# updating



## alekitty86f (Sep 12, 2013)

when the site goes down, does that mean that we'll finally be getting updates that have been in the suggestion box for years? if not, when is the next update going to happen?


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## Fallowfox (Sep 12, 2013)

I've no idea. :]

I suspect there will be some form of improvement, or that this is necessary for the site to be maintained at its current functionality?


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## alekitty86f (Sep 12, 2013)

Fallowfox said:


> I've no idea. :]
> 
> I suspect there will be some form of improvement, or that this is necessary for the site to be maintained at its current functionality?




yeah, i think it is about maintenance thing but, still i wonder when the last time the site was actually improved upon.


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## Fallowfox (Sep 12, 2013)

alekitty86f said:


> yeah, i think it is about maintenance thing but, still i wonder when the last time the site was actually improved upon.



My last submission was 3 months ago. 








:3


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## thoron (Sep 12, 2013)

This whole read only mode is so the database servers can be upgraded. There is no mention any other upgrade.


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## quoting_mungo (Sep 13, 2013)

It wasn't THAT long since new functionality was added, though it wasn't a huge major everything-is-revamped update. 

This downtime is for database server upgrades/migration, which may improve site response times somewhat in the end (I wouldn't know if the current limiting factor is the database, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was).


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## Smelge (Sep 13, 2013)

quoting_mungo said:


> This downtime is for database server upgrades/migration, which may improve site response times somewhat in the end (I wouldn't know if the current limiting factor is the database, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was).



Prepare the countdown to another "everything is broken" donation drive.


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## thoron (Sep 13, 2013)

Could there be an eta or update on how the update is going? I know they said 24-48 hours but I'm curious.


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## Smelge (Sep 13, 2013)

thoron said:


> Could there be an eta or update on how the update is going? I know they said 24-48 hours but I'm curious.



"Hour 32. Playing Spider Solitaire. Finally beaten Two Suits. Now progressing to Four Suits, though can't clear a single stack yet. I fear I may never get the hang of this."

"Hour 32 and 12 minutes. Shit. Forgot to start the file transfers. Going to have to make some shit up. Data Transcience Protocols sounds good. Let's blame those. They totally corrupt if you so much as look at them with herm-taur porn."


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## thoron (Sep 13, 2013)

Smelge said:


> "Hour 32. Playing Spider Solitaire. Finally beaten Two Suits. Now progressing to Four Suits, though can't clear a single stack yet. I fear I may never get the hang of this."
> 
> "Hour 32 and 12 minutes. Shit. Forgot to start the file transfers. Going to have to make some shit up. Data Transcience Protocols sounds good. Let's blame those. They totally corrupt if you so much as look at them with herm-taur porn."



Sounds reasonable enough, thank you sir. :V


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## Littlerock (Sep 13, 2013)

Fallowfox said:


> My last submission was 3 months ago.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I see what you did there, and I wholly agree!


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## Marsonaut (Sep 13, 2013)

Personally, I don't think FA all that badly needs any 'upgrades' or new features, though I say that mostly because of experience with DA and (shudders) FB. Added features tend to snowball and make the site into a mess. Really, I just hope that Smelges fears aren't realized but... :/


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## marmelmm (Sep 13, 2013)

Smelge said:


> Prepare the countdown to another "everything is broken" donation drive.



My stock reply:

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll216/marmelmm/Drawings/Affinitytruth.jpg

(evil grin)

-MMM-


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## maxgoof (Sep 13, 2013)

Well, there is one thing that is sorely needed, and that is the ability to group your gallery into folders. You need several different logins to accomplish that now.


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## alekitty86f (Sep 13, 2013)

i dont know, i love that you can separate your art into folders on DA, that organization would be fantastic for artists wo have works for sale, sold, different types of art they do and oh gosh, i'd love to separate my favorites too.   Not updating to keep is death, i mean, sure there's always issues with updates but never changing, that just wont due.


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## alekitty86f (Sep 13, 2013)

i TOTALLY agree


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## Stratelier (Sep 13, 2013)

Smelge said:


> "Hour 32. Playing Spider Solitaire. Finally beaten Two Suits. Now progressing to Four Suits, though can't clear a single stack yet. I fear I may never get the hang of this."


Four Suit Spider Solitaire is where the real action's at.  Once you've beaten it once, you never go back to anything else.


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## thoron (Sep 13, 2013)

alekitty86f said:


> i dont know, i love that you can separate your art into folders on DA, that organization would be fantastic for artists wo have works for sale, sold, different types of art they do and oh gosh, i'd love to separate my favorites too.   Not updating to keep is death, i mean, sure there's always issues with updates but never changing, that just wont due.



I'd rather see glacial speed UI updates than the pointless weekly stuff DA does.


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## maxgoof (Sep 13, 2013)

I do find it odd, though, that while the upgrade of the database server began, as far as I can tell, on schedule at 8:00AM UTC, no post that the upgrade had begun was made until 16 hours later.

So, did the 24-48 hour time begin when the upgrade started (which would mean FA should be back up again in about 7 hours) or did it begin when the forum post was made (which would mean FA should be back up again in 23 hours)?

I'm betting on neither, myself. I don't think it will be back up until at least 36-48 hours from now. If it's up sooner, I will congratulate the staff.


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## Bakensobek (Sep 13, 2013)

ShadowFur said:


> I don't really see the site getting much faster. I believe its reached the limits of its coding. Throwing a newer CPU at it that has many more cores (like all new CPUs) will not really help unless the whole site is recoded to use multiple cores. FA will have to do something soon or in a few years people will be forced to go elsewhere because of site limitations. Sadly I have to say the site really need a whole new updated ui. It looks like a site from the late 90s to me. lol.



'Neer said it is all for speed in one artist's journal. But I had something to say about that...

_"Then, a few months down the road, it will be back to square one.

Sorry, but every time the mantra of "new hardware for speed" is played, I  can't help but remember many years ago when I used to own an Apple  IIGS. The darned thing would load things rather slowly from floppy disks  (when hard drives were a big luxury), and on-screen menus were slow.  Then System 5.0.4 came out, and suddenly the machine was much faster.  The exact *same* hardware loaded things more than twice as fast, and on-screen menus would fly open. And it was all done on software.

Just food for thought."
_
Somebody replied to what I said, but the comment was deleted before I got to it.


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## Dragoncat (Sep 13, 2013)

maxgoof said:


> I do find it odd, though, that while the upgrade of the database server began, as far as I can tell, on schedule at 8:00AM UTC, no post that the upgrade had begun was made until 16 hours later.
> 
> So, did the 24-48 hour time begin when the upgrade started (which would mean FA should be back up again in about 7 hours) or did it begin when the forum post was made (which would mean FA should be back up again in 23 hours)?
> 
> I'm betting on neither, myself. I don't think it will be back up until at least 36-48 hours from now. If it's up sooner, I will congratulate the staff.



Haha. I tweeted about this. Mostly because the time zone being UTC, which converted would be 3:00AM local server time (EST). I have no idea why they chose 8AM when it would be more realistic to post that it was starting when it would actually be starting, ie 8am local server time. No way Dragoneer was starting this at 3am x'D

I was assuming they started this on a friday, so that they had the weekend to work out the kinks.


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## maxgoof (Sep 13, 2013)

Dragoncat said:


> I was assuming they started this on a friday, so that they had the weekend to work out the kinks.



No, it was in read-only mode all day Thursday as well.


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## PheagleAdler (Sep 13, 2013)

I was up after 4 AM on Thursday, and the site did enter Read-Only mode at about 4 AM, which IS 8 AM UTC (I looked it up beforehand)


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## Dragoncat (Sep 13, 2013)

maxgoof said:


> No, it was in read-only mode all day Thursday as well.



Urf, I meant to say thursday. For some reason I keep thinking yesterday never happend xD



PheagleAdler said:


> I was up after 4 AM on Thursday, and the site did enter Read-Only mode at about 4 AM, which IS 8 AM UTC (I looked it up beforehand)


It may have been 4AM for you, but it was 3AM local server time (EST)


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## PheagleAdler (Sep 13, 2013)

Dragoncat said:


> Urf, I meant to say thursday. For some reason I keep thinking yesterday never happend xD
> 
> 
> It may have been 4AM for you, but it was 3AM local server time (EST)



That's because we're currently in EDT, not EST.


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## GamerFox (Sep 14, 2013)

Behold, the beginning of another 5-month outage.


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## maxgoof (Sep 14, 2013)

GamerFox said:


> Behold, the beginning of another 5-month outage.



Nah, it's just officially late, that's all. Expect it up by Sunday, at about twice the estimated time.


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## PheagleAdler (Sep 14, 2013)

maxgoof said:


> Nah, it's just officially late, that's all. Expect it up by Sunday, at about twice the estimated time.



Not late yet, not for another hour

However...


			
				Administrator notice said:
			
		

> Site is still in read only mode. We are continuing to copy data over and prep the system. We will give you an ETA once we know when we are able to bring the servers back up.


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## GamerFox (Sep 14, 2013)

Overtime.


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## PheagleAdler (Sep 14, 2013)

i honestly don't know if you're trying to make me believe that the site will run 'slower' or something but I'm also not seeing how poor coding prevents the site from taking advantage of these things. As for 'compatibility mode' that's something I haven't used in years, and FA looks exactly as it should.


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## GamerFox (Sep 14, 2013)

ShadowFur said:


> ... the cock speed increase....



*snerk*


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## Soleron (Sep 14, 2013)

ShadowFur said:


> Unless something changes with FA's code, the sites days are numbered... As technology evolves the code always needs to evolve with it. Other wise fancy new hardware will practically be useless. With Processors until the end of Pentium 4 any newer cpu ran everything faster because no code had to be changed to take advantage of the cock speed increase. Intel originally thought by 2005 we would be using single core CPU's clocked at 10GHz, didn't happen.



http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/processor-architecture-benchmark,2974-12.html

Then why has single core performance improved 2.5x since the 2005 you mention?

If more threads are the future, why did Intel have the top-end consumer part as a 4-core in 2006, and still only 6 cores in 2013 despite lots of process shrinks since?

Server workloads, even those from 2005, are already well threaded, because two HTML requests can easily be independent unlike two game commands. Servers have had multi-processor systems for decades. If it only runs on one thread, why has FA continually bought multi-core hardware since close to when it was first available?

"Falling back to older rendering" is no indication of site backend code at all, I don't know why you think that.

I think you just picked up all your buzzwords from some article and are creating a problem where there is none.


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## Traediras (Sep 14, 2013)

Gotta remember this is a database transfer. Doesn't matter how good the hardware is, the bottleneck is the line in which the data is being transferred. If this was a simple case of moving a blade from server one to server two then it'd raise questions about the length of time it's taking, but copying data onto new hardware takes a long time especially when there's a lot of smaller data chunks.

If you've ever copied 100+ GB of data onto an external hard disk, then you know it's gonna take hours. Just imagine how long it takes to copy terabytes.


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## Haystack (Sep 14, 2013)

please, cut the admins a break, folks -- it's really hard to estimate backup times, especially on a database as huge as FA's.

it will be done, when it's done... and I hope when it is done, that we'll be enjoying faster responses from FA.


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## Mazz (Sep 14, 2013)

Haystack said:


> please, cut the admins a break, folks -- it's really hard to estimate backup times, especially on a database as huge as FA's.
> 
> it will be done, when it's done... and I hope when it is done, that we'll be enjoying faster responses from FA.



Aww, no one can give the admin a break, they do this for free and we demand that not sleep or eat so we get our porn back dammit. 
--


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## alekitty86f (Sep 14, 2013)

i agree, the site looks bad, people stay because nothing as good as come along to really excite them. As soon as someone makes something better, something that makes uploading, organizing, finding, selling and communicating easier people will move. I remember back on MySpace when people claimed they'd never leave for facebook but,w ell here we are watching myspace die away. Has anyone heard of a site called nabyn (sp?)  i heard its actually pretty good but i haven't looked into it much


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## Mazz (Sep 14, 2013)

Nabyn doesn't allow adult work. It's alright but the owner of the site admitted he's gotten bored. 
There's a few other furry art sites but they all have their flaws. My fave is FA followed by Weasyl.


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## PheagleAdler (Sep 14, 2013)

I'll admit, FA does have its weaknesses, but in reality, the simple layout is good. Other sites are putting out unnecessary features. Take DA for example: some users' pages are full of so much junk the page takes forever to load. (and if you want to leave a shout, it takes a while to scroll to the bottom of the page). Not only that, but several errors occur for me regularly: submissions I'm trying to fave don't go through, and the site displays an error; more frequently than that, my submission notifications will not remove; when browsing through a gallery, the "next" image won't load because it's on a different page in the gallery. And the forums are horrible. Did I mention the bull crap you have to go through to get Art Theft reported and removed? And I don't know about any of you, but DA certainly seems to take a lot longer to load than FA. It's too bloated.

I think InkBunny actually had the right idea in mind with submission management: the site allows multiple files per submission (this works well for comics and sequences) as well as groups (for related submissions). The site also requires tags, serious tags only though (not sure how closely this is monitored but I'm sure it's better than FA) The site has many of the same features as FA, but a lot fewer members. A strong userbase is important, and that's what keeps FA on top (even though they lack certain features)


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## alekitty86f (Sep 14, 2013)

so, what should happen then? speeding the site up is noticable for users but there are things that can help to actually make things easier for users.  I like FA, i just wish the site showed progress. I like feeling that there will be updates, will be progress with the coding not just speed and storage.


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## PheagleAdler (Sep 14, 2013)

alekitty86f said:


> so, what should happen then? speeding the site up is noticable for users but there are things that can help to actually make things easier for users.  I like FA, i just wish the site showed progress. I like feeling that there will be updates, will be progress with the coding not just speed and storage.



i understand, but at the same time, all the site needs to do is host artwork and allow people to comment, fave, and watch and it does all those things rather well.


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## alekitty86f (Sep 14, 2013)

>< they do what they said, but they also never improve, never strive to do better. Who believes in something that doesn't ever want tochange? Change in the internet world is one day going to just lead to death. I am not asking FA to be the leading service in art websites, i just ask that they keep up with the simplest things or pay attention to some of the suggestions. Adding folders isn't going to change the whole world of FA. Adding a way for group to be bettter attached to user accounts would be brilliant and yet, not a world changing idea. 

They are the old aunt that you love but, there's a hip aunt out there, not reliable but you always know that aunt is going to try new things!  Once in awhile that old aunt (FA) can learn a new recipe from the hip aunt since they've seen that it works. 

I will still use FA, i just think that they should implement some of the suggestions, rather than asking for them and never using them. meh... its like one of those service providers you call on the phone and they ask your opinion abut its a machine asking, no one is actually listening, no one actually cares.


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## Kalmor (Sep 14, 2013)

_Should_ be up soon.


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## Smelge (Sep 14, 2013)

"We reopened the site but people used it and it went down again..."

Calling it now.


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## kontonakuma (Sep 14, 2013)

Site is being really slow at the moment, expecting it to go down due to high traffic as well.


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## idejtauren (Sep 14, 2013)

I'm noticing comments and journals are being time-stamped incorrectly.
Submissions are correct (for my time zone, 4:50pm EDT), but journals and comments are stamped four hours earlier. (12:50pm)


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## PheagleAdler (Sep 14, 2013)

idejtauren said:


> I'm noticing comments and journals are being time-stamped incorrectly.
> Submissions are correct (for my time zone, 4:50pm EDT), but journals and comments are stamped four hours earlier. (12:50pm)



Yeah, was kinda surprised to see one of the artists I'm watching posted a journal "4 hours ago"
I was like, "but the site just went live..."


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## maxgoof (Sep 14, 2013)

And it's back up before Sunday, which was the earliest I expected to see it. Congrats. You have my compliments.


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## VindictiivesPet (Sep 14, 2013)

It's back up xD But it just started shooting me blank pages when I try to remove something (ie, submissions, journals, favs -mine or others-) lol.


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## PheagleAdler (Sep 15, 2013)

ShadowFur said:


> Stuff...



So, you think you're always right, is that it? I think it is. I'm not saying you're wrong, but you're not making a good case for yourself by going to extremes.


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## Soleron (Sep 15, 2013)

ShadowFur said:


> But anyways I'm done with this thread, just pointless to post here anyways.



If you're not interested in a response then why post? Your post is not 100% right.

Most obviously I can't believe you dispute single core per-clock performance having increased massively since 2005. Literally any CPU review will tell you that. Reviews also use the same RAM, hard drive, motherboard and so on between tests so it's not that either.

It's not just the test I linked, it's anything CPU-bound you care to test.

The rest of the stuff about FA you imply makes no sense.


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## alekitty86f (Sep 16, 2013)

down and out for the count!  maybe this is why they don't update the sites appearance and other things for users. maybe their too afraid of the crash, but i'd be happier with the crash if it meant there was changes that went along with it.


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## VindictiivesPet (Sep 16, 2013)

R.I.P.
Here lies FA ;o;
lawl.
Lasted longer than I expected after the update x3


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## thoron (Sep 16, 2013)

Error 502, stop refreshing and maybe the site will work.


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## VindictiivesPet (Sep 16, 2013)

Rofl xD cant really blame it on being refreshed too much.
Since ya know, it does this most every time they do a new update. :v


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## thoron (Sep 16, 2013)

VindictiivesPet said:


> Rofl xD cant really blame it on being refreshed too much.
> Since ya know, it does this most every time they do a new update. :v



Never ending refresh doesn't help either though.


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## VindictiivesPet (Sep 16, 2013)

Tell that to them FA fanatics <.<;
Watchin the whining go on on Facebook as we speak >..< lol


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## thoron (Sep 16, 2013)

VindictiivesPet said:


> Tell that to them FA fanatics <.<;
> Watchin the whining go on on Facebook as we speak >..< lol



"FA is down, my day has been ruined. My life has no meaning anymore."


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## Aetius (Sep 16, 2013)

VindictiivesPet said:


> Tell that to them FA fanatics <.<;
> Watchin the whining go on on Facebook as we speak >..< lol



On the brightside, at least they are there and not here.


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## VindictiivesPet (Sep 16, 2013)

thoron said:


> "FA is down, my day has been ruined. My life has no meaning anymore."



Seriously <.< I am beyond amused by all the people in 'panic-mode'.


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## thoron (Sep 16, 2013)

VindictiivesPet said:


> Seriously <.< I am beyond amused by all the people in 'panic-mode'.



Think their afraid their balls might explode from the lack of porn?


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## Littlerock (Sep 16, 2013)

thoron said:


> Think their afraid their balls might explode from the lack of porn?



The sudden increase in blue-balls in the community has started a panic, and if it reaches pandemic proportions, I fear we may well see marshal law put into action to control the hoards of horny furries roaming the streets, looking for a stray to fap to.


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## Ryu Deacon (Sep 17, 2013)

VindictiivesPet said:


> Tell that to them FA fanatics <.<;
> Watchin the whining go on on Facebook as we speak >..< lol


mind if you link me some of those?


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