As you may have noticed, the server struggling the last few hours and has been inconsistent. It’s been up and down a few times. This is a rare occurrence, but these things do happen.
I had a look at the server’s logs and found that while the performance was fine, and it could handle the load, its storage was actually filling up. I had increased the storage a while ago, but it as time passes and we have more users and more posts, the database naturally grows to be larger.
I took a few steps to reduce the space taken slightly and the server came back online. This left a very small margin though, and I could see the same thing happening again.
In the end, I decided to upgrade our server and increase the storage space. It was a bit more complicated than the normal maintenance. I had to perform a full backup, so I placed the forum in read-only mode. I then had to recreate the server’s disk partition in order to utilise the increased storage space. If anything went wrong here (luckily it didn’t) I would have had to restore the forum from the backup - and that is why the full backup was so important.
After all of this was done I also rebooted the server and upgraded the forum’s discourse installation to the latest version.
The end result is that we now have a faster server with more storage capacity (nearly double) running the latest software.
Lastly, I would like to extend a massive thank you to all of our patrons (@Patron_Tier1, @Patron_Tier2, @Patron_Tier3). They make it possible for us to have a high quality server that’s fast and stable.
And a massive thanks to you Robin for all your work in keeping and maintaining this site. It’s an invaluable asset for the sober community. Onward and upward we all go.
Thank you Robin for all the work you do behind the scenes here. Without your diligence our life line would crash and then where would we all be? Probably falling off the wagon, that’s where! You are appreciated more than you know.