6/3/2010:  Well, we're moved.  ...but some of you are noticing some residual effects that we're still working out.  KL has managed to fix most of them, regarding our autofill taxonomies and subscription issues, but there are a few that remain.

Some members (at least one) is still not getting permissions.  We hope that we've fixed that, but are still waiting to hear back.  If you are also being afflicted by this problem, or any other, please leave a comment here or in the help desk.  We can't fix and find things unless we know they are broke.

The other thing is that we seem to have a rogue process (an issue on our end) that starts running (Usually on Tuesday mornings between 8:30-9:30) and won't stop.  As a result, it monopolizes all of our resources and we have to reboot the server.  This has consistently taken the site out for between 10 - 30 minutes when it happens.  We have to notice that it's happened (Thanks to Thrak and Torch our main guard dogs on this) and then remedy the situation.

With Monday being a holiday, it seems to have thrown off whatever is happening and we've had two instances this week.  One last night around 8:30 pm and one this morning around 9:30 am.  

My apologies for any server timed out errors that you are receiving.  I just wanted to let you know what was going on.  Know that

we're aware of it.  And know that we will fix it when we can isolate the issue.  Also, feel free to email me at my private email addy if anyone sees that we're down, china.pittenger@gmail.com.

China

4/19/10

Okay, the migration is complete.  It was exceedingly more difficult than I had expected, and took an enormous amount of effort on my part communicating with support.  Sales didn't mention to me at the time I decided to upgrade, that it cost additional to have support with migration to the VPS server. Most people that need a VPS solution, have network administrators that are capable of dealing with the logistics of this kind of move.  I however, did not.

Since I had to act fast, I couldn't coordinate with our NextGen support admins (KL & Imajica), and was on my own until this morning.  I understand that this was unprofessional, and I apologize. We simply had no other option, as our site was crippling our shared server, it was either move or remain suspended.

The price to run this site has increased dramatically, but I will remain as committed as I can be to keeping NextGen alive.  We will be getting a credit from our shared hosting annual plan that will pay for two months. I'll be brainstorming on other ways to help fund the site, and paypal donations are welcome. 

Advertisement banners are likely to return, my apologies, but every little bit helps.  

For those interested in the financial aspect of our move, we're looking at about 3X the cost.  Previously, we paid $84 for a year of hosting. Now we're looking at $20-$30 a month depending on how many gigs I can shave off the size of our site.  (plus an activation fee, but I've already covered that)  She's a monster right now at 32 gigs...but I'm confident that I can shave a lot of that off by changing the way we manage our back-ups.

For all of you wonderful people that have emailed me over the past few days with questions, concerns, messages of support, and such. Thank you so much.  And my sincere apologies for not being able to get back to you all.  My already full weekend, was just crippled with dealing with the migration issues.  For those of you that I was not able to email personally, concerning why we were down, again I apologize.  I didn't have the email address for all of our members.

To remedy this, in the event we ever have an outage again, please sign up for our facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=46820139949 and I will be sure to place updates there.  Or, we also have an account on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NextGenRPG .  I will also be looking for another way to keep your email addresses in an offsite list somewhere.

Please report any site related issues in a comment to this thread or in the helpdesk.  ANYTHING that doesn't work like it did before.  That way we can fix it.  But as we discover issues we can work to resolve them. 

I've learned a lot through this, and hope to learn from it!  Thanks again for bearing with me through this!

China

4/16/10

Okay.... Let me start with a huge apology for the recent 'Account Suspended' messages. 

This isn't our hosts fault, or lack of payment on our part.  We've just gotten too big for our current solution, and the traffic has been a real drain on our shared server, to the point that we're bringing other sites to call and complain.  Our server has allowed us to go 50% past our allotted resources routinely, but we've been running 2 and 3 times our 10% limit.

BUT!  I have some great news!  We've decided to upgrade.  This is huge for us, it will allow us to continue growing and stop stressing about our resource issues.  Maybe even bring you some more bells and whistles!  *ducks*

To the best of my knowledge, we'll be moved sometime tonight.  Us being up right now...is kind of flying under the radar, I had one of our support peeps give me another 24 hour window.  BUT, if the site gets some high traffic again, before our move, they WILL suspend us again.

Please continue to bear with me through this, and look forward to a faster and more reliable site soon.

Thank you!

China