Lanzer's work diary (features and upgrades)

[Lanzer]

Apologies for taking so long to repair the avatar server. First we had to slip in a brand new drive into the server, then there's a long, long wait time to copy existing avatars into the new drive, then we need to delete the old avatars. In between it all I was working on item recovery plus some security issues which kept delaying the repair for almost half an hour at a time. Now that the recovery and item updates are completed I can focus on the repair once again. Hope to have everything done before 2am. whee

[Lanzer]

Ran across another snatch before the avatar server is ready. The process should take no longer than an hour and a half at this point. whee

The avatar system is finally back on-line. With 50 times the disk space we should be able to hold plenty of avatars for the next little while.

Received 290 private messages while working on the avatar systems. Again, sorry to those who I can't respond to. If there are any matter that is urgent, please contact a moderator for assistance. Thank you. 3nodding

[Lanzer]

The bugfix for the new database system had been a long and enduring battle. After working non-stop for 6 days the problem is still here. One of the last effort of installing a brand new web server seem to have minimized the problem but we still need to monitor the performance of everything at this point. sweatdrop

Meanwhile, other regular tasks such as updating the art arena and avatar spotlight had been delayed due to the bugs. Sorry for the delay.

The lack of sleep had been making me work even slower it seemed. I'm hoping to see light at the other end of the tunnel, otherwise I'll be switching back to the old system if the problem cannot be resolved. sweatdrop

[Lanzer]

Finally was able to find the problem with the avatar saving problem and fixed it today. Sorry for the long delay. Working on avatar deletion right now and that should be resolved very soon.

[Lanzer]

I'm at Otakon this weekend. For those who want Gaia postcards you can find me at the artist alley. I'll be around CP's table that has a big "Vuduberi" banner. whee I'll be dressed as my avatar. wink

[Lanzer]

Had a great time at Otakon, would like to give a big thank you for all who dropped by to say hi and those who attended the Gaia gathering.

Been working non-stop since I got back. Will add some photos once I have an hour of free time. sweatdrop

So far the problem had isolated to problems that belong to the web servers. Through building new servers to changing parameters I hope to have the database performance problem resolved soon.

[Lanzer]

After a long and hard battle we had finally got most of the database problems. A new accelerator had been installed and a lot of changes had been made to the overall code. Hope to see more improvements as more code are enhanced. whee

[Lanzer]

As the database bug had been resolved by 72squared, we are now focsing efforts in getting rid of the bugs that were here since the rollback and the launch of the new database system.

Darknrgy is focusing on the forum related problems while I'm resurrecting the Art Arena and applying a new art approval system where senior members of Gaia can help approve newly submitted art. Most of the bugs and the Art Arena features will be done by tomorrow, then more forum related features will be added right afterwards. We have some really interesting features lined up for everyone. Stay tuned! whee

[Lanzer]

Just finished work on some database enhancements. Hope things will run faster for everyone in general. 3nodding Still a ton of work ahead for really offloading the database.

[Lanzer]

Finally have the bandwidth problem resolved. Everyone should notice a good increase in speed from today and on. Our new service provider will have a larger uplink too so we won't have any bandwidth related problems in the future. The move is going to be tonight. whee

Still working on some more database related enhancements.

[Lanzer]

It hard to be surprised that the planned migration would take longer than expected. After 12 hours all 40 servers are finally moved to the new provider. Though due to many configuration errors on things like the load balancer and other software here and there, we had to spend another 8 hours troubleshooting before all the servers started running smoothly. sweatdrop

Hard to keep myself awake... time for a rest before checking in again. Hope all the servers work fine from now on. whee

[Lanzer]

After getting the servers to work right it was then time to prepare all the new servers. We now have a total of 47 servers, with many specialized to offload the main database and speed up the overall service. As we continue ot roll out new features, my time is mostly focused on background tasks related to stability, bug fixes, and optimization.

Tomorrow we start working on the new gaia event! Hope to have it completed before Friday. whee

[Lanzer]

Just woke up from a good night's sleep. Haven't slept this well for a week it seems. whee Still remember yesterday when I would fall asleep if I blink my eyes too slow so I had to blink fast! eek (though according to VO I did doze off in many occasions surprised )

Although there were many little features that I couldn't program in time for the Olympic event, it was still great to see the amount of people online and all the positive feedback. Must thank everyone again for making the event a success, and a special thanks to Darknrgy who stayed for three days straight programming the race, plus the extra effort by everyone in making event happen smoothly.

The current focus is placed once again on the performance of the site. Thanks to everyone's donations over the weekend we can add some more servers to the site within this week. 3nodding

Time for a shower, and back to more coding. whee

[Lanzer]

The olympic event had added an instantaneous 830,000 posts to the forum, causing the hard drive to fill up. I had to delete a lot of old postings to create some space just to keep the site running.

As of right now I must archive as much posts as possible, and after those posts are archived I'll proceed to restoring the old posts I deleted. sweatdrop

It's a very timely process. Hope to have things done in two days.

[Lanzer]

Fixed some major bugs with the archiving script and also optimized it. Now it should be able to archive faster than the number of posts made in the forums. Thank goodness. sweatdrop

Also spent a few hours finding out the bugs that were causing the archived topics to not show up under forum view. All the memorable topics are back.

Next is to fix the purning script. It's going to be another long day. eek