Explanation off what happened to the website

[Highway Rider]

So here is run down of what happened to the website the last couple of days.
It was about 3 pm on Tuesday afternoon when I went to do one of my many checks to so how things are going. Wen when I received a message similar to this (the directive could not be reached). So I finished work for the day and came home and tried to figure out just what was going on. Was not sure if it was a connection through that my phone provider, but found out that neither of my 2 providers at home worked either. Called are website service provider to see if it was on there end. First they said that there was nothing on there end. I had mentioned to them that ever since we made a switch to what was supposed to be a faster server are load times were slow some times as long as 13+ seconds to load which is a long time for a page to load, many people wont stick around if a page takes longer then 5 seconds. By the end of the phone call the the representative said that they dug a little deeper and said that there tech found a issue and to give them a couple of hours to work on it.

At around 7 pm every thing was back except for the forum. Now the error that I was getting stated that the admin had to many connections to the forum database. So to try and resolve this issue. I tried many things, and one of the things that I tried was change to a different database file, different users name and no matter what I did it would not change the access user name and there for it would continue to give the same error message. The base part of the website was up, and so was the classified section, and after around 7 phone calls, and after it being after midnight I decided co call it a night.

Got up the next morning and still the same thing. I reached out to the support forum of are forum. They they said that the error that I was receiving was a host server error and the connections are controlled by them and not much I could do about it. They also mentioned that there is a cache file with in the forum that I could clear
out. So i worked till noon and came home a started working on it again. Now all I was trying to do was empty the cache file which is normally a straight forward process but seeing how I was not able to do it through the forum admin panel, I was trying to do it with the the FTP program. But it was not doing what it was supposed to do. So the next step was to use the server C_Panel. I could fine the file but unable to open it to delete the continence, and it would also not allow me to delete the file either. So the next best thing was to rename it. So got that accomplished and up loaded a back up copy of the file on to the server. But I was still unable to see the forum and still getting the same error. So around mid afternoon I started making a back up copy of the forum and actually the whole website in case I decided to bail from this provider.

So after a couple a hours (going on 6 pm Wednesday night) of down loading the files from the server to create the backup, I tried the forum again and you know what it was there but was not working quite right. But after about 30 minutes it was working normally as best as I could tell. You know what I really had not done anything to bring it back on line.

Then at around 10 or 11 pm Wednesday was checking things in the admin panel went to make a database back up and the tab was there, but I received the error that started the whole thing and also had the same issue on a on another tab. Thought great now this is broke. So I was playing around with the address bar and was able to get to things that were missing in the maintenance tab ( backups are made here so that is what I did). Still unable to pull up what was behind the other tab and things were not working as they should, and before to long the whole website was gone again and when I tried to access the C-Panel it was doing a up date to it. After may tries I finally got a error--unable to find website on server on port ### . So called the host tech support again told him what the error was I was getting, and he said the website was there, and it was a browser caching issue. He had me try using what is called private browsing which by passes the cache in the regular browser and I was able to see the website,forum, and everything was there in the admin panel this time. He stated that it should clear up in a day or so. If only you know how many times that I had cleared out my cache ,cookies, history, ect. in my browser.

Long story short I feel the issue was on the server side.
They corrected the issue (moved us to a different server?)
Those that frequented the site a lot had the most recent information in the browsers cache but this information was wrong, especially if you used a book mark.
In 24 to 48 hours some of the cache will expire and reload the most recent information.

[Neal]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it...But if it is broke it's got to be this...But I suppose it could be that..But if that's broke then it would almost always be because of those things... But wait a minute.. She said - He said we could always find THAT.
ANYWAY Thanks Jim. I sat here 'seeing' you going through the moves taken and just can't help but think ,,WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT YOU
THANKS

[Tonyvdb]

Yes, thanks Jim, sounds like you spent alot of time on the phone dealing with this.

[alabama498]

Great job Jim. Always on top of it.

By the way nothing to do with thisbut I was wondering why we don't have a Facebook page? The vra and vba both have one. Maby it can raise our membership. Just a thought. Anyway thanks again for the great job with the website.

Brad

[Highway Rider]

Have concider a Facebook page just have not put the forth the effort

[Highway Rider]

Ok it has been created a AVA Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1131228860356533/

[Highway Rider]

This will show you that the host did something on there end as the server shows a ---Server Up time: 2 days, 20 hours, 21 minutes and 55 second---. this can be seen at the bottom of the forum home page under system info

[alabama498]

Thanks for the Facebook Jim hope it takes off.

Brad

[Neal]

There's already a facebook page. Been there for over 2 years, bu for one DON'T DO FACEBOOK

[cushman eagle]

Thank you, Jim, For ALL you do for the AVA I still can not get on the forum my usual way,with google,but found I can with Microsoft Edge.So I am still connected. So to celebrate,we rode a 90 mile round trip today, to see Pegs mom who live 14 miles away.Sadly, she is getting quite advanced with alzheimers,in a rest home.