[rumiya]

Agreed.  The FTP in it's original form was probably not the best idea. However, I do have a few idea of what may have slowed down the site so much:

1.  The server hardware IS old.  The server itself is only a Pentium III  with 1 GB of RAM.  The two network cards that were installed were only functioning at 10 Mbps (which should have been fine - read on.)

2.  The operating system was antiquated.  Over the years, I have tried to keep up on updates and the such.  However, in the process of tweaking, and installing / removing various software to make the server and site function, I was unable to install the latest updates (for almost a year).

3.  Bloat software.  Mentioned above, I tried installing and removed unnecessary software to the server.  This may have left bits and pieces of dead software on the system.  I think a combination of this and #2, prevented me from updating the OS.

4.  The internal network card (we are protected by a firewall here as well) was only operating at 1-3 Kbps.  That should not have affected you guys at all, but I am starting to question if the external network card was operating at full speed as well.

5.  There were redundant firewall programs.  I've tried a few over the years.  See issue #3.  This may have been causing a bottle neck.

6.  The FTP was a public FTP.  This means that anybody, including google bots could have been downloading content.  Also I had reduced the anonymous speed to direct the bandwidth more towards the forum instead.

7.  I can't forget that the forum may not have been configured for optimum performance.  I was in a rush to get the forum back up the last time it crashed, so I overlooked quite a few things.  Including something that Jibril found in an external article related to SEO just hours before the server went off line.

Now, I've attempted to fix a few things.  I've replaced both  network cards with gigabit cards (10/100/1000), and both of which are operating at Full Duplex mode at 100 Mbps speed.  I've only installed the most recent firewall application and we have a very slim definition file as opposed to the massive one we had before (which may have had conflicts contained within it).  The FTP will be member login from now on.  We have a brand new fresh install of the forum, and I am taking my time making sure that I get all the options set correctly for optimum performance. 

Also related to this is the database engine.  The old forum used what is known as MYISAM which is a basic database structure, and it is easily recoverable.  The problem with this mode is that it is somewhat slow.  Then there is INNODB, this is a much more resilient database engine, and is much faster than MYISAM, however, it can become corrupted somewhat easily if you don't constantly keep up on it.  This is something of a problem with the last site, is that this INNODB (a recommended feature to enable for optimization of the forum) was corrupted, and I had tried to fix this without success.  Now that we have a clean install, I can re-enable this feature again without concern.

So, all that is left that I can do is upgrade the rest of the components (which should be coming very soon), and possibly subscribe to a higher speed DSL connection.

I think that was everything i wanted to say.  Thanks for your support and ideas!

I do appreciate that you know your lingo and such. But as far as I could tell as a layman, you just went on about speed when the real problem is the goddamn server DYING. How exactly do you plan to safeguard against that? Can it be safeguarded against?

My point in bringing up the FTP was that it and all the files on here made the whole server size larger than it needed to be. Maybe I'm wrong.

Do you have any comments regarding making sure the site doesn't die again? Is this something that backups would solve?

ahh ok and good to see site back. but in my opinion a few things some of you have to remember
1.some of use use our isp ad the site link.and we are limited in the up band speed.
and not every isp allows servers to run on their service either.so we do with what we have.still cheaper than a online hosting service and we have full control on the servers to.
2.  and mega uploads is good but YOU WONT A find any of the current series there.
3. the episodes we a kinda gift to the forum users here. yes i encoded a lot of them and rmvb was just to save at the time hd space and bandwith.now yes i can do full xvid and or now mkv h264 hd full dvd quality.and am glad to help others here see some of the new series that is out.if there is any complaints about download speed or even quality.
THEN GO BUY THE DVDS and support the studios that make them
4. this has always been a full featured community here .from the forums and role play to art pictures  and yes media,series and full  cd osts. gads you don't know how much some of the ost coast from japan.as a deuptiy service
coast and only to get them here as stores and yahoo jp sellers wont ship overseas  .
perhaps there is a way to have your cake and eat it to.  if it can be done seperate the forum on 1 hd and setup second w/ftp for other stuff.
just 1 humble opinion of 1 who has been on here since the early days

[JibrilMudo]

One thing that I noticed is the forum has a lot less parsing errors.  Those got really annoying in the end.  For instance, the last few months I couldn't underline and bold the same words like I did in the last sentence because of a cascading nightmare of errors.  I think mostly because the forum tried to be superfriendly and hide tags from you and instead give you a WYSIWYG editor half the time that didn't work correct.

So, after typing a long post, it was often filled with /tags at the end for no good reason and you couldn't use half the tags in the editor or it would bring a torrent of errors.  Is this because it's an upgrade to simple machine's latest version or because you didn't turn the friendly mode on Sen?  For instance, in the old editor, I would click on : ) and see   right away, while now I click on  : ) and see a colon and right paranthesis.

I like it a WHOLE LOT BETTER this way.

[Tenchi Ryu]

True, but one thing I kinda do miss is the home panel. It was pretty useful as far as letting you know all the new post and who's online.

[Skuld-chan]

I'll probably bring back the "home panel"  I have yet to decide.  Although I may just make our own home panel instead.

@Jibril,   Three things I can think of.  
1.  The upgraded software could have fixed it.  
2.  I did not enable the WYSIWYG editor by default.  I believe if you really want to use it, you can turn it on in your Profile under Look and Layout.  
3.  This is a clean install, and there haven't been any modifications to the code.

[L_Divi]

Ok, so I have to ask:  Will we eventually be asked to re-submit our Complete Character Contest entries, or is the contest basically canceled due to unforseen @%#$?

[Skuld-chan]

That is a very good question.  On one had we have the fact that there were so few entries.  Also, we have the fact that my hard drive died on my laptop which contained the entries.  And, we don't yet have all the members back that submitted entries, so that is kind of unfair...on both sides of the equation.

After all, a lot of hard work went into those entries, so I don't feel quite right just throwing it all away.  Give me some time to ponder about it.

[L_Divi]

That is a very good question.  On one had we have the fact that there were so few entries.  Also, we have the fact that my hard drive died on my laptop which contained the entries.  And, we don't yet have all the members back that submitted entries, so that is kind of unfair...on both sides of the equation.

After all, a lot of hard work went into those entries, so I don't feel quite right just throwing it all away.  Give me some time to ponder about it.

This sounds fair enough. 

In the meantime, I will see if I can go track down my original e-mail so that if this contest is resumed, I don't have to re-write my description...

[antvasima]

Hmm, it's really too bad about all of the lost posts, considering that there was some effort involved for quite a few of them, and the assortment of backlog threads to pick and choose from (with far less interest in restating them from the posters who contributed), but that's life I suppose. 

I agree about that the ftp is redundant for the purpose of large anime downloads. You might wish to keep it for smaller doujinshi and translation projects though.

As for what else not to keep, I disliked the mixture of harmless idealistic entertainment threads, and serious discussions of efficient torture, murder tips, the benefits of systematic genocide, etc.  It didn't at all synch with the tone of the old Tenchi boards, so you might want to consider discluding that particular extreme of the forums. It is probably what chased most of the old guard away from migrating here from the Ayeka Fan Club and Seto Fan boards. (No, not the poster. He just took his name from it)

[Zionia]

I would have to agree with antvasima about some of the board topics...lets try to keep things away from offensive as that is when we will end up with issues. Im going to be talking with senk about topics that pop up that may start issues. Just because something says "Post anything and everything..." doesnt mean anything and everything NEEDS to be shared. If anyone sees a potential post like those 'torture' and 'disturbing' threads of the past let me know and they will be watched closely to be sure nothing is too far out of line. As of right now, there is not 18+ section, so none of it should be posted at all for the time being.