% of the time that I hit "high scores" I'm more interested in going on to some other tab of it (usually 'my scores') than in seeing the top 20. so half the time, computing the top 20 for me is a waste of cpu cycles. just a thought.


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RoboBob3000
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Speaking of the tabs, I almost never use the "holds" tab simply because I find the complete alphabetical list of holds in "my stats" more useful than one seperated by number of explorers into nine pages. Oh, and as a side note to the side note, hold alphabetization doesn't seem to take capitalization into account.

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eytanz
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Yeah, I find the "holds" tab cumbersome and always use "my stats" to search for particular holds as well.

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jbluestein
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eytanz wrote:
Yeah, I find the "holds" tab cumbersome and always use "my stats" to search for particular holds as well.

Me three. Maybe the right thing to do is to have that list accessible through a more direct link...something like 'My Holds' but that means Holds that you've played and not Holds that you've designed?



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eytanz
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What I really want is an easily-accessible list of all the holds at once. I don't care to see the statistics about them, at least not 99% of the time. I just want to be able to get into the hold. The "holds" tab is useless because to get to whatever hold I want I first need to re-sort the tab alphabetically, then guess what page it will be on, and then go to that page. Going to the "my stats" page brings up all the holds so I can just click on whichever one I want.

I do look at the global scores list occasionally, but then, I'm in the top 20. So it gives me useful information about my progress. For most people, it seems like a pretty useless tab, especially as a default one. That said, part of the point of highscores is having your name be prominent if you're doing well, so maybe it should remain the default so that other people know I'm in the top 20 too.

In the "Explored but unconquered holds" section of the "my stats" tab, the "%explored" statistic is totally uninteresting to me. If calculating it slows down the system, I'd be happy to be rid of it.

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KevG
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eytanz wrote:
I do look at the global scores list occasionally, but then, I'm in the top 20. So it gives me useful information about my progress. For most people, it seems like a pretty useless tab, especially as a default one.

I like having the global scores list as the default; that's the page I check the most frequently. The problem for most people is that the default page is always the first 20; they have no way of knowing where their score is except to click through page by page. Since most people only care what position they are, would it be possible to reset the default so it goes automatically to the page for the individual player? Don't know what algorithm the page uses, but it seems like it could default to only calculating enough places to display the current player. Since it's likely that higher ranked players check high scores more than lower ranked players this might save some calculation time.

In the "Explored but unconquered holds" section of the "my stats" tab, the "%explored" statistic is totally uninteresting to me. If calculating it slows down the system, I'd be happy to be rid of it.

The "%conquered" seems the most useless since it pretty much corresponds to the "Number of High Scores" statistics. Personally, I wouldn't notice if they both disappeared.