"Server Too Busy" Errors (at off-peak times)

[*End Is Forever*]

Fair enough when it's really busy, but I'm having to repost five or even ten times to get through (and not even on the OT), and it's only the middle of the afternoon! God help this place when all the North Americans log on.

It's not like there's a noticeable stream of posts at the moment either.



What's the problem?

The server patently isn't too busy.

[ColdWizard]

it looked busy to me

i had a few problems this morning but there were over 450 users online and later there were over 500.

when its busy come back later and just play some civ3 while you wait

[Earthling7]

I had to press refresh three times to get this across. I've been online more or less over the last 11 hours and it's been like this all day. I'm in Europe, so little influence from America. It's been happening over the last three (?) days, but before that it hardly ever did. Is the server giving up, Markos?

[DanQ]

<I>Is the server giving up, Markos?</I>

Negative. The "busy messages" you are getting is based on the maximum number of simultaneous connections that we have observed recently that can be adequately accomodated by the server. This number is constantly being re-evaluated and indeed since September (when there was considerable server difficulty) has nearly tripled. If you want to see the specifications of the server Apolyton is hosted on, head on over to <A HREF="http://www.gamestats.com" TARGET="_new">GameStats.com</A> and check out their "About: Network" page.

At present, there are next to no hours that can be classified as 'off-peak hours' because of the massive influx in traffic this month especially in the past week. In effect, the "busy messages" are intended so that the weight of the traffic does not bring the server to a halt. Please keep trying... we thank you for your patience and understanding.

---------------
Dan; Apolyton CS

[Case]

Is there anything that us posters could be doing to ease the load?
I've changed to light mode & things run a lot faster...

[Grumbold]

Post less, I guess

The chance of getting through to the server consistently enough to make reading and posting 'comfortable' drops to zero at about 4:00 GMT and stays that way. I hope the limit can be reviewed again because the load is only going to get worse as the rest of the world get Civ III and drop in to say how good/bad they think it is.

[DanQ]

Yes, switching to the "light" version should increase the loading times for you, the visitor, when you are browsing the forums and if enough people were to do this it could have somewhat of an impact on traffic levels. It is your choice whether to do this or not and we only recommend this course of action because it would increase your loading times.

However, post/browse less? Don't even think about it.



---------------
Dan; Apolyton CS

[MarkG]

beyond giving lighter pages(thus needing less bandwidth from our connection), the light styles also contain less queries to the sql database, which means less cpu load...

[TCO]

1. Why not make light, the default? Or remove some bells and whistles? Avatars, etc.

2. do we have our own dedicated amount of space on the serever (in terms of #connections, amount of procce3ssing/RAM)? When we are busy, does the whole GS feel the impact? Or just us?

[ColdWizard]

how 'bout...

turning off avatars?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by GP
1. Why not make light, the default? Or remove some bells and whistles? Avatars, etc.

guests already have light as their style

dont think many would agree if turned everyone to light style

2. do we have our own dedicated amount of space on the serever (in terms of #connections, amount of procce3ssing/RAM)? When we are busy, does the whole GS feel the impact? Or just us?

we're on one server with all the other affiliates. and we're the biggest site on gamestats. draw your own conclusions....

[Solly]

we're on one server with all the other affiliates. and we're the biggest site on gamestats. draw your own conclusions...

Perhaps Gamestats will force you to start banning users if you are jeopardising the family like that.

[drake]

serious suggestion

Disable guests abilities to view the forums. Only allow access to registered users. 350 friggin guests? What a joke! The most loyal poly users are getting screwed because of hordes of un-participating guests!

[rah]

If guests are denied access, how can they register


On the less serious side,
after the first server busy message, you should rig it so there are two additional

2nd message, "The server is STILL busy, what part of later didn't you understand"

3rd message, "Now the server is not only busy, it's pissed, 2 stinking seconds doesn't REALLY count as later"


If these steps were implemented, I believe it would help the current situation.

RAH

[TCO]

Markos,

(serious suggestion) Any hope of getting some of the other sites to do something to use less bandwidth? Our growth is "legitimate". Perhaps cracking down on some of the others for bad practices would help us out.