Server to busy?

[Special K]

Seem to be getting this message quite often now when I attempt to visit Merb. What's up with that?

The server is too busy at the moment. Please try again later.

 

[donnyb]

I have also experienced that on a couple of occasions the last couple days as well.

 

[Gambling Fool]

Same here

Me too, are we that popular !

Gambling Fool

 

[Koenig]

Me too, are we that popular !

Gambling Fool

No, I have a feeling maybe the server is weak. ;-)

-K

 

[orallover]

It is possible that the server is set to maximum of ### connections (including guests).
so once, say 1000, people are connected (which can be done easily by counting number of open sockets/ports) then it refuses the connection.

 

[The_Seeker]

it is worse than we thought .... it is a YMMV Server Product!

 

[orallover]

bahaha...you guys crack me up! But seriously this is getting annoying. It seems the load on the servers is getting bigger than Peter North unleashing his on <insert porn actress here>.

I heard that Peter North is doing gay porn now? niche market but because of that lots of money. so it should be
Peter North unleashing his on <insert porn actor here>.

 

[breadman]

Sorry, its my fault ....had two browser windows open on merb yesterday. One looking at posts and the other doing some search's. Funny thing was the one window i was doing search's on told me the server was too busy at the moment...but my other window worked fine.

 

[Fred Zed]

Every time you visit a web site, its sever starts a "session", gives it a unique ID and keeps the connection between your browser and the server alive for a predetermined time, set by the system admin of the server. In our case the connections to the server are limited to a specific number that we don't know. You can tell a server to accept an unlimited number of connections. That is a bit dangerous because it opens the door for attacks by multiple intentional connections that can bring the server down, i.e. run out of memory. Nevertheless, my guess, given past examples, the connections are limited to save $ on bandwidth usage.... and yes, the imaginary Fred still reminds me of Peter

I don't know about the connection between me and Peter N. ?? but I think your analysis is correct. The server is set to choke off traffic if the number of connections is dangerously high. Usually the message only lasts a a few minutes and you can access the site again.

 

[Special K]

Merb vs Terb

I don't know about the connection between me and Peter N. ?? but I think your analysis is correct. The server is set to choke off traffic if the number of connections is dangerously high. Usually the message only lasts a a few minutes and you can access the site again.

Still each night around the same time between 9p-11:15pm I continuously get the Server too busy message. Once in a while I'll get through but then a short time later when I refresh the page it happens again. Why is it that Terb can have 600+ people online at one time and I never get that message and Merb has 180 people online when I finally get though the server too busy barrier?

Doesn't make sense to me. Maybe Fred should increase the allowable number of connections.

SK

 

[Fred Zed]

I will have this checked for sure this time. I am sure it will get resolved.

 

[mass1965]

I too have been having this problem over the last month. It is discouraging to sign to read or post them get bumped off.

 

[Best Lover]

I have also been getting this message way too often. Very frustrating.

Hopefully admin can fix it soon.

Thanks in advance!

 

[MG_mtl]

Mornings now ???

I got that message a couple of times this morning and now around 2pm (ET). Instead of getting better, it seems things are getting worse ...

 

[joeblow]

Denial of service attack?

Anybody familiar with how to detect this type of attack? Could that be a possibility?

Just a paranoid thought

 

[orallover]

Are you sure it is because of DoS?
Any ISP should be able to find out if it is DoS or not these days by analysing packets at certain ports/sockets. However it does take some efforts (translates to money) and even if it is DoS, the next step is to contact the necessary people/group and take an action. at this stage you still don't know who is behind it yet, all you know or can prove is that you are being attacked by DoS. and usally DoS does not last a few minutes but more like half day to full day (since the general idea of DoS is to bring down the server for long enough time to 1. hurt the business, 2. if you are a hacker then to show to others that what you are capable of). In order to be the target of DoS, the site has to be really big enough name and I am not sure if MERB is big enough (you know what I mean).
It could be that ISP might be a DoS target and as a result MERB access is affected.
Or maybe the bandwidth that MERB has is not big enough to accomodate total users (members and non-members).

 

[orallover]

Anybody familiar with how to detect this type of attack? Could that be a possibility?

Just a paranoid thought

You need some kind of sniffer/packet analyser and look at the patterns. Most simple way of DoS is generate enough traffic (any traffic) than server can handle (or just fill the bandwidth). there are some common types of packets you can look for depending on what programs are used to do DoS. but if you have enough machines and hardware, you can most likely do this using most common load generating program.

 

[Montreal Moose]

Should I be getting concerned that I am getting the server busy message after 11pm at night?
I appreciate this free site and hope it can be fixed soon.

Regards,
MM

 

[Mod 2]

As per Fred Zed yesterday, a technician is working on a fix.

The behavior is the following: At some point, and with no apparent reason, users are being disconnected when they try a new request. The online users went from 310 yesterday to not much more than 60 in less than 15 minutes.

This has already been reported to Fred. Please be patient

M2

 

[survivor]

I'll be patient! But it is really annoying to see server busy because when I am able to log back on, it says that my last visit was (insert date and time) when the server was busy. Because of that, I can't use the new posts button because I'll be missing all the new posts that I haven't seen when the server was busy. It is probably because of my lazyness , but I hate to go section by section looking to see if I have read a certain thread or not.