Vanishing posts/threads.

[mdshunk]

In the past couple of weeks, I have noticed that some of my replies have seemed to disappear. I have actually seen my post added to the thread, and then a short while later, it just seems to vanish. I had a man Email me because an entire thread that he and I had posted to just disappeared. I recently had a reply to a private message disappear in much the same way. I saw the message added to my sent messages folder. A short while later it was missing and the intended recipient never received the message.

This is, in fact, the second time that I’ve tried to post regarding this problem. My first post (5 minutes ago) said that there was an error.

[Homer]

I have had messages disappear when I "Preview" them and they are gone for good.

I have also been at the preview message screen and have clicked on "Submit". The result was a message about an invalid link and no message to be seen. At that point hitting "back" in the browser takes you to an "Expired" page that needs to be refreshed in order to make a second attempt.

Many times the site is unavailable (Unable to locate server).

It was like that alot after the hosting co. changed then it improved a bit. Now it's sliding back down again.

Homer

[dkerr]

We are hitting about 2700 to 3500 visits a day on the selfhelpandmore site, and 600 to 800 visits a day on the selfhelpforum site, acording to server statistics.

The errors that I seem to be coming across on the forum site is database connection errors. the actual database appears to be on a different server than the forums files itself. When the forum doesn't come up either it times out on the database response, or times out on the files server. This could be to overload on the server or a crash/ reboot on the server. Reboot generally put the site down for 2 to 4 minutes.

Our sites on virtual servers, which means the same server also hosts other sites, the overall demand on the server may affect response times. In the case of the forums, demand on 2 different servers (the file server and the database server) , each of which can have an affect. there could be times where response is affected, however we do expect that these kinds of problems are short lived, and I will send a support email to the host if they become too problemsome.

We would love to be on a dedicated server whcih would be a great solution to everything, but the costs of the setup and monthly costs is more than Warren and I can handle when we offer the sites at no charge and do not run advertisementsont the sites.

We are having less issues with the current host than we did with previous one, mostly with issues around compatability with vbulletin which technically runs perfectly on the current host, it would however at times be nice to have less connectivity problems with the database, which seems to come and go likely with the averall demand on that server.

One thing you can do, although I realize that should not have to, is to highlight you message and right click/copy, so in the event a error occurs, you can then get back into it and repost by simply pasting the previously copied message.

Any threads that disappeared, please report the forum that it was posted to , so I can check the permissions to be certain only administrators / moderators can delete another persons thread. The only other thing I can think of is if the host does a database restore from previous in the day which I would hope rarely happens.

Keep us posted of any problems and we will bring up with the host any ongoing issues.

[Wgoodrich]

When posting a reply I have experienced the forum locking. I hit the back button and wait a couple of minutes and then it goes through fine. I suspect once in a while we are hitting as Don is discribing. If you have a reply lock when replying hit the back button and wait a couple of minutes and hit the reply again. The back button should make what you typed reappear if you have trouble posting.

Just my experience

Wg