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solar bud

Powerswitch forum

Not sure what's up with the Powerswitch forum at the minute, but Powerswitchers are invited to hang out here for a bit!!


Andy  Smile
Blue Peter

Hello Andy,

Have you heard anything about what might be up with PowerSwitch?


Peter.
solar bud

No idea - I would have thought they would put up a notice on their front page about when the forum might be back up, but there doesn't seem to be anything there.

They must know about the problem - I'm surprised they haven't posted anything up though in the same way other people have.

Unless it's sabotage or something . . . it would be a disaster if the whole back database had been lost, I presume they must back it up though!!

Peak Powerswitch?!  Sad
Blue Peter

Not exactly, peak powerswitch, but the copy of Computing which has just arrived on my desk has Surge in oil prices hits IT. I wonder how long the wide, varied and free internet will last,


Peter.
solar bud

Blue Peter wrote:
Not exactly, peak powerswitch, but the copy of Computing which has just arrived on my desk has Surge in oil prices hits IT. I wonder how long the wide, varied and free internet will last,


It's a good point . . . I've separately read stuff about how the amount of web traffic is increasing so much that the existing number of servers etc just won't be able to cope in a few years' time. I think a lot of it is stuff like YouTube and streaming video sites - just huge amounts of data.

A simple forum like Powerswitch shouldn't be too much of a burden though, but of course it's all the other stuff running on whatever server they are on.

We'll probably see a slow but steady decline in the quality of internet service I would have thought. A big gap in the market for off-grid ISPs . . . who will probably charge several arms and several legs for hosting I would imagine. Still - it might encourage web developers to be more 'content efficient' I suppose!!
solar bud

The forum seems completely fecked now, I can't even get into the News section.

Very strange there's no message on the front page of the portal though, I would have thought they would put up something. Unless MI5 has shut it down . . .
Blue Peter

I don't know. Sometimes James is away (is there anyone else)? I think previously this has been the reaosn behind some of the longer down-times,


Peter.
ken

Hope they come back quickly, I'm getting withdrawal symptoms.
solar bud

Right at the top of the forum in small letters now reads:

Quote:
Forums currently not readable due to a Lycos "security" issue - I'm working on it - jmb
adam2

Does anyone have an estimated time for restoration of normal service, or any other details?
solar bud

The notice on the main Powerswitch site reads as follows:-

Quote:
The forum is currently out of action, after our hosting provider Lycos discovered that we were "running an insecure file" and made a couple of files inaccessible. Unfortunately, these two files are a critical part of the forum functionality.

At present, the list of forums can be seen, but topic lists and individual postings cannot.

We're investigating, and have contacted customer support. The warning also threatened that the site could be locked if the issue is not resolved, so be aware that the next few days may see downtime. This would likely affect the whole site, not just the forum.

Long-time forum readers will know of previous site suspensions and security problems - all websites are subject to them these days. The offending files don't actually appear to have changed since the forum software was installed, so it doesn't look like a site hack. In this case, it looks as though Lycos are using some form of automated testing, so perhaps either it is giving a false warning, or there's some new security problem been discovered in the forum software. However, they don't seem to offer any update, and don't provide any further information to fix the problem.

Other Lycos customers, running other software, also appear to be affected.
solar bud

Updates from James here:-

http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/por...ask=view&id=2831&Itemid=2

Pretty odd-sounding situation - wonder if Lycos haven't paid their bill or something?!

Maybe they need a solar heaquarters like Google.
ken

Perhaps it's time to find a new host.
ken

The whole PowerSwitch site is locked now and I can't get any on EnergyBulletin either.

Do I detect a conspiracy here and will TOD be the next to disappear??
solar bud

I must admit the same thing had crossed my mind too - it all seems a bit coincidental.

It's obviously all coming on top now in the news - maybe TPTB don't want people thinking that in fact they should have seen it coming?

The Energy Bulletin site says it's offline for an upgrade though. But another forum I go on, a hippy music forum, is also down today, and PO gets discussed on there quite regularly too now.

Just 'cos you're paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT out to get you . . .  Shocked

Edit: oops you're right about Energybulletin, it seems to be non-existent now . . .
Eternal Sunshine

Curious-er and curious-er.  Rolling Eyes
solar bud

The psy forum is back up, and I checked Energybulletin before and got the upgrade message again.

So maybe it's not quite so suspicious after all . . .
adam2

Does anyone have an estimated time/date for restoration of the powerswitch forums?
Starting to get withdrawal symptoms now!
solar bud

No idea . . . I don't have the email address for any of them either to invite them to update us here.
Eternal Sunshine

The index page of the forum is back up today.  Although you can't look at any of the individual forums I think you can use the PM system if you'd like to contact anyone.  Smile
ken

Powerswitch is back up and running.  Great.

Thanks Andy.
solar bud

Well it's down again, earlier this evening I was getting some 'over capacity' type errors when I tried to load the site - probably something to do with the newspaper articles.

The price of fame!!
Eternal Sunshine

Hi guys, I've been away for a few days.  Has Powerswitch been down the whole time?  Confused
solar bud

It went down on Sunday afternoon and hasn't come back up since.

There were a couple of articles published in a couple of the Sunday papers about Powerswitch though, so I'm wondering if the site has been deluged with visitors and Lycos has shut down the site until James et al cough up for some extra bandwidth.
phobos

sounds like whats probably happened Andy
solar bud

They are back up again!
Eternal Sunshine

What were the newspaper articles?
adam2

Site down at present, about 08-00 friday.
anyone got firm info re whats happened? or restoration time?
regards to all
solar bud

Still down at 9:30 . . . no idea what's happened, presumably this same 'security issue' again.  Rolling Eyes
ken

It was off last night and its still down now at 10:30.  Hopefully it will be "bye bye Lycos" soon.
solar bud

Back up again!
adam2

Not working at present, was OK until about 09-30 sunday.
"COULD NOT CONNECT TO DATABASE ERROR"
adam2

After I posted yesterday, site was working though it seemed not very reliably.

Now closed, anyone got more info, same problem or a different one?
solar bud

Beyond a joke isn't it, it seems to spend more time down than up at the minute . . .
Blue Peter

solar bud wrote:
Beyond a joke isn't it, it seems to spend more time down than up at the minute . . .


Didn't it move from Lycos to something else just a week or so ago?


Peter.
Eternal Sunshine

I was just posting a reply on a topic, and it stopped working.  Can't Powerswitch us at all now.  Rolling Eyes
Eternal Sunshine

This is the message on the site now:

"Template->loadfile(): File /data/members/paid/p/o/powerswitch.org.uk/htdocs/www/forum/templates/subSilverOptimised/overall_header.tpl for handle overall_header is empty"
phobos

I think they are transferring the forum over to the new host. Smile
adam2

The forums can now be read, but I have not been able to post, nor to send PMs.
adam2

Posting was allowed earlier, but has now been blocked, seems to be working OK in read only mode.

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