Spondylitis Association of America Forums General Discussion General Message Board for Ankylosing Spondylitis and Related Diseases FORUM MAINTENANCE

Hi All,

We have run into a unique problem with the forums. Although we have not pinpointed the precise cause, the forums are causing all of spondylitis.org to slow down and nearly crash at times because of server overload.

What this means is that the rest of the site needs to take priority, and that we may need to take the forums offline at times to lessen the burden on the server.

Our first guess is that the massive amount of automated spam bots trying to register on the forums is causing this overload at certain times.

How do we fix this?

We need to once again upgrade the message boards to a SQL database. Unfortunately budget constraints may prevent us from doing this immediately.

The other way to fix this is to isolate the forums on a separate server - but this means purchasing another hosting account, and there again we run into monetary problems.

So, we ask you bear with us. We know how many of you value the forums to connect with others, ask questions, and seek support, and we will do our best to keep them running smoothly.

Do expect more downtime, however, since we need to keep the rest of the site functional and running smoothly.

Thank you,

Chris

chris and all the others who make this possible...thank you so much for all your efforts, you will likely never really know just how much this means to us. this is, without fail, the best place i have ever been on the web. Prayers and peace to you...!!!!!sequoia

I'm a survivor! Thanks for everything that you are doing. We know that this will be fixed as soon as possible.

Chris, why not require anyone who registers to copy a series on numbers/letters to a box before registering?

I don't know if you know what I mean, but on many sites you have to copy what they show you before you can continue to prove you are not a bot.

A very good sugggestion. Unfortunately:

1) This board technology does not have said feature built in. And outsourcing modifications would be even more costly than our options above - most likely. However, I will see if there is a hack/modification that is user built we can apply.

2) With what we have now, even the act of bots trying to register en masse is slowing down the forums. Trying not to be too technical, but these boards are file based, not database driven. Thus every action adds load to the server and is more inefficient than a database based forum.

We currently do require an email verfication, which keeps the bots from actually posting. But even with certain domains and IPs blocked, they are trying to register, thus slowing down the forums.

In any case, it looks like upgrading is our best option.

Thanks for the suggestion. Any and all ideas are most definitely welcome.

Chris

Thanks! I think what elf is referring to is a "CAPCHA" helps with bots and spamming.

Thanks for the update Chris...Sure did miss the forum yesterday morning though....Hope this can be resolved..I'd be lost without this board.!!
Good Luck,
Tab

Thank you for the info a to what has been going on! It is okay with me if there are slow tmes or down time on the boards, I am just SO gratful to have them! And we so appreciate all the work you guys do to keep the site running. It IS VERY IMPORTANT TO HAVE THIS SITE!! It is the BEST source of info on the subject, and these are the BEST FORUMS anywhere on the net, period! Hands down!
Thank you all at the SAA for providing this free service that can be a lifeline in times of crisis for me, and I am sure others as well...cassi

Thanks for the support, folks

We just brought the boards down for about 5 minutes to stop the extraneous processes that were pushing the server a bit too hard. I am hoping small downtimes like that will do the trick so we can avoid longer outtages.

Best,

Chris

Hi All,

Important note: These forums may be open for 12-14 hours. We are leaving them open during a low web traffic period.

Tomorrow, we have approval to do a new upgrade. This is a necessary move so that the forums can once again run smoothly - so we hope.

After tomorrow morning, do not be surprised if there is another 24 hour outage as we complete the upgrade and testing.

Beyond that, hopefully we will not have to bring the forums down again for a long, LONG time.

Thanks for your patience,

Chris