# Download server lagging?



## Erethzium (Dec 19, 2014)

In stark contrast to how the main site usually lags and the download server is fine, it now seems that the main site is running fine but the download server is lagging horribly.

Often times takes 15+ seconds for Full View / Download to work.

What's going on?


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## BITRATE (Dec 19, 2014)

Been having the same issues recently (for about 2 - 3 days), I assume still no word on what's going on.


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## lolox (Dec 20, 2014)

Ever since DDoS attack site has been completely unusable for me. 90% of the time the page load times out. Pictures are not displayed. Posting comments and removing notifications is almost impossible.


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## GamerFox (Dec 20, 2014)

Is the DDOS still ongoing?


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## Erethzium (Dec 20, 2014)

lolox said:


> Ever since DDoS attack site has been completely unusable for me. 90% of the time the page load times out. Pictures are not displayed. Posting comments and removing notifications is almost impossible.



Site seems to be perfectly usable for me, but trying to fullview/download images takes forever.


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## Spottycat (Dec 21, 2014)

Doesn't this have to do with simply disabling Cloudflare's image optimization?    Feature that has been in beta forever and has been reported to not work very well in a lot of situations.  Should be a simple toggle in a dropdown menu.   Not sure what the impact of turning this off would be at this point, but I'd be surprised if that didn't resolve the issue people are having with images not loading up in a timely fashion.


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## 2ndVenus (Dec 21, 2014)

NorthWest England

I have been having some serious issues now for about 3 days. The pages load up fine, but all images do not load, just empty grey boxes. This includes pictures, thumbnails and Avatars.
if i keep refreshing the page they eventually ping up and start downloading but it would appear as if either A: The download server is having issues  with the DDoS protection suite or B: There is an ongoing DDoS attempt and this is simply the residual effects or C: Download server having hickups?

A being most likely, C being least likely.


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## Ainoko (Dec 21, 2014)

Having the same issues here as well, images taking up to 3 minutes to load at times


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## Ryu Deacon (Dec 21, 2014)

well ive had the same issue for the past 3 Days or so but looks like im now done with FA, now cannot see a single submission on FA and i doebt the administration will fix this. I deleted my cookies because i thought that was the issue for the slow load, now nothing will show -_-.

Note that this will mean no new people can join this site  because they wont be able to see anything.


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## Taralack (Dec 21, 2014)

The image/content servers are currently down. Admins are aware of it and trying to fix it.


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## GamerFox (Dec 21, 2014)

I want a status update.

Or at least take the site read-only, for fucks sake...


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## AliothFox (Dec 22, 2014)

Yeah, really.  So much for the transparency.  Giving the site's users a useless Twitter-fied way to make fancy icons appear, but they can't give us a status update when the site is, for all intents and purposes, down for three hours.


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## Blitza (Dec 22, 2014)

Fa is really going down fast, and that is the great Update after People spend there Money on the donation drive Neer made ??

It gives no month were FA havent any Problems and funny is you had an Hacker over an Year in your Team and you did know that well ???

Just wanted to vent some Frustration here out since the site suckes with each day more, Congrats Neer for the great work after you got all the Money 

Were can i sign in in your Team ?? I Need an new Engine for my Rally Car


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## Croconaw (Dec 22, 2014)

Can't say I'm surprised that FA has been having more issues ever since their recent implementations that were supposed to fix this sort of thing.


Oh well, it gives me an excuse to put off doing requests.


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## AliothFox (Dec 22, 2014)

Croconaw said:


> Can't say I'm surprised that FA has been having more issues ever since their recent implementations that were supposed to fix this sort of thing.
> 
> 
> Oh well, it gives me an excuse to put off doing requests.



Well, I think the CloudFlare has helped, but I think the current issue is unrelated to that.  Not that I can find out for certain, since 'Neer et al have decided to keep everyone in the dark.


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## Cloudchaser (Dec 22, 2014)

The ads and banner loads just fine, but the images we want to see won't


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## AliothFox (Dec 22, 2014)

Cloudchaser said:


> The ads and banner loads just fine, but the images we want to see won't



The ads and banner are probably on a separate server (dunno about the ads; I use a modern browser, so I have ad-block).  The banner may be cached in your system memory - if you press Ctrl+F5, chances are it won't load.


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## GamerFox (Dec 22, 2014)

The people are angry.


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## AliothFox (Dec 22, 2014)

GamerFox said:


> The people are angry.


Neer tweeted to me that he was working on an announcement, but that was about half an hour ago.


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## AliothFox (Dec 22, 2014)

And it seems *knock on wood* to be working again for the moment, if a bit sluggishly.


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## lafeel (Dec 22, 2014)

AliothFox said:


> And it seems *knock on wood* to be working again for the moment, if a bit sluggishly.


Your idea of working is strange as it is not working at all.


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## AliothFox (Dec 22, 2014)

lafeel said:


> Your idea of working is strange as it is not working at all.



It's working for me. *shrugs*  Try a full refresh?  Ctrl+F5 instead of just F5.


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## GamerFox (Dec 22, 2014)

We need to sacrifice some goats and maybe hire a witch doctor.


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## AliothFox (Dec 22, 2014)

GamerFox said:


> We need to sacrifice some goats and maybe hire a witch doctor.


Nah.  This site is for furries.  In here, we sacrifice a witch doctor and hire some goats.  Probably hire them to do inappropriate things, in fact.

But in any case, the content is working for me and they've taken down the admin notice (for now - we'll see how long before something else goes wrong).  I really don't want to see FA sink; I've donated to them, I've tried to give them the benefit of the doubt whenever I can.  I HOPE that when/if they relaunch the site through Phoenix, a lot of this stuff will get sorted out.  I know a lot of people have been let down a lot in the past, but I really do think FA is the best community of the furry world, even if not the best-designed site.  And I realize I'll probably have a bunch of angry drama-mongers coming after me for even saying that.  

Sure, FA isn't perfect - especially when it comes to keeping people up to date when the site is having some sort of aberration - but I still don't want it to fail.


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## Croconaw (Dec 22, 2014)

Nobody wants FA to fail. People just want a website that has a 50%+ up time. 


That and maaaaybe 1 or 2 of the hundred promised features implemented.


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## AliothFox (Dec 22, 2014)

Croconaw said:


> Nobody wants FA to fail. People just want a website that has a 50%+ up time.
> 
> 
> That and maaaaybe 1 or 2 of the hundred promised features implemented.



Of course - I'm just as frustrated about that as anyone else, but complaining about it won't change it.  For proof, I give you the (as Mr. Fox would say) cluster-cuss from about this time last year.


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## Croconaw (Dec 22, 2014)

AliothFox said:


> Of course - I'm just as frustrated about that as anyone else, but complaining about it won't change it.  For proof, I give you the (as Mr. Fox would say) cluster-cuss from about this time last year.




People have a right to voice frustration, especially when some people depend on the site for additional income (ie, those who pay for ads/donate) I believe we will differ in opinion here, but those who complain have every right to, and telling them different is rather perplexing if you want my thought on it all.


And keep in mind, if the customer base is frustrated and leaves, that's one less fish in the pond for an artist to snatch for a commission. 


And I do believe that event last year caused a certain other site to see a spike in activity. Mind you, some of those that went to that other site stayed for good.


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## AliothFox (Dec 22, 2014)

Croconaw said:


> People have a right to voice frustration, especially when some people depend on the site for additional income (ie, those who pay for ads/donate) I believe we will differ in opinion here, but those who complain have every right to, and telling them different is rather perplexing if you want my thought on it all.



Oh, I'm not telling you not to complain!  Of course people have a right to complain - Neer is probably sick of all the complaining *I* do.  I never suggested that people don't have the RIGHT to complain.  All I said was that complaining about it won't fix it - and FA's record has done precious little to prove me wrong in that statement.


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## lafeel (Dec 22, 2014)

And now *no* images are loading, great going, you guys did not fix jack shit.


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## PheagleAdler (Dec 22, 2014)

lafeel said:


> And now *no* images are loading, great going, you guys did not fix jack shit.



Who is Jack Shit and why should we fix him? He's got a terrible last name.


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## Croconaw (Dec 22, 2014)

AliothFox said:


> Oh, I'm not telling you not to complain!  Of course people have a right to complain - Neer is probably sick of all the complaining *I* do.  I never suggested that people don't have the RIGHT to complain.  All I said was that complaining about it won't fix it - and FA's record has done precious little to prove me wrong in that statement.




In a sense, complaining is incentive and motivation for any establishment to get their act together. The louder that cry becomes, the more thorough an establishment will be to fix the problem.


..... wait this is FA. You're right, the complaints fall on deaf ears and the problems will be fixed on their own usual accord. :B


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## AliothFox (Dec 22, 2014)

Croconaw said:


> ..... wait this is FA. You're right, the complaints fall on deaf ears and the problems will be fixed on their own usual accord. :B



And by "on their own usual accord", what you're actually saying is "It probably won't be fixed at all."


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## Croconaw (Dec 22, 2014)

Indeed. Tis why I don't donate anymore.


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## TheArchiver (Dec 22, 2014)

Croconaw said:


> Indeed. Tis why I don't donate anymore.



Tis why I _never_ donated. 
I donated to Weasyl though. Because I enjoy rewarding a well maintained service with my hard earned dollar.


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## AliothFox (Dec 22, 2014)

TheArchiver said:


> Tis why I _never_ donated.
> I donated to Weasyl though. Because I enjoy rewarding a well maintained service with my hard earned dollar.



Oh, Weasyl.  Right.  I flirted with them briefly, but decided to stay here where an artist can actually make money.


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## TheArchiver (Dec 24, 2014)

AliothFox said:


> Oh, Weasyl.  Right.  I flirted with them briefly, but decided to stay here where an artist can actually make money.



Yes, if the artist cares to make money from their work in this fashion that is. You've a fair point. That's Weasyl's main drawback, unfortunately. They're a good site with admins that practice good ethics 100% contrary to this disgusting stone age cesspool, but they've done very little to entice people to migrate to them and settle. I can't fault anyone for feeling forced to remain here, but I do pity the many that wish it were otherwise.


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## Socks the Fox (Dec 24, 2014)

You know, if enough people would just bite the bullet and begin the migration over there it would help a lot.

They don't even have to cut FA out completely:

Step 1: Cross post stuff
Step 2: Update gallery with older stuff
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Post more stuff there and less stuff here gradually until you don't post anything here anymore

Each time you post something, remind people of your Weasyl.

Don't rip everyone out of FA right away. Ease them into the transition, give them a reason to want to be over there, then eliminate the redundancy for all but an alternate method of contact in emergency (i.e. something happens to Weasyl).


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## AliothFox (Dec 25, 2014)

Socks the Fox said:


> You know, if enough people would just bite the bullet and begin the migration over there it would help a lot.
> 
> They don't even have to cut FA out completely.
> 
> ...




I'd prefer not to cut out FA at all.  I'd rather FA be _fixed and improved._  Maybe I'm the silly one for wanting to stick by this site despite how ugly it is at times, but if Weasyl had the same level of traffic that FA has, it would ALSO have a lot of the same problems.  One reason Weasyl is ABLE to offer the level of service that it does is because it's still small enough to operate without a lot of the issues that higher-traffic sites like FA have.

(Now quick, everyone rebut this by bashing Dragoneer and the staff, because that's apparently the fashionable thing to do when someone actually claims to prefer FA to other sites.)


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## PheagleAdler (Dec 25, 2014)

AliothFox said:


> I'd prefer not to cut out FA at all.  I'd rather FA be _fixed and improved._  Maybe I'm the silly one for wanting to stick by this site despite how ugly it is at times, but if Weasyl had the same level of traffic that FA has, it would ALSO have a lot of the same problems.  One reason Weasyl is ABLE to offer the level of service that it does is because it's still small enough to operate without a lot of the issues that higher-traffic sites like FA have.
> 
> (Now quick, everyone rebut this by bashing Dragoneer and the staff, because that's apparently the fashionable thing to do when someone actually claims to prefer FA to other sites.)



You're not silly, I agree with you. The site does have issues due to traffic and I can easily see the same issues happening with other sites if they ever got as big as FA is now.


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## GamerFox (Dec 26, 2014)

I guess the RAID errors were more widespread than the engineers thought?


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## AliothFox (Dec 26, 2014)

GamerFox said:


> I guess the RAID errors were more widespread than the engineers thought?



No, this isn't just RAID errors.  According to FA's Twitter, the site is currently under attack again. :/


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## Croconaw (Dec 26, 2014)

I really could use some porn need to submit some art right about now, but cloud flare says that FA is currently dead. What gives?


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## AliothFox (Dec 26, 2014)

Croconaw said:


> I really could use some porn need to submit some art right about now, but cloud flare says that FA is currently dead. What gives?



As I said a moment ago, the site is under attack again.


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## Croconaw (Dec 26, 2014)

AliothFox said:


> As I said a moment ago, the site is under attack again.



Can't happen, we have cloud flare and improved servers that our donation funds fixed. Get your intel checked.


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## AliothFox (Dec 26, 2014)

Croconaw said:


> Can't happen, we have cloud flare and improved servers that our donation funds fixed. Get your intel checked.



It was coming from WordPress, which means that WordPress was taken off the blacklist somehow.  It could well be an inside job this time.


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## PheagleAdler (Dec 26, 2014)

AliothFox said:


> It was coming from WordPress, which means that WordPress was taken off the blacklist somehow.  It could well be an inside job this time.



Wordpress...better than 4chan but still pretty damn sh*tty


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## Croconaw (Dec 26, 2014)

AliothFox said:


> It was coming from WordPress, which means that WordPress was taken off the blacklist somehow.  It could well be an inside job this time.



:O!

Egads! How unexpected! :O


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## AliothFox (Dec 26, 2014)

Croconaw said:


> :O!
> 
> Egads! How unexpected! :O



Well aren't YOU just a smarmy little ray of sarcastic sunshine! >: |

(lol, I kid.  When you stay in the furry fandom any length of time, NOTHING is unexpected X3 )


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## Erethzium (Dec 27, 2014)

Oh wow, the site is running exceptionally fast. Is this real life?



Socks the Fox said:


> You know, if enough people would just bite the bullet and begin the migration over there it would help a lot.



That's just the problem, not many people want to move to Weasyl because it's nowhere near as populated as FA. I sure as hell don't. And on the same page, FA's population is the only thing that's keeping me from moving to Weasyl or SoFurry, because FA's site design is horrible, tickets never get answered, and the servers are constantly groaning from the high traffic, no matter how many times they upgrade them.

The only reason FA hasn't made any (major) updates to the site since 2003 is because it's so populated. If they really started losing large amounts of users to other websites, you bet your ass they'd suddenly find the time to give us that "UI overhaul" that they promised in 2008. (and then again in 2009, and 2011, and 2012, etc)


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