Blender.org Problems

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You just MAY have noticed that the Blender.org webserver has been giving lots of ‘Internal Server’ lately. The server, which also hosts the Peach and Apricot blogs, is experiencing high traffic levels lately because of all the attention for Big Buck Bunny.

Because of the high traffic, some issues with our PHP engine are becoming apparent. The cause is complex and not easy to solve: the PHP engine is not correctly closing down overloaded child processes correctly and after a while, the entire webserver just dies. (Or something like that; for the technically minded, here’s some in-depth information on the issue). 

Our admins are working hard on solving this – site traffic is bound to explode later this week after the premiere of Big Buck Bunny!

For now, everyone’s keeping watch and they’re manually rebooting services when needed. We’ll keep you informed of the progress.

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    • ArtIsLight

      That would explain it. Thanks for the info. Hope it gets up and running soon! :D

    • http://mpan3.homeip.net/ mike

      Both site are powered by wordpress right? Maybe it’s time to install a caching system(way to state the obvious) and serve the media content from Akamai or S3?

    • http://gustavthemushroom.deviantart.com GustavTheMushroom

      Awwww… Poor little blender server… What IS the server setup anyway? …And why do i recall a picture of a few old pc’s in an attic??

    • Marijn

      It is autodesk they want to prevent the release of the movie :P

    • http://www.letwory.net Nathan ‘rebooter’ Letwory

      @GTM – because it really feels liket that? ;) The link to the technical info gives quite good clues as to what the (soft) setup is.

      /Nathan

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @Gustav: that pic was of the old BlenderNation server in my attic, not blender.org ;-)

      http://www.blendernation.com/2006/04/22/new-webserver-for-blendernation/

    • thinkinmonkey

      I’m sorry we are experiencing that problem, especially for people like me who are moving first steps with Blender and sometimes we need consulting online documentation.
      I’m also sorry for admin who are working hard in these days.
      ANYWAY, great and good news, isn’t ?
      I mean, everyone is observing you, everyone is waiting the release of Big Buck Bunny to verify the possibilities of Blender, and, as for Orange project, also this time it will be a new and marvellous milestone !
      Long life to Blender (and to its community and server) !

    • dronix

      @mike: blender.org doesn’t use wordpress. Its powered by typo3.
      BTW, I knew the heavy traffic was the cause and I immediately started getting excited. Keep up the good work guys!

    • The Expert

      That’s why I don’t recommend PHP, it’s a poorly written web-application library. Also, PHP has a lot of bugs in it and if you look at most Linux / BSD web-server break-ins, PHP is ussually involved.

      I recommend C++ with vbmCGI plus FastCGI and proper use of STL and std::string.

    • fudje

      Everyone remember to pitch in your bittorrent bandwidth for BBB!

    • http://www.axisanimation.com TX_RX

      May be an idea to have a static page for the re-directs of a server error 500 explaining the site is being worked on/overloaded.

      PHP is reliable enough, just depends how you compile it and what your server setup is like. Our site get’s hammered everytime we publish a new major article and it holds up. We’re not using typo3 nor carry quite as much features as the blender.org site though.

      you can count my (home) bandwidth for the BBB launch, only thing I’ll ever want to proactively seed!
      Cheers

      TxRx

    • http://vgspectra.net Sephiroth the Bimbo Master

      OMG even with the new capabilities on the served, Big Buck Bunny will be amazing!!!

    • Anthoni_C

      Maybe Ton should get the blender community to invest in a Really Good Server to be stationed at Blender Institute.

    • http://gingermanpro.blogspot.com Gingerman the Bread

      This better get fixed fast- I use the Wiki alot! The wiki doesnt work went the website doesn’t work also.

    • http://www.mad-3d.com madman

      Mmm… this is because a attack?

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @madman: no, it’s Big Buck Bunny hype!

    • roofoo

      Ha, funny picture with this article!

    • http://www.letwory.net Nathan Letwory

      aye :)

    • CrazyJack

      I don’t know much about programming, but I understand MYSQL is free, and rather quite stable. BBB, congrats, you’ve done what no other has done, break the blendernation!!! — congratulations!! (and I really mean it without any sarcasm)

    • http://rexprime.com rexprime

      aslong as i get my daily svn update i’ll be okay

    • http://www.RemnantStudios.com BlenderBoy

      Why not use a clustered setup, so if one server goes offline another takes over; or load balancing or simply setting up another web server to function as a static (non-php & non-dynamic) backup. Blender will only become more popular so I highly recommend the Blender Institute consider redundancy solutions to their web platform. I can help set it up.

    • http://wickes.webs.com/ PapaSmurf

      The Joys of success.

    • amoose136

      Peach in three days!

    • TKR101010

      I was wondering what was going on with that. I was thinking it was my browser ’cause it wasn’t coming up on Firefox on my linux system at home, but wasn’t seeming to have any problems with my windows computer at work.

    • http://inkweaver-review.blogspot.com/ NathanKP

      I’m glad that BBB is that popular. Blender is really taking off!

      NathanKP

    • geogur

      I am having install trouble on Ubuntu .I have downloaded 3 blender packages but can`t install . I am a new linux user and could use some help.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @geogur: a better place to ask for support is on the BlenderArtist.org forums!

    • eoin264

      great, its gone again, so much for using that rigging tutorial -.-

    • http://advanced-lemon.blogspot.com/ epat

      How irritating … someone on wordpress has my usual blender nickname, and my normal nickname has “-” characters in it! grr… :P

    • http://advanced-lemon.blogspot.com/ epat

      Whoops .. wrong thread! :P … Please ignore or (if you’re a mod) delete the above! :/

    • randomnut

      They should be using torrents for the movie!!!

    • http://mpan3.homeip.net/ mike

      Releasing the movie on torrent BEFORE the files are available on HTTP/FTP servers would be cool.

    • http://www.phpscriptinginfo.com Php And Mysql Tutorial String

      anybody here know of a good site to find more info on Php And Mysql Tutorial String? I’ve got this site bookmarked and im gonna keep checking it out, but i still would like to find a site that covers Php And Mysql Tutorial String a little more thoroughly..thanks