the amazing bouncing site search!

[denise]

Alas, the temporary fixes alierak was able to put in place to baby site search along for a little while have proven to not be a match for your text-generating capacity. Search is down again, and probably will be for at least a little while until we're able to achieve a more long-term fix! Sorry about the inconvenience, folks; we'll have it back as soon as we can.

(EDIT: And, back up it goooooooes! Bouncey bouncey bouncey. alierak has been exerting herculean efforts to squeeze every last bit out of the current setup, so search may or may not be available at any given moment. It's Schrödinger's search! So, if you want to search for something, give it a try, but don't be surprised if it's slow, out of date, or down entirely at any given moment.)

Comments

I need an excuse to use this icon.

[zarhooie]

Alas, poor search!

And this one.

[zarhooie]

We hardly knew ye.

(K, I'm done.)

Re: I need an excuse to use this icon.

[redblack]

AAAAAAH! That icon! I love it! OMG

[mrshamill]

Okay, yes, I'm bad and don't read all the updates, but is cross-posting down?

[zarhooie]

Looks like it's up for me. Sometimes, if the other site is having issues, you'll get a failure notice, but then the entry will post. You may want to double check the other site.

If that doesn't work, make sure your password is still up to date. If you still have no dice, open a Support request.

[mrshamill]

smacks forehead

Password. Oi. I'd be dangerous if I had a brain. Thanks.

[zarhooie]

No worries! I've done that more times than I care to admit. >_>

[denise]

Whenever something like this comes up and people start feeling chagrined, I tell the story of the time that I made mark help me troubleshoot a problem with my email server. We spent three hours on it trying everything to figure out why mail wasn't being delivered -- wasn't even reaching the server, actually.

After we were both ready to tear out our hair, I realized the domain had expired that morning because I'd forgotten to renew it.

These things happen, is what I'm saying. :)

[mrshamill]

Yeah, I know. I actually had a broken networked printer at work that I couldn't fix for love nor money. I finally got one of our network contractors to look at it and I was plugging the ethernet cable into the wrong port.

The glamorous life of an IT tech.

[pantswarrior]

Hahah! I had the inverse happen to me this year, sort of. I wasn't getting email, and I couldn't reach my domain, and it occurred to me that "Hey, isn't my domain up for renewal? Crap, I bet it expired!" and I ran around looking for my login info and so on so that I could finally get in to renew it... and nope - my domain was good for another year. Actual technical difficulties for the host were causing the outage.

And then to make it even more ludicrous, later akatonbo informed me that she'd noticed my domain was up for renewal and had done it herself, which was the only reason it was actual technical difficulties with the host causing the problem. ;)

[redblack]

Mind if I add something to the fail things to do with tech list?

My laptop has an Ethernet port right next to a USB port. I don't usually use the Ethernet because my Internet's wifi.

The other day I plugged in a flash drive, spent like ten minutes trying to figure out why the laptop wasn't recognizing the flash drive and trouble-shooting... only to figure out I'd plugged the flash drive in the Ethernet port. Oops.

[marahmarie]

OK, I'll bite...from the Oh Brain, Where Art Thou? files, the other day I hooked computer speakers up to my laptop and turned the sound button up only to be met with silence. Fiddled with this and jiggled that only to realize I forgot to turn the speakers on (they have their own power button). Turned them on, got the little green light winking at me, so all was well...not. Turns out I plugged them into the wifi port...at which point tearing of hair and interpretive dances to reflect how stupid I felt did ensue.

[dhamphir]

I don't comment on these notices often, though I do read them all since I have them sent directly to my inbox. But I just want to say thank you and how much I appreciate that you guys always go out of your way to keep us informed about what's going on, and do so in such a timely manner! As a customer, I couldn't be happier. Whenever I see a post about some glitch, I generally just shrug my shoulders, because I know you guys are hard at work getting it straightened out at quickly as you can; and that you'll let know when it fixed. I have every faith in your abilities and, just as importantly, your priorities. *S*

It's so clear that you care about your user base, and creating and maintaining a wonderful service for them. It makes me feel at home here, and so glad I was able to invest in a permanent account. Thanks again for the hard work the DW team does.

[denise]

Aww. This comment gave me the warmfuzzies like nobody's business. Thank you -- it's awesome to know that people appreciate our occasionally-muppetflaily (okay, that might just be me) attempts to keep this place lurching along. :)

[dhamphir]

I'm for warm fuzzies! *G*

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

You are the best, even when you are paddling your hearts out. We know you are doing the upmost, and you're real good at letting us know what the situation is so we aren't going "what did I do wrong?"

Thanks all and a thousand thousand blessings on you and yours.

[denise]

JUST KEEP SWIMMING. :D

Seriously, though, thanks. It's been an interesting few days, so hearing this is really awesome. <3

[kowe]

I agree with everyone above and below me, you guys are AWESOME! Hence why I've recently purchased more paid account time. :) I want to keep such awesomeness afloat. Or swimming. Or floatingly swimming? I dunno. I lost track of where I was going with this.

[owl]

Ohhh, you have my sympathies! Few things are so nerve-wracking as baby-sitting a failing production system - I spent a good bit of early November staring at graphs of server response times, and it was not fun.

How many things have you bounced recently? :)

[zarhooie]

The importer had some interesting hiccups a few weeks ago, and then search started falling over. I think that's about it, actually. Pretty good track record!

[pickledginger]

Yes! you are doing a truly amazing job. And I'd like to join in the chorus of thanks for keeping everybody informed.

[owl]

I meant just for the search - in my experience these things involve a few rounds of Infrastructure going, "we have frobbled the bobnosticator, bouncing now...no wait...still no worky...bouncing again, please don't use it...", while the developer backchannel makes remarks like "bounce it again, bounce it HARDER".

[marahmarie]

*chuckles*

[redblack]

I am now imagining search as a bouncy red ball. Thank you alierak for the Herculean efforts, and denise for the report.

[pickledginger]

Heh. I am putting my intent to search in this box, which I will open next week to determine whether I actually pressed the button.

[redblack]

Schrodinger's SEARCH! :D

[dhae_knight_1]

I've just got to say; personally? I read these maintenance-posts for the entertainment value. Nine times out of ten, I don't really get what's going on with the technical stuff; but nine times out of ten your way of describing it leaves me with a smile on my face.

So thank you for that. :)

[kowe]

I agree!

[sharpiefan]

This. :D

[sharpiefan]

Your customer service is really really great. I don't comment to these posts usually, but I do read them, and I want you to know how much I appreciate the fact you keep us in the loop with what's going on.

Don't change that. Ever.

*draws hearts round denise and mark and fu and anyone else who has anything at all to do with DW's backend stuff*

mad, impetuous props

[babysprite]

... and all manner of warmfuzzies for keeping up the base code and keeping us in the know.

The maddest props of them all for keeping a Lynx-friendly UI.

/\__/\
(='.'=)
(")_(")

You rock the Casbah!