Forum Connection Problems

[flyboy424]

I'm wondering if anyone else has had problems recently connecting to the forums.  I've had the occasional problem, especially last night, where the forums wouldn't load and I've had it a couple of times already this morning.  So far I've not had a problem loading other websites (including Facebook, surprisingly) so I don't think its a connection problem from my end.  The error I've had twice so far this morning is:

Database Error: Can't find file: './repcom/smf_boards.frm' (errno: 23)
File: /home/.danila/anxious/forum.clonecommandos.net/Sources/BoardIndex.php
Line: 84

I think last night it was just time-out errors trying to receive data from the servers.

EDIT

Just had another one:

Database Error: Can't find file: './repcom/smf_log_search_subjects.frm' (errno: 23)
File: /home/.danila/anxious/forum.clonecommandos.net/Sources/Subs.php
Line: 440

EDIT 2

And, I got another error:

Connection Problems
Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again later.

[Mark]

This happens because the forum and site are being hosted on Dreamhost. Dreamhost is a budget operation, which means you get a good price on what they offer. Unfortunately, you also get what you pay for, which is precious little in the way of support or promised up time.

[Amy]

Yeah, what he said. And frankly, any downtime here is typically very short compared to that of my previous hosts and things tend to fix themselves without me even having to contact support. (Which is good when I'm not around much.) I honestly have no complaints about Dreamhost.

But yeah, as long as I'm paying for all this out of my pocket, there's gonna be some downtime occasionally. I can't afford a good dedicated server, nor do I want to spend time administering/managing one and I certainly can't pay someone else to do so.

[Mark]

Yeah, what he said. And frankly, any downtime here is typically very short compared to that of my previous hosts and things tend to fix themselves without me even having to contact support. (Which is good when I'm not around much.) I honestly have no complaints about Dreamhost.

But yeah, as long as I'm paying for all this out of my pocket, there's gonna be some downtime occasionally. I can't afford a good dedicated server, nor do I want to spend time administering/managing one and I certainly can't pay someone else to do so.

Well to be quiet honest, despite my intense hatred of Dreamhost (for reasons I won't get into here) I think it works for a budget operation like this. There's not really any personal or professional risk to you from the downtime, or the constant threat of losing your data (as happened to ~250 Dreamhost users a few months back).

I really see no reason to switch to a dedicated server (Which is around $100 USD a month at the cheap end). Though I will say the administration and managing of it is much simpler then you might otherwise think.

If you ARE ever interested in making that switch, Amy, let me know. We wrote up a White Paper for I-Games on the subject that covers everything from the migration of the forum software to the migration of the database, to the programs both necessary and recommended, and all the problems and difficulties we ran into and how to avoid them in the future. (And since we have you to thank [and I mean this sincerely] for our switch to the SMF software, it'd be pretty much a carbon for carbon copy process for you.)

[Amy]

Seen. Thanks Mark.

[IC-1989]

I couldn't connect this morning

[Vlet Hansen]

yesterday couldn't connect, it was an error 500 or 505, I think... glad it's back!

[flyboy424]

Yeah, it was HTTP Error 500: Internal Server.  I think everyone had it.  It started for me around 7:00 PM GMT and was still going on when I went to bed a midnight.

[Vlet Hansen]

well, whatever it was seems to be gone completely, so I'm happy...

[Darin Daru'Kasem]

I'm getting random errors.

Occasionally when I post I get a 500 Internal server error, or something along those lines, or I try to open someones profile.

[flyboy424]

I just got a random HTTP 403 forbidden error, and this morning my avatar wasn't loading for a few minutes.

[Rune]

My computer is also giving me 404 errors and internal server errors.

[IC-1989]

My computer is also giving me 404 errors and internal server errors.

Me 2

[Rune]

Okaaay. It's not anymore, so maybe it was just the internet yesterday.

[Vlet Hansen]

hopefully...