FQ Alert: ASTRO

[JRepici]

Hi,

Don't know if this will help you, but noticed the pup was really dragging yesterday (Friday) around mid-afternoon.

[nbsp][nbsp][nbsp][nbsp]-John

[nbsp]

[Terra]

The ASTRO server is currently experiencing some very extreme stability issues that are currently being investigated...

If the current trend keeps up, I will have no choice but to take the server completely offline and replace it with a new one...

--
Terra
--Sometimes, when it rains - it pours--
FutureQuest

[Benj]

When this happens, will we have all our settings and access (CNC.... htaccess....cgis...permissions....) exactly the same on the new server or will we have to reset anything ?

Thanks,
Benj
[This message has been edited by Benj (edited 05-13-00@5:55 pm)]

[Charles Capps]

How close are you guys to a body of water?[nbsp][nbsp]*evil grin*

(Hey, it worked with SIX for a while...![nbsp][nbsp]:))

[Terra]

Problems like this do arise from time to time...[nbsp][nbsp]Question yourself, how often did Windows lock up in a day?[nbsp][nbsp]<eg>

Hardware and Software will never be perfect, sheesh - just look at the human brain... <big EG>

Hard knocks like this, you just have to take them in stride and address the issues at hand...

ASTRO is begging for attention, like a 2-year old throwing a tantrum...[nbsp][nbsp]It could be thirsty, or hungry - or just wants to go outside and play...

I believe the problem is a CPU having a timing issue and throwing major monkey wrenches into the SMP works...[nbsp][nbsp]I am still analyzing the OOPS traces, but it appears that a full server switchout is in order...[nbsp][nbsp]When the new server has finished it's burn, I will take ASTRO offline and swap it out...

All file permissions (and stuff) will be intact as the hard drives are hot-swappable...[nbsp][nbsp]New body/brain/memory, but the heart still remains the same...

--
Terra
--Watching a wonderful Saturday afternoon fly by - stuck inside--
FutureQuest

[Benj]

Great answer :)

Benj

[Deb]

it appears that a full server switchout is in order... [nbsp][nbsp]Andrew is going to begin this now with the latest reboot being the final straw.[nbsp][nbsp]Downtime may be one or two hours but rather than trying to pinpoint the hardware problem we would rather just bring it home and put the new one online.

As he stated above all of the &quot;stuff&quot; will remain in tact....

Our sincere apologies for this issue....

Deb
[nbsp]- Hey TeRRa, if my car stalls, can I have a new one?

[bullseye]

Since we can't update, how about regaling us with a little server history lore.

All the other servers seem to be referred to with numbers.[nbsp][nbsp]How did Astro get it's name?

Bob

[JW]

I feel that my email load may be extreme once the down session around noon, and this one are fixed up.[nbsp][nbsp]Just when you need that autoresponder...

;-(

JW

[Deb]

TAZ = First Server to go online.[nbsp][nbsp]TAZ is my favorite Cartoon Character and the server was named after the Warner Brothers Character.

SIX - Was my online nick name when chatting etc on IRC.[nbsp][nbsp]TeRRa named our second server after the &quot;lady he met online&quot;.

Seven Of Nine is a character from Star Trek Voyager.[nbsp][nbsp]Half borg and half human.[nbsp][nbsp]SEVEN and NINE were named after this character.

ASTRO - Was a server that came about two weeks ahead of schedule.[nbsp][nbsp]Named after the dog owned by the Jetsons, a cartoon that was also before its time.

PHOENIX - Online but unannounced (will be officially announced within the next couple of days) is a brand new breed of server that we've been working on for a while.[nbsp][nbsp]It contains the most recent versions of Linux and more... We see it as a sort of re-birth and as such it was named accordingly.

So as you can see, none of them were really named with &quot;numbers&quot; in mind.[nbsp][nbsp]All of them are after &quot;real names/characters&quot; of some sort

--
Deb

<EDIT>
Disney != Warner Brothers!!
[This message has been edited by ccTech (edited 05-13-00@10:29 pm)]

[Juan G]

Some portraits of Astro and the Jetsons:

http://www.tbssuperstation.com/disaster/jetsons/
http://www.animationusa.com/meet.html
http://www.animationusa.com/hb/eep.html
http://www.animationusa.com/jetson.html

;)[nbsp]

[barkingmoose]

How close are we? I don't mean to be impatient, but this was the weekend I had set aside to work on my new website... after setting up this account with FQ only a week or two ago. I know incidents like this are usually isolated, but I haven't been around that long.
[This message has been edited by barkingmoose (edited 05-13-00@10:20 pm)]

[DB]

Looks like it's back, I just got into a client's site. Good work, Master TeRRa. :)

------------------
--Tom aka DiamondBack
[nbsp][nbsp]http://diamond-back.com
[nbsp][nbsp]http://smartasses.org

[Terra]

Ever have a dog, that you let outside (without a leash) trusting that it will behave and stay in the yard?

But wait, you turn your back and suddenly your peaceful afternoon turns into a 2 mile, chase the dog across neighbors yards - creeks - traffic laden roads - thorn bushs, only to finally track him down then it turns around and runs back to you like your his best friend in the whole world...

Well, this was ASTRO tonight during the swapout...[nbsp][nbsp]I ended up going through several different combinations of BIOS, BMC upgrades - and CPU/Memory configurations...[nbsp][nbsp]For some odd reason it would keep locking up in the BIOS configuration which I finally found out was a corrupt BMC firmware load from the factory which did not show up in the burn...[nbsp][nbsp]I finally got the new firmware to take hold, and once that all settled in - ASTRO came home...

Now ASTRO thinks it's going to get a doggie treat - I think the jury will have to deliberate a bit longer on that one...

Thank you everyone for your patience through this debilitating situation, it really does help us to stay focused on extiguishing the fire - instead of being burned while fighting it...

--
Terra
--Jane!!! Stop this crazy thing!!--
FutureQuest
[This message has been edited by ccTech (edited 05-13-00@10:27 pm)]

[DB]

LOL @ the dog chase.[nbsp][nbsp]I had exactly that happen once, my neighbors where having a big backyard BBQ and here comes this happy-go-lucky black Lab followed by a not-so-happy 13 year old. I would have kicked that dog's butt if he hadn't realized he'd been a bad doggie and looked at me with those big mournful brown eyes.

Anyway, while you were getting your doggie back on his leash, I gave one of my ASTRO hosted clients the complete FQ history, from the days of TAZ and Sprint*shudder*link to the present, with the hope of one day having a 5 9's up-time. I wouldn't even joke about that anywhere else.

Once again, well done Master T, and thanks for the timely updates, Deb.

------------------
--Tom aka DiamondBack
[nbsp][nbsp]http://diamond-back.com
[nbsp][nbsp]http://smartasses.org

[Juan G]

Now that Astro came home with George Jetson, Jane, etc., :) a little look at other servers. Taz (Tasmanian Devil) is at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Makeup/4291/ . There are links on Seven of Nine ( http://users.lewiston.com/jmatuska/New/7/jr08.jpg ) or Jeri Ryan (Star Trek Voyager) at Yahoo, TrekSites.com, etc.

[wharris]

barkingmoose, I share your pain over the timing of this crash - after weeks of wrangling with Network Solutions, I finally got my domain name properly transferred over here, and, bam! No Astro. But when the inevitable bad stuff happens, FutureQuest's response is always first-rate. I have never been with host that jumped on problems so quickly and kept me so well informed (not to mention entertained - great explanation of the server names :)). Thanks Andrew and Terra for the quick fix and Deb for the quick wit and good information.

Wayne Harris
[This message has been edited by wharris (edited 05-13-00@10:55 pm)]

[DB]

Yeah, that Andrew and TeRRa make quite a team, don't they? (Note: they are one in the same, they just do the work of two people.)

Some hosts would start by denying their server was down. After a few days they would say the parts they need are on order and there is nothing they can do in the meantime. Makes ya glad you're not with &quot;some hosts,&quot; eh? No only was there a spare available, but the work got done on a Saturday night.

------------------
--Tom aka DiamondBack
[nbsp][nbsp]http://diamond-back.com
[nbsp][nbsp]http://smartasses.org

[Juan G]

My domains are on Astro as well. Nothing is perfect, but I admit that this infrequent accident at FQuest was common and longer for me on previous hosts. And thanks for the info. ;)[nbsp]

[Deb]

ASTRO has gone down for a hard reboot.[nbsp][nbsp]Andrew will be cycling it through a manual boot.[nbsp][nbsp]Everything should be back up and operational within the hour (sooner probably).

My apologies for this inconvenience.

[jimbo]

Posted By Deb:
TeRRa named our second server after the &quot;lady he met online&quot;.
Did you two really meet online?[nbsp][nbsp]And you got married as a result of it?[nbsp][nbsp]And you both are seemingly incredibly happy?

I've heard of the first two happening, but never all three![nbsp][nbsp]Neato!

Posted By DB:
Yeah, that Andrew and TeRRa make quite a team, don't they? (Note: they are one in the same, they just do the work of two people.)
I figured out that they were one in the same a while ago; but I still don't know what to call him (or is it them??? ;)[nbsp][nbsp]).[nbsp][nbsp]Was TeRRa Andrew's ICQ name?[nbsp][nbsp]Six/TeRRa - sounds like the name of an SUV or something ;)[nbsp][nbsp]...[nbsp][nbsp]Anyway, what's the origination or TeRRa, and what's the significance of the two R's being capped?[nbsp][nbsp]If you don't mind me asking, that is.

I always feel better knowing the low-down :)

PS:[nbsp][nbsp]As the father of a very &quot;outgoing&quot; puppy (well, I'm not his REAL father...), I can COMPLETELY understand that Dog Chase analogy.[nbsp][nbsp]LOL![nbsp][nbsp]:P[nbsp][nbsp]


[This message has been edited by jimbo (edited 05-14-00@02:25 am)]

[Benj]

Now ASTRO thinks it's going to get a doggie treat - I think the jury will have to deliberate a bit longer on that one...

Thank you everyone for your patience through this debilitating situation, it really does help us to stay focused on extiguishing the fire - instead of being burned while fighting it...

So what does it mean exactly for astro ? Is the server problem fixed, or is it another server ?

Thanks,
Benj

[Deb]

The ASTRO hardware was replaced.[nbsp][nbsp]It's all the same build but obviously something was giving out.[nbsp][nbsp]Rather than trying to pinpoint the offending part TeRRa replaced it all.[nbsp][nbsp]The parts taken offline will be tested out-of-production.[nbsp][nbsp]Everything seems to be running much smoother now.

Did you two really meet online?[nbsp][nbsp]And you got married as a result of it?[nbsp][nbsp]And you both are seemingly incredibly happy?
TeRRaTECH was the online nic for Andrew.[nbsp][nbsp]TeRRa for short.[nbsp][nbsp]The CaSe Sensitivity was just a &quot;Fad&quot; type of thing.[nbsp][nbsp]It was actually TeRRaTECH &amp; ^SiX^.[nbsp][nbsp]When &quot;calling him something&quot; a lot has to do with the situation surrounding it.[nbsp][nbsp]TeRRa is a friendlier type of name and what I and his friends call him most.[nbsp][nbsp]Andrew however is his birth name and during meetings or things of a more formal nature Andrew it is.

I did in fact meet TeRRa on-line and knew him for a couple of years as only TeRRa in ASCII.[nbsp][nbsp]He was doing security work for other companies and I was surviving in an abusive relationship.[nbsp][nbsp]I got into Web Design as a way to work my way out of the relationship I was in [insert really really long story here].[nbsp][nbsp]Eventually his programming ability worked into a way of improving the services I offered and with a lot of help from InterNET friendships I ended up packing up the kids and leaving my Ex.[nbsp][nbsp]TeRRa was one of the on-line friends to help me move on.[nbsp][nbsp]

Eventually we were working together to build a business sharing the skills of each other to create a balanced picture.[nbsp][nbsp]One thing led to another...

From web design &amp; reselling we decided &quot;hosts were pathetic&quot; and it would be much simpler, if we wanted the tools that we needed, to work correctly, to setup our own server for the sites.[nbsp][nbsp]TAZ was born. [insert more chapters here] in order to afford the costs of having our own equipment we would have to share it with others. [insert a few more chapters] FutureQuest was born.

At this point the lines between life, work, love, &amp; friendship were all blurred together.[nbsp][nbsp]We spent every waking moment together and finally in Dec of 1998 we were married. (I believe if you search the forums for a FutureQuest Merger you'll find the post announcing it *g*).

At this point we sit three feet from each other everyday, yet still communicate a lot via ICQ, email, and yes even within these forums.[nbsp][nbsp]We toss various items at each other daily (size and speed at which they fly across the office depends on the marital status at the moment *grin*).[nbsp][nbsp]Most importantly we do live as a family.[nbsp][nbsp]TeRRa acting as the best role model my children have ever had and the five us working our butts off to prove &quot;The American Dream&quot; does still exist.

Ahhhhh.... I could type all night about it :P

Yes... we really met on-line. And we got married as a result of it. And we both are living a &quot;seemingly incredibly happy life&quot; (complete with spits and spats and problems and joys).[nbsp][nbsp]:D

And in case he's wondering -- Yes, I now know True Love does still exist.

Deb
[nbsp]- If this is a dream, please do not pinch me!

[bullseye]

1 more Astro question, please?

With all the server problems, did we lose Saturday's stats, or did the report just not get run yet?

Bob

[jimbo]

Deb- What a great story![nbsp][nbsp]Happy mother's day![nbsp][nbsp]:)

Is it safe to assume that the lack of access stats on SEVEN can also be attributed to all of TeRRa's hard work on Astro?

Thanks! :)

[Tim Forbes]

Are we going to be compensated for this loss of services - like a FREE two week holiday in Hawaii would be nice :P
------------------
And with that I shall bid you good day.

The ultimate answer to life the universe and everything (not):
http://www.hamwic.co.uk
Lithium batteries not included.

[barkingmoose]

This is interesting. I just received an automatically generated message informing me that an incident has been opened as the result of the email I sent to support@futurequest.net. The incident is dated today at 1:20pm. The trouble is this: I sent that email at 5:04pm yesterday.

What's going on?

[Deb]

Concerning the email problem... there was a config error accidently made this w/e on the email system that caused some mail not to go all the way through.[nbsp][nbsp]We just fixed that which will cause any of the email that was 'stuck' to go through.[nbsp][nbsp]E.G. the delayed responses on that set.[nbsp][nbsp]There were about 70 messages caught up in this area out of 300...

We are working through those now.

[barkingmoose]

Um, so my server went down and when I sent email to tech support to ask what was going on, my email got stuck somewhere and wasn't received until almost 24 hours later? Is anything else going on that I should be aware of?

[Terra]

Nothing else is going on that you need to be aware of...

But , If you really must know, we were putting in some new mail-looping control procedures that reacted badly with the EMS system...[nbsp][nbsp]This caused the email to get stuck in a lockdown queue, and was not released properly...[nbsp][nbsp]With most of our focus on monitoring the ASTRO server (ensuring everything was working correctly), the lockdown queue problem was not seen until today...

To resolve the issue, we have removed the looping control as new data is now available for us to remodule the software so that the glitch with EMS does not happen again...

--
Terra
--Yep, it's definitely a Monday!--
FutureQuest

[barkingmoose]

But , <font color=#FF0000>If you really must know</font>, we were putting in some new mail-looping control procedures that reacted badly with the EMS system...[nbsp][nbsp]This caused the email to get stuck in a lockdown queue, and was not released properly...
You know, I really don't care about the mail-looping procedures, the EMS system or remoduling the lockdown queue. Sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo to me, that's why I don't host my own site and pay FutureQuest to do it.

What it comes down to for me is that I'm not being reassured. I'm a new customer, and so I don't have anything to go on except for my experiences over the past few days. My site went down, so when I looked into it I got an flurry of &quot;it'll be fixed in an hour&quot; messages. I sent an email to tech support for good measure. The &quot;hour&quot; turned out to be the better part of the Sunday I'd set aside to work on my new website, and the email got lost in a loop of a queue of an EMS that was locked down. Or something.

So when I asked, &quot;Is anything else going on that I should be aware of?&quot; I was trying to subtly express my dissatisfaction. I wasn't hoping for a defensive answer laced with buzzwords.

And when I ask now if you could maybe stop tinkering with the live systems until you're sure you know what you're doing, I'm encouraging you to examine and improve your current processes.

Thanks.

[Deb]

Eeewww TeRRa is showing signs of having a bad case of the mundaays... (bad joke unless you saw the movie).
barkingmoose I would like to apologize for his terseness... it tends to happen after the long shifts :(

As far as the questions on the table...

1. We are a bit quick to respond right now as we did end up behind over the two issues that occurred over the weekend.

2. The two situations are 100% unrelated.[nbsp][nbsp]One was the ASTRO server having a hardware problem that has been fixed.[nbsp][nbsp]The other being a config error in the EMS that has been fixed.

3. ASTRO is 100% functional and is not displaying any problems in any areas at this time.[nbsp][nbsp]Any change in stats or otherwise would be unrelated to the ASTRO problems that happened over the weekend.[nbsp][nbsp]All of that is resolved.

4. The email delay did affect about 70 of the requests that arrived over the weekend and all but about 15 of them have now been responded to.[nbsp][nbsp]The problem has also been fixed.

Everything should be back to normal at this point and after a doughnut and some coffee things should be smooth sailing from here on out.

For those who were somehow or another affected by the two above problems I do apologies but also happily state all is fixed at this point.

One last note: If you ever do not receive a response within 24hours by all means toss up a post or resend the email letting us know.[nbsp][nbsp]&quot;things' do happen but no response is not one of the things that happens because of our own refusal or inability to respond.[nbsp][nbsp]If you have not received a response something else has gone wrong...

Deb
[nbsp]- Whistling while I work.

[barkingmoose]

Can I ask a question about tech support in general? I sent two emails to the support@futurequest.net address and sent one using the online form and received no response whatsoever -- nothing automatically generated, nothing sent by a human being. And nothing bounced.

Did my messages get through? Any idea what happened?

[thor]

Got a quick question. I've experiencing drops in visits since Thurs. (including today) on my site which is on Astro. I need to figure out whether it's a result of the sick puppy syndrome, or whether it's a result of changes I've made to my site. Before I go undo everything, is Astro fully barking? And what were the symptoms of the sick pup in the first place?

Thanks

[TimT]

I seem to still be having problems today with mail.[nbsp][nbsp]Does this involve astro?
Thanks
Tim

[Lori]

ASTRO is being worked on right now to resolve the problem. Expected up time about 20 min, maybe less.

My sincere appologies for the inconvenience.

Lori

[wolfstalks]

It appears that Astro is wagging his tail once again !!!! :P

Good Job FQ !!!

Have a Good One
Bob

[Terra]

Bob, I am hoping that ASTRO hasn't fetched too many sticks for SIX...[nbsp][nbsp]That would be a very bad example to follow...

As you can tell, we are on 'pins and needles' right now keeping a very watchful eye on ASTRO...[nbsp][nbsp]Sort of like the first week after coming out of a difficult surgery straight into ICU...

We are just crossing our fingers that the condition stabilizes, but as with all things technology - stuff happens when you least expect, nor want it...

--
Terra
--Knee deep in the darkside of personalities--
FutureQuest

[Moke]

Ok so email is not working again? We were so happy when we realized about an hour ago that both our sites are up on your hosting, then only to find out none of our emails are working! Thought that sending was ok, but noooooo I have sent emails to myself and I haven't received them either!
Please someone needs to let us know what the problem is and when it will be fixed. We can't be losing money from sales that we are not being notified of.
my alternative email is c_mckinney@yahoo.com
I have emailed y'all and also have used the personal assistant, but after reading this string I can see you probably haven't gotten the notices.

[Terra]

MOKE: As has been explained to you in email and on forums, your domain has not transferred yet to our servers...

Before everything will start working correctly, your domain must point completely to our server...

To further enhance this post, your domain is on the PHOENIX server and is not related to any ASTRO problems whatsoever...

We double checked, and your EMS emails were sent from 'moke@maxpatch.com'...[nbsp][nbsp]As before, you will not see these until you can attach to the POP accounts on our server...[nbsp][nbsp]You may however use the online support system to lookup your incident numbers and you will find we have responded to each and everyone of your requests...

--
Terra
--You scream, I scream - we all scream for ice cream--
FutureQuest

[Moke]

Ok so now that I have screamed, just where do I find these emails responses of tonight? Our mail shows inside the CNC it is sitting on FutureQuest server, not the old one. So how did I mail get there? We assumed our sites had been moved to FQ.

[Deb]

The FutureQuest servers are 100% setup and operational for your accounts.[nbsp][nbsp]We see your accounts on our servers and running.[nbsp][nbsp]As such, when mail is sent &quot;from&quot; our servers (e.g. from our service desk) it will go to where we see the address at.[nbsp][nbsp]Our servers find you here.[nbsp][nbsp]The key is where the rest of the world sees your site.[nbsp][nbsp]Your ISP, as well as everyone else, sees your domain name on the old host and will continue to until you complete the transfer.

Once the transfer is complete you will then be able to check the email locally using the FutureQuest Servers.

Http://Register.FutureQuest.net/index.php for transfer information.

I also resent my replies to the temp address, you posted here, explaining the reason the email is not yet working for you.[nbsp][nbsp]Click here (http://www.nsiregistry.com/cgi-bin/whois?whois_nic=maxpatch.com&amp;type=domain) to see the current WHOIS info of your domain name.[nbsp][nbsp]Note that the Name Servers are not ours... once they are and propagation has been completed your email will begin to function as you would like it to.

Everything on this end is functioning properly.

Deb
[nbsp]-- Ahhhh I'm melting! I'm melting!


[This message has been edited by Deb (edited 05-17-00@01:13 am)]

[Moke]

Ok I guess I will use the ip address to get our mail out of FQ server, &quot;I still don't understand how our mail(not from you) got there&quot; until it is all done. We assumed it was changed, because I can't get into either of the old server control panels for both sites. So basically I guess it boils down our sites are in limbo for now. ;)

Thank you very much!

[Deb]

Please view http://www.aota.net/Domain_Names/transprop.php3

Propagation can be a very strange thing.

Deb
[nbsp]- Opps. The map was upside down.
[nbsp]