Downtime Explanation
 

Hey everyone, I'm very sorry about the downtime we experienced Tuesday/Wednesday. The host says we're using too much resources, and shuts us down without warning. This has happened a couple other times this year. My own stats don't show any abnormal increase in traffic or usage each time it's happened, so I don't know what the story is.

Either way, it's unacceptable. I've used this host for a long time, probably 15 years or more, and they've probably been the best I've ever used... until this year. I waited because I thought it would get better, but it's not. We can't have the site going down for this long every couple months.

I'm going to start the process of finding a new host now so we can hopefully get on a more reliable server again. I've got it narrowed down to a couple already, so I'll keep you all updated when we're ready for 'the move.'

Again, I'm so sorry that this happened guys, but I'm working on making it better again. Thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,

-Mike

Mike, i have seen this happen to several forums lately... they shut you down citing youre using too much, abnormal traffic spikes, etc and want to demand paying 10x more... the last forum i saw this happen to was a truck forum that literally had 10 people still posting on it, (kind of a misfits hangout of a forum) and they pulled the plug, now we have a private fb group...LOL

Bottom line its money hungry hosts...

Yep, I honestly think that's what it is. It's very unfortunate, because they've been great for a long time. :tdown:

All the best with finding us a new home. Thanks for your work!

thanks for your work on the forum Mike, it's easy to forget that these sites don't just pop up from nothing and then maintain it's self. a outage is a good reminder that someone is giving up their own time to keep things going so thank you and all the others who make chinariders.net possible.

id

What process are they claiming is causing a resource issue? They should be able to tell you exactly what was causing it. if it's a VPS/sharded instance it could be a process is locking up and they are killing the whole box to bring it back up and it might not just be this site causing it. We used to have that issue on a site where another client would lockup the SQL server engine and knock everyone off. VPS is better but if it's not set up correctly another instance can wipe out the i/o resources for everyone still. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad hosting companies out there these days, as long as they are getting paid they don't care what is going on.

Thanks for filling us in, I wondered what was going on. Thanks Mike!

Second this. Thanks

I had similar problems when I owned and operated cx500forum.com and tw200forum.com. Much of my problem was spammers and hackers. I had the entire Russian block banned as well as all of mainland china, and that only slowed the inevitable. I had to spend a lot of money on new software, and I had to keep upgrading it every year or discovered vulnerabilities would put my sites back in the crosshairs. It was a never-ending battle. Those hackers and spammers suck down CPU time like you wouldn't believe. Updated software did make a huge difference though, especially on the TW200 forum which wasn't as big as the CX500 forum. I also went with a host that *all they did* was host forum sites, and their support helped me manage things as well.

While that was better, eventually the hacking and spamming got so bad I couldn't manage the forums anymore, and I sold them both to a company that just manages forums for the ad revenue. The sites are no longer under my control, but they're in better hands. I was getting too frustrated to bother bringing the sites back up, and was considering letting them die just so I could not have a second job maintaining them. It's not like I was getting paid for it either, like chinariders.net it was just a labor of love.

Charles.

I would argue any site that VS (I'm assuming) owns is not 'in better hands.' :D At least from a member-standpoint.

But yea, I get ya. It definitely is a lot of never-ending work and battles. Very cool that you owned TW200... I was on there a few times when I was thinking of getting one. I liked that forum. :tup:

Well our [old] host did it to us again Monday mid-day, so I just went ahead and moved the entire site to a new host. Was trying to hold out until the end of the year, but when it was suspended again Monday, I just had to go ahead and do it. It was hard, lots of problems moving a database this large, but we got it done around 7pm Tuesday. Not everyone is here yet though, as the domain is still propagating. Hopefully they'll be along soon.

I'm so sorry for the extended downtime guys, but I think we'll be much better off now.

Enoy! :thanks:

Forum Foundry bought them from me in 2013. They did a really good job in the transition and it looks like Vertical Scope bought them out in 2016 it appears. There haven't been any issues with the forum since it was taken over. It's only ever been down (briefly) for planned maintenance. Spammers are not a problem. The sites have never been hacked. That's far better than I was ever able to manage.

Some members complained. Members like to complain. Eventually they just give up and install ad blocking software and after some time nobody even remembers the old software anymore. I'm technically still admin on both forums, and still have access to the admin panels and can even edit source if I want. But I don't. I'll occasionally moderate some posts, but that's my input. I don't have a *running* CX500 right now, and my TW200 was stolen, so I'm not active on either forum.

I'm glad you liked the TW forum, it keeps growing and it's a really nice community now. I actually hooked up with a few members in October for a ride. I was on my Buccaneer and them on their TWs. My Buck left them all in the dust on the paved roads, but when the going got gnarly I was the one left eating dust. Had a total blast though.

Charles.

Ahh Forum Foundry, yea I've dealt with them too. They were part of VS, broke away and did their own thing, then sold most back to VS. They all definitely have the resources to manage better, but the ads are ridiculous. Most forums definitely go downhill after they take over though, for whatever reasons. They're both pretty much out of the game now as far as acquisitions go I think. :shrug:

Not sure what size you need for a hosting plan... but highly recommend https://graywebhost.com/


Very stable and about as close to 100% uptime as humanly possible... I have run a bunch of forums using them for the last 10 years.

Secure The Site
 

We use DigitalOcean for many websites.

Why do you not use let's encrypt on ChinaRiders? No cost$

Without something like let's encrypt you give a playground for wannabe hackers
to do all kinds of Bullshit to your site.

Thanks Mike keep up the good work,