FQuest Alert: Service Outage

[Terra]

Sheesh, when it rains it pours... http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif

Today at 10:32am, there was a service outage until apprx 3:45pm EST...

It was confirmed that someone dug in the wrong place severing a Fiber Optic bundle...

The sever was in Jacksonville, Florida - disrupting many communication paths leading into the Gainsville and Ocala area...

The new lines have been spliced into place and all seems to be functioning properly now...

Thank you for you patience during this service outage...

--
Andrew Gillespie
Systems Administrator
FutureQuest.net
--wanting to remind the water works to call before they dig--

[This message has been edited by ccTech (edited 01-09-99).]

[Shaytar]

that rots!
and for those who did that dig: "Here's yer sign!"

geez....

we do have to say though, that today was the only time ever (umm.. .so far?) that we actually got a "server down" message from FQ

you guys are amazing!

sending umbrellas (and helmets!)
Shaytar

[Mandi]

I really appreciate being able to pass on concrete info to my users - you guys have awesome service http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif! Sorry your Saturday was uh, fiber optic challenged! Thanks for your vigilance and updates.

------------------
Webmaster
http:www.cgspouses.net (http://http:www.cgspouses.net)
Military spouse is one of the hardest jobs in the world!

[meikel]

Hi,

again, I was hit by this outage. I reactivated any ISP I had in the last years (even university) to see if different routings help to get my email.
Trying to reach FQ when the lines are down is a very unfavorable condition for all of us website owners.

I suggest the following:
Open up a private AOL account (or something else that is in no way connected to the lines FQ is depending on) and create a mailing list. So you can inform your customers of the bad situation (even if it's not your fault).

I can give you an email address that is not forwarded and directly located at my ISP, so the email will reach me even if FQ is down. I don't want to publish that address as I'm changing ISPs over time, but for that reason it would be a good idea to hand it to you!

The advantage would be that that email could save me hours of trying and guessing. Some real information could really help sometimes.

Is that a good suggestion?

Greetings from Bonn, Germany
Meikel Weber
http://www.tickerland.com

[Deb]

I totally agree and have a place picked out to go sign up with Monday...

We do have our phone number available to everyone in the UserManual but it doesn't do much good for those of you who are soooo far away.

The main issue on this end is our own dial ups. e.g for things like today, as much as all of you were not able to get into this area... we were not able to get out of it today. Bad example: if we had a hotmail account we were unable to check it.

But I twice a problem like this has gotten on my worst of sides so today I started the search for a secondary option.

Will let you all know once it's up and running of course http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Deb

[hearts]

HI Andrew and Deb,

Honestly, nobody likes to experience downtime. http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif And I can say this one did me no favors. However, since my domain I have registered here was not planned for my business, I was still using my other domain as well. Even though I moved all files to here.. It was just a matter of reuploading my files to my original domain.

funny how life works. I believe there was maybe only one downtime that was directly related to your error, and all the rest seem to come from outta your control.

I believe maybe these things are happening because your business is growing so rapidly, and has an awesome potential.. that maybe God is showing you what you need to improve to prepare your company to be more efficient for a larger community. "life's little lessons"

We can all say we understand, and most of us won't complain, because we value you and Deb as people. I will confess, first thought was.. "not this again". And considered looking for another server. Ahhh.. before you get to feeling down, allow me to tell you why I am not going anywhere.

Deb explained to me the committment and dedication that you have as a family with Future Quest. I was very hesitant going with a family run business, because I was afraid how long you guys would stick around. I find it to be a greater risk to go with another hosting company, because I would miss the support of the community. (cuz i have learned alot)And the tech support is outstanding.

Now, I know this will not be the last downtime. Your dedication to learn from these probs, family commitment, and your service is what will keep me here.

I hope you are both feeling better.. Andrew with the flu, and Deb and her meds.

Future Quest. owned by real people .. run by real people.. for real people! http://www.aota.net/ubb/wink.gif




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~~~ Hearts
www.heartsweb.com/ (http://www.heartsweb.com/)

[Justin]

I have to say, I was hit with this myself http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif
My site had been up for about a week now, and my traffic / hits have gone up steadily each day, eith yesterday being the first time the stats showed lower from the previous day.

But I look at two things: Number one, if I used my ISP's web space, they would have shut my site down for going over the 500MB / month limit, in only a week. And two: I have learned a lot in my first week here, with cgi/perl/php3/telnet/etc, and my ISP doesn't allow any of that. Plus, for only 5 megs of space, they cost me more. The extra 5 is $1/meg.

And this is the only web host that I have found when I was looking for a host that allows cgi/php3/telnet all at no extra charge, plus these forums are great http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Oh, yeah, my ISP has more downtime than anyone, and they never fill us in with the details, especially when it's their fault. And they're open 9-5, M-F to answer questions (when you can actually get someone on the phone that knows something)

So, even though I was a little upset being shut out from my site for a while, I know it wasn't your doing, and as soon as it was back up, there was a posting explaining exactly what happened. I knew there would be, too, and that's comforting in itself.

All in all, the net is not perfect, and it will be a long time before it's even close, but FQuest is the closest yet http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Justin

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Justin Nelson, SFE Inc.
http://www.vdj.net

[alexandra]

I'm glad you're exploring an alternative way for us to get in touch with you when the server is down, especially for more than 15 or 20 minutes. I got several emails from people trying to get into our message board that they couldn't get in -- of course, they think it's us. I try my site, and if that doesn't work, go to aota.net, and if I can't get in there, figure it's an FQ problem (and not something with my ISP), but, of course, don't know what it is, or if anyone knows.

Ideally, if FQ can get an alternative email/ISP situation, not only could we get through to you, but perhaps you could have an emailing list of names of siteowners so you could do a quickie automatic email so that we'll know?

Even though the downtimes are disruptive, I agree with everyone that it's hard to imagine a situation where they won't occur. You can only take care to avoid them -- which it seems you are doing. And, bottom line is, the difference is that FQ gives quick, sensible and believable explanations -- taking the blame when it's theirs, and so I believe you when you say it's someone else's. I don't know anyone else who does that (except mindspring, I guess, but there are MANY more problems there; read their alerts newsgroups.

So thanks for letting us know what's going on and being honest about it.

alexandra
www.balletalert.com

[Del]

One of the problems with this last outage was that the line which was cut disrupted service to a fairly large portion of the area Deb and Terra live in. Their personal dialup was disrupted as well, meaning they couldn't have emailed anyone at all without driving for hours to find a library in a different county or something.

The main issue on this end is our own dial ups. e.g for things like today, as much as all of you were not able to get into this area... we were not able to get out of it today. Bad example: if we had a hotmail account we were unable to check it.
from Deb

For future jollies, if you can't access the server, go into your DOS prompt and type

dos prompt> tracert futurequest.net

It'll go thru the motions and find the route your connection takes to get to FQuest. Currently it'll hop around out of your area, onto a backbone, get to blah.oca.mercury.net and then to futurequest.net. I didn't do a tracert when the lines were down, but chances are a tracert wouldn't have made it all the way to mercury.net at all. In other words, you can use that to determine where the connection has been severed (more or less). (If that doesn't make any sense, lemme know and I'll try to explain better).

Also for future reference, if the server seems to be down, and Deb and/or Terra are unable to do email and such (like this last time), anyone can feel free to email me at downinit1@hotmail.com I'll do my best to help figure out what's wrong, and let y'all know what I find out asap.



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Del
www.downinit.com (http://www.downinit.com)

I use ta couldnt even spell student, n now I are one!

[Deb]

Thanks all for all of your replies, encouragement and suggestions.

Del is also very correct with his post....

Now on to some almost new news http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

We have, due to this issue, found a HORRIBLE use for FutureQuest.org

We have begun the transfer of the domain to our secondary DNS host voltage.net

FutureQuest.ORG will be hosted in Arkansas

Once the transfer is completed etc we'll make a more formal post about this.

The goal: If [ when? http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif ] something like the above happens again.. we will contact Del and have him upload a Status Report to the FutureQuest.ORG domain.... so that site owners who would rather just go look rather then call (which saves everyone time/money) can do so easily.

Of course as long as our own dial-ups here can get out and it's an outage specifically related to FQuest I'll just post the info on FutureQuest.ORG myself...

At any rate.... this is just a heads-up to keep an eye out for the 'official' post and take note of the .ORG domain.

We may also offer up a mailing list on that domain for those who would like to join to do so .....

Deb