Nobody is going to be able to get into our forums today, 12/31/07.
The forums are hosted by a service called Livingdot.com. Last week I started getting automated notices from their server indicating that we were about to reach our bandwitdth limit — the amount of data we’re entitled to transmit. That limit is 10-GB/mo. We ordinarily run WELL under that ceiling, but in the past few days, something has gone haywire and caused a spike in our traffic/bandwidth use.
I tried to contact Livingdot to alert them to the possibility that somebody is "poaching" our bandwidth, but they basically shrugged their shoulders and informed me that when we exceed our bandwidth allowance, the site would simply become inaccessible. That is what is happening now. Subsequent communication with Livingdot has proven… well, impossible.
Our bandwidth allowance resumes tomorrow, with the start of the new month, but so long as this parasite is living on our bandwidth it will probably go very quickly. Given the intransigence of our host, I will be making arrangements this week to move everything to new servers.
Sorry for the downtime, but it was out of my control. We’ll be up and running again tomorrow.
There is no way that the forum used anywhere near 10GB in December, it’s mostly all text. Someone deliberately caused it.
GV
That is very interesting.. If everything goes well tomorrow I believe there will be no problem, however if the forum goes down again afterwards, you should consider having you IP service examine the bandwidth situation in real time to see what the bleep is going on.
trickfox
You are absolutely right about that, Gregg. Finally — AFTER they shut down the site — the Livingdot people told me that a “googlebot” was responsible for 5+gigs of bandwidth. But they left it to me to figure out what to do about that.
So I have arranged to relocated the site on Wednesday to the servers I’ve been working with here in Nashville for years. When I have a problem, these people help me fix it.
So everything should be back to normal by the end of the week, and then I will have all my websites under one roof.