IconBuffet | Blog Forum | Today's downtime

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Today's downtime

Hi everybody. As you may have noticed, IconBuffet was down for most of the afternoon today, and we feel truly awful about it. We had a hard drive go bad on us, and had to scramble to shuffle around the pieces to get things working again. (For what it's worth, there was never any danger that we'd lose any data on the site -- it just takes a long time to move around the millions of records in the database.)

We may have to bring the site down one more time, but we'll do our best to make it much quicker, and at an off-peak time.

I really appreciate your understanding, and I hope you'll accept the apology. But if you feel the need to vent some frustration, this is the thread!

Posted by sco on Jul 06, 2007 in News | 24 comments

iqon on Jul 06, 2007

for fun you should have brought the site back with everyone at zero (sets, tokens, points, friends) then after the inital wave of panic subsided restored it all to normal.

After thinking you lost everything and then getting it back, a little downtime seems trivial.

Jfanner on Jul 06, 2007

iqon - you are a sick puppy LOL

debbye on Jul 06, 2007

& to think, i became i Pirate because i used to admire iqon!

lparziale on Jul 06, 2007

LMAOROTF

Too funny. Sick. But funny. :/

maryct on Jul 06, 2007

Bravo to the Chefs for toiling so hard on a day when loads of folks were off work! Downtown looked post-apocalyptic this afternoon.

louiemctool on Jul 06, 2007

what's really fun is having to explain to a bunch of computer illiterates that when a major piece of hardware decides it needs a break and shuts-down (or breaks-down), that you can't just snap your fingers and fix everything instantly.

i was once a "systems monitor" for a to-be-unnamed retail store. because the Idiots have been running things for a while, somehow it came to be that the cabinet containing the switch/router that all of the store's T1 lines ran through was nearly buried in various layers of "junk" that the Service area had decided needed to be locked up. well, to make matters worse the heating and cooling in this rather old store would cycle back and forth between roasting the Data Center and freezing our collective nads off.

so it came to be one day that the temperature in the Data Center reached 100+ F. so that poor, beleaguered router simply said, "screw this" and shut-down. within seconds i'm drowning under a sea of panicked calls. i at first think nothing of it (i hadn't yet discovered that the router had failed), but soon it becomes apparent that something is seriously wrong (think of not being able to cash any checks, fill any prescriptions, or even access the company intranet). To compound matters, our Support center routes through the T1's, also. so, the crap's hitting the fan, big time...

bjendrick on Jul 06, 2007

louie: I'm sure you're happy to be rid of that position, and the inherent issues. I can't imagine the situation though.

iqon on Jul 06, 2007

iqon - you are a sick puppy LOL

Me have a very dark and evil side! ARRRR, me's always fighting to keep it under control and sumtimes it slips out.

Me hearties (and adversaries) rarely pull pranks on me because they fear me reciprocating pranks. Aye, a well planned prank is thing of beauty (much like a well timed snipe).

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life fer me. . .

JBVisions on Jul 07, 2007

Ahem.......

RAID

zelda013 on Jul 07, 2007

ah yes, RAID. and not in the pirate sense.

just a question : what do you consider off-peak time ??? (she asks, from time zone GMT+1...)

ZsaZsa on Jul 07, 2007

Hey, no problem, I finally got some work done! Thanks for all you guys do!

FallenAngel on Jul 07, 2007

just a question : what do you consider off-peak time ??? (she asks, from time zone GMT+1...)
Ah yes, it has been noted by those of us on the other side of the pond that often when IB has what's a "brief outage" for you lot over the other side of the pond because you're all tucked up in bed for most of it, over here we get entire days when the site's down and we start getting icon withdrawal symptoms.

That said, like ZsaZsa says, we still think you're the awesomest (is that a word?) icon creators this side of the galaxy though :-)

pheral on Jul 07, 2007

I agree FallenAngel, it may have been half a day of pressing F5 and wondering what the hell is going on, but absence makes the heart grow fonder. :P

FallenAngel on Jul 07, 2007

I know servers do have hiccups and these things can't be planned for, and it isn't always possible to fix them instantly, but where it's planned maintenance, would it be possible to have an email announcement, or at least a message when you try and get on the site that says maintenance is underway?

iqon on Jul 07, 2007

A little bird (actually a fat parrot) told me monkey the hard drive crash was caused by each and every chefs downloading every set from iconshock.

Me believe the monkey, but not the parrot.

zelda013 on Jul 07, 2007

@ iqon : heh heh heh... you just keep that monkey and his wrench away from the IB hard drives... the chefs have enough work as it is !

KatieK on Jul 07, 2007

I would have been pissed if I had needed to download some icons. Sooo, I guess it's OK this time. :)

Pandora on Jul 07, 2007

See, now, I didn't even NOTICE downtime. (;
I think I was taking a nap! (; So - carry on! *chuckles*

louiemctool on Jul 07, 2007

ya know, they probably do have a RAID set-up. problem is that when one fails you have to hot-plug an identical replacement, and then the server starts mirroring to the new drive. so things slow to a crawl...

suppose y'all already knew that. figured i'd put it out there anyway.

@bjendrick: no, i didn't willingly leave that job. i got down-sized (the Corporate Idiots seem to think any noob off the street can do tech support).

iqon on Jul 07, 2007

Corporate Idiots seem to think any noob off the street can do tech support

Preach it brother!

louiemctool on Jul 08, 2007