Thanks for keeping us up to date, Cliff! I tried to log on last night, and IE just sat here, trying to load the forum. I needed to go to bed anyway, so the crashing server actually did me a favor!
Not glad there were problems, but glad it was on your end! I was starting to think this old dog of a computer had finally caught its' tail, and bit it off!
As usual, great job recovering, thanks from one who appreciates all that you do.
Sigh. Yes it went down again for a few hours and I still haven't got a clue why. I hope it's just a fluke that it went down twice within 24 hours, but I suspect it's a bad RAM stick in the server. It could also be an attack directed at my server, but I really don't believe that.
If it is a bad RAM stick, then chances are the server will go down again, and at a time it is the busiest.
When the server goes down, I have to call someone from my ISP who will have to drive to the location my server is at (which is a guarded server-bunker), physcially flip a switch, and wait for me to confirm everything is running again. Because this is a guarded co-location, I can't just get in the car myself an drive there, because they wouldn't allow me in there anyway.
Anyway, if the server goes down again, please be patient. It costs me about $200 to have somebody go there, so I might decide to wait until morning before sending someone there again. It might also be that I decide to replace the memory on the server which can take some time because I'll need clearance to get acccess to my server.
If the server goes down, I'll try to get on the real-time chat. You can reach it by going to http://www.spinchat.com and login to "_Fiero.nl" (without the quotes, with the underscore and the 'F' is capital). Bookmark it now.
This place is too addictive, I can't believe how many times I tried to get in and didn't find it up. Panic was at an all time high. Sick Sick I say.
Thank you so much for your hard work Cliff Pennock, this site has so little down time that we take it for granted. Thanks again for your help, and selfless service.
Thanks for the heads up, Cliff! Let's hope it's just a bad RAM stick and not a DoS attack. Have you heard of Gibbson Research Company? http://www.grc.com He does a lot of internet work, firewall testing, etc. He's also been hit with several Denial of Service attacks and has done an indepth annalysis of exactly what and how it was happening. If this is the case for you, he might have some defensive measure to suggest.
Glad to see it up and running again. This time I was lucky enough to have a class to help ease the cravings. If it is someone trying to muss up the server and you get the IP address would you accidently post it please...
Thanks Cliff, I noticed the Forum was acting funny a couple days before it shut down. It would start to load a page then stop and start a couple times before the page would load up, sometimes a very long wait. Even tried backing out of the system to front page and re-select again, no gain. Thought it just might be the US links being overloaded.
I was without internet all last night (damn Charter...) and when it was back this morning the only site I couldn't get onto was my favorite (aka here of course).
Darn server....need fiero fixx... 
