Expected DU downtime for maintenance: Thursday March 20, 2 PM ET (UPGRADE COMPLETE, UPDATED THURSDAY 4 PM ET)
This discussion thread was locked by EarlG (a host of the Announcements group).
The server upgrade has been completed and everything is looking good so far. A few notes:
First, we are very hopeful that this will alleviate the 504 problem we've been having lately, but there's still a chance that the problem may occur. If it does, we'll have to continue work on other solutions.
Second, we only upgraded our front end servers today, which should significantly improve performance. However, we also need to upgrade our database server, which we will do sometime in the next few weeks. I'll post another announcement when we're getting ready to do that.
Aside from that, any time we perform an upgrade there's a chance that something may glitch out. If you notice any weirdness over the next few days, just send me a PM to let me know.
Thanks again for your patience!
EG
Original message:
Hello all,
As you are probably aware, we've been having some issues keeping the site online recently, and we have had to periodically restrict traffic by flipping DU to "Members Only Mode," during which only people who have a DU account and are signed in can read the site.
This sort of thing can be caused by any number of factors, so unfortunately it's taken us a while to get to the bottom of it, because we had to eliminate a variety of possibilities. However, we think we may have a handle on the situation now. Essentially, we've gained traffic over the last few months, and we think our current hardware setup is not robust enough to handle the current load. Or as Elad explained it to me:
We believe that simply upgrading our setup should resolve the situation, so we will be going offline for a little while on Thursday afternoon to perform this upgrade. Expected time for maintenance is one hour, although if everything goes well it could be a short as 30 minutes.
In case you are wondering why we don't do this in the middle of the night, the simple answer is that if something goes wrong, it's usually quicker and easier to deal with tech support during the daytime.
That's all for now -- once again, the site will be offline on Thursday March 20 at 2pm ET for (hopefully) somewhere between 30 minutes and one hour, assuming all goes well. I'll post again once the upgrade is complete.
Thanks for your patience while we attempt to resolve this ongoing issue.
EarlG
= new reply since forum marked as read
Oh, I love Elad/Sotties response! 
Thanks to both you and Elad. 
Well that is certainly good news for you guys! Maybe that is a "sign"! 
And Elad.
We're Rootin' for ya!
That's precisely when I was planning to unveil my new series of threads on pet rocks. Maybe you can do the maintenance the week after?
Best of luck, gents!
Do these pet rocks have googly eyes by any chance?
I once had a co-worker that had these spring loaded googly eyes.
The eyeballs were in a frame and they sprung out of the frames like a slinky.
It was the funniest thing ever. I couldn't stop laughing.
a series on "mood rings"!
It's like you read my mind! I'll give you a heads-up when it's ready to roll. Or maybe you'll just sense it in advance...
We can all wear our rings. 
May the upgrade go well... and, if you have to have an issue, I guess one based on more visits is the one to have!
For me this has only been a minor inconvenience.
But it be driving you and Elad nuts. Confident that
y'all will solve it. 
I'm a senior on a fixed income, but DU has been the only thing that helps prevent me from going crazy - especially since November 5! I'm going ahead and making a one time donation. Please let us know ...
Thank you so very much for all your work, Earl!
edited to add: I couldn't figure out how to do a one time donation, so I just increased my monthly contribution for my star membership. Again, many, many thanks!