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View Full Version : Picture Database hosed?


Shad0w
11-07-04, 11:59 PM
Anyone else having problems viewing pics in peoples galleries?

I can view the galleries but when I got to view a single picture I get the following message:


There seems to have been a slight problem with the www.sSnakeSs.com database.
Please try again by pressing the refresh button in your browser.
An E-Mail has been dispatched to our Technical Staff, who you can also contact if the problem persists.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

Stockwell
11-08-04, 12:14 AM
Yes, I get that data base error message everytime I try to log onto the site, not just the photos. I hit the highlighted link and then it takes me to the site. Something has been weird with the site for a while now.

Shad0w
11-08-04, 12:17 AM
Yah... Ive noticed it for almost a week now.. I was hoping it would just go away.. but looks like no one has really been talking about it... time to bring this problem into the headlights :D

I MISS THE GALLERIES :D

HeatherRose
11-08-04, 12:40 AM
This problem is already in the headlights :p

As Linds mentioned in an already existing thread, everytime that message comes up, an email is dispatched to the technical team, as well as everytime you refresh...

It's being taken care of, but all that can really be done is to wait it out.

Linds
11-08-04, 06:49 PM
Originally posted by HeatherRose


As Linds mentioned in an already existing thread, everytime that message comes up, an email is dispatched to the technical team, as well as everytime you refresh...


LOL so don't keep hitting the refresh button! :p

Asian Jon
11-08-04, 07:49 PM
hmmm just started getting the database problems tonight. Hopefully it gets fixed soon.

Vengeance
11-08-04, 08:12 PM
*hits refresh*
Still not working

*hits refresh*
Still not working

*hits refresh*
Still not working

*hits refresh*
Still not working

*hits refresh*
Still not working

*hits refresh*
Still not working

*hits refresh*
Still not working

*hits refresh*
Still not working

Enough emails yet :D

Shad0w
11-08-04, 08:19 PM
Im with Vengence :)

Sorry.. I MISS THOSE PICS! :)

Vengeance
11-08-04, 08:27 PM
I was kidding :P

Shad0w
11-08-04, 08:38 PM
LOL.. and U thought I was serious?? :D

Vengeance
11-08-04, 08:51 PM
D'oh!

dave68
11-09-04, 12:53 AM
Sounds about right I'm VERY glad that I didn't send ssnakess any money or I'd be very pissed!

Dave

Tim and Julie B
11-09-04, 02:45 AM
Ah, no big deal. It'll be up and going in no time. Patience:D

Julie

Slannesh
11-09-04, 04:29 AM
Wow dave68, $h!t happens, no need to be a **** about it.

Considering what this site must use for bandwidth alone we're all very lucky to have a place to use that's essentially free for the most important components.

I know i'm proabably way behind on what I SHOULD be donating considering how much useful information i've used since I logged on the first time.

Computer glitches happen, and considering the size of the Database and back end software for ssnakess I think Jeff does a fantastic job of running the place. Yeah it sucks that the galleries are temporarily broken but it happens. They've already said they're aware of the problem and are working on it. It's not like there's a big button labelled "Fix Galleries" somewhere. You need to know what's wrong before you can even start to fix it.

honduranfreekk
11-09-04, 03:50 PM
Hey Im not pissed at all and I always send monney ;)

I can say this tho all the ppl involved in the running of this site are doing and have been doing a GREAT job since the day I joined.

These glitches happen.Keep up the great work all;)

Kelvin@Brigitte

dave68
11-10-04, 01:43 PM
Hey Slannesh, I was only getting at the fact that when I signed up to this site, the powers that be were asking for more contributors. I wanted very much to send money for a photo hosting account and no one would even return pms emails etc... then months later the buttons appear and they report that they
are not accepting money. As to the freeness of this forum. there are many forums on the net that are completely free as well. This isn't the only one. Sure there are alot of members but have you ever looked at the members list? There are hundreds that havent even made one post! As for the childish name calling whatever floats your boat. I wish nothing but the best for ssnakess I just don't think they should cut off member donations regardless of how big or small and if admin is too busy maybe appoint someone else that has more time to collect the money. Just my two cents!

Dave

BoidKeeper
11-10-04, 02:07 PM
Well I don't like not having access to a service I'm paying for. I don't think that makes me a ****. If I'm paying for something I'd like to be able to use it. What is a reasonable amount of time to wait for the problem to be fixed?
People who complain about the classifieds which they don't pay for, now that bugs me.
Cheers,
Trevor

marisa
11-10-04, 02:07 PM
"I just don't think they should cut off member donations"

The admins and anyone else responsible for donations probably simply realized now was not a good time to accept them and instead of making people angry that they had sent money but weren't quickly responded to, they simply put it on hold. I see that as a GOOD decision in the members best interests. Then again I am not an admin and I have no clue what the reasons are. But one can only guess that would be the reason, no? It's painful obvious no matter what they do, some members are unhappy. It's sad really as no member here is forced to be here.

Daver68, you seem to have quite a bit of ill will or bitterness towards the site. You always make little remarks, say there are "other" sites out there, claim because some members haven't posted recently this one isn't as good, on and on and on. You yourself say in the post above there are other free sites just as good as this one.

If you aren't happy then instead of constantly making snide comments, just stop posting.

I *really honestly* don't mean this is a snotty, or mean in any way. I am just trying to understand your point of view, you don't like it here seemingly, but continue posting? You said yourself there are other free websites out there, so why stick around this one you seem to disagree with so much? Just trying to help.

:D
Marisa

Matt_K
11-10-04, 02:12 PM
Originally posted by BoidKeeper
Well I don't like not having access to a service I'm paying for. I don't think that makes me a ****. If I'm paying for something I'd like to be able to use it. What is a reasonable amount of time to wait for the problem to be fixed?
People who complain about the classifieds which they don't pay for, now that bugs me.
Cheers,
Trevor

Trevor, it's been down for less than a week now.. What's a fair time to wait?? That all depends on the severity of the issue now, doesn't it? As we have said, it IS being looked at... I understand the frustration of not being able to use a service in which you paid for, I too have paid for my gallery, but im not going to keep posting and asking when it's going to be fixed because that is not going to make the issue go away any faster..

As far as sSnakeSs.com not taking any donations.. Believe me, they are very happy with the amount of people who want to give donations, and maybe in the future, those donations will be collected.. For the time being however, sSnakeSs.com is not in need of any donations..

Again, we just ask that everyone be patient with the Gallery Issue.. Obviously something is being done about it as there a few members who seem to be able to post pics as of right now...

-Matt

dave68
11-10-04, 02:27 PM
Marisa, please re read my post it was directed at Slannesh. I never once claimed I didn't like ssnakess, I just feel that the people who have paid money aren't being treated with the respect they deserve. No one is forced to be here including myself. I am not constantly making snide comments, just observations that people who have paid for services aren't getting them and aren't happy about it. Maybe if somebody could give some positive response instead of shut up and be patient. As a new moderator should you really be trying to push an active member, like myself away because you don't have the answers. How about somebody contact somebody that knows whats going on and let everybody know. Furthermore unless you feel the need to Ban me I plan on sticking around for a while yet and hope that one day this will again be the friendly sharing forum that it once was.

Dave

Matt_K
11-10-04, 02:33 PM
Dave, we're in the dark about the situation just as much as the next person.. I have personally sent out three emails to Admin asking for this situation to be looked at.. I haven't as of yet gotten a reply.. IM not sure how much more you guys think we can do here???

No one is pushing you away, it just seems that everytime an issue with the site comes up, everyone is so quick to play the 'there are other sites out there' card.. It gets old pretty fast.. Yes, we have thousands of members and yes, we have members who haven't posted on the site.. But we're getting new members daily and they're all welcome here, we're not trying to push or force anyone away..

So, I guess the only thing else I can say is.. 'Shut Up and be patient' :D IM kidding of course...

-Matt

BoidKeeper
11-10-04, 02:34 PM
It's painful obvious no matter what they do, some members are unhappy.
Yup and I think that is something that will never change.

If you aren't happy then instead of constantly making snide comments, just stop posting.
Personally I would have encouraged him to offer some constructive criticisms or suggestions for improvements instead of inviting him to leave.

I too have paid for my gallery, but im not going to keep posting and asking when it's going to be fixed because that is not going to make the issue go away any faster..
Just making a point Matt about the right to be unhappy with out being a ****. Being unhappy does not make you a ****. I didn't start this thread, I responded to it and will continue to do so as I see fit. Just like you can reply or not reply as you see fit. My reply had nothing to do with hoping to speed up the repair process at all. Nor did I ask when it would be fixed.
There is no point in asking what's wrong or when it is going to be fixed. Why it isn't working does not matter and it will be fixed when it is fixed, not a second sooner. The facts are it's not working and for those of us that have paid for space and can't use it we are being inconvenienced. Is it the end of the world? Of course not.
That all depends on the severity of the issue now, doesn't it?
Nope, not to me. When I'm paying for something 1 day is too long to go with out it or it cost me money. Very simple rule of economics. Every time you pay for a service and do not receive it you are losing money. How long should someone be expected to lose money? I'm not making a stink about this or emailing anyone because I know there is no point. It will be fixed when it is fixed and all the complaining and emailing and post in the world won't speed up the process but that still doesn't mean we can share our opinions on the matter here. Personally I think one thread about the subject where people can ask questions or express their discontent is a lot better for the site then a bunch of PM's and Emails.
Cheers,
Trevor

Matt_K
11-10-04, 02:41 PM
Trevor, I was simply stating that it has ONLY been down for a week now, so no, it's NOT the end of the world.. I also didn't say that you started this thread.. I could honestly care less about who started it.. Im just trying to do my job as a mod..

Yes, Admin are aware that there is a problem with the gallery and Im sure they are working on it.. And Im also sure that they feel like crap that those of us that spent the $20 on a gallery are without our service.. But honestly, what is bitching going to do??? Like you said, it will be fixed when it's fixed, not a minute sooner and not a minute later...

-Matt

BoidKeeper
11-10-04, 02:51 PM
But honestly, what is bitching going to do???
What? Are you seriouse? What the heck do you think it's going to do...make us feel better of course! That is the whole point of bitching.lol I guess that is why I'm such a happy person.lol
See I feel better already. Now if only I could upload some new pics to the gallery that I pay for.*sigh*lol
Cheers,
Trevor

Matt_K
11-10-04, 02:54 PM
lol, I feel your pain man.. I took like 100 pics the other night and had nowhere to put em.. So I just searched out one of those free photo hosting sites and decided to use that for the time being...

-Matt

marisa
11-10-04, 03:15 PM
"it was directed at Slannesh"

It's an open forum, and as a long time member who loves this site, I felt compelled to reply.

"Personally I would have encouraged him to offer some constructive criticisms or suggestions for improvements instead of inviting him to leave"

He has made MANY more comments aside from this one. Anytime there is a problem, he has always been right there to offer a negative opinion. Meanwhile he has other useful advice when someone asks a question so it can be quite confusing. Maybe he also needs to word his feelings better? A person can only do so much to encrouage someone to enjoy the site for what it is, while being patient with the bad parts. He himself brought up other websites, so it seemed that was the direction even he wanted to take. If not, then I took that wrong.

Being a new moderator has NOTHING to do with it. I have been a member here from very early on for one reason and one reason only. I like this website. There have been MANY MANY things that have po'd me about this site. But the bottom line is if the problems can't be fixed any faster, I don't keep goating this issue on and on. I simply wait. The people who have already paid for the accounts are the ones who have the true problem anyways! Either way it's none of my buisness and I am just trying to be a member and do the mod thing properly.

Have fun everyone and I hope we can all just be patient instead of starting to get at throats because of this problem.

Marisa

Vengeance
11-10-04, 03:32 PM
Just as a side note, if I remember correctly, the post made by Jeff stateing that he is no longer accepting donations also mentioned something about users with current photohosting accounts will not have to renew their account when the time comes if the policy of no donations is still in effect at that time. I know my time to renew is coming up soon so it will be nice to continue to have the hosting space without having to pay for it, just a note to the upside of the current policys.

But hey I could be wrong, so correct me if I am.

rwg
11-10-04, 03:37 PM
Originally posted by Matt_K
Dave, we're in the dark about the situation just as much as the next person.. I have personally sent out three emails to Admin asking for this situation to be looked at.. I haven't as of yet gotten a reply.. IM not sure how much more you guys think we can do here???

I think that's the root of the problem, and certainly something that seems to cause frustration. There are a number of people who have time to put into the site, and are doing a great job as volunteers, yourself included. However, none of those people seem to be "in the loop". There's a noticable absence of any administrative presence, and instead of empowering one of you to deal with issues, or take our money, there's just this empty void between the administration and the day-to-day operation of the site. I understand that Jeff has other things to do with his life, like earning a living for example. I just think if the administration doesn't have time to administer, they should turn the responsibility over to someone who does.

Matt_K
11-10-04, 03:48 PM
Originally posted by rwg
There are a number of people who have time to put into the site, and are doing a great job as volunteers, yourself included.

Thank You :D

As far as someone taking money.. The whole issue is that the server bills are now being paid easily.. The site is no longer in need of donations.. Jeff's whole thing was that he didn't WANT to take donations but unfortunatly, had to at one point in time.. Now that he's not in need of the extra funding, he doesn't want to depend on the others to help out...

I understand where everyone is coming from though.. And yes, it is getting frustrating having to wait for answers.. However, I have been informed, minutes ago, that the problem will be fixed very soon and is being worked on..

-Matt

rwg
11-10-04, 03:52 PM
Matt: does that mean no more photo-hosting accounts will be sold now that the bills are being paid easily?

Roy

Matt_K
11-10-04, 03:57 PM
Roy, as of right now, It definatly looks that way... Im really not sure (i know how that sounds LOL) of how the gallery is going to be handled.. Perhaps it will be changed so that everyone has the same space (largest account)?? I wish I could answer this as I too am interested in what will happen..

-Matt

marisa
11-10-04, 04:18 PM
http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57115

Thank goodness!

Marisa

BoidKeeper
11-10-04, 04:29 PM
I think that's the root of the problem, and certainly something that seems to cause frustration. There are a number of people who have time to put into the site, and are doing a great job as volunteers, yourself included. However, none of those people seem to be "in the loop". There's a noticable absence of any administrative presence, and instead of empowering one of you to deal with issues, or take our money, there's just this empty void between the administration and the day-to-day operation of the site. I understand that Jeff has other things to do with his life, like earning a living for example. I just think if the administration doesn't have time to administer, they should turn the responsibility over to someone who does.
I couldn't have said it better myself. I tried many times but you just put what I've been feeling into words.
Although I'm hopeful things will imporve.
Cheers,
Trevor

marisa
11-10-04, 04:51 PM
I don't see how it can get much better. Aside from the minor gallery problems the site has had, for the members, everything is exactly as it's always been. The site is more active than ever, we hardly have any huge flames or fights going on, only random complaints of issues that are dealt with as fast as possible. :)

From my end, the site is doing Great! And I am enjoying it just as much as always.

Cheers everyone.

Marisa

BoidKeeper
11-10-04, 05:40 PM
Well I don't like to complain with out offering some sort of feed back. Like when I was a mod for example and someone just complained with out offering any suggestions for change I would always say to them well tell me this, if you could change one thing about the site what would it be? That way the person has to take the step from simply complaining about a problem to suggesting how the problem should be fixed.
So here it is my suggestions for improvements,(not that they are new because I was making them when I was a mod)
1. The admin should be around more.
2. If they can't be they should give more power to the mods so they aren't forced to say "We are in the dark too."
There are others but you get tired of reapeting yourself after a while.
At the end of the day this is still the best site out there and the only one I go to on a regular basis, the only one I give money to and the only I've worked for or would work for. The members are great the mods are great and the admin although I wish they had been around more and where more suportive of their mod team are great too. All that said that doesn't mean that we shouldn't always be looking for ways to improve the site where ever possible.
You guys know me, anoyed one minute happy the next.lol
Cheers,
Trevor

dave68
11-10-04, 06:52 PM
Hey Trevor, I'm the anoyed/happy guy on the other side of the country!LOL!

Dave

Slannesh
11-10-04, 07:43 PM
Bottom line is that this site is essentially a free service that is provided at a certain cost to the admins of the site. Bandwidth isn't free just yet, though it's not like back in the day where you'd get in trouble on Fidonet for having more characters in a message than absolutley necessary :)

My whole point was if you aren't a paying or donating member to the site you really don't have a right to complain when stuff isn't 100% up and running. In the real world tech support and server admin isn't free. There are companies out there who pay literally billions of dollars for support contracts and not one of them guarentees 100% uptime. It simply doesn't happen.

I'm sure the admins could have fixed the problem more quickly than it was but it likely would have required taking the site down and rebuilding it from the ground up to find the problem. Obviously not an option that anyone would have liked but it would have had the problem fixed more quickly.

I don't have a photohosting account, I have my own server with more space than i'll ever need to host my pics myself. My donations were for a T-shirt in part and just some $$ to help out the site for the rest. I use the site, I like the site so I choose to help support it.

For me one of the biggest drawbacks to the internet in general is the idea that everything should be 'free'. It takes time, money and specialized knowledge to set up a site like this and to keep it running with any semblance of reliability and that's something that a lot of people just don't seem to grasp these days.

A couple of days of downtime isn't really all that long. Without taking the whole site down and dissecting it from the ground up it can take a lot of time to troubleshoot problems like the recent issues with the galleries, that's a simple fact of life with computers. Sometimes they do stuff they aren't supposed to and it takes time to fix.

Now if we were talking about months instead of days yeah, then you have a reason to bitch ;)
But let's cut the admins some slack. In Canada at any rate Network admins and Server admins are a lot higher on the food chain than I am (I work in IT just in case it wasn't obvious to anyone :) ) and they get paid a LOT more than I do... and I can tell you right now that it's doubtful that every donation this site has ever received could pay for me for a year.... nevermind an actual Server administrator.

I guess what i'm trying to say is you get what you pay for. If we all paid $19.95 a month for a ssnakess subscription i'm sure Jeff could afford to quit his day job and have backup servers and guarentee uptimes and problems like the recent gallery issue would be handled in minutes or hours instead of days but the simple fact is that the vast majority of us haven't paid a dime to the site and as such really don't have any reason to complain when stuff doesn't work for a short period of time.

Boidkeeper, I do understand your point as well, but let's be reasonable here. You paid $20 for a year of hosting if i'm correct? So the 2-3 days the galleries were down works out to about $0.12 - $0.18 of lost money. Just to put things in perspective. Now if you were losing hundreds, thousands or millions of dollars in business every day the galleries were down that would be a whole other issue but at that point you'd be paying a lot more than $20/year for the service in the first place. Or at least you should be if it's worth that much to you.

I used to do IT support for the phone company here and we'd get people all the time running online businesses on residential ADSL (which in itself is a violation of your end user licence agreement) and they would absolutely FLIP if there was ever ANY downtime on their $24.95/month connection. They would claim to be losing hundreds or thousands of dollars a day in lost business to which we would always wonder.. "If your internet connection is THAT vital to your business why are you using the cheapest possible connection instead of what you should be using?" Which for the record is a managed connection with a dedicated tech support guy 24/7 but the same line costs about $250/month to have. Even then they only have a 97% uptime guarentee. Which means that your connection could be down for a total of roughly 9 DAYS in a calendar year.

The whole point of this, now that I look back, ranty little post is that you do get what you pay for. Free isn't always the great deal it looks out to be at first and cheap isn't much better than free :)

Overall I think the admins and mods do a fantastic job of keeping this place up and running and I for one applaud their efforts.