June 17, 2009

Deferred posting?

Pixy,

Can you enable the deferred posting thingy for my blog? I usually think of things late at night and having them show up automatically the next day would be great.

BTW, I've already created a "Deferred" category to use so that I can post a la the old Bartender's site.

Thanks.

Posted by: Physics Geek at 05:38 PM | Comments (180) | Add Comment
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December 12, 2008

How do I turn off comments on my blog, so that the spam goes away?

more...

Posted by: USAdave at 11:20 PM | Comments (131) | Add Comment
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July 29, 2008

Pfui

The main mu.nu server got overloaded to the point where I couldn't even log in to find out why it was overloaded, so I don't know why it was overloaded because it was so overloaded that I couldn't log in to [whap!]  Thanks, I needed that.

So I had to reboot.  That seems to have done the trick, and everything looks like it's happy again now, but if there is anything misbehaving, let me know and I'll poke it with my +1 stick of poking (+2 vs. trolls).

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:54 PM | Comments (128) | Add Comment
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July 19, 2008

Aargh!

In a fit of insanity I updated the PHP configuration on the server.

This is handled automatically by CPanel, and it is done in a way that is unimaginably horrible.  It takes half an hour (on a quad-core 2.4GHz server) to install one tiny module, and then it systematically wipes out every detail of the careful configuration I have put in place.

So if your blog suddenly went offline, or came online when it shouldn't, or reverted to 2005, sorry, I'm fixing it as fast as I can.  Drop me a line here or at help@mu.nu to let me know what's broken so I can get to it faster.

Update: It has, for one thing, broken all Wordpress blogs.  I know what the problem is, and there is a simple, well-documented fix available, which does not work.  Tearing my hair out now.

Update: 'Twas PHP 4.4.8 that did the deed.  Rolled back to 4.4.7 and we're working again.  Now I just have to see if the rebuild script has retrashed the restored permission settings...

Update: Yes, it retrashed the settings, wiped out Ace's new comments thingy again, and generally behaved like an dysenteric whale in an Apple store.  I hate that thing.

But - important point - things should be working again now.

Update: Dammit. Working except that no-one can actually see your blog.  Fixed that now, too.

Update: Fixed some hiccups with Snoozbutton Dreams and Angry in the Great White North.  I think that may be the last of it, but do let me know if anything isn't working right!

Update: Thanks Susie and Fred - now Movable Type is fixed at both the old and the new addresses.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:39 AM | Comments (104) | Add Comment
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July 08, 2008

Latest Glitches And Fixes

Hi all!

Okay, to celebrate the 4th of July weekend, the server decided to stop allowing you to upload pictures.  Sort of.  The pictures actually reached the server, and then it blew up, but since it didn't give you any indication that the upload had worked, that wasn't very useful.

The problem was caused by a minor change in one of the image processing modules for Perl, which was automatically installed by the system.  I've now updated the rest of the system to be compatible with the new module.

Also, the search function is back, in case you missed it.

If anyone is still having problems with these issues or anything else, comment here or email me at the usual place: help@mu.nu.  And I'll try to get back to you a bit quicker than I did last week.  Sorry about that, Hube.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:33 AM | Comments (70) | Add Comment
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June 28, 2008

Today's Server Flakiness Brought To You By...

Rogue webcrawlers from Lockheed Martin (seriously).
Saudi Arabian script kiddies.
And Movable Type 3 suddenly deciding it needs 2.8GB of memory.  PER PROCESS.

All dealt with now.  Fun day.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:09 PM | Comments (53) | Add Comment
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June 19, 2008

Movable Type Glitches

A couple of people (Ace, Bou, Quality Weenie) reported glitches with their sites overnight and this morning (my time).  I fixed up Ace's site first, but then it happened again for Bou and repeatedly for QW.

When I took a closer look at the server, it turned out that we were getting bombarded with hits from another server elsewhere, and the load on our web server was about five times normal.  I blocked off that server, and suddenly everything works again.

If you are still having problems with your site, try editing and saving your most recent post.  That should rebuild the necessary files.

If that doesn't fix everything, comment here or email me (help@mu.nu) and I'll get it sorted out for you.

Update: Bou got bit again, and so did Rhodey, so I did some more cleanup work (blocking spammers and other resource hogs at the firewall, general tidying up, tweaking Apache config settings, updating the database index statistics) and suddenly everything is running much nicer. 

As before, let me know if you have this problem, or you see another mu.nu blog that's gone funny, and I'll jump right on it.  It's easy for me to fix a blog that's gone wrong (or you can edit and save a post or use the Rebuild feature), but I need to track this down and make certain that it's fixed.

It seems that Movable Type sometimes simply gives up half-way through building a page if the server is too busy.  No error, no nothing, just half a page, or no page at all.  So my first goal is to keep the server happy so that it doesn't happen, and my second goal is to migrate people over to Minx so that it doesn't happen.  

Ace stated pointing readers to his new blog today, which should help smooth things out too.

Update: Problem found and fixed - fixed properly, this time.  And it was so simple, in the end.  It wasn't a software problem with Movable Type.  It wasn't a hardware problem with the server.

The main blogging account was simply out of disk space.

I increased its limit by 10000%, and now it's happy again.

If you're still seeing a blank or incomplete main page on your blog, just edit and save your last post, and that will fix it right up.

Update: Oh, yeah.  The truly irritating part was that I must have done a couple of hundred rebuilds, either through the Movable Type interface or through my little rebuild script before one of them finally gave me an error message instead of just silently not working.  If it had actually given the error properly, this would have been fixed in less than a minute.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:03 AM | Comments (52) | Add Comment
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May 22, 2008

Poopage Fixed!

I just migrated everyone over to blog2, so it's working again.  If you login to blog.mu.nu as usual, it will internally redirect you to blog2, and everything should just work.  You don't need to change a thing.

If you do run into any problems or oddities, do let me know, and I'll jump on them for you.

Now I have to go deal with a lame but rather persistent hacker...  Can't get in, but won't stop trying.

As I mentioned below, I'll be away for a few days.  I won't be out of reach though - help@mu.nu follows me wherever I go!

Update: If you do have a problem with Movable Type, try logging in at blog2.mu.nu instead of blog.mu.nu.  If that doesn't work, leave a comment here or email me.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:31 PM | Comments (71) | Add Comment
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Bleh

We're having a few problems with the server that runs the Movable Type side of things.  I'm working on it right now, and it should be fixed within a few hours.

Since I'm planning on going on holidays tomorrow, it had better be fixed within a few hours...

Update: Had to reboot.  Back up in a couple of minutes.  (9:52 PM Sydney time.)

Update: Okay, reboot went smoothly, and now back to the software update.  Dum de dum.  Okay, that will take a few minutes, so time for a quick bathroom break.

Update: Okay, MT is still acting all weird.  But the second copy of MT that some people use (Ace, for one) is fine.  I'm going to back up copy one and wrote copy two over it, and see if that fixes the weirdness.

Update: Nope.  Um.  Head-scratching time.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:37 AM | Comments (58) | Add Comment
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May 20, 2008

Look Out! Meteors!!

Oops!

We had a slight technical glitch with the transfer process* and I had to shut it down temporarily because it was causing problems for the other bloggers on the new server.

I've found the problem, and it will be fixed and back on track tomorrow, so please hold tight until then.

* Specifically, it was creating duplicate entries under your categories every time it ran.  Hundreds of thousands of the little buggers.  The fix is easy, but I also need to clean up the mess, and that's a little more involved.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:39 PM | Comments (65) | Add Comment
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May 17, 2008

Blacklist Funtimes

The word "online" is questionable content, apparently.  I tried to make a comment on my own blog, and was rejected!

Posted by: Jennifer at 12:52 AM | Comments (55) | Add Comment
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May 12, 2008

Liftoff!

The Great Migration is under way!

It takes about 2 hours to run the full import on my test environment; probably a little less on the production systems (two quad-core servers vs. one dual-core, but doing other work at the same time), and then updates every five minutes.

We has landed!

Update: DONE!!!!!

Look for your blog at myblog.new.mu.nu (where "myblog" is the regular address of your old site, so practicalpenumbra.mu.nu would become practicalpenumbra.new.mu.nu) and have a play around.

(As mentioned in the post below, if you have a .com or .net site, it will show up at myblog.com.new.mu.nu during testing.  Messy, but it only applies during testing; as soon as you're happy I'll update it so your old address points to the new blog.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:21 AM | Comments (69) | Add Comment
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May 11, 2008

T-13 Hours And 26 Minutes

The Great Migration is about to take place.

Finally...

In a little over three thirteen hours, all the mu.nu blogs will get picked up and copied across to new.mu.nu.  So, if your blog is at wombat.mu.nu, you'll have a copy of it on the new system at wombat.new.mu.nu.  If your site is at wombat.com, your new site will be at wombat.com.new.mu.nu.

That's a bit of a handful to type, but it will only be until you are ready to switch to the new software; then I'll switch the new site to use the old address.

Your existing blog will keep working as it is until you are ready to move.  You do not have to move until you're ready, though I'd like to get everyone off the old version of Movable Type before the end of the year.

You can keep posting on your old blog, and commenters can keep commenting there.  Every few minutes, a program will run to pick up any new posts or comments (or edits to existing posts) and copy them across to the new site.  So there's no rush, and if the old system blows up somehow, you'll have an up-to-date copy of every post on the new server.

One issue you may run into is with images.  This process doesn't copy your images to your new site for you (I'll be doing that); instead, it looks for them on your old site.  That usually works fine, but if you have relative image URLs, it might not work at all.  In that case, give me a yell and I'll copy your images across right away.  (I can easily grab any new images at any time.)

You get a randomly generated banner and colour theme on your new blog.  You have 20 standard themes to choose from, and another 20 coming when 1.2 arrives later this month.  You can also upload any image and use the built-in tools to construct a banner for it (see the banner right here for an example), or just use the banner from your old site.

Update: I've decided to put it off until tomorrow morning, so I can tweak it a little more.  Seems to be pretty good, but I'm updating the spam filter and fiddling with some... fiddly things.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:34 AM | Comments (64) | Add Comment
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May 01, 2008

Spucking Fammers

Server overwhelmed by a spamflood, film at 11.

Dammit.

I've got four days clear starting now for the Minx migration.  Minx, being 40 times faster than MT and having better filtering, isn't as easily overwhelmed, so the sooner we can get across to it, the better.

Update: Deleted about 9000 comments, banned a few more IP addresses at the firewall.  Global spam epicenter rapidly moving from Russia to China.  Bleh.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:03 PM | Comments (51) | Add Comment
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