May I suggest that you all PM Alex, if you haven't already?
If there's a problem on the flight deck, he's the pilot... I'm just the trolley dolly ;)

Jayne

I suspect it has something to do with the number of "users" browsing the forums these days. They're not real users, of course -- formal poetry should be so lucky -- but 1000+ bots crawling over this place is sure to slow things down a bit.

I've been having the same problem, but tonight it's like Pow! Pow! Pow! Really poppin'.

LOL, a day later

Hi Everyone,

Jim Moonan brought this thread to my attention, and I thought I should share publicly my response to him--

I've also noticed the sloooow problem recently. It's due to the site being literally flooded by hacker bots from all over, essentially bringing the site to its knees based on the currently available memory resources and processing power.

I've just installed additional firewall tools to stem the tidal wave. Hopefully, you'll see some improvement in speed as a result. Still, that's just a stop-gap measure as the more effective solution would be buying more processing power, disk, and memory resources to essentially handle the surge in capacity as a result of the relentless hacker barrage on the server.

Anyhow, let me know if there's any noticeable improvement as a result of the additional firewall tools I've just installed.

Cheers,
...Alex

Some types don’t like us. If cost is a consideration, I can contribute as long as I don’t get into an awkward category as happened last time.

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Things seem to be a bit peppier (technical term).

Whatever the Sphere needs to do to stay one/two steps ahead of the bots, please keep us posted. It's a sphere worth keeping safe from the blue meanies.
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Hello to all,

Thanks for your input and responses to my analysis note about what's really going on with the oh so slowed down server. I didn't post back sooner as I'd been looking into upgrade options--essentially whether to go for a full server upgrade or just do some bits of patch-up and additions to what's there already. According to the company providing the server service, they think a big deal of it has to do with the server logging a few years under its belt and that it's essentially creaking and potentially nearer to failure. Of course, they want me to ditch and get a spanking new one. Although there's some truth to that--as in it's not a question of if but when a failure will occur for disk drives and other server components--I do still take it with many grains of salt. Given how much a hassle and especially cost that's going to entail, I chose to postpone that desirable but drastic route to somewhere in the near future.

However, although some of the software and security tweaking I've done to increase speed seem to have indeed provided a much needed boost in speed, that's still marginal and will continue to slip--what with the server vendor's software upgrade continually bloating and slowing it up, the continual increase in hacker attacks and denial of service, and yes, the hardware getting older and creakier.

The long and short is that for now, I'll just spend on what will provide the most cost-effective boost ratio for the amount spent. So, I'm looking into memory upgrade, maybe some disk upgrade too, processor upgrade would have been great too, but too costly and I'd rather do that only going to a spanking new server. For now, I've started with memory upgrades. And I'm looking at fifty or more dollars extra in server monthly. And here's calling for all those who can contribute to do so--because, it's been over a year since the last bout of contributions for anyone, so I've essentially dealing with the just under two hundred monthly rental (sever rental, additional server backup storage--especially for the worst case scenarios of hacker attacks, etc.) solo for a while now ... to which this extra fifty minus will be tacked onto.

So, any help to not continue to do it all solo is greatly appreciated! (And Alan, in response to your comment, no, no more spiffing up your profile with anything special.)

The donation links is at the top of most Eratosphere pages (which take you here).

Thanks!
...Alex

I'm getting slow reponses everywhere, not just on Eratosphere. I suspect that the Internet in general is being slugged by the huge number of people now working remotely from home. And also by the number of people ordering supplies to be delivered instead of going shopping - Carrefour, where I place regular orders, now warns me that it will take several minutes to connect to their site, and delivery dates, usually the same or the next day, are now ten days or more in the future.

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Thanks Alex — Much appreciated update on things. You and PBS/NPR are my go-to's and deserve our support. Will do. Others, too, I hope.
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