# Boards.ie working?



## sluice44 (20 Jan 2005)

Anyone tried looking at www.boards.ie?  I haven't been able to get in since lunch time today (Wed).


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## ajapale (20 Jan 2005)

Hi sluice,

It looks like they are still down (8:00 Wed 19th Jan)
ajapale


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## jdwexford (20 Jan 2005)

This is from a mailing list I'm on :0



> Yes, our main server had a snafu last night during an upgrade to the OS.
> It seemingly thinks its a toaster or something now.
> "When OS upgrades go bad!"
> 
> ...


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## fatherdougalmaguire (20 Jan 2005)

My God. Imagine all those board'ers who'll have to do work instead!

Me included. God bless you AAM.


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## okidoki987 (20 Jan 2005)

I haven't done so much work since it went down.
My boss will think I'm looking for a pay rise!


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## Brendan Burgess (20 Jan 2005)

It's quite worrying. We are looking at moving Askaboutmoney to vBulletin which is what Boards.ie uses. The BIG advantage of ezBoard is that it is hosted. Outages are rare. 

Brendan


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## ClubMan (20 Jan 2005)

I don't see how _vBB_ is the problem in this context? Seems to me that it's more of a hosting service reliability problem.


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## fatherdougalmaguire (20 Jan 2005)

vBB gets my vote. Never had any problems with the many vBB boards I peruse. The only thing I don't like about boards is their minimum string length for searches.

I just hope we don't keep the 'mauve' theme when/if we move


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## elderdog (20 Jan 2005)

"The only thing I don't like about boards is their minimum string length for searches."

I scoot around a good few vBB sites. Boards.ie is the only one that really bogged down my 'puter if I opened more than half a threads in different windows. Never got to the bottom of it but dont like it ( I dont go there any more )


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## okidoki987 (21 Jan 2005)

Excuse the question but what does vBB sites stand for?


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## fatherdougalmaguire (21 Jan 2005)

vBulletin is software which allows you to create a forums based website like Askaboutmoney (which uses ezBoard). ezBoard, however, also host the forum while vBB is just the software.


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## ClubMan (21 Jan 2005)

Sorry - vBulletin aka _vBB_ is another web based bulletin board platform.

_Post crossed with fatherdougalmaguire's._


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## jdwexford (21 Jan 2005)

Hi
The problem is with one of their servers-not with vbulletin.


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## jdwexford (21 Jan 2005)

> The only thing I don't like about boards is their minimum string length for searches.




The reason for this is because it is a big site-it doesn't index on less than 3 chars, causes indexes would be too big. Searching without using the index would be too slow and not too good for the performance of the server.


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## rainyday (21 Jan 2005)

> Boards.ie is the only one that really bogged down my 'puter if I opened more than half a threads in different windows. Never got to the bottom of it but dont like it


Me too - Opening multiple windows is very slow.


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## fatherdougalmaguire (21 Jan 2005)

Might be worth trying a different browser.

Whenever boards.ie resurfaces ...


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## Dr Moriarty (21 Jan 2005)

*Whenever boards.ie resurfaces...*

Now 32 hours & counting...

They'll be fishing the netheads out of the Liffey by morning! :lol


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## jdwexford (21 Jan 2005)

*Re: Whenever boards.ie resurfaces...*

and it's back


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## okidoki987 (21 Jan 2005)

*Re: Whenever boards.ie resurfaces...*

Tx for the explanation.
It was back around 1.00am but it's gone again now.


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## ajapale (21 Jan 2005)

*Re: Whenever boards.ie resurfaces...*

This is the msg I got this am (Friday 21st Jan at 8:20)



> There seems to have been a slight problem with the database.
> Please try again by pressing the refresh button in your browser.
> 
> An E-Mail has been dispatched to our Technical Staff, who you can also contact if the problem persists.
> ...


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## elderdog (21 Jan 2005)

"Might be worth trying a different browser."

No Father D, dont think so.

I frequent many sites running vBB.  Boards.ie is the only one with this issue.

It is to do with the way that they have chosen to configure certain options

I just dont go there anymore


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## Brendan Burgess (22 Jan 2005)

> Yes, our main server had a snafu last night during an upgrade to the OS.



I confused this with a recent upgrade to the vBulletin software. 

Still, my gut feeling is that a hosted bulletin board is more reliable. Host.ie which hosts the home page of AAM has had a few problems, but ezBoard was down for only one day as far as I can remember.

Maybe the solution is vBulletin, with ezBoard as a backup for when Host.ie is offline.

Brendan


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## fatherdougalmaguire (23 Jan 2005)

The one thing I'd be concerned with the move is losing all of the back-posts. I suppose most of the important info will be maintained by the sticky's/key posts but we'll be losing a lot of info if the archives won't be carried over.


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## Dr Moriarty (23 Jan 2005)

*Re: losing all of the back-posts?*

Ehrm... not being 'negative' or anything, but the sheer uselessness of the ezboard search facility kind of amounts to the same thing!

As a test, I did a Google advanced search on a slightly idiosyncratic 'exact phrase' that I'd used recently on AAM, and got nothing except 'The post you selected no longer exists. It may have been recently deleted.'

Same search led me to a post on Boards that happened to contain the same phrase, three years ago. And still retrievable... :\


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## ajapale (25 Jan 2005)

*Boards.ie still kaput?*

Is boards.ie still out? I cant seem to get them 4:15 Monday 24th January.

ajapale


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## ClubMan (25 Jan 2005)

*Re: Boards.ie still kaput?*

Works fine for me just now.


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## ajapale (25 Jan 2005)

*Re: Boards.ie still kaput?*

Its definitely gone. I got redirected to Boards.us where the situation is being discussed.
ajapale


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## ClubMan (25 Jan 2005)

*Re: Boards.ie still kaput?*

Yeah - it's gone now but it worked fine earlier when I posted above and I definitely didn't access a local or proxy server cached version.


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## Brendan Burgess (25 Jan 2005)

*Re: Boards.ie still kaput?*

I preferred the discussion on the boards.japan site.

Are these all connected?

Brendan


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## jdwexford (26 Jan 2005)

*Re: Boards.ie still kaput?*

current status...

The Week From Hell

Just to fill you in the current status: sometime on Monday we started having problems with our vBulletin database (currently over 2 GB in size) where the server process kept dying. After a few attempts to restart this, ecksor ran a repair and managed to get things running on Monday night. This was okay until Tuesday afternoon when the database returned to its bad behaviour. Again, regi tried a database repair, which didn't solve the problem. He then started an advanced database repair which is still underway (due to the huge size of the database).

This has been a bad week for boards.ie; it was just at the end of last week that we had to replace our web server hardware after it "fell over". The administrators offer their apologies, and we assure you that we are doing our utmost to get a reliable forum up and running again.

Thanks for your continued support and patience


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## ClubMan (26 Jan 2005)

*Re: Boards.ie still kaput?*

*we started having problems with our vBulletin database*

Hmmm... maybe there is something in this after all in the context of evaluating _vBB_ for an _AAM_ "upgrade"? :|


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## jdwexford (26 Jan 2005)

*.*

I don't think so- it is/was a hardware/database issue rather than software.


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## ClubMan (26 Jan 2005)

*Re: .*

OK - I just wondered if the problem (corruption of the database) was due to _vBB_ itself. In any case, it would be worth checking the backup and restore capabilities provided by _vBB_ when evaluating it for _AAM_ use.


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## littlegubby (30 Jan 2005)

*Re: .need help to get posting back on boards.ie*

for some reason I cannot post in boards anymore. I am logged in ok but when i try to post I get an error message::

littlegubby, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system? 
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation. 

How do i fix please


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## Tonka (31 Jan 2005)

*It seems to be gone again.*

as usual.


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## Sn@kebite (22 Feb 2007)

Does anyone know the time(s) when boards.ie is working fast?

Thanks.


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## colm (23 Feb 2007)

Hasn't been for a long time


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## BlueSpud (2 Mar 2007)

*Boards.ie & Adverts.ie - Gone missing*

Anybody know when these boards are due back?


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## davidoco (2 Mar 2007)

*Re: Boards.ie & Adverts.ie - Gone missing*

they are all over the place from Japan to US
updates here

http://www.boards.us/forums/showthread.php?t=2037


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## Oracle24 (4 Mar 2007)

Anyone know when boards.ie might be back up? Got a great answer to a technical question yesterday and I need it now!


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## Guest120 (4 Mar 2007)

Baz2005 said:


> Anyone know when boards.ie might be back up? Got a great answer to a technical question yesterday and I need it now!



There are no current problems with it.


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## Oracle24 (4 Mar 2007)

is down yet again...


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## ajapale (4 Mar 2007)

Its working fine for me. 
In fact, Ive noticed a dramatic improvement over the last day or so.


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## Oracle24 (4 Mar 2007)

I can get into site but having big problems posting and replying to messages


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## serotoninsid (4 Mar 2007)

I really wish it could go back to the day when it was a fully functioning message board with a proper search facility, a 'new posts' tab - and the ability to keep try of messages posted...


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## colm (5 Mar 2007)

I cant understand wht they hav'nt upgraded thier vBulletin software.
Still running 3-5-5  while the lates version is 3-6-5 with much more features,


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## Guest120 (5 Mar 2007)

colm said:


> I cant understand wht they hav'nt upgraded thier vBulletin software.


Ask them why.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=82


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## Brendan Burgess (5 Mar 2007)

I don't really know that much about boards.ie, but I assume that it has a similar model to Askaboutmoney, except that it is much bigger. 

A few people who have full-time jobs provide this great site free of charge in their own time. 

They get occasional thanks from people who appreciate what they are doing.

But they have to waste a good part of their time administering the site and dealing with problem posters who feel that they have som God given right to post any sort of rubbish. 

Askaboutmoney paid vBulletin to upgrade us to the latest version. The upgrade did not work. Unusually, the vBulletin people were not helpful in sorting out the problems. ClubMan and MugsGame spent a good part of their spare time over the last weekend recovering the situation.

As I say, I don't know much about boards.ie, but has everyone who has bemoaned their service here, made a generous donation to the running costs of boards.ie? 

Brendan


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## serotoninsid (5 Mar 2007)

Brendan said:


> As I say, I don't know much about boards.ie, but has everyone who has bemoaned their service here, made a generous donation to the running costs of boards.ie?Brendan


Point taken. I havn't and I used to use it heavily.  However, I did suggest at one stage (when they first had to drop the 'search' facility - that they should provide this to people who paid (and I was quite prepared to do this) and still leave the forum open to all.  They felt that they wanted it to be all inclusive - given that if they started charging fees, boards would no longer be boards.  That was an admirable stance to take.  However, 18 months later and it is even difficult just to surf now...let alone search or check new posts.


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## colm (6 Mar 2007)

The move from hosting 365 doesn't seem to have helped much....
I am familir with running sites & I really can't see where thier problems stem from. In the grand sceme of things boards.ie is not that big of a site.
There are much bigger forums out there running much more efficiently.
As for the money end.. If a site is getting the hits boards.ie get & they can't make enough to keep it running smoothly they is something wrong.


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## boskonay (7 Apr 2007)

Boards does make revenues (enough to buy servers, etc) and has never really 'paid' for it's hosting. It is a big site, but there are a great many bigger, even in Ireland. The main problems are a heavily hacked vbulletin install, which is nigh on impossible to maintain/upgrade with standard software, as well as basic infrastructure problems.


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## colm (8 Apr 2007)

I dont think there aree any hacks on there that should cause major problems...
The lack of features at this stage is a big let down..
No new posts search etc..


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## colm (15 May 2007)

Down again today... New host doesn't seem to have made any difference


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## Cloudie (16 May 2007)

boskonay said:


> Boards does make revenues (enough to buy servers, etc) and has never really 'paid' for it's hosting. It is a big site, but there are a great many bigger, even in Ireland. The main problems are a heavily hacked vbulletin install, which is nigh on impossible to maintain/upgrade with standard software, as well as basic infrastructure problems.



Our vBulletin install is not heavily hacked; in fact I've made a one-line hack to do a style change for one of our subsites.  We have plugins which are easily upgraded.

The main reasons we haven't upgraded to vB 3.6 (currently we run 3.5) is that the upgrade script for vBulletin will take several hours to perform an alter statement on one of our 6 million row tables.

I'd love to see an accurate list of the big sites in Ireland.  Maybe H365 can provide.  From Alexa, we're ranked #40 in terms of sites accessed from Ireland.  In terms of the actual Irish sites there, we're at #8 (behind Daft, Eircom, AIB, RTE, CarZone, Aer Lingus and FAS).  If there's some better list, please let us know.

I'd also like to refute your infrastructure statement.  I can say more if pushed - I've refrained from doing so .

Colm, I cannot reply to your comments impartially, especially as you are from "BoardsIE.com".  Imitation is the highest form of cybersquattery


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## boskonay (16 May 2007)

Hey Cloud!

Welcome to AAM 

I stand correct on the hack, altho it was always my understanding that the various bits and bobs integrated were a major factor in the speed of updates.

On the infrastructure, perhaps you could share the current model with us, as, when we provided the colo, there were recognised infra problems (most notablly the servers (number and capability).

365 hosted Boards for nigh on 4 years entirely out of the goodness of our hearts, including providing free kit, servers on loan, etc, etc. We've no interest in 'attacking' boards, so please don't take it as such - our only priority is ensuring that the move to digiweb (which was stated to us as entirely for regi proximity) was not seen as moving to a 'better' provider. 

I think it fair that after such support, we are entitled to correct any inaccurate information that moving to digiweb somehow 'improved' the experience.


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## Cloudie (16 May 2007)

BTW, saying there are bigger sites - I don't think anyone would or could dispute that!  Even in terms of message boards, there are at least 142 bigger sites.  See big-boards.com for more details.

boards.ie is currently ranked at 8049 in the world's sites.  Compare that with some others like Ireland.com (15123) and Ryanair.com (1852) and I think we're doing pretty good.


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## Cloudie (16 May 2007)

Since you asked, the move to Digiweb did improve the performance even *before we introduced any new servers*.  I've refrained from saying this until now but your repeated insistence that nothing better could happen from moving to another hosting provider has finally prompted this response (I was happy to ignore it until now).  (You are right that the move was envisioned to be one that would benefit from Dan's position in Digiweb, and TBH we didn't expect the speed issue to be resolved in this way, as we did think it was an infrastructure / "problem on our server" issue.)

I would have thought that the page rank H365 would have enjoyed from a link on every one of our pages would have been more than "out of the goodness of [y]our hearts" - it sounds like we were merely there on sufferance   We also had a contra banner advertising agreement which you neglected to mention.

Currently we are running on four web servers and one database server.  I don't have the exact stats to hand but we'll be documenting this soon on our site.

Thanks!

John.
--


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## boskonay (16 May 2007)

John, with all due respect, even though the servers may have been the same, the switches, loadbalancers and rest of the architecture changed. Any perceived speed increase would have been as a result of that, or, simply perceived. All other things being equal, the architecture digiweb have and ours are almost completely identical. You'll remember we even offered to provide a NetApp SAN and servers to rebuild the boards architecture before you left.

The banner contra - well, I've refrained from mentioning a click thru of a fraction of a percent, we never perceived 'value' from that other than branding. (and it wasnt running for most of the 4 years). We sign business up through word of mouth referral, not page rank.

365 and boards enjoyed a good relationship, it would be a shame to sully those 4 years now for petty 'points scoring' on a third party public forum.


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## Cloudie (16 May 2007)

Good.


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## aircobra19 (17 May 2007)

Boards is a great site, no doubt. As a long time user of boards and now adverts, its poor performance,  outages, bugs and lack of features means it is probably the most frustrating site I've ever used. Perhaps the O2 site is more frustrating I can't decide. Perhaps the performance has improved slightly over the last few weeks, I'm not sure. At least its mostly up these days. The other various problems remain however. However IMO you can't be too critical of a site that basically free and run by volunteers. Or its only fair, at least any [SIZE=-1]criticsim [/SIZE]should be in that context. I think you have to be appreciative of the works thats gone into it.

Besides when its not working you can wander off and find other sites like this one, or turn off the computer and go out into the real world. No really.


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