HBC Web Message Board


Figure 1.--

HBC occassional encounters technical problems and outages. We do not like to bother our readership with messages on minor internet problems. We thought it might be useful to have a place where readers can check for information on such problems, especially eMail pronlems. Of course you can always send us an eMail, but we thought this page may prove useful. Here we are taking about internet problems and not actual substantive topics concerning historical boys clothing.

2007

October 18

Our host informs us, "Over the next few days, we will be migrating all sites and services from the current 'web5' server to new hardware in our own private datacentre in London. This will resolve the ongoing performance and reliability issues this server has suffered in recent months. You should notice a huge increase in the performance of your website immediately following its migration." They tell us there will be no or only limited down time.

September 25

Our ISP is making it difficult to send out new page alerts to the HBC mailing list, although we can sttill send out alerts to the smaller HBU mailing list. Readers can still, however, look over the new pages daily. Simply check at the New Page page.

June 22

The images should be all reloaded by the end of the day.

June 20

I inadvertedly moved the image directory and unfortunately had to reload the images. There are probably over 30,000 images on HBC so this will take about 3 days to accomplish.

May 24

HBC came back on line in the afternoon. I assume it was a server problem. There were no lost pages this time. The problem is, however, not completely rresolved as I cannot yet load new pages.

May 23

Our host reports, "Zesthost.com is temporarily unavailable due to an ongoing issue with the 'web2' server. This is also affecting some customer sites hosted on the same server. Servers Web3 through Web7 are unaffected. Please bear with us whilst we deal with this problem." Of course HBC is in web2. That means the server number at Zesthost.

May 22

Kind of a double whammy now. Our host is down. Not sure what the problem is. The service has been really good this year. I'm hopeing that they will soon have HBC back on line, but no idea what the problem is. Their whole site is down so there is now way of even asking them what the problem is.

May 17

Have family visiting for a couple weeks. So HBC will not be very active for a while.

January 16

The registration has been made and the site is now back up. The way the internet works, it may be a few hours before it is back up for all readers.

January 16

As I suspected, the problem is the site registration. Our host is now working on it. Not sure how long it is going to take them to sort this out. May be a couple days before the site comes back up.

January 15

Two readers reported HBC was down earlier in the day. The site didn't go down for me until the evening. I'm not sure what the problem is. I think it may be the site registration. I remember that was a problem last year at about the sme time. As a new company has taken over from Zesthost, they may not have all this coordinated. At any rate I have submitted a problem ticket to the host. I will let you know as soon as they inform me as to the nature of the problem.

2006


December 27

My new page alerts began bouncing back today. I'm not sure why or if this is permanent. If so, you can still view new pages at: New Page Lists.

December 20

I have been looking for a new host. I just learned today that Zesthost has been taken over my another company. They seem more professional than Zesthost. I think I will postpone our switch to a new host and see if the new company provides reasonable service.

December 5: 6:30 pm

I looks like the outage was relatively short this time.

December 5: 4:00 pm

Well as you may have noticed, our host (Zesthost) is having more problems. I began with Zesyhost in January 2004 and until September had been pleased with their service. Since then the service has bee unreliable and even worse they have lost files. Of course I have the files on my computer, but it takes considerable time to find a reload lost files. I have thus decided to switch hosts. If any of you have any suggestions about reliable hosts, let me know. I have one in mind, but will check out any you may suggest. The problem is that switching hosts is complicated and time consuming. It may well take me over a month to accomplish this. Hopefully Zesthost will come back on line in a few days so that HBC will be accessable while I transition to a new host, but not only is HBC down, the Zesthost site itself is also down making it impossible to contact them. I'm not sure if they are going out of business or will be down for only a few days. I appolgize for this. Clearly these outages are unacceptable and we needed a new hist. Please bear with us while we make this transition.

November 16

Well as you may have found HBC is back up--sort of. Our host managed to lose several months of new pages. These will have to bereloaded manually. And this will take a few days. The complication here is that when I create a new page, I often go to other pertient pages to create links. It will be much more difficult to reciver these links, but they will be recovered over time. I have until this year been fairly satifified with Zesthost, but I am beginning to reassess rhis opinion. I may have to move HBC to a different host. This is a hassel, but these outages and lost material are unacceptable. As you may have noticed, the lost material meant the passwords went back to the old ones. I am going to install a new code which I will pass on directly.

November 15

Zesthost is still down. They have not yet let me know what the problem is. They do seem to be working on it as the links now respomd differently.

November 14

The Zesthost server for some reason went down today, I think in the afternoon. I have no idea yet just why, or how long the site will be down. I will let you know as soon as I learn something.

September 22

Well that was quick. As far as I can figure out the site is now fully functional. We have also changed the pass codes. You should have received an eMail from us with the new codes. Just let us know if you have not received the new codes or if you are having any difficulties using the site.

September 21

More problems. As you probably noted, after Zesthost fixed the outage, the pass codes were removed. Zeshost has been working on the problem with little success. This afternoon they attempted to reinsert the passcodes, but what they did was to make it impossible to enter the site. I have asked them to fix this. I'm not sure at this time just how long it is going to tke them to fix it. I'll let you know as soon as this is sorted out.

September 15

There was some problem in the morning, but as best I can figure out, HBC is back up on-line and fully functional. I can now load new files. Today I am wotking on the hstorical information (Holy Roman Empire, the War of the Austrin Sucession, Operation Bargation, and U.S. immigration laws) I worked up while the system was down. I notice that the pass codes were removed during the outage. I am in the process of restoring them. I will also change the codes for HBC.

September 14

Finally I got a report from our host in the morning, "Unfortunately we have suffered a severe server failure. All accounts are currently being restored from backups and sites are coming back online. Unfortunately it is taking longer than we would like to copy the data from the backups over to the servers which is delaying this operation. Engineers are working 24/7 to get all services restored ASAP." I noticed later in the dasy that HBC came back up. There are a few lost pages which I will reload. Zesthost has not, however, reopened the facility that allows me to load new pages and revisions. Hoefully this will be sorted out soon.

September 13

Still no word from Zesthost. I attempted to contact them again. This is unusual because in the past they have replied in a reasobable time frame. Unfortunately the only way to contact them is by eMail. And at this time they are not responding. I note that now instead of no connection that "You are no authorized to view this page" appears. That is just something that Zesthost has put up. It does not refer to your subcription. It suddently occured to me that this board is most useful if posed where it can be viewed when the main HBC site goes down. So we will post it at the old HBC site.

September 12

Our hosting company, Zesthost, went dowm in the morning. I have attempted to contact them, but they have not yet replied explaing the problem. At this time I can only assume that there is a server problem.

August 28

Our host Zesthost went down in the evening. I'm not sure what the problem was. The site was back up in the morning.

August 25

Some of you have asked about the innovation where a linked image appears on the same page rather than jumping to the image. All you have to do is put your cursor on the image and leave it there. This works very fast when the images are small. If the images are larger it may take 10-15 seconds to switch. Some readers report it takes a bit longer. My hought is that the wait is not too important as you can put the cursor on the image while reding the page which will take longer thn the time needed for the image to switch.

August 24

Today I sent an new page alert and all the messages bounced back. I was concerned that there was a problem with the e-mail system, but it was working fine later in the day. Remembr that you can always find new page on the New Page page. If you do not receive HBC new pages for a while, just check the New Page page.

August 23

Some readers have encontered probels with their passwords. They have not changed yet, but are about to do so. The problem is usually failing to use capital letters as indivated. Remember the password box is case sensative.










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Created: 7:11 PM 8/24/2006
Last updated: 9:03 PM 10/3/2007