Site availability

[karna68]

The past 2 Mondays during the Bachelorette I have been unable to access the site. Would it be possible to close it to non members during this time?

[fluff]

The past 2 Mondays during the Bachelorette I have been unable to access the site. Would it be possible to close it to non members during this time?

We did, it's not always enough to stop the site from crashing on such high-demand days, unfortunately.

John once told us that it helps the servers if people switch their settings to display more posts per page.
Obviously, the more people who do this the better, so if you're still on a low of setting of 10 or 25 posts per page, please consider switching up to 50 or 100.

[karna68]

Thanks Fluff. Really? I thought less posts would load faster, interesting.

[hepcat]

When you see a message saying there are guests on the site on those days, they are all looking at a screen that tells them they can't access the site. We actually closed down the site to guests at 1:30 EST yesterday.

[Amanda]

Thanks Fluff. Really? I thought less posts would load faster, interesting.

There are a couple of factors that come into play, as far as I understand it. Fewer posts per page may load an individual's page marginally faster (though unless you're still using dial-up, it's unlikely to be anything more than a negligible difference), but you have to hit the server more often when you switch pages. On a large scale, this can have an overloading effect.

The other thing - and I should point out that this is my relatively non-technical understanding - is that when the server does go down because of an overload, the real problem is that everyone has a tendency to hit refresh over and over until it comes back up. That has the effect of kicking it while it's down, so to speak, and just prolongs the problem. That's why when everyone gets annoyed and gives up for a while, it can come back up.

[karna68]

Thanks, I couldn't get on at all, no message or anything. No big deal though.

[karna68]

Wow, middle of the day and I'm having issues, is it just me? How do I change how many posts display?

[Amanda]

I'm not having any problems right now.

To change posts per page: User CP --> Edit Options --> Thread Display Options --> Number of Posts to Show Per Page.

[schmoo2]

I was having some problems before, but it is fine now. same thing - no message, just never connected. Just letting you know, so you don't think it is you.

[norealityhere]

I've had problems logging onto the site everyday this week. Am OK now. But, I could not log in at all this morning.