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USCHO Overwhelmed?

H

Hockeybuckeye

Well-known member
I've been getting a lot of "The server is busy at the moment. Please try again later." messages lately on forum. Do we have a lot of excessive activity or does USCHO need an upgrade to handle it?
 
This traditionally happens around this time of the year. During the men's postseason, there is increased interest on the site and traffic on the servers. Yes, it's annoying, but not quite to the level of annoyance as thinking your team has won a win-or-go-home game in the second OT, only to have it waved off upon review. I'm sure an upgrade would help, but they likely don't want to pay that cost all season for something that isn't needed much of the year. Of course, who can say home many fans get frustrated and leave during the month of ragged service.
 
ARM said:
This traditionally happens around this time of the year. During the men's postseason, there is increased interest on the site and traffic on the servers. Yes, it's annoying, but not quite to the level of annoyance as thinking your team has won a win-or-go-home game in the second OT, only to have it waved off upon review. I'm sure an upgrade would help, but they likely don't want to pay that cost all season for something that isn't needed much of the year. Of course, who can say home many fans get frustrated and leave during the month of ragged service.
Click to expand...

Was the offsides call a no-brainer? I turned it off right after they and had no clue.
 
Timothy A said:
Was the offsides call a no-brainer? I turned it off right after they and had no clue.
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I was sitting on that blue line and didn't notice it when it happened so it must have been pretty close but Duluth's bench also sits on that line so somebody there saw it.
Since we don't have a video board in our barn none of the fans could see a replay.
 
Hockeybuckeye said:
I was sitting on that blue line and didn't notice it when it happened so it must have been pretty close but Duluth's bench also sits on that line so somebody there saw it.
Since we don't have a video board in our barn none of the fans could see a replay.
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As I said earlier, I watched the replay on BTN-Plus. One of the announcers saw it and commented on it real-time during the live action. Then during the review, he made mention of what he instructs "his referees" in the "leagues he runs" (that they should be sure enough to "bet their house" on being right before overturning a call). It was pretty obviously offside, IMO.
 
ARM said:
This traditionally happens around this time of the year. During the men's postseason, there is increased interest on the site and traffic on the servers. Yes, it's annoying, but not quite to the level of annoyance as thinking your team has won a win-or-go-home game in the second OT, only to have it waved off upon review. I'm sure an upgrade would help, but they likely don't want to pay that cost all season for something that isn't needed much of the year. Of course, who can say home many fans get frustrated and leave during the month of ragged service.
Click to expand...

As Supertramp might put it: I believe in what you say is the undisputed truth. But 2024 feels worse than ever before.

Maybe it's just that the notifications are different. Maybe in the past, posters blamed either their ISP or their own equipment for service interruptions. Maybe USCHO is now more willing to plead guilty. But honestly, I don't remember ever getting the sheer volume of "server busy" notifications that we're receiving right now.

I don't have the technical expertise to offer a serious diagnosis. But I do have a couple of questions:

1. Has the number of pop-ads with photos increased to the point that the server can't keep up?

2. Has the server's capacity somehow been "downsized" in an economy move that went just a little too far?

Or, maybe my questions are off the mark. But something is different.
 
Hockeybuckeye said:
I've been getting a lot of "The server is busy at the moment. Please try again later." messages lately on forum. Do we have a lot of excessive activity or does USCHO need an upgrade to handle it?
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This has been going on for months. If you go to the Cafe you will see a thread started back in Dec. or Jan. complaining about it.
 
VTpucksouteast said:
No offense, but this website has just gotten worse and worse.. also the lack of response times has Been unbelievable. I get these people have other jobs but at a certain point, you have got to break the glass. This has been an embarrassment and Tim should be ashamed of himself. A reckoning is coming and he has no clue.
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I do seem to recall after the popup ads became the norm USCHO staff posted it was necessarily to fund the site.
I would assume the ads could be gone and the site significantly upgraded if it became a paid subscription to be a member. I'm grateful it is a free site for us and hope it stays that way despite some annoyance.
 
VTpucksouteast said:
No offense, but this website has just gotten worse and worse.. also the lack of response times has Been unbelievable. I get these people have other jobs but at a certain point, you have got to break the glass. This has been an embarrassment and Tim should be ashamed of himself. A reckoning is coming and he has no clue.
Click to expand...

The bottom line is that this is a low traffic site with limited opportunity for ad revenue. Very few people (myself included) pay a sub. It costs money to host and for servers, and it takes a lot of hours to moderate and maintain.
This site was started as a labor of love. I for one am just grateful it exists, as no one is or ever was getting rich off it. I certainly dont feel entitled to something from this site.
 
Stauber1 said:
The bottom line is that this is a low traffic site with limited opportunity for ad revenue. Very few people (myself included) pay a sub. It costs money to host and for servers, and it takes a lot of hours to moderate and maintain.
This site was started as a labor of love. I for one am just grateful it exists, as no one is or ever was getting rich off it. I certainly dont feel entitled to something from this site.
Click to expand...

Hear hear!
 
Stauber1 said:
The bottom line is that this is a low traffic site with limited opportunity for ad revenue. Very few people (myself included) pay a sub. It costs money to host and for servers, and it takes a lot of hours to moderate and maintain.
This site was started as a labor of love. I for one am just grateful it exists, as no one is or ever was getting rich off it. I certainly dont feel entitled to something from this site.
Click to expand...

Hockeybuckeye said:
Hear hear!
Click to expand...

You guys are correct; this is the bottom line. However ...

If USCHO is really a labor of love, wouldn't the powers-that-be want constructive criticism from the users? And if some downgrades are necessary for the survival of the site, wouldn't it make sense to communicate that to the users, and ask for their understanding?

I do disagree that posters are acting "entitled." For example, when emojis went away, I don't recall a huge outcry in the community. Everyone adapted.

But if USCHO is going to put out a shingle at all, shouldn't the basic functions work as intended? Ask yourself: If there's ongoing difficulty with accessing the website, how can that be good for advertising revenue?
 
Whenever I get that if I hit refresh it goes away. This site may be clunky but I maintain it is still the very best place on the internet for womens hockey.
 
pgb-ohio said:
But if USCHO is going to put out a shingle at all, shouldn't the basic functions work as intended? Ask yourself: If there's ongoing difficulty with accessing the website, how can that be good for advertising revenue?
Click to expand...
For those of us not involved with the inner workings of USCHO and it's forum there is no way for us to know their available resources/revenue for dealing with any issues encountered. I guess it's just a wait and see to see if there will be eventual improvements.
​​​​​​Perhaps a forum moderator would want to chime in with some insights?
 
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Anything worth doing is worth doing well.

I don't accept the vibe that we "shouldn't be complaining." This thread hasn't been disrespectful at all. OK, one post was a little harsh. But even that one opened up with "No offense."

Of course I'm grateful for USCHO. It's been a wonderful hobby for me for 25 years. Especially the Women's Hockey Board. If we have to lower our performance expectations a bit, that isn't necessarily a problem. But I would like to better understand what's going on.
 
Are you all talking about the forums or the main site? If you're talking about the forum, it looks like it's hosted on a Digital Ocean VPS, I'm guessing it's the self-hosted version of vBulletin and not the cloud version. If it is the self-hosted version and if it would be helpful to talk to someone with many years of experience running big PHP applications on Apache like vB, I'd be happy to help.
 
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