Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)

Subject: BS: Eh?
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 03:11 PM

What the heck has happened? Complete obliteration? This is very weird!
Ah well. Can I be the lone poster to hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and to wish all Mudcatters (if there are any left!) a Happy New Year when it comes.
Gulp.

Subject: RE: BS: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 03:21 PM

Max had to work with Comcast regarding the setup for Mudcat. It seems to have taken the company a while to get it right.

Subject: RE: BS: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Stanron
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 03:39 PM

Reciprocated greetings. Not having Mudcat for a few days brings home how valued it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 04:16 PM

> It seems to have taken the company a while to get it right.

But have they? It's only been working for a very short time. Will it stay working?

Subject: RE: BS: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 04:22 PM

Don't jinx it!

Subject: RE: BS: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 05:12 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 05:15 PM

Oops! I didn't mean to post anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: fat B****rd
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 05:15 PM

Quick !! Happy New Year everybody

Subject: RE: BS: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 05:40 PM

Love you all! Max and mudelves especially!

Subject: RE: BS: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: peteglasgow
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 06:15 PM

Is this a ruthless but happy culling of just about everything? if so - well done!

Subject: RE: BS: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 07:44 PM

You're back, you're back, you're back.
So Comcast is to blame.
I'll remember that ...

Subject: RE: BS: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Helen
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 09:36 PM

To Max and all the Mudelves, I hope you had a happy Christmas and I wish you all the best for the new year.

Thanks for everything you do to keep Mudcat going, or to get it back on track when it runs off the rails sometimes.

Sending the biggest, the best and the brightest wishes to all of you, and to all Mudcatters as well.

Subject: tech: missed the Cat
From: leeneia
Date: 26 Dec 19 - 09:50 PM

Hello, Max. How I missed the Mudcat these past few days. I'm so glad it's back. I appreciate your efforts.

A couple weeks ago I made my annual contribution. How about the rest of you?   Have you Mudcat regulars sent in some shekels to help keep this site going? It's time.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Dec 19 - 03:30 AM

thanks, Max

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: GUEST,JHW but the robots have forgotten
Date: 27 Dec 19 - 04:56 AM

Thought it had gone for good. Tried various ways (non techhead) and decided just something else I'd have to live without. Was about to mail other users.
Should we all send donations?

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 27 Dec 19 - 06:17 AM

I'm happy to chuck in a bit more money if it's needed.

But please can someone tell me how we can find out what's happening next time Mudcat is down? Sometimes it's possible to get to one of the servers directly when mudcat.org doesn't work, but I know that is deprecated and anyway there are times when we can't get in at all. Is there somewhere else where a notice can be posted? Preferably not Facebook, which some of us prefer to steer clear of, but a page there that is visible without having to log in would be acceptable.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Dec 19 - 07:10 AM

I'm not on facebook & don't want to be, but I do regularly look at cartoonist pages & a few others. Very occasionally facebook sez. join up so I immediately close the window & check out the cartoons the next day!

Mudcat Cafe public group I can see one post from 25 dec asking about mudcat not working but there might have been others only visible to members.

sandra

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Dec 19 - 08:52 AM

Twitter would probably be the best medium. You don't need an account to follow it and it wouldn't need moderators interfering.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 27 Dec 19 - 10:34 AM

Sandra, I too looked at the Mudcat Cafe public group Facebook page.
(nor am I on facebook)
and I saw two separate posts,
one before Christmas and one on/after Christmas,
asking why the Forum was offline.
So that gave me a clue.

I also looked at
Mudcat's Twitter account, Jack,
and the account was active and all,
but had no posts about the problems that took Mudcat offline.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Dec 19 - 12:15 PM

..so what's so bad about mudcat having a holiday over xmas...???

I've always been an enthusiast for two whole weeks off from everything
over xmas and new year...

Some folks are just too keen to get back to the daily grind asap after boxing day..
It's unhealthy...!!!

..and keep your phones switched off as well...



Many thanks to Max and mods for keeping this site alive,
but don't they deserve a vacation from all the stress,
as much as the rest of us do...???????

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 27 Dec 19 - 04:25 PM

it's pathetic of me.
But I have checked back here several times today
just to make certain
that the Forum hasn't gone away again!

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 27 Dec 19 - 08:54 PM

Mudcat on twitter?????

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Dec 19 - 05:58 AM

Twitter?? Aaaaaaaarrgghh!! No way in hell am I getting involved with that spawn of the devil!

The Mudcat Café Public FB Group should be visible at least to any FB Member, although only Group members should be able to post to it. Seems as good a place as any for enquiries about the health of the forum when it’s off-line?

Happy NooYear to everyone! (As we’ve recently been reminded elsewhere, this is an American forum, so I’ve adjusted my pronunciation there). :-)

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: DaveRo
Date: 28 Dec 19 - 11:00 AM

Backwoodsman wrote: Twitter?? Aaaaaaaarrgghh!! No way in hell am I getting involved with that spawn of the devil!

You should take a look at it. Jack is right, it would be an ideal place for Max to let us know what's happening, should he choose to.

Not only do you not need an account to follow a twitter feed, you don't need an app either - you can do it with a browser (though on some mobile devices it might involve dismissing 'Please use our app...' messages).

Official feeds like Train Operating Companies are often the first place they announce problems on the railway and a better source of information than the station staff. e.g. https://mobile.twitter.com/Se_Railway

I don't have a twitter account but my son does. He uses it to publicly complain about products and services. Sometimes, he gets a response and gets things fixed. I don't have a Facebook account either. Of the two I regard Twitter as more open and less malign. A recent tweet from Jack Dorsey, their CEO.

Mudcat's twitter feed is just a robot, though it apparently has 1600 followers (who may also be robots ;)

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Dec 19 - 11:01 AM

https://twitter.com/MudcatCafe

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 28 Dec 19 - 11:03 AM

Well, there you are.
I'm such an ignoramus that
I don't know
a twitter feed
from a proper twitter account.

Guess I learned something today.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Dec 19 - 07:01 AM

I second pfr

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: keberoxu
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 07:18 AM

Pfr and Donuel have a point --
it was nice to take a break from the usual hostilities
(which are visible above the line,
as well as below it, sad to say)

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 07:34 AM

Mudcat's Twitter account, Jack,
and the account was active and all,
but had no posts about the problems that took Mudcat offline.

Depends what is causing the problem. If it is hacking, or covert nefarious use of the 'Cat as a conduit for messages, Max may be in the hands of higher powers demanding to delete or track things. Or just clean up hacking attempts, or problems hit and the elves are partying.

Or flamers out of control......

All in all I can handle withdrawal, no honest, I am strong.................
Gimme COFFEE, NOW!

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: keberoxu
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 07:44 PM

And let us hope that
the Mudcat will be present in strength
for New Year's Eve.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Dec 19 - 02:36 PM

If the network has been turned over to Comcast (an internet pipeline) then we are subject to network neutrality intermittant death and mudcat requests must wait in line behind all the big money players.


Like frog boiling, we could be eased into complacency at first with new wait times that could grow longer. But I don't know

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 01 Jan 20 - 05:33 AM

Just now, trying to get in to https://mudcat.org/ , I got an error message about something to do with security, but I have got in to http://awe.mudcat.org

I know going direct to one of the servers is deprecated, as I said above, but what else should we do when the official way in isn't working?

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 01 Jan 20 - 11:15 AM

PS. As far as I can see no new posts have appeared since that one of mine a few hours ago. This indicates that no-one else has got in to post anything.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: keberoxu
Date: 01 Jan 20 - 04:12 PM

You and me both, Richard,
this is the first time all day
that the Mudcat came up online,
and I've been trying for hours.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Jan 20 - 04:20 PM

Obcession, habit, medicine??? Get over it. Many of us can simply read or not for years without posting. Let go a bit and feel free.

Try thinking that posting is a job you have to do day in and out.
What would you do if you had a few days off?

You are making yourself anxious for no good reason.
In the old days folks kept a journal.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: keberoxu
Date: 01 Jan 20 - 07:58 PM

I did have a few days off.
I didn't like 'em.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Jan 20 - 03:14 PM

The Mudcat keeps blinking on and off,
thankfully it's on at the moment.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Jan 20 - 03:03 PM

We're back, thank goodness,
after hours and hours off.
What a roller-coaster.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Feb 20 - 08:33 PM

"...and Max rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And Max blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it He rested from all His work which Max in creating had made."

Well it is Sunday!

(With apologies to God, who I hope has a sense of humour...)

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Feb 20 - 07:56 AM

I see a vast improvement

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Feb 20 - 11:18 AM

That was a nice relaxing Sunday away from all the mudcat misfits and weirdos..

Normal service now resumed...

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Feb 20 - 03:06 PM

gee, thanks for putting me
with the misfits and weirdos ...

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 02 Apr 20 - 03:35 PM

We seem to be having trouble again: only four threads above the line and two below with postings from today.

Please Max, if you need more resources for your servers and/or your internet service, tell us.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 02 Apr 20 - 04:38 PM

Perhaps the main server has been self-isolating.

DC

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Apr 20 - 04:42 PM

We're back, it looks like.
Don't know what went amiss, though.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Apr 20 - 07:37 PM

Well, there are viruses out there.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Apr 20 - 07:54 PM

And, let's be frank, we are not owed an explanation. Move on, chaps and chapesses. You just had a free day. Get over yourselves...

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 03 Apr 20 - 06:02 AM

I think we should be told whether the problem was caused by lack of resource, in which case some of us would be pleased to throw in some more money, or some other cause for which money would not help.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Apr 20 - 06:22 AM

"And, let's be frank, we are not owed an explanat"
Not for this anyway :-)
Jim

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: keberoxu
Date: 03 Mar 22 - 10:26 PM

Thank goodness, we're back.
Max had to intervene for this one,
according to Mudcat's Facebook page posting.

Thank you Max!

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 06:12 AM

A day off is no bad thing. Unfortunately, it was too cold, windy and damp to do any gardening.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 06:20 AM

I wonder what Apache tomcat was about in the error page that was displayed.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: DaveRo
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 06:52 AM

I wondered why it uses Tomcat at all. When it works it uses IIS

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 07:04 AM

I think it's to do with ColdFusion that Mucat uses for .cfm pages here. The Tomcat connector will handle the communication between the IIS server and ColdFusion. See here.

The ColdFusion server itself is written in Java but it doesn't seem to need a full Tomcat Web Server installation to run.

I think...

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: DaveRo
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 07:42 AM

Ah! I never bothered to find out what cfm meant. I know that it used some obsolete web server - I forget the name - before introducing an IIS server (which was much faster) shortly before the SSL reconfiguration.

Any idea what it's using as a database? Just curious.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 08:18 AM

Mudcat has always used ColdFusion but I think the web server used to be O'Reilly Website Pro.

My guess at a database is MS SQL Server.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 08:37 AM

Has today become International Double Dutch Day? :-)

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 08:52 AM

And nerd shall speak hackish unto nerd, and great shall be the obfuscation thereof.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 08:56 AM

ha ha ha

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 09:03 AM

Dave and I usually understand each other...

I'd better shine some light on this for Steve. Most of my own web attempts used the (php) LAMP platform. :-)

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 09:29 AM

Steve:
Has today become International Double Dutch Day? :-)

Do I need to get out my skipping ropes?

Subject: BS: Welcome Back
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 13 Mar 22 - 09:11 PM

Welcome Back Mudcat.

If pictures/gifs were allowed I would be posting Snoopy doing his 'Happy Dance'

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome Back
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Mar 22 - 09:12 PM

The thread below this says
Long Night in Ukraine --

it's been a looooooong week without our Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome Back
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Mar 22 - 09:14 PM

now where was I a week ago, I'm sure I had something to post!

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome Back
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 22 - 09:28 PM

Look at the top and choose the number of days you want to view then select it.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome Back
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 13 Mar 22 - 09:40 PM

Look at the top and choose the number of days you want to view then select it.
At the moment it seems to be defaulting to 14 days which is the 'hiatus' plus a few days.

Subject: RE: BS: Welcome Back
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Mar 22 - 09:41 PM

Thank you, Nigel!

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Mar 22 - 10:47 PM

The current iteration of Mudcat is missing a few days because of a database problem. Something Max is working on.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 14 Mar 22 - 04:41 AM

good on Max!

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 14 Mar 22 - 06:52 AM

At some stage do we need Max to be biologically cloned in case he ever decides to call it a day?

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Mar 22 - 02:06 PM

The ghost posts were magically delicious.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Mar 22 - 03:16 PM

If it is known in advance that Mudcat is going to be offline for any period would it be possible to give us some warning above and below the line, and perhaps even an indication of how long it is likely to last?

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Mar 22 - 03:24 PM

Nope. We rarely have a heads-up unless it is a reboot that might take 30 minutes and he tries to do that during quieter times. It does mean that if there is a favorite thread you might want to occasionally click on "Printer Friendly" and save a version of it so the content can be pasted back if a chunk disappears again.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: leeneia
Date: 14 Mar 22 - 09:15 PM

If you go to the top of this page and look on the right, you will see a yellow button with "Donate" on it sitting in solitary splendor. Clicking on it will probably help.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 22 - 09:40 PM

It's a pain when the Cat goes down for a few days. The positive thing about it is, it can serve sometimes as a kind of ceasefire that let’s things cool down.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Helen
Date: 15 Mar 22 - 03:14 PM

Is it likely that the database will be recovered or do we need to manually update threads where musical questions have been researched and answered?

An example is Lyr Req: Gypsy Davey (Furey Brothers) where help was requested to decipher the lyrics of a song and a few of us worked together on it and arrived at a reasonably accurate result.

Do we need to do the work again, or is it hopefully possible to retrieve it from the database?

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Mar 22 - 05:11 PM

I think the last data loss was a surprise, and it doesn't look like it's coming back.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Helen
Date: 15 Mar 22 - 06:00 PM

Thanks Maggie,

I think I'll find the lyrics again from a couple of versions and listen to the song and try to put it all back again, unless Joe kept a copy of the corrected version that he posted.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Apr 22 - 06:05 PM

The Mudcat database has been restored to March 17, 2022, missing the end of the month and 2 weeks in April. And Max is still looking into how to do a new setup.

My recommendation is to not fool around with the BS area, stuff may well be lost again. If you have music research to do, do your search and I suggest if you're posting to the a thread and get answers, click on the Printer Friendly tab and then save the whole thread as a PDF. That way you'll have your data on your local computer.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 10 Apr 22 - 06:13 PM

I am wondering if removing troll posts is affecting the database indexing.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Apr 22 - 09:33 PM

Thanks, Max - It's good to have our old friend Mudcat back.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 Apr 22 - 09:39 PM

Now that it has clicked with y'all how much the Mudcat means to you, go to the Home page and click on the yellow button that says "Donate." Of course if you have donated already, welcome to the Inner Golden Circle.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: robomatic
Date: 11 Apr 22 - 12:17 AM

Thank you, Max, for working your magic and to anybody else who helped. May you and Mudcat have many more Springs together.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Apr 22 - 01:39 AM

We're still not 100 percent, so please be patient. If you get an error message, try again.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 11 Apr 22 - 01:56 AM

thanks, Max, & Stilly & Joe & everyone

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Apr 22 - 12:42 PM

... and the search filter is set at sixty days.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 12 Apr 22 - 03:34 PM

I have donated in the past (distant past) and I am more than ready to donate again if it will help. But will it?

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: GUEST,Roger
Date: 12 Apr 22 - 03:46 PM

Very many thanks.

Subject: RE: Eh? (Mudcat offline for a few days)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Apr 22 - 04:13 PM

Yes it will help!