Boards inaccessible for 3-4 hours every day

[Morrus]

Every day, at about lunchtime in the US (across all four time zones and lasting about 4 hours) my vB is completely inaccessible. Pages take upward of 10 minutes to load if they load at all. It's been like this for a few weeks now, and people are getting really fed up with it (quite understandably).

I'm right on the verge of switching back to my UBB forums, which are still installed although not currently active, and passing vB off as a failed experiment (which would be a shame given the money spent on it, including a failed installation which I paid for and eventually had to do again myself). I've looked through all of the advice given in this forum, and, unfortunately, don't understand a word of it. I've also seen the information that is always requested of people who present such problems, and it's all gibberish to me.

UBB never caused problems like this, and I was under the impression that VB was less resource-hungry. The amount of configuration that seems necessary by looking over these forums seems to indicate that vB is not designed for use by anyone without a PHD in computer science. Certainly not by the likes of me, whose knowledge of web admin is use of an ftp account, operating Dreamweaver and restarting the server every 20 minutes (or so it seems) with TSC.

All that aside (apologies for the length of it, but this is so frustrating - especially since I know that when someone asks me to provide information I won't even understand the question).

There's not a lot of point in my asking for help here, for the above reasons, but does anyone know of a cheap but reliable server admin guru who I could just pay to fix things? I'm sure there must be such services out there.

Thanks.

[Steve Machol]

I'm truly sorry for your problems. However thankfully your experiences are far from the norm.

It sounds like MySQL is not configured optimally. Are you on a shared or dedicated server? Who's your web host?

[Morrus]

Hi there,

I'm on a dedicated server with CI Host; I can access it via TSC. The MySQL was installed by a volunteer from my boards.

[Steve Machol]

What's TSC?

Anyway can you post the contents of your my.conf file? This is usually in the /etc directory. If you don't find it there, try;

locate my.conf

[Morrus]

TSC is 'Terminal Server Client'. I start it up, enter the IP of the server and username/password and it dumps me on the desktop.

I can't find the my.conf file - I used the Windows 'search' option to find files of that name and it came up with nothing. Not sure where I'd type 'locate my.conf'. Where would the /etc directory be? Is it a directory of the messageboards themselves or of some application on the server?

You can probably already see what I mean when I say I know nothing about servers etc. ;)

[Steve Machol]

Sorry, I didn't realize you were on a Windows server. I really know nothing about these and try to avoid them at all costs.

Hopefully someone can help who has knowledge of these servers.

[eva2000]

could you please provide the following

1. your server specs, such as mysql and php version
2. if possible how mysql was compiled/installed
3. your top stats
4. your mysql configuration variables located at /etc/my.cnf or c:\my.cnf if on Windows server if you don't have that file you need to log into telnet and as root user type

mysqladmin -u root -p variables

copy and paste output here

5. your mysql extended-status output either still telnet as root user type

mysqladmin -u root -p extended-status

copy and paste output here

or preferred is to installed extended-status output script which is located at http://vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=3477

and post url to that here

6. oh and is your vB the only thing on the server? or other scripts? sites?

7. how many average and max concurrent users on your vB forum ?

8. any cronjobs or scheduled tasks that are done ? i.e. backing up databases at certain periods of each day? log rotation schedules etc

[Morrus]

Originally posted by eva2000
could you please provide the following

1. your server specs, such as mysql and php version
2. if possible how mysql was compiled/installed
3. your top stats
4. your mysql configuration variables located at /etc/my.cnf or c:\my.cnf if on Windows server if you don't have that file you need to log into telnet and as root user type

mysqladmin -u root -p variables

copy and paste output here

5. your mysql extended-status output either still telnet as root user type

mysqladmin -u root -p extended-status

copy and paste output here

or preferred is to installed extended-status output script which is located at http://vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=3477

and post url to that here

6. oh and is your vB the only thing on the server? or other scripts? sites?

7. how many average and max concurrent users on your vB forum ?

8. any cronjobs or scheduled tasks that are done ? i.e. backing up databases at certain periods of each day? log rotation schedules etc

As I mentioned in my original post, there's not much point asking me this. I'm sorry, but I really don't understand a word of what you just said. :(

There's really no point trying to solve this via a messageboard. Really what I'm hoping for is for someone to point me towards some professional service who actually do server/MySQL etc. configuration. I'm sure such services must exist!

[eva2000]

Fellow mod Chris Schreiber
http://vbulletin.com/forum/member.php?s=&action=getinfo&userid=333
at http://www.fastmysql.com

[Morrus]

Thanks for the pointer. Unfortunately, it looks like he only deals with Linux servers. Do you know of anyone who does the same thing but for Windows servers?

[eva2000]

Originally posted by Morrus
Thanks for the pointer. Unfortunately, it looks like he only deals with Linux servers. Do you know of anyone who does the same thing but for Windows servers? have you actually contacted Chris yet ?

[Morrus]

Originally posted by eva2000
have you actually contacted Chris yet ?

Yep - I emailed him within minutes of you posting the link. No answer.

[Morrus]

Uuurgh.. boards completely inaccessible again, right on schedule. This is just getting stupid. I don't think that I can last another couple of days like this, so I'll be switching back to UBB permanently unless a miracle happens very soon...

I can't even connect to the server to reboot it! :(

[eva2000]

Originally posted by Morrus
Uuurgh.. boards completely inaccessible again, right on schedule. This is just getting stupid. I don't think that I can last another couple of days like this, so I'll be switching back to UBB permanently unless a miracle happens very soon...

I can't even connect to the server to reboot it! :( have you submitted a support ticket http://vbulletin.com/members/support.php

and provide your server telnet log in details, server and mysql root passwords as well

[Morrus]

I haven't. I don't know what a 'server telnet log' is.

I'm sorry if I sound antsy - but I'm just so frustrated! And this is all having a very negative effect on my site and my community - everywhere I go, I see complaints on other messageboards and posts from people who say they've given up on my site. And without the traffic, I lose revenue, which means I can't afford the server payments... :(

[eva2000]

Originally posted by Morrus
I haven't. I don't know what a 'server telnet log' is.

I'm sorry if I sound antsy - but I'm just so frustrated! And this is all having a very negative effect on my site and my community - everywhere I go, I see complaints on other messageboards and posts from people who say they've given up on my site. And without the traffic, I lose revenue, which means I can't afford the server payments... :( who's your web host ? they should of provided your with your site login details

username:
password

server root password:
mysql root password:
telnet login server ip address

if you're not sure ask your web host for this information and provide them in a support ticket http://vbulletin.com/members/support.php

we can't help you unless we can access your server and see what's wrong

it could be that the server is configured incorrectly or unoptimised

[Morrus]

Thanks - I think I've correctly provided that info. BY 'telnet login server ip address' do you just mean the IP of the server? Hope so, because then I'll feel clever for having been able to answer something! :)

[eva2000]

Originally posted by Morrus
Thanks - I think I've correctly provided that info. BY 'telnet login server ip address' do you just mean the IP of the server? Hope so, because then I'll feel clever for having been able to answer something! :) yes that's correct