What is wrong with the site? (Please read updated post #1)

mass_debater

LeinsterDub wrote: »

And this takes 2 weeks?

It's an ongoing continuous battle until the attack stops

Liam McPoyle

Working pretty much OK for me today anyway. Occasionally a bit of lag but aside from that.

On another point, the sense of entitlement that a lot of people have been showing in this thread is unbelievible.

The free service that we are all availing of (barring regular subscribers) has been a bit glitchy for a couple of weeks and people are up in arms about it.

That's the problem (and also part of what makes it a great place) with a site like boards, the level of transparency shown from the top down over the years has been huge, members are asked their opinions about how they feel about new measures, reasonable feedback is met with reasonable answers but suddenly when there is a slight problem the masses start revolting.

Some people really need to get a grip.

NachoBusiness

Couldn't get on the site there for around ten minutes and see no posts were made on the site between 17:07 and 17:12.

New Home

Business Cat wrote: »

Working pretty much OK for me today anyway. Occasionally a bit of lag but aside from that.

On another point, the sense of entitlement that a lot of people have been showing in this thread is unbelievible.

The free service that we are all availing of (barring regular subscribers) has been a bit glitchy for a couple of weeks and people are up in arms about it.

That's the problem (and also part of what makes it a great place) with a site like boards, the level of transparency shown from the top down over the years has been huge, members are asked their opinions about how they feel about new measures, reasonable feedback is met with reasonable answers but suddenly when there is a slight problem the masses start revolting.

Some people really need to get a grip.

I agree, it's like a variation on the 'Arewethereyet?Arewethereyet?Arewethereyet?Arewethereyet?Arewethereyet?' theme when you're stuck in traffic. It's not helping, and it won't make anyone get there any faster, no matter how many times you repeat it.

P_1

Lads a company that has millions behind it in monetary terms tends to be down for a number of days if its site is being DDosed. Given the resources Boards have the fact that it is staying online in the face of such an attack is worth credit.

In other words, less of the whining about a free site with not a lot of money behind it lagging in the face of a DDos

aaronjumper

I got booted twice today each time lasting more than an hour.

Not lighting a torch, just letting ye know in case that means something.

hatrickpatrick

Search is back, but is several days out of date, which is peculiar.

My question is, are the DDOS attacks being launched against Boards, Digiweb, or both? And if the latter, then why? Could it be a rival hosting company trying to take out their competition, or in other words could the attackers have a different target in mind and Boards is simply collateral damage on account of sharing a host with the actual target?

DopeTech

Is this why the journal android app is gone to sh1te lately and keeps crashing ?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Quazzie wrote: »

A website is designed to allow a certain amount of people access it. Someone deliberately sets up a DDoS which is basically an attack that simulates too many people accessing the site. This clogs up the bandwidth and brings the site down temporarily as it can't handle the load.

Thank you.

And does that explain why I can't see any of my posts for the last week listed when I look for them in my profile?

mass_debater

Wilson Petite Sandbag wrote: »

Thank you.

And does that explain why I can't see any of my posts for the last week listed when I look for them in my profile?

They've said they've been battling DDoS and hardware failure. That's as much as we know

josip

killerkitty wrote: »

Well??

Ding dong bell, kitty's in the well...

Darkglasses

I've not had any problems so far this evening, apart from the missing post history.

BOHtox

Few things:

The "find all posts that quote BOHtox" hasn't updated in months despite the fact if I read the threads I'm quoted loads.

None of them functions work on my phone. The "find all posts" etc

The new layout I still feel is awful. If I'm aiming to click in to my username and accidentally overshoot it I scroll over Adverts.ie. I then have to move the cursor so that it's out of the drop down menu, further than where my username would be, and then back up to my username.

Similarly, when I do click my username and it brings me to my own page menu and leave the cursor still for too long the dropdown menu comes down. Then I have to clear the dropdown menu before I can click "show all statistics"

GLaDOS

Down for a good bit there, seems to get worse at night

whatismyname

Yep, down for a full 20 minutes this time.

Flint Fredstone

"Too many redirects" when I try to access the soccer forum on touch site. I can still visit the threads in the soccer forum no problem.

callaway92

It's a farce Bill, a shambles.

hatrickpatrick

Wilson Petite Sandbag wrote: »

Thank you.

And does that explain why I can't see any of my posts for the last week listed when I look for them in my profile?

That's a more peculiar issue. Look like the search system didn't index anything while it was disabled, and has still not indexed the posts made since it was turned off.

All of this suggests that Boards uses an interesting system of PHP communication with its database. Most websites don't actually use search indexes, they just do a SELECT * FROM query when somebody searches. Evidently Boards doesn't do that, or if it does, the search system queries a different database to that which is queried by the showforum and showthread scripts.

From my own knowledge of PHP, unless Boards is approaching search from a somewhat bizarre angle, there's no explanation for something showing up on a thread / post list but not in a search - one would assume that both the search and the display scripts query the same table of posts.

Odd.

IRLConor

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

That's a more peculiar issue. Look like the search system didn't index anything while it was disabled, and has still not indexed the posts made since it was turned off.

All of this suggests that Boards uses an interesting system of PHP communication with its database. Most websites don't actually use search indexes, they just do a SELECT * FROM query when somebody searches. Evidently Boards doesn't do that, or if it does, the search system queries a different database to that which is queried by the showforum and showthread scripts.

From my own knowledge of PHP, unless Boards is approaching search from a somewhat bizarre angle, there's no explanation for something showing up on a thread / post list but not in a search - one would assume that both the search and the display scripts query the same table of posts.

Odd.

Boards.ie stopped querying the posts table for searches about 4.5 years ago: http://rossduggan.ie/blog/technology/searching-boards-ie-solr-ec2-sqs-sns-node-js/

The FULLTEXT index on the posts table was responsible for several performance-related outages. The posts table is undoubtably much larger now and even less likely to be usable for search.

black_frosch

Darkglasses wrote: »

I've not had any problems so far this evening, apart from the missing post history.

I find it kinda cool that my history is not visible to stalkers now but I'd like to see it myself just to remember where I've been posting last night. Could we please have an option to hide history just like we can hide some other personal information? Many thanks

ibarelycare

Anyone else getting spam pages popping up this morning? Got this when I tried to open this thread:

http://static.millionairetruth.com/s/4011-88bcd4fd864415378139654b4bd4191f.html#?eid=068d530d102eac30&utm_source=149&utm_medium=T13&utm_term=juliet-cur-ofMXzPmc&utm_campaign=Affiliate&s=3&clickid=3009077457040548

_Tombstone_

black_frosch wrote: »

I find it kinda cool that my history is not visible to stalkers now but I'd like to see it myself just to remember where I've been posting last night. Could we please have an option to hide history just like we can hide some other personal information? Many thanks

I'll just use Google to stalk you instead.

Dav

Hello folks, some updates...

The DDoS attacks are still coming, we cannot realistically stop this. They are targeting us, not just Digiweb. We're working with them to try and figure out why it's happening and where it's coming from, but the reality is, with so many infected machines out in the wild, getting access to a botnet for these sorts of attacks is a trivial exercise.

The search issues (which includes find posts that thank me and all those other things) are because of a dead (or dying) machine that's getting sorted this week I believe. Since people are speculating about it, we use a technology called Solr for our search and it lives on 2 dedicated machines. VBulletin's own search, as Conor described above, was killing the site because it wasn't optimised for something the size of Boards.

I will do my best to keep you informed on any progress here folks, there is no one more frustrated and annoyed than us about these outages as we are trying to focus on the new site.

Lovely Bloke

Dav wrote: »

They are targeting us, not just Digiweb.

Jaysis.

Dolbert

The mobile site is working great at the moment

Dav

Dav wrote: »

Hello folks, some updates...

I can't say I envy the task ahead of you guys. Best of luck with it all.

whatismyname

Dolbert wrote: »

The mobile site is working great at the moment

I think you're looking for the 'what's right with the site?' thread :P

Son Of A Vidic

Thanks for the update Dav and for providing us with an insight into the search issues.

D

Thanks for the update, is there any indication as to the reason behind the targeted attack?
As to why Boards.ie is the sole target?
Have the office received any ransom notes?

Ken.

D wrote: »

Thanks for the update, is there any indication as to the reason behind the targeted attack?
As to why Boards.ie is the sole target?
Have the office received any ransom notes?

I am totally making up that it's PETA on account of over worked hamsters.