Last night the Ozblogistan network slowed down and then began to “yo-yo” — stop working and then reappear cyclically.
I have been becoming increasingly dissatisfied with WPEngine’s reliability and service. Tis was the straw that broke the camel’s back. So I began a crash move of the network to a new hosting service, Page.ly.
That is why the site was unavailable last night and this morning, and why you first saw kittens and then a little moving truck.
Page.ly’s service has already shown itself to be much better than WPEngine’s; however they have reported back that migration is going slowly because the WPEngine servers periodically drop the connection they’re using to download files.
Their advice was to switch back to WPEngine’s servers for today. Any posts or comments from today could then be migrated using the WXR import/export facility built into WordPress.
So here we are, temporarily back at WPEngine. Tonight I and the Page.ly staff will try the move again.
A few hours ago WPEngine finally traced the problem back the recent comments widget on Skepticlawyer and Catallaxy Files. I’ve disabled those for now. (Amazing how much their service has improved, now that I’m leaving).
Hundreds of Catallxians had to speak to their families for the first time in months last night.
infidel tiger
8 Sep 12 at 11:38 am
It’s amazing what you do in these brief periods.
I have no idea how you do it, Jacques.
Everyone who likes coming here owes you their appreciation and thanks.
C.L.
8 Sep 12 at 11:41 am
Okay, thank you, Jacques.
So is that why the on-screen view of the site looks different?
Gab
8 Sep 12 at 11:58 am
Jacques, I’m sure you already know this, but, if you have to, you can do what you like between 0300 and 0700 AEST and it’ll disrupt no-one except a handful of tragics like Abu, The Dogue and me. I’m amazed you’ve had to jailbreak the site again. One of the business practice that the web and monopolies like Google have pioneered is ZERO customer service to cut costs. This strategy works well in industries that don’t have customers.
Tom
8 Sep 12 at 1:15 pm
Did they remember who you were, IT?
SteveC
8 Sep 12 at 1:22 pm
Great kittens!
Thanks Jacques.
I almost went to look at Harry Clarke. But don’t tell anyone.
Poor Old Rafe
8 Sep 12 at 1:31 pm
That surprises me. I use them for a couple of my sites and have found them pretty reliable.
Gibbo
8 Sep 12 at 2:52 pm
Never apologise. Never explain.
Frankly, a night without Febro was quite enjoyable.
boy on a bike
8 Sep 12 at 6:04 pm
from CL.
+1.
Pedro the Ignorant
8 Sep 12 at 9:53 pm
+1
Boris
9 Sep 12 at 12:13 am
Is that the second switch-over done, Jacques? Checked in at 0645AEST and it was still in progress; now a key ingredient of my day is back to normal. Virtually painless. Keep us in the loop.
Tom
9 Sep 12 at 7:53 am
Back again. Thanks for your efforts, Jacques.
Cold-Hands
9 Sep 12 at 8:36 am
Thanks for your work Jacques, but I missed the kittens. Is there a way I can see them again?
Winston Smith
9 Sep 12 at 10:29 am
Loved the kitten gif, Jacques.
Gab
9 Sep 12 at 11:38 am
I’m afraid we’re not quite there. Still on WPEngine at the moment.
Jacques Chester
9 Sep 12 at 3:58 pm
LOL
What IT said.
Funny how you matter so much more when it’s the exit poll!
kae
10 Sep 12 at 3:14 pm
Hey Jaques,
I’m the community manager for WP Engine, and I wanted to drop a quick line to say hey. I tend to respond to all the reviews that WP Engine gets online, and those run the gamut between really happy to similar to yours when someone has found another host that will suit their needs best.
I want to wish you the best of luck on your site. After checking the support tickets, it looks like there were some changes to the site that may have hit the MySQL database pretty hard. It wasn’t a plugin this time, but that’s often the case. At any rate, I’m glad you’re all sorted out.
Let me know if we can help you in the future.
-AG
Austin Gunter (@austingunter)
11 Sep 12 at 6:16 am