I'm sure you all have noticed that we've been experiencing some growing pains over the last couple of weeks. Our forum is getting too big for the hardware that we have, so until that hardware is in place, I've made some minor changes:

1. You can do searches every 60 seconds instead of every 15.
2. Searches will not be allowed when the server reaches a certain load limit. This is automatic. When the load goes down, searches will be allowed again
3. You can only post every 60 seconds.
4. Attachments are now disabled permanently. They take up HUGE amounts of space. You'll have to post pictures via your web host from now on. You'll see other attachments disappear over time. There are too many to delete all at once without leave the site down for an entire day.
5. Disabled the last post function in the user profile view. You would never think it, but those queries were looking through huge amounts of data and causing slowdowns.

I've also made some other minor changes that might allow a speed increase but only time will tell if they worked. The search function is what's killing us at night, so limiting that during high load should help us avoid the "Server Too Busy" error.

Thanks for your patience.

Hey Jack!

Thanks for trying to stay on top of things for us! I am not surprised about the changes, I have been getting that pesky "Server Too Busy" window frequently in the evening.:D

DeWain

Thanks DeWain,

Well, tonight will be a good test of my changes. The search engine will stop working automatically when the server load gets to a certain number, which will hopefully cut down on the server busy messages. So far it seems much more snappy today. Give it another 2 hours, and we'll really know whether it worked or not.

Jack, how about asking everyone to clean up their Private Message folders, both Inbox and Sent. Can't hurt, right? :confused:

Originally posted by Gypsyman
So we will no longer be able to post pictures on here? Am I reading this correctly?

You can as long as you have it hosted somewhere, and you link to it. You will not be able to attach pictures to threads.

Originally posted by Jack Thorpe
You can as long as you have it hosted somewhere, and you link to it. You will not be able to attach pictures to threads.

Can you still link to pics in our album here?


phox

Jack,

I'm assuming that cleaning up our personal readers rigs section will help. Yes?

Richard

Originally posted by Gypsyman
Jack,

I'm assuming that cleaning up our personal readers rigs section will help. Yes?

Richard

It's not going to help the attachment issue, no. You can link to pictures there, but you will not be able to attach pictures directly in the forum. The forum and reader's rigs are two different databases.

Since the search engine will shut down when you reach your load threshold, will this also take out the View New Posts feature? Or does this search get an exception?

EDIT: Never mind....my question just got answered. Server went busy right after I posted and I couldn't do a View New Posts when it came back.

exactly

Know it must be a big job keeping everything running smoothly.

I'm one of the lucky ones...on line mostly day time!

Just hope we don't have to go the same direction as the other Dodge Web Page. Fancy update...pretty new pages...takes FOREVER to open anything if your stuck with a dial up modem!

RJ

oh don't worry, we'll have pretty new pages soon, but they won't be slow. I'm not big into Java menus either.

As far as the search engine, I've found that google can help offset that load. I normally search via google and it seems to pickup the archive correctly. For example, searching for "block heater site:dieseltruckresource.com" yields a selection of forum post lists with the words 'block heater' in the title.

Just a thought,
brandon.

Hmmm.... didn't you just go through this about 6 months ago?? I thought you bought a pile of new hardware. Is that all "trash" now?

I bought one server, and that was almost 2 years ago, and about 10,000 members ago. The server is not "trash", but it IS underpowered.

Originally posted by Jack Thorpe
I bought one server, and that was almost 2 years ago, and about 10,000 members ago. The server is not "trash", but it IS underpowered.

Two years??...... time flies.... I didn't think it was that long ago.....

Yes, it was that long ago. You're probably thinking of the software change we did 11 months ago when we switched from yabbse to Vbulletin. That was also fairly expensive after putting in the new forums, photo albums and classifieds. I also had to pay the hosting bill for the year in April.

How are we doing on donations?? Anywheres near where we need to be for new equipment? I'm not sure I ever saw a total recently, but I did see more names pop up. Might be a good time for another push for donations. Come on everybody, dig deep. I'll see if I can get the finance department (aka my lovely wife) to approve a second dontation to the site this year.

Dennis

We did receive a good amount of donations, but we are still along way away from the amont we need. I am making a thermometer to post showing the actual amounts as they come in.

Thanks again everyone for your help.

so let me get this .......................

anytime a newby asks a redundant question, he is chastised and told to do a search before taking up thread space ............

but, the powers within are saying, your searches are eating us alive, just post questions in the forum!!

yer making my head spin!?!

Originally posted by JHardwick
so let me get this .......................

anytime a newby asks a redundant question, he is chastised and told to do a search before taking up thread space ............

but, the powers within are saying, your searches are eating us alive, just post questions in the forum!!

yer making my head spin!?!

Newbies ask the same questions day in and day out, NOBODY chastises them for it HERE. They are either pointed to another thread covering the question, or more often than not, given the answer.

For your problem on searches, you may now search DTR through the Google bar at the bottom of the page.

Originally posted by JHardwick
so let me get this .......................

anytime a newby asks a redundant question, he is chastised and told to do a search before taking up thread space ............

but, the powers within are saying, your searches are eating us alive, just post questions in the forum!!

yer making my head spin!?! [eyecrazy]

Wow!! A Google search bar at the bottom of the page, how cool is that!!!!! I've got to try it out.

DeWain