Tim Stephenson (Archant IS)

Hi CityAngel, Don''t know when the web teams have been online to handle moderation, but the webservers have been working just fine...

Thanks all. Posts are not currently archived - we retain everything at the moment. Due to how the system''s structured however archiving wouldn''t actually make any difference to performance or scalability. We''ve got plenty of storage available too; just had some issues with the webservers accessing it!!!!

Thanks CityAngel. Any further feedback is welcome - particularly from today onwards.

We''ve resolved a few inconsistencies within our webservers'' configuration that should have improved the stability of the forum systems. Any feedback appreciated.

Bunny - while we may not be loosing hard cash if the forums or sites are down at the moment (except for our Homes24, Jobs24, Drive24 digital classified systems at any rate), lets just say that we all have a vested interest in getting them up again! All our sites sit on a platform designed to prevent this sort of outage (multiple webservers, hardware loadbalancers, clustered database servers etc). However, the webservers are dependent on access to a cluster of 3 enterprise-grade filers for all website application files, images, etc etc. and this is what''s been causing problems over the last week or two.... Hopefully we''ve energised the crystals sufficiently to keep things running :)

"I''m surprised that a Company as big as Archant don''t have a more resilient system. Still, I suppose that the websites are low priority in that they are not a means of generating income (apart from the ads)." I have to say you''d probably be surprised at the amount of serious hardware that goes into running our websites - 7 webservers are now live, backed by around 3Tb of networked storage, and a 16-way, 2 node database cluster. Unfortunately, the best laid plans can rapidly disintegrate around you if something unexpected stops doing what its supposed to be. Happy to give you more details if you''re interested.

WeAreYellows49 - Thanks for the feedback.

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm there Celia...?

How''s everyone finding the forum now? Any better? Any worse?

We really don''t like it... However, some things are out of our control as we''re dependent on lots of different pieces of equipment working together correctly in order to support these forums (and all our other websites). We''ve been experiencing some performance problems with one of the storage systems used to hold content for our websites, and this has basically been showing itself as the errors you''ve all been experiencing on the forum systems. With a little luck everything should start to run a little more smoothly from now on - a number of fixes have been put in place and we''re fairly confident that they should help reduce or eliminate the errors. Please keep everything crossed however!

It is indeed a major case of fire-fighting at the moment.One of our web file servers managed to develop a fault this afternoon which corrupted files across most of our websites. We''re working on the problem at the moment along with emergency support from the storage system''s vendor and hope to have a permanent fix soon.

Test post

[quote user="eldrich canary"]Other than that fantastic job: BTW what does all this run on? I seem to remember the last site ran on Win 2000 server and whatever the MS server is, have you thought about upgrading to a Linux/Apache system?[/quote] Hi there, To answer your queries - this site''s running ASP.NET 1.1, on Win2000 server / IIS5, with a SQL Server 2000 database running on Windows 2003 Server. We''re in the process of evaluating ASP.NET 2.0, and planning a migration to Windows 2003 Server / IIS6. We''ve looked at the idea of Apache/Linux, but at this point we have a substantial investement in Microsoft technologies and given the rich development environment support in the form of Visual Studio to be completely honest there would be little benefit in switching technologies. We are however looking at open source technologies in other areas - the MySQL database is doing great things at the moment and has a lot of potential, and we''re considering deploying a Linux/Solaris file server.  

Thanks Herb, this is some excellent advice that should be followed by all using Microsoft Windows.

Highly recommended!

All - please follow Vince''s advice and ensure your computer has all current security patches. No router based firewalls or virus scanners will stop something that exploits a flaw either in your browser or operating system.Applying all available hotfixes / patches is essential for safe browsing. Yes, using alternative browsers (i.e. Firefox) is a good idea, but it''s still good practice to update your computer.Those running automatic updates should be ok, but do make sure that Windows has actually installed the available updates, rather than queuing them for later download. A quick check of Windows Update can sometimes be useful.Finally, also ensure your anti-virus software is uptodate. Running an out of date antivirus scanner, or one using old virus definitions is simply not worth the effort.

I''m running the same version of McAfee, current DATs, latest engine etc. So far, nothing spotted. Following the initial reports I ran all the webservers through the MS checks recommended if someone reports this sort of virus on a webserver. All came up clean, and were subsequently rebooted (to flush out anything resident in memory). So all in all, the cause of these seems to be a mystery at the moment as the content and server OS''s are all clean. Will keep monitoring the situation though, so if anyone else gets the error can you please do the following1) Update your anti virus software with the latest released DAT or AV library files.2) Run a full virus scan on your computer, scanning all files.3) Go to Windows Update and install all critical fixes and updates for your computer.4) Ideally also install and run MS''s new AntiSpyware tools.5) Clear your webbrowser''s cache6) Return to the site, and let me know what happens!

[quote]Whenever I''ve accessed the Pink ''Un site today, I get continual virus alerts - JS Petch trojans residing in Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\. This has never happened before, and isn''t occurring w...[/quote] Old Boy, the JS Petch trojan only seems to be "spreadable" using IRC so the forum shouldn''t at fault. http://vic.zonelabs.com/tmpl/body/CA/virusDetails.jsp?VId=37468Can you please run a full antivirus scan on your computer?Thanks

Craig - can you provide the URL that you visited, and the platform/anti virus software details?Thanks

To follow up: If reporting a virus alert, please can you include the URL you''re accessing and some brief details about your computer and anti-virus software?

To the best of our ability, all webservers are 100% clear of anything nasty. Full virus scans have been run with the latest DAT files, and all current security patches are installed (and verified). As this doesn''t seem to be affecting everyone using this site, the problems are probably down to something on your computer. If one of the webservers was infected, everyone would be seeing the same alerts for the same virus.Can you please update your computer''s anti virus software to the latest definitions, and run a full scan. Also, downloading and installing Microsoft''s new anti-spyware tool would be useful to clean out anything you may have unknowingly collected while browsing the web.We take this and any possible breech of our security very seriously, and will continue investigating to try and idenfity the source of the problems.Regards

[quote]i also cant get into any page 4s of any post topics.........[/quote] AJ - the 4th pages should now be working properly...

[quote]Generally good, though I cant see the emoticons to choose (if they are there) when I post. Mac Powerbook Ti 867 running Safari 10.3.5. (any other Mac users out there?!) Plus, when I go to page 4 on th...[/quote] Cast from type ''DBNull'' to type ''Integer'' is not valid. Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. All being well the "is DBNull" error message should now have been fixed..

[quote]The board is being a bit temperamental. Hopefully teething probs. Didn''t have a proper point, just wanted to see my picture in lights. OTBC[/quote] A few minor teething problems during the migration, but all should now be ok. If not, I''m sure you''ll let us know......

... who ?... me? .... sorry ''gov! TS