Downtime earlier today

YouTube · PostDowntime earlier today by **Green Gecko** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:07 pm

Hello denizens,

As a lot of you probably noticed, the site was down for approximately 20 hours earlier today. Please accept my sincerest apologies for the inconvenience.

This was caused by VISA cancelling the card payment details associated with the server we rent, issuing me a new card that had to be manually activated at an ATM before it could be used to make online payments and so the lease lapsed. This wasn't explained to me, and payment was attempted multiple times. The site hasn't been compromised in any way, it was simply blocked off from the Internet temporarily until payment was made.

To mitigate the possibility of card payment problems in the future, I am switching the monthly server payment over to online scheduled payments via bank transfer (standing order), 72hrs before it is actually due. While this can from time to time create cashflow struggles, it is the best thing to ensure this can't happen again, as no card details are necessary and it cuts VISA and their occasionally paranoid policies out of the picture. I have had no information from the bank why this occurred, only generic responses about "keeping your card details safe". I didn't know why until I eventually got through to them on the phone, asking for any block to be lifted on the card, during which they advised me it will have switched over to the new card I received for no apparent reason rendering the old details invalid, at some indeterminable point in time - which, as it happens, was today.

Obviously, it's massive pain in the back side to have to go around changing every single thing I pay for on the Internet, including other critical services, so I'm not overjoyed by this transpiring. It is just one of those things, I suppose.

Additionally, my personal webhost who manage my various e-mail addresses decided to lock out my email and my entire hosting account from me and anyone else, due to made up security problems, after I have had no end of trouble with them managing to somehow revoke access to my files even by my own Linux user, which has never happened to me in almost 20 years of "doing" websites. I was up until 7am this morning trying to move away from them and re-configure everything I depend on running smoothly in the day to day operation of business with a new host, so that I can get out from under their clusterfuck, and eventually past sunrise I had to hit the sack, and then woke up to this. This meant I did not receive the various warnings that the site was down until later in the evening when my own DNS actualy switched over and I started receiving e-mails again.

That both of these problems with the bank and communications happened in the same short space of time, when I have also been struggling to cope with various matters due to my disabilities, is an incredible misfortune and hopefully one I will never have to experience dealing with again!

Thanks for your patience and understanding and once again, I am sorry for the downtime experienced especially by those who are so generously making financial contributions to the running costs of the site.

All the best,

GG
Your Friendly Forum Overlord

________

Edit: I have left this announcement open, so if you want to vent or share your own stories about what you did while GRcade was offline for once, feel free! :toot:

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **Vermi Claus** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:25 pm

Sorry to hear you've been having a crappy time lately Gecko, hope things pick up for you soon.

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **Photek** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:37 pm

Thanks for getting us back up man, appreciate it.

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **Rudolphin** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:41 pm

Sorry to hear all that GG, and thanks for getting it all sorted

Stellar performance. You must be knackered?

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **DarkRula** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:46 pm

Wow, that's a whole lot of bad luck. It's good you got everything sorted, and hopefully you don't have to put up with this sort of thing again. Also hoping your week gets better.

As for what I did today, just the usual slacking off while incrementally writing. Nothing fancy.

Yeah as everyone else has said sorry to hear that you've been having a tough time and that all of this dropped on you all at once!

Thanks for getting us back up again and hope everything else falls back into line as well.

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **Dowbocop** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:55 pm

Well done GG! Thanks for your hard work, hope you get some well deserved rest

http://www.twitch.tv/malon_gr/profile

Dude, great effort. Can’t imagine what a ball ache it has been. Massively appreciated.

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **Rob-ho ho-92** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:05 pm

Just echoing everyone’s else’s thoughts/posts, good job in getting it all back up and running, sounds like you had a lot on your plate as well!

As for what I did, had to procrastinate YouTube instead, few other bits and bobs but nothing as good as wasting time on here of course.

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **I Shot A Kid** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:10 pm

Praise be to Gecko, our hero :wub:

.

Now don't ever let it happen again :cry:

!

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **KingK** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:11 pm

Thanks for sorting

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **Peter Crisp** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:30 pm

All your efforts are much appreciated Gecko and we're just glad this place is up and running again

.

This place is in safe hands and you obviously care so thanks for the hard work.

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **Cuđđoolph** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:31 pm

gg GG

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **Xmasday** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:48 pm

Thanks GG for all your hard work!

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **JChristmas** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:52 pm

Thanks GG for sorting it out!

I actually had to do work today in the office rather than browsing all the threads!

Thanks, GG. Now get some rest, it sounds like you need it.

PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **Harry Ellis** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 9:58 pm

GG GG

Thanks for the effort GG.

Christmas is saved!

YouTube · PostRe: Downtime earlier today by **Green Gecko** » Tue Nov 26, 2019 10:23 pm

Thanks for the support guys.

In the end I have a far better hosting service (SSD cluster so my site is like 90% faster and Google PageSpeed went from 39 to 98!) which basically means better customer experience and so maybe more money coming in, and I have a shiny new debit card. All my emails seem to be directing properly so if there are any problems I will actually get those. The old one was looking a little worn, and occasionally didn't read in. Best to look on the bright side. Now just to scour the internet for all my suppliers and shopping destinations to ensure no other payments go unmade and I can order stock etc. Fun stuff.

I will also log into the GRcade twitter on my iPad primarily so I can get off-site notifications there for any problems. I don't really tweet from there anyway.

And Twitter have recently updated their platform so it's easier to switch between accounts (before you had to log out and log back in again, which was an arse - although for some reason you could switch easily on the app?)

I try to avoid smart devices unless actually doing something productive with them, I mean I literally called up my mother and said "I am an addict! I have data addiction!", and she was like "...OK", so I don't get notifications all the time anyway. It's the only way I can live my life healthily with so much riding on the online - I don't really communicate with customers or users in any other way. Just try ringing me... yeah good luck with that

Downtime earlier today

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