Erik

http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showt...mp;#entry254659

Quite often it takes a papal blessing. Tonight you're in luck, it's all you can eat fish and chips night at the Vatican.

The problem is NOT related to the OFF guys in any way. To my disheartening dismay it's coincidental with their arrival and happens at a time when I'd like to show them we're not a fly by night operation. At this point after I was able to recover the machine I have three possible suspects. 1. A DOS (Denial Of Service) attack. 2. Someone using a download accelerator like FlashGet or one of the other programs to download files from our site. This mimics a DOS in that these programs open multiple connections to the server to download a single file. Much like Limewire where you get parts of a file from different people and in the end you get a complete file. Problem here is the site is the only person sharing the file and the multiple connections are opened to a single point. The really sad part of this is that end users don't quite understand the nature of the internet. If you're on a 1MB connection and you open one connection it will try to fill that connection up to 1MB (your cap). If you open 10 connections you divide your 1MB connection 10 times so you'll likely end up with 10 transfers of 100K each. Download accelerators will NOT increase your throughput or your ability to receive files faster. If I find this is the actual case we'll be removing the culprits without warning. Sorry. 3. The search engines like Yahoo, Google, MSN, etc also download files for archive purposes. Now in the case of the download manager they'd be denied the files but they'd still try to open the connection. I've been having problems with the aggressive nature of one such crawler bot that I haven't quite resolved so I'm not ruling this one out either. Either way any of these have the same affect. Me humbly saying "SORRY!"

Guys I'm on it ... been working with the server all morning. Locally resetting your cookies was probably coincidental with the server coming back after some changes this morning. I'll continue to work on things until we have a solid and robust home. You can expect some mild interruptions and I'll try to keep them at a minimum. I'll let you know when the work is complete and how we're doing along the way. Here's a snap shot of what I was working on this morning. When the server load gets above 20 it's no good. When we see loads into the 400 range it's really not a good.

I just received the orders on my desk, but unfortunately someone forgot to sign them. I'll send them back across the chain of command for proper documentation before denying the request. Right so to the point gentlemen ... would this be a forum area specifically for OFF? I would think this best as skinning or modding isn't the same between platforms. I'll stand down until further clarification can be reached.

hmmm ... well somewhere in one of our many software upgrades we may have been forced to recount the member's post count and at that time who knows which forums may have been pruned which might account for the low count numbers. knowing the participating level of the OFF group I'm betting you all will have post counts higher than 1000 by the weekend. E

Not so new ... your username has been around since '05 ... WTG!

So far before the half: #1 Diet Pepsi Max - The guy standing out of the limo and getting hit by the roof of the parking garage, and the one where he's changing the bulb in the light on the side of the barn made me laugh. #2 Budweiser - The stick (tree) fetching clydesdale was hilarious. The horse didn't even get a treat ... "showoff". hahaha #3 ETrade - Stretching the golden vocal cords ... incredibly funny. #4 EFlowers - Don't send boxed flowers you never know what they'll say. "Nobody want's to see you naked." Too funny. Erik

Wow a 2 digit Member No. They are rare.

Kevin ... U' duh man! Nice easter egg. :) Thanks! --- Cash question: PayPal doesn't require you to have an account and you can use your debit card or checking account (read: cash). There's a lot of reasons we use this system but the primary one is it allows for complete automation so we don't have to manually create and remove account subscriptions. Thanks to all for the support in all it's forms we receive. Erik

Saw the Star Trek Movie preview and was completely surprised. I didn't know they were even making one. Where have I been? Both should be worth the watch once they hit DVD. :) E

Like the plumbing .... well over used ... probably getting tired ... but oh so appreciated and useful.

Great thread. It's fun to read the history and testimonies. I hope we hear from more of you. I really enjoy being part of our community and as I'm sure you've found there's really some terrific folks walking our halls. I hope each of you continue to enjoy your time here at CombatACE for many years to come. My appreciate and personal shout outs to the modders, moderators, staff, contributors, and members. Erik Thompson CombatACE.com

The part 1 file may have inflated numbers because the count is determined by file requests not actual completed downloads and may also be influenced by members who don't have the subscription or member rank to download all three parts in a single day. Of course subscribed members have full access. Just an FYI so you don't trust the numbers completely. E

Anyone see anything odd here?

Well the CHI / STL / and now our AZ Cards finally got a ticket to the big show after many decades. Sadly I'm thinking it's only going to be a conference title.

TRUE! Except I rarely get much sleep which makes me angry that I enjoy being awake so much. There's always so much to do, you know. The person below me has eaten an insect on a dare.

I hope the others here have made a convincing enough appeal that our site and members only offer support for authentic installations. These types of topics are clearly something we want to discourage and hope everyone can appreciate our views and policies regarding these issues. Generally issues like this boil down to it's either an authentic install supported on the vendors site or it's not. Thanks for understanding and welcome to the community.

What was that Mr. Trump? I think you forget the least my ripe young age, needless to say I, as well as many others, perk to the suggestion of enlightening dialogue. Hence the reason I ventured forth. No harm no foul ... just disappointment.

I actually stumbled in here thinking I'd find something of substance. ... oh what foolish thinking. And you'd think by know I'd have learned.

Happy Birthday! Dave .... 40 is the new 20 .... 'duh

It's possible if you tried to get to the site while the registrar had our domain suspended then your DNS cache on your machine is still not updated. You can clear the cache by doing the following. Open a Command Window: (Start > Run > Type "CMD" > Press "Enter") Flush the DNS at the command prompt: (Type "ipconfig /flushdns" > Press "Enter") Exit the Command Window at the command prompt: (Type "exit" > Press "Enter") Close your browser window(s) and reopen a new browser window then navigate to our website. === Another trick is to use another DNS lookup form of our domain. Example: If you always use "combatace.com" to get to our site, try using "www.combatace.com" if you use "www.combatace.com" then try using "combatace.com" both versions get you to the same place but require a separate DNS resolution. === If those options fail then just waiting out the re-population of our domain will solve it. Of course if you can already read this message then your resolving to the domain already so these instructions would only be for those that can't get here or for future referrence when having problems getting to our site. E

Our domain registrar was in the middle of a credit crisis. (read: I forgot to update our auto-renewal information and they suspended our domain name.) All is fixed now, thankfully. Happy Holidays everyone. E