Why is the server always busy ?

Just a lot of pepole using the site. AVS is by far the best site for HT and related talk out their..

So many times during peak hours you may not be able to get in

Guess everyone got really cool stuff for Christmas and came to the premiere website for advice on how to hook it up, program it, use it, etc.

Doc

Is that like "Why is the rum always gone?" I experience the same issues, during peak times its tough to get in. Maybe we should start a donation fund for new servers or more bandwidth!

Hi...

Yes, aware of the issue.

As it is now, the site runs on 4 web servers, 1 MySQL server, 1 image server and 1 ad sever. (7 servers in all.) We have a NEW Dell Dual Quad Core server (8 processors in all) coming in with 8 gigs of RAM for the MySQL server for faster database access and thus less bottlenecking. Also looking to add in a load balancer for the 4 web servers.

So in a nutshell, we are working on it. (Growing pains when you see 6 million unique visitors a month.) Though December and January are the most busy months.

As far as donations...just become an AVS Club member to help support the site. Not needed, but it is a way if you so choose.

Thanks

I think a flux capacitor putting out 1.21 gigawatts of power will help the server.

Tried that....it just burned out.

*Drools*

I came over to this forum area so I could get the "411" on the server busy-ness... especially since I already did my yearly contribution last month. I have to say, I appreciate the details on the upgrade, it's good to see where the money goes and good to know that it's actually getting fixed... keep the good work up!!!

Load balancer will also be ordered but not in time for CES. Just running out of time.

My surefire way to drum up some extra donation money:

Let the server situation stay the way it is and give Club Members priority access to them.



The only reward I ask for presenting you with this brilliant idea is a free upgrade to Gold Membership status.



.

LOL...You are not the first to ask actually.

BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS....I just order a Barracuda Load Balancer Model 340 and it is being shipped overnight. I hope we will be able to get it running tomorrow and more evenly spread the connections to the different servers.

Right now...One may be running a load of 45 and another may be at 8. Thus if you happen to be hitting the one that is at 45, you will currently get a message that the site is closed for high loads. (40 is the cut off currently and thus you will need to wait for the load to drop.)

I really hope this will help...but what I really want to arrive is the new server!

This site is really going to get hammered next week so that is good news.

Enjoy your trip.

Where are the site stats for avsforums.com ?

Seems this is a very popular site for a lot of people...

Just use Alexa.com for traffic info. Other than that, we do not publish our logs outright. BTW...The traffic is tracked by a third party.

Thanks for letting us know about the solutions to the problem. It has been very challenging for the past week. Anyway, for the first time last night (or maybe the night before) I got a message that the site was shut down due to being overpowered by Google or some such thing. What was that all about?

I am so upset with the server busy status that I will have to take it out of you with the free food at the AVS party at CES.

Glad to see you are on top of it.

Once again, thanks for this fantastic resource.

The GoogleBot (no relation) was hitting the site quite hard for some reason at about 9:30PM ET. As a result of all the queries to the site being made, it slowed up right down with high server loads.

Google contacted us right away as they had seen the note and we worked on resolving the issue. I personally thank the GoogleBot spider team for their help and look forward to working closely with them.

Maybe a Butler would help keep those servers in check.

FYI...Currently working on setting up the load balancer as of this post. Then we will need to test it and then try it live. (That will be fun)

As of about 6:00PM ET new load balancer now installed and running.

I really hope this works well for I leave in the AM for CES and will be traveling most of the day. So, lets see how this now goes. I wish I could do more testing, but alas, we are off and running at this point and all seems well thus far for 4500 people on-line.

Nent step is the new MySQL server. (Shipping weight 150lbs!) It is on the way and should arrive to the network center Monday. The question though is when we will take the site down to get it up and running. So stay tuned.

Oh...until that is done...we still can have slowdowns based on the MySQL server. But with the load balancer I hope the server high loads with be gone.

Looks like the load balancer is sending me to some bad mirrors when I visit www.avsforum.com/avs-vb (no trailing slash).

I get redirected to 404 pages on http://fractalmirror.avsforum.com/avs-vb/ , http://mirror2.avsforum.com/avs-vb/ and http://mirror3.avsforum.com/avs-vb/

www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/ resolves correctly to the forum index page.

Pondering...I used your link above without the trailing / and I did not have such an issue. I can I have tried a number of time and it always revolved as it should.

????

This is odd.

I've tried from two different computers with two different browsers and via two networks and I'm still getting the 404s on http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb.


Edit: I'm also being redirected to http://fractal.avsforum.com/avs-vb/ with the same result. With that said, I'm having no problems when I include the forward slash in the URL.

I can not get it to reproduce it returning the server name for the www. Augh...I hate issues like this.

I know-- I hate that, too. I spent a year as an Oblix SSO and load balancer admin and dreaded every call or email when a user got an error that I couldn't reproduce. So, I pretty much hated every day.

For what it's worth, I'm definitely not complaining and please don't waste any time on this if I'm the only one with this issue. I'll just make sure to include the /.

Nathan...That is just it...I would not know if others have the issue unless they took the time time to report it. Let me know if it continues or has ended. I can not get it to do it.

I am using the DIRECT SERVER RETURN method for speed. This a loop back is made to from the real IP to the balancer. That has to be where the server name came into play. But no clue why.

I'll pull out my testing tools and let you know what happens from my end, but I'm really rusty at this.

No problem here accessing http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb (no trailing slash).
Btw, the lack or presence of a trailing slash seems irrelevent, at least for IE 6 that adds one anyway, so it works OK either way.