If you can’t post comments, or if the site isn’t working very well, I think it’s a combination of our old friend the database error and something really weird going on with the new spam plugin.
Clearing your cache of cookies (close your browser, right click on the icon and go into options…) may fix the commenting problem (where your name appears dim in the name box but you can’t type in it).
Hopefully things will be back to normal asap.
Note (from Rob): My bad. I was tinkering under the hood and forgot to put something back the way I found it. Gravatars may also be responsible for the recent slowness (especially for IE users): their server went down, but it’s back up now, so fingers crossed.
test
You might want to warn people that clearing all the cookies on the browser will lose the settings and automatic logins for all the other websites as well as this one.
Isn’t it time you changed to a different host?
What Evil said. You think I can remember all my passwords etc to everything out there?
A decent browser will allow you to clear just the LP cookies.
Do you have that bit left over that must have come from something but you don’t know where?
hey what happened to the post about marx and foucault? [sorry posted this to the wrong comment!!]
Purely experimental test comment (do not try this at home!):
“Fyodor is nice, Nabokov is witty, Liam Hogan is smart…”
If WordPress can swallow those comments without complaint then it can cope with anything.
I have to agree with EP: redrag really needs to be on a new host. redrag has always been the slowest site for response times and is getting worse as the traffic on LP grows. Running LP in a subdomain, particularly with this traffic, is probably not the best idea either.
experimental comment - testing, testing : Jack Strocchi combines lean and incisive prose with an intellectual humility only found in truly great minds.
Yet another experimental comment. Just a time marker actually, so I can come back later and get some useable data to determine whether or not the number of posts and the quantity of verbiage on this thread are showing the pattern of exponential growth I expect.
Glen, I deleted it. I wrote it in the early hours after a few pinots. When I woke up this morning, I decided it didn’t make sense without a fair bit of argument to back it up - and I’m out at uni today attending a series of meetings so I won’t have time to flesh it out. I think I need to work more on the idea before I give it a public airing.
Ron: I’d be happy to move to a new host if you’ll pay for it. Thanks.
You are on powweb.com? Might it not run quicker if more local and aid the terms of trade? (Digitalis are good.)
This comment is also a test.
Just because the public internet access where I am is totally unaffordable doesn’t mean I’m not keeping an eye on proceedings when I can, Jack. But ta. I feel the love.
[swoons]
WBB: I signed up for a long-term deal with Powweb before I took on LP (and before it grew). I’m too busy to think about migrating at the moment, though.
Sorry, Robert, I did not mean to offend. There are so many economical and efficient hosts around now that there is no need to put up with poor service and most of them require no more than a month’s notice to cancel.
Pity about the long-term deal with pow as there reputation is not the best.
Performance changes over time with all providers (except the unaffordable ones) - capacity planning is an art not a science. It may all come good again. Let the wheel turn.
No offence taken, Ron.
As WBB said, it’s about capacity planning — I took a cheap plan because I had absolutely no idea LP would get this big this fast!
I have some ideas about how to improve performance, but I don’t have time to implement them just yet… oh, how I long for holidays!
” how I long for holidays!”
What are they?
Rob, I suspect the biggest problem is the comment display on the RHS of the blog. I had a look at the code on wordpress and it is doing a lot of DB queries in a not particularly efficient manner.
How long have you got to go on your plan Robert?
I have some hosting with Dreamhost that is sitting around doing nothing until it expires in February. If you are interested, I can check the details and get back to you about the possibility of handing it over to you.