'Course, there are those who would suggest this has already happened. 
.
There’s a new sticky, addressing the issue.
Seems to me it may get worse before it gets better.
This is a weak cite, but we’ve been told before.
Now, I’ve had it time out on me before. However, I’m a math whiz and did some complex calculations… (ok, I stuck ‘14/365’ into a calculator) and I have to say, I think I’m getting my 3.8 cents-a-day worth from the site. Just some perspective here. I don’t see much reason to get my heart rate up.
Hell, this post itself was 3.8 cents-worth of smug complacency! It’s like yoga for the will.
As a charter member isn’t more like 2 cents a day?
It could be worse, you could be paying $15 (plus software, plus expansions) a month for the oh-so-stable World of Warcraft environment. Nothing quite like scheduling eight people together to go do a raid on a Saturday evening only to discover your realm is down for maintenance.
Aw c’mon, folks. It’s August! My bet is half the hamsters are on vacation. They’ll be back.
The front end sucks; the back end blows.
So all of you saying things like, “No timeouts for me! <shrug>” can lick the back of my hairy, sweaty scrotum.
This isn’t really true - Apache is perfectly usable on a Windows system (in fact I’m running it right now, along with mySQL and PHP). Apache on Linux is more common, granted, but that’s mostly just because they’re both free software efforts rather than as a result of any incompatibility between Apache and Windows.
Javascript is a client-side scripting technology, and how well it works has nothing to do with the server’s operating system (or the client’s, for that matter), but instead depends on what browser you’re using. All the server does with Javascript is send the code in plain text to the person viewing the page, just like the HTML, CSS and so forth. In fact the server will never even know the difference between those three; as far as it’s concerned, they’re all part of the same stream of characters that get sent to the remote browser.
Regardless, it’s not the OS that’s the problem here, it’ll be some combination of the size of the database, and the load being placed upon it (last time it was the unsustainability of mySQL’s full-text search on a database this large). So, much like the previous times it’s most likely going to entail either a server upgrade, a database prune, or a further restriction of search capabilities. Given the way these things usually happen (i.e. with minimal advance notice) there doesn’t seem to be much point speculating, really. TPTB are obviously aware that things are getting untenable.
Or, you know, maybe they’re not sitting there clicking on new threads every 47 seconds, and are actually not browsing the boards when the timeouts happen. But I’m sure it’s much more reasonable to assume that they’re all liars who are lying just to make you look bad. Damn them. Damn them straight to hell.
I was able to reach the homepage and archive during this one.
There is speculation that if an explanation for the blackouts should ever occur, the universe would dissapear, to be replaced by something even more inexplicable.
That’s a good perspective, but I get a lot of enjoyment from other sites around the internet that are immensely more reliable for $0.00 per day. I too have pretty much been an apologist for the performance of these Boards for a long time (“it’s just a message board,” “get a life,” etc.) but damn - we are reaching new heights of suck lately, it seems.
I hate to come down on Jerry and whoever else is working on trying to make things better, but these problems are not new. This board has been shaky and flaky for a long time now.
**Dudley ** has a scrotum? :dubious:
Oops, yeah, I meant ASP. Anyway, I didn’t say Apache was unusable on Windows. It’s just that IIS is Microsoft’s product of choice for obvious reasons.
I came in here to post because I always see these “timeout” threads, but I have yet to experience one. I have never had a problem with this message board. What happens when there is a “timeout?” Seriously.
[average poster hat on]
Well, bucko, you should have been trying to access the board last night between about 11:00PM-2:00AM EDT. It sucked. I gave up and went to bed.
Fortunately I worked all day today. When I came home, I read the rants about the board going down today.
The good news, for me at least, is that when I signed on tonight at about 6:30PM EDT, this sucker is flying. And I"ve been reading like a MF. Of course, I’m always prepared for disaster. Seems to happen quite a bit lately.
[Average poster hat off]
You click on something, it hangs for a while, then you get a “Page Not Found” error. Then you hit reload and it does the same thing again. Then again. Then one more time. Then it works.
Except last night.
That’s why I (and I assume many Dopers) subscribe to multiple tab/sheet browsing practice when surfing the SDMB.
This totally deserves a place in someone’s sig. capybara, if you’re not planning to make use of it, may I offer it a home?
I can honestly say that I am on the SDMB at all hours of the day and night and I have never seen a “page not found” error. Weird. And it’s even weirder to me that it apparently happens enough that people complain about it. Anyway… Seriously though, I have never had a problem with this board.