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Subtronik
Joined: 01/14/03
Posts: 1193
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I spoke to Gideon and he says it's due to an iTunes app that directs people to illegal music downloading sites along with artistserver so it 'looks' like a legit app.
AS had 60,000 people flooding it just to find out the music isn't what they're interested in. Gideon has to keep resetting the server. He has his hands full with more dire things so please be patient.
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: Artistserver Down
Saturday, July 30, 2011 at 9:31 AM
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Hey Thanks Sub 
the site is actually 'up' it just can't handle the traffic load that is hitting it. For the last week I've been staying up late tweaking things on the systems to increase performance and to take on more traffic. I managed to nearly double what the systems could previously handle, but there are so many hits coming in that as soon as I've made any progress, the progress is consumed by the traffic.
I've reached out to my ISP to upgrade to a newer system w/ more ram and CPU power, hopefully that will be put in place next week.
Not sure how long this will last - this is the 2nd time this has happened, and the first time the mobile app that generated the traffic was banned from iTunes after about 2 months.
The good thing.... is that around 60,000 people each day are learning about ArtistServer that probably never knew we existed. We are also making some good money on the ads which will cover the dept we have with our ISP. We happen to have a very kind ISP who has allowed me to keep the systems online even though I haven't been able to pay all of our hosting bill. Due to this mobile app - if this can sustain for a month, this will be the fist time in the last 5 years that I don't have to cover the loss - and I gotta tell ya - I'm so damn happy about it.
Of course, with the sweetness comes the sour - the performance of the site. I hope you all will continue to support Artistserver during this time. I'm trying my best to do quite a lot w/ very little time or resources. The system upgrade should help, and I'll continue to work on optimizations. I had an idea last night that can help offload some of this traffic - I've analyzed the patterns and will build something just for the traffic from the mobile app that requires far less system resources - although, there is a chance that once I do this update... it will instantly be consumed by the traffic, allowing more hits in.
To our paying members - if you feel you are not getting what you paid for, and wish to be reimbursed - please contact me directly using the site contact form. You are the ones who make ArtistServer possible all these years - you are my priority, and I will make things right for you. I can't suddenly make AS fly like it should - but I can at least reduce your fees to compensate you for this time.
Thanks for the continued support - in regards to Sub's comment about more dire things - we had a bit of a medical emergency over here - we're ok, the baby and Lou are just fine as well as the dogs
Take care everyone,
Gideon / ArtistServer Admin/Owner
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: Artistserver Down
Saturday, July 30, 2011 at 3:08 PM
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this will give you an idea on the traffic we are now seeing and trying to handle:
The first bump is when this mobile app was initially released. Then suddenly it was gone - so I'm assuming it was removed by Apple.
The app was then released again with some changes, possibly under a different company name, and this time, it is taking off much better for them.
I just checked the iTunes app store charts, and the free version of this app is the #1 or #2 free app in 7 countries:
New Zealand
Luxembourg [#2]
Ireland
Greece
Belgium
Australia
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Subtronik
Joined: 01/14/03
Posts: 1193
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RE: Artistserver Down
Saturday, July 30, 2011 at 7:34 PM
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Is that why AS is lagging at the moment?
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: Artistserver Down
Sunday, July 31, 2011 at 11:59 AM
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yes - as we currently have a 1,170% increase in visits to the site over the last month.
All this traffic is now seeing an alternate version of the homepage which is slimmed down, no flash, no blogs, etc. along w/ removing a lot of code to make a quicker loading page for them. So far, it has helped a bit - I'll be doing this to a few more pages on the site that they all tend to be viewing.
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Brillman
Joined: 10/08/02
Location: Norway
Posts: 136
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RE: Artistserver Down
Monday, August 1, 2011 at 3:56 AM
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Was also wondering about this, noticed more downtime the past week or so.
So it´s in actual fact both bad & good news! 
Bad for us trying to come here, good for the revenues/funding of AS.
Regarding the lack of info on this i was thinking maybe Gideon was on holiday? 
No sweat Gideon! I have no complaints, just wondered what was up!
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Sonic Wallpaper
Joined: 05/22/01
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 1266
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RE: Artistserver Down
Tuesday, August 2, 2011 at 11:56 PM
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Hi Brillman - I'll actually be out of town this week - from Thursday until Sunday, but I'll have remote access, and will continue monitoring the system - I just won't be doing it as frequently. We're flying to visit my grandpa who is 94 now and not doing so well. He and Gid haven't me yet, so we want to make sure Gid meets his great grandfather before it's too late.
I'm doing some more updates tonight that will increase our traffic capacity, rerouting some of the traffic to a different server. I've also put an order in to my ISP for another application server and a reverse proxy server on the front end to route the mobile traffic to the new system. This will then mutate into a load balanced setup, which will be awesome since it would bring redundancy to our platform.
There are still some kinks to work out, and I expect the problems with accessing the site to continue into next week both due to my trip and the need to set the new systems up.
I'm sorry I can't move any faster - we run the site on a negative budget, which makes handling growth a difficult task.
We'll get through this - and we'll be much better off once we do.
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A Bit Crusher
Joined: 01/26/02
Location: Tilburg
Posts: 1794
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RE: Artistserver Down
Sunday, August 7, 2011 at 8:29 AM
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Well, I'm happy to see that at this moment I can browse AS and login again...the last time that's almost impossible to do...just when I'm starting to visit AS again...
I hope you'll be able to fix the problems you mentioned, Gideon! Good luck!
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A Bit Crusher
Joined: 01/26/02
Location: Tilburg
Posts: 1794
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RE: Artistserver Down
Monday, August 8, 2011 at 1:16 PM
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2nd day in a row I can login without any problems!
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