GIMP Forum

We're BACK!

Yesterday was the culmination of a series of problems that began last Friday. For some reason we couldn't get in the site. We kept getting some strange messages on the page.

When we checked with tech support, they went to the forum page and they were there. They sent a picture. we were baffled. Something was wrong.

We had access to our cpanel, where we control the domains, and we noticed that our CPU was at 99%. That wasn't good.

We still could not get to this forum, the other domains appeared to be ok. We spent the weekend trying to sort things out, believing that it was our problem, not the domains... until yesterday when suddenly all the domains were SUSPENDED!

When we consulted tech support at the server we received this message from the tech support guy.

"High load alert. The customer is overloading the server and causing downtime via ralphus.net. He spawns hundreds of website connections, processes and mysql queries. Suspended in WHM. The customer should look into optimization, upgrade or some sort of protection (CDN, etc.) after reviewing his traffic.**"

The customer is us. We were overloading the server via ralphus.net, that means the forum, because it's the only part of ralphus.net that has tremendous activity.

So, once again we were forced to UPGRADE the HOSTING plan to accommodate the high CPU usage we had!

We could've eliminated, deleted half of the posts and pictures here to get back to normal but we didn't have access!

We're now paying a lot more and we can't repeat the experience next year. We have 3 times the disk capacity right now, and it shows that we're at 58%!

I deactivated registrations and attachments for the time being while we sort this out. We cannot go nuts with the posting of large files in tremendous quantities. Sites like FB where they have millions of everything make billions of dollars so they can afford it. We can't.

Right now we're at full capacity, money wise, and we won't be able to upgrade again next time, which could happen in a couple of months, or six months, or a year.

We're open to discussions, of course, and ideas.

Before we needed like a like 1,000 to keep it running for a year, now it's double that. The monthly fees for our hosting plan is a lot higher now.

I know that the Crux Forum needs to raise 200 a month to keep it running... and they do.

In our case we had a simple thought. We have a good number of fans that maybe would buy our films enough to make it worth the expense of running the site, but it doesn't happen that way.

Ok. This the opening statement of the facts.

I'll return with more.

Good to be back!!!

I have a couple of ideas.

Perhaps we could use eternal sources in the form of Embeds, approved of course. Also I was thinking of deletions.

Perhaps contributors (myself included of course) could offer up created threads for deletion. A sort of 'sacrifice' in order to clear down space.

For my part I will be limiting the size and amount of pics. I would be happy to supply a brief list of threads that I have created for deletion.


I value my membership of GIMP and I will personally help in anyway I can.


MK

Glad you are back... I was also worried simply and because on the 15th ( tomorrow) you registration expires .....

I am the last one to suggest anything, since I make the stuff and am NOT a geek, but somehow it would make sense to me:

1) ADVERTISE place adds in the popular pages ( certainly the forum). You only have your stuff advertised. NOT sure if that is the best way. Also, nobody clicks on the outdated banner farm.

2) REMOVE " non performing" and huge sections and monetise them. For example archives, hall of fame. Store them separately and make anybody who wants to look pay $ 4.99 to download them.

3)RE-EXAMINE the size of all Redfeline items and streamline some of the older stuff so it does not "eat" so much space.

4) FUNDRAISING In today's ( Trump) world very few ( certainly not me) want to have an electronic record on their phone to GIMP. I know that we live in a new high tech world but in this case, if there was an address ( even a box) where I can slip " hot 20" into an envelope and send it, I would do it in the heartbeat.... and please do not mention crypto

5) DELETING old threads... lets say 24 months?

anyway these are my bits.

The idea of outside hosting is actually sound. True, might not be so reliable but places like https://postimages.org seems to be relatively tolerant to extreme content.

Also the idea of a PO Box where to send physical money (I'm willing to send a 50 dollars bill myself) is sound cuz I don't want to have such transaction on my CC. And I'm too old for crypto.

We're looking into how we reach the CPU limits.

We're deactivating ALL the bots that we see try to register and put through malware. This morning we were at 97% of CPU usage. After those actions we went down to 63%, which is a lot better.

We'll be monitoring the CPU usage for the rest of the week. We'll be able to have an idea of how to control things.

I also saw that strange message yesterday. I'm glad the forum is back online.

I'm not an expert on technical matters, but:
If the core of the problem is attachments, just disable them — in other words, let members use image hosting services.

letvor wrote: ↑Wed May 14, 2025 12:24 pm I also saw that strange message yesterday. I'm glad the forum is back online.

I'm not an expert on technical matters, but:
If the core of the problem is attachments, just disable them — in other words, let members use image hosting services.

I hotlink, how does "hosting service" affect me....?

We are monitoring the site.

As we work on the websites, updating, posting, sharing some, uploading pictures, not many, we check the CPU and Disk Space movement. We haven't seen much there. The CPU stays pretty low, that's good news.

But the attachment option for the forum is off, so there's very little activity now. There are some links to images and sites, which we are checking closely and they are not affecting the CPU either. That's also good news.

We expect to reset the attachment option during the weekend and see what happens.

There will be some rules, for sure.

La Reine Margot wrote: ↑Fri May 16, 2025 6:09 pm We are monitoring the site.

As we work on the websites, updating, posting, sharing some, uploading pictures, not many, we check the CPU and Disk Space movement. We haven't seen much there. The CPU stays pretty low, that's good news.

But the attachment option for the forum is off, so there's very little activity now. There are some links to images and sites, which we are checking closely and they are not affecting the CPU either. That's also good news.

We expect to reset the attachment option during the weekend and see what happens.

There will be some rules, for sure.

If limits on image posting becomes necessary, so be it.