Why is it that Renderosity has chosen to be offline over a weekend when most viewers would be home perhaps looking to go online to get Renderosity news during the weekends instead of doing the website upgrading during weekday's wee morning hours when people are less opt to tune in? Is there a logical answer to this scheduling?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12357&Form.ShowMessage=2589143

Yeah, and your point is? Perhaps the server did go down but when I logged on via market place, it said that they where working on the site. The message was thus as if they were upgrading. It showed me the number of people online with Renderosity which was zero at the time but they did say they were sorry for our inconvenience and that they should be up soon. What did you get?

You got further than I got, I got server not responding errors. But that was late last night. By the time you got to it they might really have been working on it, trying to fix the problem. Then again, I didn't try the marketplace, either. It could also have been some default error page for the market place servers for when the servers are having problems. shrug I'd believe the R'osity staff over the error page. If they'd really been planning on working on it ahead of time (and thereby causing the site to go down) it would have been announced and like you say it would have been planned for a better time, as they've done in the past for server upgrades, etc. My point is that it isn't scheduling, it's an unplanned server error, which unfortunately do happen sometimes.

The problem was clear then, they were upgrading the site. Why pick on a busy Saturday to Sunday morning to do this work? I had been trying from just after midnight Saturday and wasnt able to reconnect until after 12 P.M. on Sunday. The message I got from Market was: they were upgrading the system. Sorry for your inconvenience.

The Marketplace and Backrooms are on one server that is seperate from the the rest of the site. I believe even the forums and the gallery reside on additional seperate servers. Scheduled upgrades, and any down time at all are always announced. With no announcement, and with the info that some or all of the servers went down, I would have to agree that it was not an upgrade that was not announced. What you got might have been a mass communication, since there were probably a thousand other people e-mailing Renderosity. AgentSmith

Then this is most interestingare you saying that not all members of Renderosirty were excluded? Im here to understand that Renderosity from 12 midnight to about 12 next day had menbership logging in but countless Google search entries did nor penetrate the great Renderosity super admission qualification even after many cold boots. Are you telling me, Im the only one who experienced this black out?

No, I didn't say that at all. I couldn't get in either. AS

Members do not recieve a personal announcement if there is going to be any down time. It is announced in the Community Forum, on the Front page, and if time, in the newsletter. AS

Are we your commercial garbage pool? I ask respectfully?

Respectfully back...what are you talking about? Somehow you got out of what I said earlier that Renderosity made it that only certain members were affected by servers failing? Come on... Now, after me stating that down-time announcements are made in the main Renderosity forum, the Community Forum, you are wondering if I believe Renderosity members are a commercial garbage pool?? You have COMPLETELY lost me. Can anyone else help here? Lol.... AS

Hey, I got in all weekend. I received an email saying that as I am such a good store customer I would enjoy preferential access over the usual forum freeloaders. For some reason I even got partial mod privileges and was able to read all the juicy deleted posts...

Oh sorry, you said, "help here". Whoops.

Anyways, I didn't have any trouble. Must've been when I was asleep.

Mmmm, sleeeeeep...

What? The site was down and the good people there see nothing wrong with that? Is this what youre telling me? We, from out here dont care what you think! We want to know as members, what happened during the time that Renderosity was down and why was it down without you telling the supporting members about that there would be time out. Are we not to be counted in the decision making policy?

What I think people are saying, Quest, is that the PTB didn't know the server was going down, and it went kablooey all on its own with no conscious (or unconscious) decision or aid from the PTB. When they (PTB) found out that it had gone kablooey, they unkablooeyed it and then it worked again.

Thus, they didn't know it was going to go down... and hence couldn't have foretold what hadn't happened and so didn't email anyone.

I think... edit - and where the %$@*&%^ is my email... like the one that PJF got...!!!!!!!!!!

Message edited on: 02/20/2006 05:18

I demand my money back!!!

Quest. *Understand, there is some joking going on here by others. *Believe me, when I say, [that to my knowledge], NO staff member at Renderosity knew the servers were going to go down. They just broke, like computer hardware likes to do sometimes. Anything else, can be answered in detail from the actual people who physically stand over the real servers everyday, just contact them at admin@renderosity.com And, I'm not trying to get rid of you here by having you contact them, I'll (try to) answer any question you want, but I'm 2000+ miles away from the Renderosity servers, and the Admins can answer you better than I could. Sorry If I misunderstood anything here, buddy. :o) AS

I demand that we get PJFs money to AS so he can travel the 2000 miles and stand over the servers as well :o)

(Just playing... a video feed for AS would be fine) (Rosity has dropped dead for a few hours to a day before... it'll probably do it agian)

Message edited on: 02/20/2006 05:49

Sorry but what the facts show is that this site decided to upgrade their system during a regular working weekend. I stumbled onto their PHP file and that suggested that they were working on upgrading their system. That in itself means nothing but when you put diligent members out on the stork then it becomes something different. No one advised the general membership that a good portion of their weekend would be lost if they were anticipating to log on to Renderosity over this weekend! Now youre trying to tell me it didnt happenRight!

That wasn't just one of the standard "we have been upgrading the marketplace" pages on the market.renderosity.com server they've had up there every so often was it?

It probably was, Flak. Quest, I couldn't get into Renderosity last night myself. I was not told of ANY secretly scheduled downtime to ANY part of Renderosity beforehand. I did not see any publically announced downtime. I did not try the MP last night, so I do not know of what screen you saw, Quest. Contact the Admins, they will be able to tell you PRECISELY what happened over the weekend. I can only go on what I've experienced myself. AS

Btw, you ARE right Quest and/or I do agree with you. Renderosity wouldn't be silly enough to have a scheduled downtime on a weekend. Unless it was something critical that had to be done on the spur of the moment. Like you say, there could be too many people online shopping to schedule a downtime, for that time. AS

I've repaired servers for a number of years, and I know what goes on in the server room (my sympathies to the personnel within..;) Beleive me, taking servers down is not something you do lightly. And if possible, you ALWAYS announce it, because the person you cut off without warning just might be the one that controls the budget, etc.
Rosity has (last time I looked) about 10 servers, 9 of which are running on Apache, and one on Windows. Wonder which one failed?
I ran into the problem Saturday, night, and on into early Sunday morning. Couldn't logon, timed out..did a ping on www.renderosity.com, and got a response time of 75ms (on average), but a TTL of 45, which means no connection, long story short..;) Since I can't buy anything, I guess I'm not 'special' enough to have the electronic bouncers let me in..;)

Quest: "morning hours when people are less opt to tune in" So now we all live in the same timezone?

I can tell when my wife is going down, why can't Rendo tell when the servers are going down?

ROFLMAO!

There are other things in the world besides Renderosity! Try a walk in the park, helping someone to learn how to read, and so on. Methinks a real life is in order here.... ;)

Well the server is back up now...end of discussion please?

" I can tell when my wife is going down, why can't Rendo tell when the servers are going down?"

sputters coffee all over her monitor
thanks, bryster.
thanks heaps.

:D

I don't mean this to sound critical, but---There are other things in the world or on the web, than R'osity. Things happen with servers and technology all the time. It's the nature of the beast. I don't see the big deal about not getting in for a bit. If you feel that put upon, perhaps you should take up anger management or something. Maybe just getting a life with more in person contact. I just can't understand why this is worthy of getting your shorts in a knot! Just my 2 cents worth here.

Just want to defend the poor people in back... I happen to be one of those "people behind the scenes," only for a different company. ;) First note--patches and updates happen all the time. Many of them don't require actually stopping traffic to a website. At one place I worked, I ran three to four a week, all invisible to the users. Secondly...well, no one plans to have a server down for all of twelve hours. If it was down that long, something nasty must have happened. :) And it's not as unusual as you might think that some people can connect while others can't. There's no planning or prioritization. It may just have been bad luck that you landed on the server that didn't work. Oh, and no, seeing a partial PHP page doesn't necessarily mean you ran across some secret upgrade. It just means that part of the system which serves the page isn't working properly. ;)

Well, to start, Im in New York City, the City that never sleeps. Theres a million and one things that people can choose to do on weekends here. I chose to stay indoors while an artic blast came through knocking out services and bringing frigid weather on a massive scale to the Greater New York area. Is that alright by you? Or what say you if I were wheelchair bond and couldnt partake of lifes gratuities as easily as others and couldnt go out? The nerve of some people. You have 10 servers and none can survive without the other? Whats wrong with that picture? Then, if you go offline, cold boot and try to reenter isnt your call re-routed to a different node of access? That was AOLs biggest problem when they were a burgeoning establishment, not enough nodes for the masses. I mean, isnt this what makes the Internet unique that your call gets rerouted if part of the network is down say somewhere in Butt-town Oklahoma? I refuse to believe that with the megabucks that Renderosity makes that it relies solely and only on one server to keep it afloat. Nevertheless, doesnt Renderosity have a sense of commitment to its patronage and clientele? To forewarn them that upgrades are being made to the system and, that being the case, why for goodness sake on a weekend? Did I hear something about time zones? Yeah, how about upgrading the system during the middle of the week where its Wednesday here and Tuesday and Thursday everywhere else? BTW, whats with the Chatroom, has that been restored yet? Is this Renderositys way to force people into creativity when they cant get their Bryce fix? Sheeshwhat a joke!

"Sheeshwhat a joke!"

Oh thank God for that, Quest. I thought for a horrible moment you really were having sense-of-humour and comprehension difficulties.

Phew.

Renderosity is becoming a victim of its own success. I have been discovering a number of competing sites that offer better service (mainly due to the fact that they have far fewer members) than 'rosity. Renderosity will always be my home, as long as it offers reasonable uptime. Its gallery cannot be rivalled. And it possesses enormous valuable content (which is provided by its members). IMHO, 'rosity isn't doing enough to maintain its competitive edge. I hate the new Marketplace. And their upgrading has had no appreciable impact from what I see. But I love 'rosity as a venue for artistic expression and technical assistance. LONG LIVE RENDEROSITY!!! how's that for vacillating comment

LOL, PJFsense of humor and comprehension difficulties notwithstandinga fishing we will go. Some fish just cant refuse the bait. Do we throw em back in the water or do we take it home to fry? Either way, my point is made. I have an honest beef and Ive posted it.

I love that vacillating comment Bandolin and a point well taken.

The only question is upgrade or crash? From my standpoint all lines point to upgrade from the different pages I received. But life keeps moving on with all its little quarks. Ask me if I think its wrong to schedule a system upgrade unannounced over a weekend and my resounding response will invariably be YES. They can send you a flash big sale notice from DAZ in no time at all but not a scheduled upgrade announcement? Yes, people can move on to CGTalk, Devientart, 3DCommune and the many other artist sites available over the Internet but theres only one Bryce Forum I can call home.

Message edited on: 02/20/2006 18:59

"but theres only one Bryce Forum I can call home" I feel the same way. ;o) AS

Ariannah: You're very welcome! ;-)