Sonic 292 Posted August 10, 2014 Due to some technical difficulties, some of our larger downloads are currently unavailable, these larger files are stored on another mirror. It will take some time to fix this, but a plan has been put into action to sort it out as soon as possible. This problem only effects a handful of our files, the majority of them are still online and available for download. We apologise for any convenience. Share this post Link to post
Sonic 292 Posted August 12, 2014 Just an update. About 90% of the files that were missing have been restored and are available to download again. Remember this problem only effected some of the larger downloads, like the popular freeware releases of C&C games. Or the C&C: The First Decade - Unofficial Patch, that recently passed 100,000 downloads. There are still a handful of files to sort out, relocated etc....but at least the majority of them have been restored. Share this post Link to post
Sonic 292 Posted August 21, 2014 Another downloads update. Our Downloads section is currently down for maintenance. Well its more like testing. Expect it to be back in about 48 hours. Share this post Link to post
Sonic 292 Posted August 29, 2014 We have been running tests trying to solve a problem with our main site and forums. There are times when then site fails to load and you may be seeing 503 server errors. We suspect its our downloads system causing problems so this means its off line again. For me personally, its really beginning to annoy to me. I will be rethinking about how CNCNZ.com handles downloads, what files we will host. After all CNCNZ.com is a news and information site, not a file repository. At this stage we can't say what's happening with our downloads system but updates will be posted here as things change. Share this post Link to post
Plok 319 Posted August 29, 2014 (edited) There are times when then site fails to load and you may be seeing 503 server errors. We suspect its our downloads system causing problems so this means its off line again. Isn't that caused by the activity at C&C:Online? Both you and PPM are having 503 issues. I will be rethinking about how CNCNZ.com handles downloads, what files we will host. After all CNCNZ.com is a news and information site, not a file repository. At this stage we can't say what's happening with our downloads system but updates will be posted here as things change. Porting most/all of the files you have to Mediafire is something I could advise. Edited August 29, 2014 by Plokite_Wolf Share this post Link to post
Sonic 292 Posted August 29, 2014 Isn't that caused by the activity at C&C:Online? Both you and PPM are having 503 issues. That's what I was thinking. But there are times when CNCNZ.com fails to load, if you try PPM, Revora and other sites on this server they are all working. Porting most/all of the files you have to Mediafire is something I could advise. Some files are hosted off site, it doesn't matter where they are hosted. Its the downloads/tracking system that needs to go I think. Share this post Link to post
Banshee 28 Posted September 1, 2014 Just to point out, the error 503 shows up when a certain resource is not available. The resource in this specific case is mysql. There is a server wide limit from the mysql process that is being reached. Sites that use mysql more often are suffering the consequences. PPM is getting error 503 quite often, although today things have improved considerably. C&C: Online does influence it because it makes a vast usage of the mysql database in order to let users login with their Revora accounts, C&C: Online alias... and once the stats is implemented, it will use MySQL even more. However, it is not fair to blame it alone. Revora forums, PPM and even CNCNZ.com uses heavy databases that are constantly used due to the high activity from humans and bots (specially bots). So, if the server doesn't get tweaked to increase this limit, you can either reduce CNCNZ's usage of database by optimizing the site code or restricting bots abusive crawling and praying for someone to fix the issue server wide. Share this post Link to post
Guest Rabbit Posted September 1, 2014 I remember a year or two ago we had a heavy bot crawl from China that was causing constant heavy loads. I banned 50 of them and suddenly we were running fast for a few months. I think Banshee is definitely onto something here. Share this post Link to post
PurpleGaga27 37 Posted September 1, 2014 (edited) I am thinking what Zee Hypnotist has said might be partially right for PPMSite. Right now, PPMSite is partially stable but still a bit slow loading there. But I wish one day Banshee changes the forum software for that site since it's vulnerable to most intrusions. Edited September 1, 2014 by zocom7 Share this post Link to post
Banshee 28 Posted September 2, 2014 (edited) First of all, please, call it PPM. The name of the place is not PPMSite. It is Project Perfect Mod and we abbreviate it as PPM. if you have any doubts go to http://www.projectperfectmod.com and http://www.ppmforums.com. The domain ppmsite.com is just one of them. But it is the most used, because it was the first one and the quickest one to be written by humans. The second thing is that chinese and russian bots will abusively crawl any site and try to exploit vulnerability from anything. It has not exploited any vulnerability of PPM forums so far, despite its constants attempts (and by constant, I mean that every minute, literally). So, your argument of the current forum software being vulnerable is somewhat flawed. And regarding bot 'denial of service' floods, the best that these forum softwares may do is to detect potential bots and provide lighter version of the site for them, but I do not think that it reduces the mysql usage at all. If it does, it is hardly noticeable. Google bot can be controlled using both robots.txt and Google Webmaster Tools. Bing and Yahoo can also be somewhat controlled with robots.txt. If you moderate these three and few other honest ones with robots.txt, the forum speed improves considerably. This is what happened recently at PPM forums. Finally, I'm not really a fan of banning potential chinese bots because their IP might not be fixed and some of them are ran from infected machines from potential users of PPM. There is a strong community of chinese C&C modders who posts often on PPM forums and contribute a lot to improve it. Edited September 2, 2014 by Banshee Share this post Link to post