• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Status check on new server

Its been getting steadily worse here. I changed the access numbers to a smaller city and that didn't help. Since last night we have iffy if any access through Firefox. We keep getting "server timed out " error messages or " connection reset " messages. I know i'm having some issues with my ISP so not sure where these particular problems are coming from. I can't access chat in any browser either.
 
Well, I've moved to a higher powered server at another apparently faster data center. Had my programmer look into this, had the server tech people look into it, and have now hired a consultant to look into it. I also offloaded the DNS functions onto a third party company instead of having my servers themselves handle this function.

And STILL I am having problems.

I really and truly do not know what else to do. I am having similar problems on two different servers running this vbulletin software. All except my ArmsLocker.com site, which is running pretty darn well. Which beats the crap out of me why that would be.

Is the problem with the servers? The data center? vBulletin itself? Configuration problems on the servers? Routing or DNS issues?

Ghost? Gremlins? Alien invasion of the internet?

I don't know what else to try............... If the problem cannot be fixed, then what? :shrug01: :shrug01: :shrug01: :shrug01:
 
I reloaded my ISP after defragging etc. Seems to have worked out a majority of my gremlins but not all. Still having lag but i am stuck in dial up hell.
 
I looked at the armslocker site and it seems pretty small, neat simple so I can see where it is not having so many problems.

Maybe if you can get some of the perks off here, save them so you can start looking more simply. I can imagine this is a huge cyber space to be looking for one tiny problem. Like in accounting, that one cent can throw everything off into the millions. So maybe if you take out some stuff and start with the basics first, go about it systematically.

BTW spell check is working.
 
**Expletives deleted**

I sent an email to the owner of the company who is hosting my servers, stating that I have pretty much reached the end of my rope with the slowness problems. Basically telling him that I see no other alternative but going back to my last server hosting company as things were not great there, but they were not THIS bad at all. I have filed multiple trouble tickets with them, asked my programmer to dig into the problem, hired a consultant, made my own changes to config files on the server, hired another consultant, changed the method that DNS is handled, and banged my head onto my desk numerous times. All to no avail.

So I get this as a response...
Rich,

I apologize for not replying sooner, things have been pretty hectic
here. Thank you for your patience.

I completely understand your concerns. I believe that you should see
considerable improvement in performance here starting right now as a
matter of fact. The DC just did a huge upgrade, or rather has been doing
a rather large upgrade to their core equipment which routes internet
traffic to our customers' servers, yours included. This has been going
on slowly but surely throughout this past month. I believe that is where
the issues for you arise and which will be resolved with the upgrade
done last night. I believe that you will see vast improvement over this
coming week with the overall speed of the network and it will return to
what you have experienced in the beginning with your first server. We
have been working closely with the network engineers to alleviate these
issues as fast as possible and I am positive that with these latest
upgrades to our overall network and core routing gear we have done just
that.

Aside from the above instances, we have experienced some unfortunate
ddos attacks. The technicians and core software mitigated them quickly
but unfortunately users still experienced some packet loss. These
attacks will also be mitigated by applying the aforementioned network
upgrades.

I thank you for voicing your concern and opinion on this. Believe me, we
are fully, 110% aware of this issue and have been working non-stop to
bring the network level to what it was a month and a half ago. I would
like to reassure you that we take this very serious as your well-being
reflects not only on XXXXXXXXX as a whole but on every one of our
employees, myself especially. I encourage you to stay in touch with me
should you continue to feel unsatisfied this coming week. You are more
than welcome to email me directly at this address or phone me at
XXX-XXX-XXXX. If I do not pick up, leave a message and I will return
your call as soon as possible.

If you have any other thoughts you would like to discuss, please do not
hesitate to contact me.
Click to expand...

So why the hockey PUCK didn't he tell me this RIGHT AWAY??????? :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:

So, the question is, was he lying when he said he didn't think the problem was on their end when I first notified them about the problem, or am I being lied to NOW? Or both?

I REALLY don't need this kind of crap at THIS time of year...... :bandhead0 :bandhead0
 
I've noticed over the past week or so that things have gotten considerably worse, so I really hope they have remedied the situation. There have been a couple of instances recently where I have typed out fairly lengthy and involved posts, only to get caught in limbo when I attempt to submit them.
 
Yeah, I know what you mean. It's beginning to REALLY piss me off.

One week. If things haven't straightened out by then, I'm moving the sites to another server at a different company. I need to be doing something like this like I need multiple gunshot wounds to the head, but I've got no choice.

I'm getting so damned tired of being lied to by just about everyone that I can't see straight..................
 
You are paying for this service. Since you now have that letter saying they are having the problems shouldn't you at the VERY least get some money taken off or discounted to you as you did have to hire other people and this was not mentioned as a warning before hand?
 
Not to add insult to injury but what happened to the email notices when someone sends you a PM?
I'm not getting the emails but got 2 PM's today. Didn't even know about them until I came to Fauna and I saw up top that I had new messages.
 
I have that function turned off - but I haven't been getting email notifications for new posts in the forums I moderate (or for subscriptions). The subscription notifications I don't really care about...but I kinda like the quick notice in the other forums, so I can check on them ASAP
 
SPJ said:
Not to add insult to injury but what happened to the email notices when someone sends you a PM?
I'm not getting the emails but got 2 PM's today. Didn't even know about them until I came to Fauna and I saw up top that I had new messages.
Click to expand...

Beats the heck out of me.......... Wouldn't surprise me if the server tech guys broke something while fixing something else.
 
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