GC Recent Downtime
 

There was an issue with GC's web server hard drive which caused the dataset to go offline & took down GC with it. Looks like the site was offline Nov 27 & 28, maybe part of Nov 26 as well. Sorry for all that downtime.

I did some testing, ran some backups, running some other scans overnight and a few more things to do tomorrow (other backups, etc).

GC should be back to running normally again.

It's possible we could have additional unexpected downtime if there is a hardware issue that's causing this, though. Will see how things go over the next few days as I further check on things.

At first I thought you were changing the interface or putting the site on the new server you mentioned awhile back.

Thank you for dealing with it! :)

thank you so much.

Big John with the mad computer skillz! Thank you, sir!

Server hard drive is definitely having an issue. Overnight scan detected & recovered a few minor issues with it. Probably a good idea to replace that drive soon as I can, so I'll be making plans for that. I suppose it's possible that the hard drive issues could cause the site to go offline again, even in a way where it takes much longer to get back online. So if GC unexpectedly goes offline again like the other day, anyone reading this probably has an idea of what's going on. I'll post updates to GC's Twitter/X page if that happens: https://x.com/greekchat

Okay, now I'm convinced that we need better emojis / smileys on GC. Right now I could use the smiling emoji with a cowboy hat and sunglasses. Hmm... maybe these two will work for now: :D :cool:

Actually, GC has been on the new server for a few months now, since the end of July. Not a "new" server as in brand new but just new for GC.

Previously, from 2013 through July 2024, GC was running on a server I built and colocated at a datacenter in Atlanta. Now GC is on a server that I'm renting from a datacenter in Kansas City. The new server is probably 50% faster CPU wise, has 2.5x RAM & much more bandwidth.

The site interface / new forum software is still a work in progress. We will eventually get there, though.

We heart your work, :D:cool:John, and appreciate all you do for your audience :):D:cool:

For real though. That’d be smooth if you made it to where we could post emojis so we could get an idea of what each other looks like IRL Lol.

How long does it take to build a server like that?

Thanks for the update!

Thank you for all your hard work!

You're not using the cloud? Any particular reason? (I'm guessing $$$)

Sorry for all the downtime the past few days. GC had another round of hardware issues.

Started working on it late Sunday night. Had to run some scans overnight and more Monday to verify the issue is sorted out for now. Along with full backups.

Missed this when you posted it previously. Not using the cloud for GC, but would consider if I found the right deal. My guess is that cloud hosting would be way too expensive. I've hosted GC on various co-located & dedicated servers over the years.

THANK YOU so much for keeping us all united in our devotion to our Greek organizations. Your hard work is truly appreciated!

Jimmy Dean wrote this song just for you: BIG BAD JOHN!!!

Thank you, John!

Thank you for continuing the hard work, John.

Just FYI, I am unable to click-on to GreekChat's homepage from Google, it still goes to the Error/Offline page.

I accidentally got onto GC today thru directly Googling GCs Song Name Game page, and carefully maneuvering from there to be able to let you know there's still a small error in the system.

ETA: Then, when I posted this and attempted to go to GCs homepage, I got the Error/Offline GC Page again.

Thank you John!

Just to make sure, you're referring to the page that states "GreekChat.com is offline for website maintenance" with the GC logo at the top and the link to the X-Twitter page below that?

If so, that page must be stuck in your browser cache or maybe some sort of network caching causing it.

The way I have things setup, the offline page is served from a different virtual server than the virtual server that's serving these pages we are on now. The page with the offline message doesn't exist in the currently active virtual server. That's what makes me think the page is probably being cached somewhere instead of reloading the active site again. Also especially since you can load some forum thread links directly. If the files for you were somehow coming from the "offline" virtual server you wouldn't be able to view any forum threads at all since they aren't on that virtual server. Well, I suppose forum threads can also be cached as well, but not in this case since you were able to post a reply.

To fix the caching issue you could go to https://greekchat.com and if you still see the offline message there try reloading the page a few times quickly. That will often cause a browser to bypass the cached file and reload again. Another sometimes easy way, if you leave your computer on with the browser open (or if using a laptop hibernation feature), you could close and reopen the web browser software or try fully rebooting the computer.

Alternatively, there's also a way to directly clear your browser cache as well. If you do that just make sure you don't accidentally clear out all your saved logins/passwords, cookies or page history if you use those browser features and don't want to lose that data.

Something I can do that may help prevent this in the future is to add coding/tags into the offline page that indicates to browsers that the page should not be cached. I'm looking into that now. Doing this won't correct the issue for you right now, but next time that change might be picked up and may prevent it from happening again.

Thank you for your responses, John. Thanks to you, my regular GreekChat homepage is back!

To answer your 1st question, yes your described page was the page that would show. Whether it was me or my system caching it, my clearing a few times produced the better result.

Appreciate all you do for us!