Service Temporarily Unavailable

[Simon C]

The site's been barely usable for me for the last couple of weeks, with extremely slow load times and frequent innaccessibility.  I get this error a lot:

Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

Is this a problem at my end, or yours? I talked to Steve (hix) about it, and he's had the same problems. 

[HeTeleports]

The site's been barely usable for me for the last couple of weeks, with extremely slow load times and frequent innaccessibility.  I get this error a lot:

Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

Is this a problem at my end, or yours? I talked to Steve (hix) about it, and he's had the same problems. 

Trying to second the notion that this is not problem with any of the three computers I use to access this site, I faced the 503 error about 4 times.
I look at the Most Online Today figure, compared to most online ever. It doesn't seem to be a traffic issue.

[greyorm]

I can verify this as well. It's been exceptionally bad for at least the last week. I have to refresh pages repeatedly before I stop receiving the 503 error.

[Judd]

Me too.

I make a habit of hitting control A and control C before I hit Reply to anything and it often takes 4-5 efforts to load a page, both here and at various computers at work.

It is a pain in the ass and really shreds the utility of the site.

[lumpley]

I'll be improving the Forge's server situation, but it'll take a bit. Thanks for your patience, everyone!

-Vincent

[Simon C]

Thanks Vincent!

[Jasper Flick]

Vincent, there might be a cheap performance gain by disabling non-essential features like "Users Online" display and "Jump To" links, especially if the database is the bottleneck. Letting MySQL optimize or defrag some tables is another possible cheap and quick boost, especially if that hasn't been done in a long time, if ever.

[Jasper Flick]

I just like to say that the Forge is running like a charm the last few days!

[lumpley]

Thanks, Jasper.

-Vincent

[greyorm]

Whatever you did, Vincent, I've had considerably fewer 503s and much faster page loads the last couple days. Kudos! And thanks!

[Judd]

Whatever you did, Vincent, I've had considerably fewer 503s and much faster page loads the last couple days. Kudos! And thanks!

Me too.

Rock on.

[Jasper Flick]

Alas, it has relapsed. Recently it's been mostly unworkable, with occasional spells of high responsiveness.

[lumpley]

Yep.

-Vincent