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Are you getting a connection time out when using PMC?
This is getting on my nerves....
I had to post this because it happened last night , around 2am ( Pacific Standard Time ) just after I finished pouring 3 hours into posting something here on the forum. But I have been getting frequently :
Error 522
Ray ID: 1ffb580cbb7a0d97 • 2015-07-02 15:22:36 UTC
Connection timed out
...from cloudflare's domain.
(note this is a error message from an earlier time when this same problem happened)
When I try to load up the PMC homepage , it says its offline or not available with
the button " retry for a live version" - does not work all the time, since cloudflare's domain keeps repeating the same error message.
I had to post this because it happened last night , around 2am ( Pacific Standard Time ) just after I finished pouring 3 hours into posting something here on the forum. But I have been getting frequently :
Error 522
Ray ID: 1ffb580cbb7a0d97 • 2015-07-02 15:22:36 UTC
Connection timed out
...from cloudflare's domain.
(note this is a error message from an earlier time when this same problem happened)
When I try to load up the PMC homepage , it says its offline or not available with
the button " retry for a live version" - does not work all the time, since cloudflare's domain keeps repeating the same error message.
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ZaralithGreetings everyone
It is I, the mighty Destroyer of Worlds,
~Zaralith
Dam someone learnt the magical ritual to summon the almighty other ruler of PMC
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Greetings everyone
It is I, the mighty Destroyer of Worlds, here to shed some light on the redstone that runs Planet Minecraft (and maybe point out some cool things from the end while I am at it). I won't have all of the answers as the only person that knows all of our hosting setup is Cyprezz, and he is not available at the moment, but server work is something that I do in my day job when not ending forgotten worlds, so I will explain some of your questions as I can.
First, some words. Domain refers to our name, specifically planetminecraft.com, Host is the pile of redstone computers that run the website, CloudFlare is a service that I will explain a little more in a bit, and DDoS is when a site is attacked by flooding it with too many requests.
First up is CloudFlare. CloudFlare is an accelerator that works by being our name server. What that does is translate planetminecraft.com into our IP address, kind of like asking where Zaralith lives, and finding out where you could mail me a package. What CloudFlare does, is instead of telling you where Planet Minecraft lives, it tells you where one of their storage buildings is (think a room full of chests near you), since they have a large number of servers all over the world, and many customers of theirs have far fewer.
What happens when you get to their server, is that they check your request ("Show me the_soup's awesome skin!") and make sure it is not spam (like asking 500 times in a row all at once). If your request is good, the system then looks at what you are asking for and looks to see if they have a copy. They will ask planetminecraft.com for the pieces of the page that they don't have, and give you their copy of the ones that they do have.
An example of this is this forums page. On this page, there is the Planet Minecraft logo at the top, some fun dirt on the outside edges, some code about how the text should look, and other little pictures and bits. CloudFlare saves all of those little pictures and bits of code, and only needs to ask for the words on the page if those pictures have not changed. This means that instead of needing to have PMC bring a whole stack of blocks, they only need to bring a few since CloudFlare has some of them already. This all makes our servers work for more people, and allows people to access the site faster.
For the 522 CloudFlare error, that means that the server that you connect to near you could not connect to PMC before it timed out. This can be caused by our servers being crashed by the volume of traffic, a problem between PMC and the CloudFlare server that you are connecting through, or a number of other issues.
You may ask, "Why don't you get more bigger servers!, this is crazy that you are always down!?". While I do not know the specifics of our current hosting, I know that in the past, we had so much traffic that our old provider told us to go away because they did not have enough servers for us to use. Servers are not cheap, and finding a large enough provider to handle massive traffic is difficult because there are not many. You may wonder how much traffic we actually get though and how that could possibly be too much.
According to the ranking services that I looked at, we are between the top 3500 sites and top 1000 sites in the world, and there are millions of those (so many millions that we are starting to need to make new street addresses to put them on). We also have a massive 1.5+ million submissions, from tiny skins to massive projects, and nearly 1.5 million users as well, with millions of pageviews a month. All of these numbers mean that we have a huge amount of data and a large group of people trying to access it all the time. The number of people that are on this site is pretty close to having a constant DDoS attack on us because of how many people visit.
I have rambled some about this issue, but at this time, we are working on trying to keep the site up and running, while working on new and improved things to help you share your creations and discussions with each other. We are happy that you love the site, and sad that the number of hugs you give it sometimes cause it to die, but know that we are working on the issue.
~Zaralith
It is I, the mighty Destroyer of Worlds, here to shed some light on the redstone that runs Planet Minecraft (and maybe point out some cool things from the end while I am at it). I won't have all of the answers as the only person that knows all of our hosting setup is Cyprezz, and he is not available at the moment, but server work is something that I do in my day job when not ending forgotten worlds, so I will explain some of your questions as I can.
First, some words. Domain refers to our name, specifically planetminecraft.com, Host is the pile of redstone computers that run the website, CloudFlare is a service that I will explain a little more in a bit, and DDoS is when a site is attacked by flooding it with too many requests.
First up is CloudFlare. CloudFlare is an accelerator that works by being our name server. What that does is translate planetminecraft.com into our IP address, kind of like asking where Zaralith lives, and finding out where you could mail me a package. What CloudFlare does, is instead of telling you where Planet Minecraft lives, it tells you where one of their storage buildings is (think a room full of chests near you), since they have a large number of servers all over the world, and many customers of theirs have far fewer.
What happens when you get to their server, is that they check your request ("Show me the_soup's awesome skin!") and make sure it is not spam (like asking 500 times in a row all at once). If your request is good, the system then looks at what you are asking for and looks to see if they have a copy. They will ask planetminecraft.com for the pieces of the page that they don't have, and give you their copy of the ones that they do have.
An example of this is this forums page. On this page, there is the Planet Minecraft logo at the top, some fun dirt on the outside edges, some code about how the text should look, and other little pictures and bits. CloudFlare saves all of those little pictures and bits of code, and only needs to ask for the words on the page if those pictures have not changed. This means that instead of needing to have PMC bring a whole stack of blocks, they only need to bring a few since CloudFlare has some of them already. This all makes our servers work for more people, and allows people to access the site faster.
For the 522 CloudFlare error, that means that the server that you connect to near you could not connect to PMC before it timed out. This can be caused by our servers being crashed by the volume of traffic, a problem between PMC and the CloudFlare server that you are connecting through, or a number of other issues.
You may ask, "Why don't you get more bigger servers!, this is crazy that you are always down!?". While I do not know the specifics of our current hosting, I know that in the past, we had so much traffic that our old provider told us to go away because they did not have enough servers for us to use. Servers are not cheap, and finding a large enough provider to handle massive traffic is difficult because there are not many. You may wonder how much traffic we actually get though and how that could possibly be too much.
According to the ranking services that I looked at, we are between the top 3500 sites and top 1000 sites in the world, and there are millions of those (so many millions that we are starting to need to make new street addresses to put them on). We also have a massive 1.5+ million submissions, from tiny skins to massive projects, and nearly 1.5 million users as well, with millions of pageviews a month. All of these numbers mean that we have a huge amount of data and a large group of people trying to access it all the time. The number of people that are on this site is pretty close to having a constant DDoS attack on us because of how many people visit.
I have rambled some about this issue, but at this time, we are working on trying to keep the site up and running, while working on new and improved things to help you share your creations and discussions with each other. We are happy that you love the site, and sad that the number of hugs you give it sometimes cause it to die, but know that we are working on the issue.
~Zaralith
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This really gets on my nerves, especially when im browsing some stuff just to see whats going on round the mc community. i get it every other time i come here, and i have great internet.
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Get used to it.
Problem solved.
Problem solved.
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ZitzabisVaiYeah it happens a lot and it should be fixed. The staff pretend like it's normal or there's a logical explanation. There are bigger sites that get overloaded with a lot more requests that don't have this problem :/
There is no pretending about it. There is a logical reason. Read Supernova's message again.Supernova666
Honey, when you're equipped with all of the facts, then you may criticise the host(s), as it is, you do not.
Just to clear some things up:
1) CloudFlare =/= our host
2) Our host =/= the sole cause of the problems
I don't care about the facts. The site with less than 1,000,000 people online should be able to not have connectivity issues as frequent as this
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been like it for well over 4 years now, you just get used to it after a bit
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Yeah it happens a lot and it should be fixed. The staff pretend like it's normal or there's a logical explanation. There are bigger sites that get overloaded with a lot more requests that don't have this problem :/
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And there are also sites that are bigger than us that have this problem. Imgur is a good example.
In a lot of cases (the ones where people can get on while others can't), the issue is on our end and is our firewall. I have been pushing to get that fixed for a long time but nothing's come out of it. In the case where the site doesn't respond the first time you connect but continues fine later, that's likely our site running some lengthy routine and not returning quick enough for CloudFlare to think it isn't down. That's why refreshing works; we don't run these routines more than once if we don't need to.
In a lot of cases (the ones where people can get on while others can't), the issue is on our end and is our firewall. I have been pushing to get that fixed for a long time but nothing's come out of it. In the case where the site doesn't respond the first time you connect but continues fine later, that's likely our site running some lengthy routine and not returning quick enough for CloudFlare to think it isn't down. That's why refreshing works; we don't run these routines more than once if we don't need to.
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There is no pretending about it. There is a logical reason. Read Supernova's message again.
Supernova666
Honey, when you're equipped with all of the facts, then you may criticise the host(s), as it is, you do not.
Just to clear some things up:
1) CloudFlare =/= our host
2) Our host =/= the sole cause of the problems
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Supernova666NamezIt actually isnt. People will boot PMC causing it to go down. If PMC used a better host with better ddos protection we wouldn't have a problem. But |somebody| won't. Its no good excuse to why it isn't on a better host. They can obviously afford it... They obviously have the time to...
Honey, when you're equipped with all of the facts, then you may criticise the host(s), as it is, you do not.
Just to clear some things up:
1) CloudFlare =/= our host
2) Our host =/= the sole cause of the problems
Why isn't the host domain in control, instead of Cloudflare - who is providing these error messages, when there is a connection time out?
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I got one right when I clicked on this xD
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NamezIt actually isnt. People will boot PMC causing it to go down. If PMC used a better host with better ddos protection we wouldn't have a problem. But |somebody| won't. Its no good excuse to why it isn't on a better host. They can obviously afford it... They obviously have the time to...
Honey, when you're equipped with all of the facts, then you may criticise the host(s), as it is, you do not.
Just to clear some things up:
1) CloudFlare =/= our host
2) Our host =/= the sole cause of the problems
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same happens to me all the time, i've just gotten online because i was all day trying to enter PMC, but i just can enter, the same error, Error 522, Connection timed out
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BajoTehDansorzDon't worry, it's just the server dying. The wonderful staff of PMC just don't want to invest into an actual server that won't burst into flames once five people are viewing the site.
I think the issue is a lot bigger than you assume it to be. It's not a matter of "buy a better host".
It actually isnt. People will boot PMC causing it to go down. If PMC used a better host with better ddos protection we wouldn't have a problem. But |somebody| won't. Its no good excuse to why it isn't on a better host. They can obviously afford it... They obviously have the time to...
KrylosindoxiousWouldn't it be possible to argue that there are people who have no interest in the website, who are just plain malicious that go around DDOSing websites, such as the people that are attacking PMC ( under a hacker mentality ) ?
Very possible. In fact, that's clearly what's happening, but PMC refuses to do get a better host for some odd reason.
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[color=#0000FF]I get it a lot like every other day![/[size=200][center][/center][/size]color]
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Wouldn't it be possible to argue that there are people who have no interest in the website, who are just plain malicious that go around DDOSing websites, such as the people that are attacking PMC ( under a hacker mentality ) ?
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Don't worry, it's just the server dying. The wonderful staff of PMC just don't want to invest into an actual server that won't burst into flames once five people are viewing the site.
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Because we obviously have so much control over the matter /endsarcasm
I think the issue is a lot bigger than you assume it to be. It's not a matter of "buy a better host".
I think the issue is a lot bigger than you assume it to be. It's not a matter of "buy a better host".
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I also have this problem sometimes, but it fixes after a short time. :/
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Use the PMC++ Chrome plugin to save your forum stuff. It's really good, link somewhere in my siggy.
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I actually use Mozilla - but I use cut and paste as a simple solution now....
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[deleted]
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I think the server is running on limited bandwidth , or whatever bandwidth PMC is using ... which is still being overwhelmed. I found that if you get one of these connection problems and use the history refresh ( when you eventually try to go back to a page - which may be cached by your web browser ) to recover what you were typing - ends up being gone. So thats why I use wordpad ( I hate notepad ).
In a situation when I get one of these disconnections , and I try to reload up PMC , log on again - just to find that it wont even load up anymore. If I try to do it again, just after that - I get a 404 message, saying that the website does not exist. So, I wait about 1 hour later and try it again - and its working fine, like nothing went wrong! And its not just one time, its multiple times that this has happened.
In a situation when I get one of these disconnections , and I try to reload up PMC , log on again - just to find that it wont even load up anymore. If I try to do it again, just after that - I get a 404 message, saying that the website does not exist. So, I wait about 1 hour later and try it again - and its working fine, like nothing went wrong! And its not just one time, its multiple times that this has happened.
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This always happens to me at night and in the morning. I don't know what causes it.
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Another suggestion is writing everything in Microsoft Word/Apple Pages or whatever note application you run. This will keep everything safe in a file, and on top of that, if you are running Word/Pages, it helps show errors in your posts.
On the actual error side, I get that a few times a day and they last forever for me. There isn't really anything you can do about it, as what has already been said.
On the actual error side, I get that a few times a day and they last forever for me. There isn't really anything you can do about it, as what has already been said.
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AzrathKrylosindoxiousThis is getting on my nerves....
I had to post this because it happened last night , around 2am ( Pacific Standard Time ) just after I finished pouring 3 hours into posting something here on the forum. But I have been getting frequently :
Error 522
Ray ID: 1ffb580cbb7a0d97 • 2015-07-02 15:22:36 UTC
Connection timed out
...from cloudflare's domain.
(note this is a error message from an earlier time when this same problem happened)
When I try to load up the PMC homepage , it says its offline or not available with
the button " retry for a live version" - does not work all the time, since cloudflare's domain keeps repeating the same error message.
Welcome to PMC, get used to it, write your texts as you said in notepad. Problem solved.
I just quickly copy everything to my clipboard before submitting.
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Gealx3KrylosindoxiousI'm also having this other problem with my posts , not being posted when I click the submit button and I think its this problem. I cant recover what I typed out - its lost, so now I gotta use wordpad. Then, copy and paste what I type into this webpage text box.
Yeah I too get this problem, It really annoys me. I'll just be spamming the save button even though I know there's no use.
That happens all the time with me too ;-;
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Oh I get those at least once a week. It's pretty normal with PMC. They need a more stable host...
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The host is not the issue. The issue is the number of requests being delivered. As others have said, PMC encounters multiple small DDOS attacks every day. Blame the people who want to spoil our fun.
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What? Is this a sign that there are angry people who hate PMC or is this just a random act of malice ?
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People get banned for not following our rules, and if they can't follow our rules, they don't belong on the site. Once that happens, they get all upset and try and attack PMC.
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Can you IP ban them as a means to filter them out from trying to send DDOS attacks?
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The thing is, if their bandwidth is larger, filtering isn't going to do much. It's either nullroute or pay more fees for bandwidth usage.
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I really wish they choose another domain that is more stable.
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The domain isn't the same thing as the host, silly goose
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If only it was that simple
Just PMC having an insane amount of requests, also possible that they have mulltiple small dos attacks many times per day
- Jack
Just PMC having an insane amount of requests, also possible that they have mulltiple small dos attacks many times per day
- Jack
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There's browser addons that do the whole saving-as-you-write thing, too. Lazarus for Firefox is a personal favorite, but there's probably a Chrome counterpart too. Super convenient if you do get stuck after typing something up.
(been getting this the last few days, awkward but at least there's eyes on it now!)
(been getting this the last few days, awkward but at least there's eyes on it now!)
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KrylosindoxiousThis is getting on my nerves....
I had to post this because it happened last night , around 2am ( Pacific Standard Time ) just after I finished pouring 3 hours into posting something here on the forum. But I have been getting frequently :
Error 522
Ray ID: 1ffb580cbb7a0d97 • 2015-07-02 15:22:36 UTC
Connection timed out
...from cloudflare's domain.
(note this is a error message from an earlier time when this same problem happened)
When I try to load up the PMC homepage , it says its offline or not available with
the button " retry for a live version" - does not work all the time, since cloudflare's domain keeps repeating the same error message.
Welcome to PMC, get used to it, write your texts as you said in notepad. Problem solved.
1
KrylosindoxiousI'm also having this other problem with my posts , not being posted when I click the submit button and I think its this problem. I cant recover what I typed out - its lost, so now I gotta use wordpad. Then, copy and paste what I type into this webpage text box.
Yeah I too get this problem, It really annoys me. I'll just be spamming the save button even though I know there's no use.
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I get this all the time posting on the Forums, also gets on my nerves.
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I got this from trying to navigate to the web page, to try and log on...
Error 522 Ray ID:
20577ade0bff1201 • 2015-07-13 19:44:09 UTC
Connection timed out
I'm also having this other problem with my posts , not being posted when I click the submit button and I think its this problem. I cant recover what I typed out - its lost, so now I gotta use wordpad. Then, copy and paste what I type into this webpage text box.
Error 522 Ray ID:
20577ade0bff1201 • 2015-07-13 19:44:09 UTC
Connection timed out
I'm also having this other problem with my posts , not being posted when I click the submit button and I think its this problem. I cant recover what I typed out - its lost, so now I gotta use wordpad. Then, copy and paste what I type into this webpage text box.
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It's the data-crawlers interfering with the terraswitch output while the server is handling the header request from the ISP com-link.
Basically things are getting caught up and not working.
Basically things are getting caught up and not working.
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CaptaindogfishThat issue happens [sometimes] here on PMC. Sometimes the server goes down.
Just reload or wait, not much you can do about it. It's just PMC getting hit with a lot of requests. If it persists, either assume it's a DDOS attack or the server for your area is under a lot of stress.
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That issue happens a lot here on PMC. Sometimes the server goes down.
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This just happened as I was trying to go to a previous page of someones post
Error 522 Ray ID:
203ec070d56f1e77 • 2015-07-10 19:42:35 UTC
Connection timed out
Error 522 Ray ID:
203ec070d56f1e77 • 2015-07-10 19:42:35 UTC
Connection timed out
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I happens when PMC gets owned by too much love, as in I'm pretty sure it's PMC running out of internets
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I don't know exactly what the problem it, but it's a problem, nonetheless.
I get it sometimes, too. You just have to wait a while.
I get it sometimes, too. You just have to wait a while.