Chiffboard Status: UPDATE!

As everyone has noticed, the board has been experiencing severe technical problems this weekend. In addition to the creeping slowdown symptoms, the entire site/domain was offline for periods at a time.

One of us (me) was in the process of tracking down the source of the software and database slowdown issues when our server suffered a completely unrelated hardware failure, requiring a complete rebuild. The perfect storm, Hurricane Chiffy. And as with Sandy, the clean-up may take a while longer as we wait for FEMA or the cavalry to arrive.

So thanks for your patience. We’ll keep you posted on progress.

Well, that was fun. The board was offline for 3 days, and effectively unusable for a week before that. But we’re baaack!!

Many thanks to Chiffboard tech pal Rich Lafferty for stepping in to clean up the mess. The data tables are now squeaky clean, the maintenance routines have been revved up, and the server rebuild seems stable. So you should all see a big improvement in performance. And no more White Screen of Death.

Your trusty but hapless ChiffCo staff will be discussing both technical and procedural changes to help make sure the next Hurricane Chiffy doesn’t do as much damage.

Hopefully, these talks will take place at the First Annual Chiffboard Technical Conference, to be held in Cancún. We’re just waiting for Dale to send us the tickets and reservations. Dale? Dale? :wink:

I’m already in Cancun. Where is everybody? Was there some kind of mix-up?