The Weekend Approacheth

First, the 4145 number is a little misleading. A group was scraping CR4 at that time and came at the site pretty hard.

Second, there were some issues with the CR4 server over the summer. It was hoped that those were corrected but if you notice any problems you should let us know. (Thank you.)

It's possible that you may notice connectivity problems over the next several months as GlobalSpec (home of CR4's server) continues to integrate with IHS. I'll do my best to "warn" you when these changes are happening so that you'll be aware of potential downtime.

I've also been getting a lot of server time-outs over the past couple of days. Particularly frustrating when compounded with flakey 3G reception (I was travelling _{for which I can't really blame CR4} ).

More the lower figure, methinks. Server hiccups, lethargy (tired from a busy week like the rest of us, except for Kris, who's been known to sleep for...well, a LOT longer than you might think. Ain't natural) tend to thin the crowds a bit. We at the other end of this wire often see the numbers drop precipitously when there are server problems. My guess is folks can't logon and/or their pages won't update and so they logout until a more opportune time. That the PMs are managed by a separate server was tranaparent to us until the changeover, when the sudden (and considerable) difference in access times between the two became apparent. Ten seconds now seems par for the course when, before, it was nearly instantaneous. IHS' switchover is being done on a live server I take it? Incrementally? Cheaper than mirroring but runs the risk of what we're seeing here. Thanks for the update. ------------------------ (Somebody wake Kris. Those 800+ PMs aren't gonna read themselves! :)...... Lastly, notice the crappy format of this post? It's what happens when you post from an Android phone. That or edit the post in raw HTML. Kinda like being forced to choose between Morse code and raw EBCDIC. In Inuit. Think of my writing this epic tome on an Andoid phone as a measure of my dedication to this Noble Cause. "Can you say 'sacrifice'?" -- Katt Williams........ :-))))

Most of the problems last year were also caused by people crawling CR4. I am not sure what is accounting for slowdowns now but if it's happening while it's night here then I'm guessing they're at it again.

hehe...I'm here !

Somewhere on CR4 there is mention (by a pretty good source) of them re-booting the system fairly frequently. Maybe you logged in at such a time, or it was a 'defensive re-boot' as Savvy sort of described. It could also just have been a crash caused by me reading deleting a whole mass of PM's .

On the bright side, it's always fun to be the first person back online. You get to see which admin are on duty, and who all the real CR4 addicts are. It was pure chance that I managed that one day. About 5 admins, and sweet innocent me paying my daily visit.

Also, I've noticed that my PM mailbox is painfully slow unless I delete things regularly. And I feel your pain because I'm typing on an iPad. In order to capitalize a previously typed word I have to delete the whole word! Alas, as the popular hashtag says, #firstworldproblems

The state of my mailbox is a bit shameful . Trouble is, if I go for a good clear-out, I'll probably get the 'you or semoebody else...' thing, and find myself locked out for 24 hours. That's too horrifying to contemplate. I don't want to simply fry the lot - there are some good keepers, but the number I could delete is just a tiny bit excessive. Can you openly say how many pages a day we can delete ? If not, a PM would help a little and be much appreciated.

europium : the source I mentioned earlier is here.

Ah, Chris Leonard. Sharp as a tack and a great admin. Gaulin, too. Miss those guys. Wonder what they're doing now?

"The state of my mailbox is a bit shameful "

Oh quit blushing. You ain't foolin' nobody you poser. Squibs, you know as well as I do that squibbles don't blush, even those with as much as you to feel shameful over - not that the competition is all that stiff. (I know what you're thinking. Don't say it.) Faux confessions aside (truly! and smearing red Tippex on helpless smileys? c'mon, I mean, how low is that?), that "You or somebody else has been using this site in a perfectly ordinary manner and so we're locking you out because no one ever raised that threshold above 25 but neither has anybody the time because we're already stretched too thin and all of us sure could use a raise (hint hint) thanks to the bang-up job we're doing given the limited resources we have" is the problem, methinks.

You know full well that Brit use of 'shameful' is the same as our use of 'sorry'. Check Fawlty Towers for the ref

You're tempting me to name you as a #1 culprit for my inbox overload, but I won't do that in public. Please go and pray to your God of choice - if I get a fast loading mailbox, your life will be terrible - 10 messages back for every 1 received ! hahahaha !!. Hang on, that's how I got in this mess in the first place.