FYI: There is a new script running in the freestuff section. And possibly in other areas here. The script checks your freestuff host twice in a 48hr. period. If your item is off line both times. Your freestuff item will be automatically deleted from the freestuff section. So if your host is down. Or does regular maintenance every day. You run the risk of having your stuff deleted from here. I know my host sometimes goes down once in a great while. So please be prepared for this in case it happens to you. I hate to see people get blindsided and caught unprepared. ScottA

VERY good idea, but I'm not so sure about the execution. Would it be possible to do it over a longer period, like a week? It'd be a pain to have to reload your freestuff if your server is down for a prolonged time for maintainence or something. It is a good idea, though; there's a lot of broken links.

It's a good thing you notified everyone before you made this change, otherwise a lot of freestuff might have been deleted because of server maintenance. Oh, wait, Nevermind. JDexter

Excellent idea. The time period could be a little bit longer though. How about 72 or 96 hours?

Attached Link: What has happened to the freestuff searcher?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12357&Form.ShowMessage=956302

lol, Sorry Sue. Beat ya to it. :0)

Oh, darn, this is not my day today! ;)

Oh great, my flaky AOL account isn't going to like this new feature. :P Hopefully I won't spend more time re-uploading Free Stuff than creating it. SnowS

"It's a good thing you notified everyone before you made this change, otherwise a lot of freestuff might have been deleted because of server maintenance." Lol. Why do people still think I work here! He screams jumping up and down stamping his feet ;-) The good folks (Yes.....They really are good folks) who do run this site have terminal: 'Change something first. Tell members later when it's too late disease'. I'm just trying to keep them (and you all)out of trouble by letting everyone know about it. ScottA

Taken one step further...we'll see a lot of old stuff coming up as "What's New" Oh boy. Something else to weed through.

PabloS- ya grrrrrr

I've had my freestuff up there for years. There was a boat load of stuff. Yesterday my server DNS rerouting service hit a glitch, today its back up (but I'm still monitoring it.) I was leading Nurd by several thousand downloads. You have successfully wiped out all my freestuff. Not one PhilC freebie remains. I simply do not have the time to reinstate it all there were over 50 files.

Irrespective of recent fracas where some folks were voting with their feet and taking their toys with them..... I could care less, but I have to say that I'm just a little disappointed.

Phil, go to the linked thread and ask tutone to reinstall your free stuff, or send him (or any other admin, I guess) an IM or e-mail and hopefully they'll be able to put everything back for you. PabloS: Yep... Sue

ScottA you're doing their work. They should be paying you for that. :)

I guess I'm too late. :-( If I knew about this sooner I would have posted quicker.

Attached Link: http://205.122.23.229/adm/stats.txt

Scott, it's better to be late than never. ;) I do thank you for calling this issue to people's attention, especially since this was not your job. :)

Sigh, I meant "it's better late than never". I seem to have posting problems (and I'm not talking only about writing weird stuff, but posts taking forever to appear and getting the "web site not found" message). Is this my crappy AOL connection or has Renderosity slowed down?

R'osity seems to be having issues. I have had several double posts recently. Perhaps they are running the script on the fora too. ;0)

48 hours is WWWAAAAYYYY to short a time period. If you host gets hosed the minimum time to get a new DNS record to answer is 48 hours. If my provider goes 404 then what. I've long wanted to catch PhilC in the freebies most wanted, but not like this! Phil you're still the top freestuff provider in my book! I was thinking about to a bigger server. Now I'm faced with a 48 hour down time limit. Not cool The free stuff has needed cleaning out for a while, but it needs to be done carefully, not with a lawn mower!

The overenthusistic code is being reworked. any objects that were eaten can be reinstated - alert a mod or admin. Sorry about this - the 'management' dudes kind of sprang it without warning. We're having a little chat in the backrooom ahem So just let me know if something is missing. Thanks! and once again, sorry about that! Lyrra

Hmm, maybe it should vary times and use 3 or more checks.

Class act, Lyrra, class act. I'm sure a lot of Freestuff content providers are breathing a collective sigh of relief. I know I am as a Freestuff Leech. Now, don't forget to take a two-by-four (or a baseball bat, your choice) into that backroom you mentioned. ;-) -Tim

OK try this, set your script to notify me by email that the link is broken. When folks do this I don't get bent out of shape, I thank them sincerely for taking the trouble to tell me. I then run around like a BAF to sort out the problem. Include something like, "We'll be rechecking every few days but links that remain dead for over two weeks (a month would be better) will be deleted." Give plenty of time, yes you need to tidy up but you don't dust your fine Dresden porcelain with an industrial shop vac. I would imagine that after six weeks the bulk of the housekeeping will have been achieved, after that its just routine.

(posting to both threads)

I can see how they came up with 48 hours. After all, their server is soooo stable. :-)

And when they're rewriting this, make sure if the second (or other subsequent) check successfully finds the item, that the marker goes back to zero - so that two unrelated downtimes don't falsely trigger action.

lol @ pablos

** Your Picture of WonderWoman Here ** Lyrra was nice enough to resore the little converter app I made to freestuff - multiply that by all you folks and all your contributions and that amounts to ALOT* of work on Lyrra's part. In my book she's the best - if I were a better artist I'd post a picture of WonderWoman in attribute of my appreciation. cheers, - TJ *(sorry about the use of the non-word 'alot' but in this case ... )

Renderosity folx: Here's an algorithm you might consider. Monday midnight: Recheck last week's missing file. Any that still cannot be reached, dump them. Then check all remaining URL's, compiling a list of those that don't answer up. Wednesday 8AM: Use Monday's list to compile a (smaller) list of those that still don't answer. Friday 4PM: Use Wednesday morning's list to compile the final list (to be deleted Monday if still offline). This would catch all the sites that are down for any long term but would probably not eliminate many (or any) truly available sites. It will avoid "catching" sites that do daily maintenance at a specific time and it will make sure that the outage is at least quasi-permanent. You should also consider PhilC's suggestion of having the 'bot email those who end up on the list rather than dumping them. It's a pretty good bet that the site is a goner if you don't get any reply and it's still down after a week of no show and another week for email turnaround.