What can be done?

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CinnaminDraconna
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What can be done?

Post by CinnaminDraconna »

What can be done?

The site has been having problems for months now.. my research shows the first report was on Nov 15, 2021.

Report site errors here - starts on page 476, Nov 15, 2021 to present
Cloudflare Issues... - Nov 18, 2021
Bad Gateway issue - Dec 17, 2021
Recent site issues..... - Dec 24, 2021
plus a couple from early 2022

That's 8 months.

What can we do to help? Does the site need money? I'll gladly donate to help resolve this issue.

I've tried not to nag, whine or complain.. but after it took me over an hour to breed one egg successfully (with 2 other fails), I felt I needed to say 'something'.

What is the cause anyway? Hardware? Software? 'Global Warming?' :P
Sure would be nice to get back to normal.
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wystearya
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Re: What can be done?

Post by wystearya »

I myself have only been active again in the past two weeks after a very long break. So, my opinion is probably not worth much.

That said, I do have to agree. If some extra donations are needed to fix the problems, I would be willing to chip in also.

I came back here mostly because another site I had been playing on was dying. Problems kept piling up with no fixes in sight. I really do not want to see Magistream end up as a defunct site barely hanging on. I think more people would play if the site errors were not so frequent. It does put a huge damper on the experience when images won't load, or it takes ages for a page to come up. I don't want something that needs fixed to make this site go downhill and eventually fail.

Is some open discussion an option? I think that if members knew there was something, anything, being done or considered it would be helpful. Lack of information could easily keep people from donating. Why spend money on a website that isn't being taken care of? And if no donations come in, I am sure it wouldn't take long for things to get much worse.

I hope I don't sound too pessimistic. I am just coming from seeing another old site I used to spend real money on go down the tubes. It's heartbreaking to see. If at all possible, I would like Magistream to escape a similar fate.

(Edited for spelling error.)
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CinnaminDraconna
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Re: What can be done?

Post by CinnaminDraconna »

*bump*
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About Unicorns...
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I collect unicorns.. ALL unicorns.. parentless/bred, named/unnamed, any gender, any generation, lineaged or even frozen, hatchlings or adults, but not eggs.
Streamborn, Shopborn, Questborn, Eventborn, Hybrids, and Donation Unicorns
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Re: What can be done?

Post by wystearya »

Silence is golden?

I was hoping to see a little update or information.
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Re: What can be done?

Post by Myrin »

I don't know the specifics of it - I'm not a programmer. What I do know is, we have no idea what's causing the errors. There's actually been multiple fixes and tweaks and corrections made, but none have solved the larger issue of the errors. It doesn't help that the things are so inconsistent - they happen in clusters, and some people seem to get hit more than others.

Again, I'm not a programmer. If you ask for specifics, or make suggestions, I can't tell you more, or if it has already been tried. I've just seen staff pulling their hair out for months over this. We keep putting off announcements to see if something works, then when it doesn't, we've got nothing to report.

I'm very sorry this has gone so long without a statement. Staff are not abandoning the site. We're just still looking for answers.

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[url=https://magistream.com/creature/14868078][img]https://magistream.com/img/14868078.gif[/img][/url][url=https://magistream.com/creature/14868077][img]https://magistream.com/img/14868077.gif[/img][/url][url=https://magistream.com/creature/14868080][img]https://magistream.com/img/14868080.gif[/img][/url][url=https://magistream.com/creature/14868079][img]https://magistream.com/img/14868079.gif[/img][/url][url=https://magistream.com/creature/14868082][img]https://magistream.com/img/14868082.gif[/img][/url][url=https://magistream.com/creature/14868081][img]https://magistream.com/img/14868081.gif[/img][/url][url=https://magistream.com/creature/14795034][img]https://magistream.com/img/14795034.gif[/img][/url]
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Re: What can be done?

Post by pies »

On another site I am on, Chicken Smoothie, everything is separated into pages, and forum threads are limited to 1000 pages, because any larger causes errors. I have no idea if MagiStream’s errors are anything to do with this, but I know they’re both on phpBB so it may be linked. I’m not an expert on this so unfortunately I can offer no help, my friend suggested it may be offsite click sites however they usually only cause temporary errors when overused.
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Re: What can be done?

Post by Rosehill »

As Myrin said, we don't really know for certain what's causing the problem.

The issue surfaced out of the blue, keeps happening erratically, and then vanishes for periods of time with no clear indication as to why or how.

We've checked any code changes made near the issue's bigger appearances, tried disabling some of them, then re-enabling them without it having much of an effect. We've troubleshooted the issue from multiple angles, tried possible solutions both on the Magistream user interface side and on the server side. There are people who have reported similar kinds of problems with almost identical symptoms, but the solutions that have worked for them haven't worked for us in the long term. All the fixes that we've tried seem to work for a while, but then the issue starts to appear again, and it doesn't leave any clear traces behind, which makes trying to solve it even harder.

At this point my best guess as to why the errors keep happening is the version of the software that's running behind the scenes, that for some reason has started to slow down. Magistream has been alive for 13 years, and while updates have been made to MS's code base, nowadays web technologies go forward in such a fast pace, that at this point we are a bit outdated and there are certain code libraries that are in need of updating. To get to the most up to date versions of all the things that are running behind the scenes requires most of all time. This is something that I do want to do at some point, but the shift will be a big one, and it will need proper preparations, backups, and probably a couple days of down-time for Magistream. This will not be happening that soon, since as stated, it requires a lot of work and preparation time before it can be done.

Another possibility is that there may be a memory leak somewhere in the code, and I've been going through Magistream's code base to see if there is one and to fix it. So far, I haven't found one. I haven't been through every single line of code yet, though, as there's just so much of it. The issue seems to mostly happen during peak hours in the US, so it can be related to the load on the site, even though that shouldn't be happening, as the server is hosted on such a service that should take care of things like that.

I'm sorry for the radio silence, and that we still can't offer any definite answers or solutions to the problem. We keep trying to solve them as best as we can, and have not given up on the site. I will aim to keep you all better posted on the progress (or the lack of...) how the site troubleshooting is going.
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CinnaminDraconna
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Re: What can be done?

Post by CinnaminDraconna »

Thank you Rosehill.

I think the silence was the most worrying thing. I don't want to lose MagiStream. *hugs* and good luck with the code. If you need money for anything, just ask 'us'.. I'm not the only member willing to donate to help the site.
I collect 0% SB Ashevor eggs, QB/1st gen Kollinus
Free lineaged creatures available - see my Lineage Freebies tab
About Unicorns...
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I collect unicorns.. ALL unicorns.. parentless/bred, named/unnamed, any gender, any generation, lineaged or even frozen, hatchlings or adults, but not eggs.
Streamborn, Shopborn, Questborn, Eventborn, Hybrids, and Donation Unicorns
ImageHiddenMystic In Memorium
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Re: What can be done?

Post by Danafox »

I never was able to reply to this post, but trust me I wanted to but I lost track of it.

As Cinnamin said, I don't want to lose this site either. And if you need help money wise, I too will donate to help out the site. I really love this site and this is one place that I look forward to when I do check in and it's a very special place that I want to keep around as much as possible.

thanks to the staff for all you do for this place. <3
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Re: What can be done?

Post by Starsight »

pies wrote:On another site I am on, Chicken Smoothie, everything is separated into pages, and forum threads are limited to 1000 pages, because any larger causes errors. I have no idea if MagiStream’s errors are anything to do with this, but I know they’re both on phpBB so it may be linked. I’m not an expert on this so unfortunately I can offer no help, my friend suggested it may be offsite click sites however they usually only cause temporary errors when overused.
Adding on, I guess, (I believe the threads were 900 pages most?) limited page numbers helped keep the server, well, running I think...???(I have no idea.) Also, for me, I have been getting less and less "bad gateaways" but I am still experiencing lag.

I just wanted to add my opinion in case it helped!
back on!!!
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