TheTerminator2004 Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 Everything seems to be fine for me... I can access the synod, and pinging invisionfree.com gives an average of about 139ms - so fairly normal. Obviously nothing wrong atm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Raven Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 The pings and tracers, just check for blocks. All they can tell you is whether or not, there is an electronic blockage between you and the site. The fact that even though the pangs and tracers were going through the ISPs still couldn't load the pages is the relevant information here. Storm Raven Electronic blockage can be many things, but an example would be an IP range ban. When everything went down, it seemed as though there was a type of rolling blackout. It took place over a period of about 12 hours. For some reason, I was the first to lose access to the sites, but then, I was the first one to regain access to the sites. I cannot explain the phenomenon only the experience. So to clarify, pings and tracers can get through, even though you cannot load the page. Just for the purposes of information No offense intended. :biggrin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vagrant0 Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 The way invision forums have their ban settings, it's by forum, not by site. So if you were banned, you would be able to access other people's forums without any problem. In this day and age banning is pretty much an empty effort since there are so many ways to go around IP bans. However it seems like there are still a few hiccups with the servers, so you may be best off waiting until things are fixed. Them being able to fix it as much as they have, as quickly as they did is actually something short of astounding when you compare it against many other people who experience sudden server issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkWarrior45 Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 This is my own speculation. the press release about the fire at the datacenter indicated that they had vendors on site, which tells me that they are replacing equipment. If the fire was caused by power lines, and those power lines were down, that would mean that they would need to temporarily take some servers down in order to make repairs to those lines. Also, if the actual lines carrying the data back and forth between the servers were damaged, then the reliability would be spotty at best until those lines were replaced. Storm, are the data cables in a datacenter fiber optics? Cat-5(6)? Or are they using something else? If the entire network went down, then would that indicate a problem with the data cables? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Slyther Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 So if you combine diagnostics with a lot of users. Your bandwidth is going to take a serious hit. Which might explain the ups and downs in your access. Storm Raven So how do I avoid that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vagrant0 Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 And down again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Septim741 Posted June 4, 2008 Author Share Posted June 4, 2008 Lmao, we seriously need to get Invisionfree's comments about this. But every time I think about going to the support board all the servers stop working. I think they're trying to lock me out. :P JK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Raven Posted June 5, 2008 Share Posted June 5, 2008 Well to give you an idea, of how serious the situation was, all four walls of the power plant supplying power to the data center disappeared as a result of the explosion. It's a good thing no one was in the power plant at the time, because there is no question that they would not have survived. I will be checking my sources again, but the last I heard they were working on backup generators to supply the data center, because the fire department asked them not to try to reconnect to the main power. They are replacing equipment, in particular, DNS servers. Some of which were badly damaged as a result of the explosion. There is an explanation for why connections to the InVision and ZetaBoard websites are spotty. In my next post, I will be quoting that explanation, and giving you the latest update on the situation at the data center. Storm Raven Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Raven Posted June 5, 2008 Share Posted June 5, 2008 The following is a direct quote as to the situation at the data center that hosts all of the InVision and ZetaBoards websites. This is an enormous operation housing servers for companies like AT&T, Global Crossings, and Level 3 communications. Earlier, communications indicate high levels of damage throughout the data center. They are still operating on backup power generators. No one has even mentioned a projected time for the completion of the repairs. I am currently able (or was) to access the ZetaBoards support site, where information relating directly to their situation was being posted last night, I will now check to see if any new information has been posted. June 4 – 3:45pm CDT Data Center Operations response update: We're processing work required to bring servers online right now, any extraneous scheduled work, upgrades, reloads unrelated to outage, etc. are being postponed until we're caught up with outages. We presently have hundreds of tickets, dating back to the afternoon of June 2 (only in H1), and we're working on them from oldest to newest. In our other data centers, we have been able to respond to all tickets normally. Given the level of complexity in some of the tickets we are working, we can't guarantee that H1 ops will be completely caught up on responding to H1's tickets by tonight. We have more technicians inbound from Dallas to help, and we're rotating volunteers in and out to keep people from being exhausted to the point that they can't come in for their normal shifts. We anticipate that the overnight shift will continue to speed the rate at which we are catching up, as the normal work load is lighter ... Currently, we're receiving the normal work load on top of resolving the back log. We just received over 200 power supplies and various necessary hardware components so we can continue replacing those that have failed. Based on the information I have, I would have to say it could be several days before normal operations can resume. Storm Raven Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Raven Posted June 5, 2008 Share Posted June 5, 2008 These are the last posts of any significance relating to the situation with the Zeta boards and the InVision boards. You will note that even the latest post, the second one is two days old. There is nothing more of any relevance to report from the ZetaBoard support site. There may be other information floating around regarding the InVision boards, on the InVision boards forums. I think it is important to note that both the InVision and ZetaBoard services are hosted by the much larger web host described in my earlier posts. It's just my opinion, but I think I will take my cues from the data center that hosts them. In any event this information may help to explain why the sites have been going up and down, or on and off, depending on how you want to look at it. May 31 2008, 08:06 PM Post #1 An issue at one of the datacenter buildings has knocked the domain name system for InvisionFree and ZetaBoards offline. Since your ISP remembers domain name information for a few hours at least, this outage will not immediately affect all users. Please note that even if you can not reach your board, no data has been lost and the server itself is fine. We are working to bring up a backup domain name system for InvisionFree and ZetaBoards as soon as possible. Jun 2 2008, 01:58 PM Post #5 (Re-posted from the IF board.) We're still working to restore normal service to all InvisionFree and ZetaBoards communities. Many users will have no issue accessing their boards as of this time, however were aware that that isn't the case for everyone. Just to provide a bit more information on what's occurring. The datacenters where the InvisionFree servers are located at had an issue that knocked out electricity to an entire building of servers. While InvisionFree and ZetaBoards had no servers in that particular building, the DNS servers that service them were located there. DNS servers are computers that route internet traffic. They're what allows you to type in and url like http://invisionfree.com and end up at our site. Without them you would need to remember long IP addresses to visit websites. This means if those servers aren't operational, then it can become an issue to try to reach a site by typing in its URL. In some cases the Internet Service Provider (ISP) that you use will cache, or store information that will still allow you to reach a site even if the DNS servers aren't operational. Currently the datacenter is trying to restore normal operation to all of its DNS servers, however it hasn't completely reached that point yet. We're working on our end to do what we can to restore normal access for everyone as soon as possible. The DNS servers that were affected by the electrical outage have been restored. At this time all boards should be functioning normally. If you or your members are still experiencing an issue it's a result of the DNS information being cached by your ISP. Unfortunately the only solution is to wait for them to update the information. Thanks for your patience during this time. There are many Oblivion sites that depend on the InVision and Zeta boards services. I hope you will all understand that I'm not acting as a representative. I am simply trying to report the events as accurately as possible. I deeply apologize for posting three times in a row, but that's just how it worked out, I hope you will understand that I am only trying to help and do not mean to offend anyone. I sincerely hope that this information will help those that it concerns. I would appreciate any feedback you may have to offer. Storm Raven Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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