OK, let me first start off with the bad news. Gifts AND points are gone. :sigh I dreaded having to do it b/c I know how much everyone loves them and worked your little butts off for the points, but hopefully you'll understand (at least a little bit) when I tell you the good news.

After MONTHS of trying to figure out what in the heck was wrong with our server and why people were constantly getting errors, time outs and even being blocked from both sites, my server management team and I basically narrowed it down to the points and gifts modification.

Last night, we spent hours troubleshooting, tweaking, disabling things then enabling them again to see what the problem was. Finally, after completely uninstalling the entire modification today, all of our problems seemed to be instantly gone.

The main problem is that the modification is a free one that was written a couple years ago for a older version of vbulletin. There have been several new releases of vbulletin since the modification was written, so of course the code has changed a lot and there were certain instances that were conflicting.

I knew that we may encounter some problems by me keeping it installed but, honestly, I just didn't want everyone to lose their cool gifts and points and such. So, I kept it installed despite knowing how many problems could occur.

Last night we pinpointed what the problem was. Something within that modification (some of the conflicting code somewhere) was causing each person who is logged in to essentially open SEVERAL new connections to the server, instead of the typical one connection per user. So, instead of having 300 connections when 300 people were logged in, the code was hanging somewhere and spawning up to 100-200 connections PER USER.

I am with one of the BEST server management companies out there and not even their best server could handle such a load, which is why our server was completely locking up and shutting down. Additionally, the server even was blocking certain IP's b/c this type of behavior looks malicious when you have one IP spawing 100 times within one page view. :nutts

So, anyway, the short of it is that the code is now completely removed from our server and doing so reduced the server load drastically.

Whether we will have a new points and gifts system or not will basically be determined after the one I've been waiting on comes out and the author can better explain whether it's suited for a large and busy board like this one.

Until then, I'll just be keeping an eye on things and we still have a few smaller tweaks we're going to make in hopes that we can get the forums to speed up even a bit more.

What I need from you is to let me know if you receive any database errors or server errors (time out's, not found, etc) so I can make sure that the points system is the only culprit of the issues we've been having. If not, I'll need to go back through all of the code and possibly do a clean install of vbulletin to get rid of any remaining, lingering issues.

Again, you have no idea how much your patience and understanding is appreciated. Rest assured, I am and will do everything possible to keep the forums running smoothly and quickly for everyone :hugs

Thanks. And I Understand. ;)

No worries Brandi :) ta

you are awesome!
Thanks Brandi :)

That's unfortunate :(

Thanks for taking the time to figure out what was going wrong. I'll make sure I keep an eye out for slow loading times etc.

Oh, I was wondering what happened to the gifts. Those were really neat, but at least the board will run more smoothly. :)

Thanks so much Brandi.

It's okay Brandi.

As long as we have the site operating, I am cool (L)

Oh I'm sad....no more point rewards for Google searchs I just didn't wanna do.......

Oh well!

while it is sad the prospect of a smooth running board far out weighs all of that. :giggle

I have a question, without points, is there going to be a new way to change our usernames and stuff??

I am very sad about the gifts but I do understand

Brandi I am sending you an IM!!!

Thanks for letting us know what was going on Brandi :hugs

Oh, I was wondering what happened to the gifts. Those were really neat, but at least the board will run more smoothly. :)

I don't care about the gifts as long as I still can talk to all you ladies!!! Thanks Brandi :)

Thanks for all the hard work you do Brandi!I'm sure we'd all rather have the board work than gifts anyway.

I have a question, without points, is there going to be a new way to change our usernames and stuff??

I am very sad about the gifts but I do understand

To change your actual user/sign on name, probably not. I still offer one free name change to Jewel members though and that offer still stands :tu I will let you know if I come across anything else that might work for us. The new store looks promising, but I think any type of store will cause some server load issues, even if the coding is good. We'll see though, maybe we do it on a trial basis at first.

I was wondering about changing the user names too?

ETA: saw your post thanks!

Thanks for all your work Brandi.

Thank you Brandi!!!

Also, I wanted to add that the user TITLES (the words under your username) can be edited through your control panel at any time. Look under your options, around where you enter in your location and such. You should see a place to edit it. You just can't edit your actual login name.

no worries... thanks again for the info... :hugehug

Thanks for working on it so hard Brandi!! I understand why you had to do it:hugs

No worries Brandi..We all completely understand & really appreciate it :hug

Thank you Brandi!

:) I can live without gifts
:hugs as long as I still can come on the forum :giggle

That explains so much about the timing out and all that! I rather have the boards running smoothly for everyone. Thanks for everything Brandi!

Thanks Brandi!

To change your actual user/sign on name, probably not. I still offer one free name change to Jewel members though and that offer still stands :tu I will let you know if I come across anything else that might work for us. The new store looks promising, but I think any type of store will cause some server load issues, even if the coding is good. We'll see though, maybe we do it on a trial basis at first.

How do you change your name as a jewel? I havent been able to find it and i just always used my points...lol

agian thank you

Thanks Brandi!! :)

It's okay Brandi.

As long as we have the site operating, I am cool (L)

:agree

:hugs thank you Brandi I wondered about the time out portions this morning. I loved the points and gifts but if they cause problems I'd rather they be gone versus the boards :)

Brandi you're awesome.

:yourock

I'm glad the problems are fixed now! :)

Thanks for your hard work, Brandi! It's not a big deal to me that gifts & points are gone! Maybe it will encourage us all to PM people more when we feel connected to someone or want to support them & make it more personal?! Trying to look at the bright side for us all! ;)

thanks for the info Brandi!!! :thumbsup

thank you for all you do to keep this site up and running so smoothly!!! :hugs you're the best

to tell you the truth, i didn't even notice they were gone... :giggle as long as we have a site running smoothly, i don't care! (L) you're awesome.

Thanks Brandi :)

I did get an error earlier, but it disappeared when I refreshed. I didn't think to take a screen shot until it was too late :arg

It said geek_ something code something? I know that helps a lot :lol

No worries and thanks for keeping this board a great place, Brandi!! :chest

I did get an error earlier, but it disappeared when I refreshed. I didn't think to take a screen shot until it was too late :arg

It said geek_ something code something? I know that helps a lot :lol

No worries and thanks for keeping this board a great place, Brandi!! :chest

OK, I know which error it was then and I'll go look into that now. Thank you!

Thank you Brandi, for all of your hard work! You are awesome!!!

Thanks for keeping us all updated Brandi . :)

Thanks for all your hard work and effort to make us all happy. Those little computer issues always spiral into hours and hours of frustration!

i knew sooomething looked a little empty on the side under my picture :rofl hahah..completely understand tho!! :)

<333333!

on "Poll for 'can you hear this" I got a page saying "Forbidden" and something about a 404, but it went away when I went back.

thanks Brandi