Kubuntu Forums Unavailable

[GreyGeek]

Anyone know why?

[Rog131]

Your guess is as good as mine.


The Kubuntu-Users has a tread
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/kubuntu-users

=>
Kubuntu-Users Archives.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kubuntu-users/2009-April/thread.html#start

=>
what's happened to kubuntuforums?
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kubuntu-users/2009-April/041034.html

[GreyGeek]

Thanks for the links.

I switched from Mandriva 2009 PWP to Kubuntu about 6 weeks ago. I love the forum engine they were using.

When they went down I did a ping on kubuntuforums.net and got the pings back, so the site was active, but the index page was displaying only a "Service not available" message.

I did a search of .kubuntuforums.net on Netcraft and discovered, strangely, that the block owner was ServerBeach and of the dozen clients they hosted only three were using Windows Server 2003 with IIS6 server. Kubuntuforums was one of them. Perhaps the confiker got them?

I did a whois on Kubuntuforums.net and got the email of the tech support and mailed him, but haven't got an answer back.

[lykwydchykyn]

Still down. :-(

[Bluejacket]

Just updated from 8.04 to 8.10 today, so I tried several times to access those forums. Luckily everything went smoothly, so didn't really need to find help & information.

[majamba]

still down expect be up on a working day
since it is saturday in USA

see after two days, i tend to use more unbuntu forums

[Oceanwatcher]

I really like kubuntuforums.net and the people there. Me as well as others from that forum also use this forum, but it is good to have the smaller forum as well.

I thought a datacenter was running 24/7 and did not need to wait for working days to get up? Must be a serious error for it to be down as long as it has been now.

If it really is running on MS Win, it would be a great opportunity now to get it onto a Linux based server :-)

[Aries K]

I really like kubuntuforums.net and the people there. Me as well as others from that forum also use this forum, but it is good to have the smaller forum as well.

I thought a datacenter was running 24/7 and did not need to wait for working days to get up? Must be a serious error for it to be down as long as it has been now.

If it really is running on MS Win, it would be a great opportunity now to get it onto a Linux based server :-)

Hi Oceanwatcher, I remember your avatar from the Kubuntu forums. Maybe they are changing a few things for the new release? Who knows, good to see we are spreading.):P

[Oceanwatcher]

Hi there :-)

I have actually been a member of the forum here for some time. But have been a little on and off using it.

Hope Kubuntuforums is coming back on soon. A bit strange that there is no mention about it on kubuntu.org...

[Monster_user]

I'm getting an error of "Service unavailable" while trying to access the Kubuntu forums.

Does anyone know the reason for the downtime?

[|Porsche]

Whats the URL?

[majamba]

I believe we have another thread on this so please stop duplicating.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1115520&highlight=kubuntu

the link for kubuntu forums

http://www.kubuntuforums.net/

[Monster_user]

I believe we have another thread on this so please stop duplicating.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1115520&highlight=kubuntu

Sorry.

I did do a search for "kubuntu forums", and even ran the duplicate thread check before posting. I'm sure I unchecked "This forum only".

Even Further, the other thread is not even tagged at the moment. Also, it is in the Experimental Jaunty forums, not one of the general discussion areas. Making it harder to find.

Clearly you can see why, and how I overlooked it.

This thread is in the "Forum Feedback and Help" section, which may, or may not be an appropriate place for an issue on a companion forum.

It is also tagged, and one of the tags is the error code in question.


Edit: I just ran a search for "Kubuntu Forums" again, and the thread showed up at the top of the list. Perhaps it was buried when I first searched. Seeing how busy these forums get,... :/

[Monster_user]

A bit strange that there is no mention about it on kubuntu.org...

That is exactly what I was thinking.

It is possible that the Kubuntu Devs do not know anymore than we do.

Perhaps they are trying to wait for more concrete information before responding.

[Joeb454]

The Kubuntu Forums have no affiliation with this forum as far as I'm aware, so you would need to find a way to contact the site owners for further details

[jpeddicord]

The Kubuntu Forums have no affiliation with this forum as far as I'm aware, so you would need to find a way to contact the site owners for further details

Or they could all come here instead... :twisted:

[Perfect Storm]

Or they could all come here instead... :twisted:

Resistance is futile...

[jpeddicord]

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/8275/borgu.gif

[Oceanwatcher]

Maybe... But it would be very ok to just put a message saying "Kubuntuforums.net is down, we are awaiting more information".

Anyway - had the most odd experience today. Suddenly most audio works! Very weird. I have audio in VLC, Amarok, warning messages in Thunderbird, Twhirl, Kopete - all at the same time!

BUT - still not even a beep from Skype.

Where is the correct forum for Kubuntu 9.04 here?

[taavikko]

Where is the correct forum for Kubuntu 9.04 here?

Right here, since this is discussion of devel-versions

[Monster_user]

Jaunty Jackalope Testing and Discussion (http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=352)

There is the link to the forum we are in.

[Monster_user]

Or they could all come here instead... :twisted:

Myself, and perhaps many others, have no way of contacting the Administrators for more information. Having never been to the mailing lists, or gotten the Admin's e-mail. There are some members that can get in contact with an Admin, but how will they contact with the rest of the members?

As such, the most logical place for the members to go with issues is the Parent Distribution. I do feel that the thread needs to be in a location where members of Kubuntu forums can locate it. The "Forum Help" section seemed logical, but another area may be more appropriate.

[jpeddicord]

It's not up to me, but if a sticky/announce were to be made somewhere, what exactly would be put in it? "The Kubuntu Forums are down, we don't know why, enjoy your stay." ;) Since the Kubuntu Forums are not an official service/site of Ubuntu, there's not much the staff (or Canonical) can do about it.

If you like, you could create a thread in the Cafe asking where some other members of the Kubuntu Forums are hanging out. I'm sure you'll find some people. Actually, if you want, I can move this thread there for you.

[Monster_user]

Yeah, go ahead and move it to the Cafe.

[GreyGeek]

A couple days ago, before I posted the story in LinuxToday, I did a "whois" on kubuntuforums.net and found the email address of tech/admin associated with the site. I sent him an email but he hasn't responded yet.

I've been using Linux for over 10 years and I have NEVER seen a forum drop off the face of the earth so quickly. So far, I've seen less than a half a dozen folks ask about it and it had over 4,500 members. No postings by any admin folks, moderators or other long term users of the forum.

Strange.
GreyGeek

[ianmillington]

I'm a member of the kubuntu forum - I am known there by the name of "The Liquidator".

Speaking for myself, and I'm sure loads of others, I had made the basic assumption that the Kubuntu Forum was "official" and was connected with Ubuntu. That assumption then led me to believe that all I needed to do was wait a bit and it would be back up and running. I started to get concerned when a whole weekend had passed without a fix.

The fact that the site is under 3rd party ownership and control makes it vulnerable to outside influences of a commercial and political nature. The damage that could be done to the kubuntu project, by the principal source of help for users being unavailable for 3 days now, is immeasurable. I think Canonical need to be getting some assurances from the site owner or doing their own thing - there is too much riding on this.

Ian

[dabl]

Bummer -- I really needed Qqmike's Grub How-To last night, while fixing a badly busted system. You get dependent on these things .... I hope they get Kubuntu Forums back online sooner rather than later.

[dto]

Speaking for myself, and I'm sure loads of others, I had made the basic assumption that the Kubuntu Forum was "official" and was connected with Ubuntu.
Same here. It's a bit disappointing to find that there is no official forum for Kubuntu. :(

[CraigPaleo]

I don't know if you already know about it but here is another Kubuntu forum (http://www.kubuntuway.net/) if you'd rather have the small forum feel. Maybe someone there will know what's going on with kubuntuforums.net.

[CraigPaleo]

I don't know if you already know about it but here is another Kubuntu forum (http://www.kubuntuway.net/) if you'd rather have the small forum feel. Maybe someone there will know what's going on with kubuntuforums.net.

[tprender]

Do anybody know why the Kubuntu forum has been down for the the last week?

[dto]

Bummer -- I really needed Qqmike's Grub How-To last night, while fixing a badly busted system. You get dependent on these things
If you search "Qqmike Grub How-To" on Google, they have a cached version of that page.

[Technoviking]

Kubuntu questions have always be welcome at ubuntuforums.org.

[jpeddicord]

Kubuntu questions have always be welcome at ubuntuforums.org.

Really, we don't bite. There are tags/prefixes in the normal support areas for Kubuntu & KDE.

Anyway, merged a bunch of these threads together.

[tprender]

Surely somebody knows where it has gone? What happened to the Linux grapevine?


I don't know if you already know about it but here is another Kubuntu forum (http://www.kubuntuway.net/) if you'd rather have the small forum feel. Maybe someone there will know what's going on with kubuntuforums.net.

[claydoh]

I am still attempting to contact the site's owner. With no luck. I will definitely post info if it becomes available.

[CraigPaleo]

Surely somebody knows where it has gone? What happened to the Linux grapevine?

I would think that we'd have heard something about what's happening. I sure they had recent back-ups of their database. I think they used SMF and that is certainly not a standard SMF maintenance mode page.
Hopefully they're moving to a linux server but it shouldn't be taking this long.

There are a lot of Kubuntu users here so you aren't out in the cold completely but I do understand that this may not be the familiar community you're used to. Ubuntuforums really is one of the best communities out there though.

The silence is strange and even a little disturbing.

[tprender]

It's amazing that they couldn't even be bothered to put some kind of message on a splashpage rather than Service Unavailable which tells you diddly squat.



I would think that we'd have heard something about what's happening. I sure they had recent back-ups of their database. I think they used SMF and that is certainly not a standard SMF maintenance mode page.
Hopefully they're moving to a linux server but it shouldn't be taking this long.

There are a lot of Kubuntu users here so you aren't out in the cold completely but I do understand that this may not be the familiar community you're used to. Ubuntuforums really is one of the best communities out there though.

The silence is strange and even a little disturbing.

[CraigPaleo]

I am still attempting to contact the site's owner. With no luck. I will definitely post info if it becomes available.

I wish you luck but if he has a kubuntuforums.net email address he will most likely not get them.

Domaintools.com says that the server response code is 503 which means:

10.5.4 503 Service Unavailable

The server is currently unable to handle the request due to a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. The implication is that this is a temporary condition which will be alleviated after some delay. If known, the length of the delay MAY be indicated in a Retry-After header. If no Retry-After is given, the client SHOULD handle the response as it would for a 500 response.

Note: The existence of the 503 status code does not imply that a
server must use it when becoming overloaded. Some servers may wish
to simply refuse the connection.
From: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html


It's amazing that they couldn't even be bothered to put some kind of message on a splashpage rather than Service Unavailable which tells you diddly squat.

It's definitely a server problem and a server response, which is why they are unable to put up any kind of information or use email.

[claydoh]

It's amazing that they couldn't even be bothered to put some kind of message on a splashpage rather than Service Unavailable which tells you diddly squat.

But if the owner is away, and doesn't know the server/site/database is down, how can he put up a message?

As far as I can remember, he may still be in the National Guard, so if he is away from home with his unit, or if he is traveling, vacation, etc, he might not have access to things.

[claydoh]

I wish you luck but if he has a kubuntuforums.net email address he will most likely not get them.

I am a moderator over there :), and I have not received any replies to different emails, or other means of contact so far....

I just wish I saved my really old emails. I think I had contact info with the other person with server/website access ....

[tprender]

It's been down for several days now.


But if the owner is away, and doesn't know the server/site/database is down, how can he put up a message?

As far as I can remember, he may still be in the National Guard, so if he is away from home with his unit, or if he is traveling, vacation, etc, he might not have access to things.

[jpeddicord]

It seems as if it's sitting behind a proxy server, because a 503 would normally just go away or the server would not respond at all. My guess is that (eg) Apache is sitting in front of Lighttpd/nginx/whatever that actually runs it, or vice/versa. When the main proxy on port 80 can't contact the downstream server, the default action is to spit out a Service Unavailable like that.

So it's likely that something crashed, and it just needs a quick reboot. I guess the issue now would be finding out who could do that. ;)

[CraigPaleo]

I don't suppose calling Godaddy would do much good, would it?

[GreyGeek]

Really, we don't bite. There are tags/prefixes in the normal support areas for Kubuntu & KDE.

Anyway, merged a bunch of these threads together.

No offense, but the KubuntuForums.net web engine is/was MUCH easier to use, and to read. This forum engine/design is not bad, it just isn't as good as KubuntuForums was.

Anyway, I suspect that since we haven't heard anything from the admins of the site or the moderators, I suspect that it is down for good.

As I said before, I emailed the tech support listed in whois a week ago and have not heard anything from him. His email is zbrantley@a-c-s-inc.com
GG

[CyberMando]

Hello folks. I am glad to have found some of you again.:) I was mando_hacker at kuvuntuforums.net. That site seems to have been hosted at http://www.smfforfree.com/ and the server is still up, Just the kubuntuforums is gone. Pretty weird.

[dto]

It's back!

[tprender]

Amazing!!


It's back!

[Monster_user]

No offense, but the KubuntuForums.net web engine is/was MUCH easier to use, and to read. This forum engine/design is not bad, it just isn't as good as KubuntuForums was.

From personal experience, the "engine" of this forum, the vBulletin engine is absolutely amazing.

I've been to a few different vBulletin forums similar to the Kubuntu forums in layout, but they were easier to navigate. also the extended features of one of the sites is beyond any other forum I've been a member of. This engine is overall just a joy to use. Themes are still another story,...
http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21798

The layout of Ubuntu is unique in its own way. Aso, there is quite a bit more content that these forums have to cover. The Kubuntu forum is more of a default layout, which might be overloaded by the plethora of topics for the Ubuntu forums.

What I do like about the Kubuntu forums, is the small forum feel. Posts on these Ubuntu forums tend to get buried several pages in just a few hours.

[CyberMando]

After my post I went to http://www.smfforfree.com/ and filled in their contact form, asking them if they knew when it would be back. They fixed it and thanked me for letting them know. So I guess we know what to do if it happens again. :)

[claydoh]

I must apologize for not having that information, else I would have instantly contacted them :(

Many thanks for finding this out, and getting it fixed!

[CraigPaleo]

After my post I went to http://www.smfforfree.com/ and filled in their contact form, asking them if they knew when it would be back. They fixed it and thanked me for letting them know. So I guess we know what to do if it happens again. :)

That was good thinking!

[irlandes]

It is down again today. Sigh!

[claydoh]

I am trying to contact the folks in charge right now

:(

[waldopepper]

Must be running that thing on a Windows server! :lolflag:

[LookTJ]

Must be running that thing on a Windows server! :lolflag:
According to netcraft, you are correct.

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=http%3A%2F%2Fkubuntuforums.net%2F

[claydoh]

According to netcraft, you are correct.

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=http%3A%2F%2Fkubuntuforums.net%2F

Old news :/

nonetheless, it is back up. I contacted the host and they fixed it :)

[Dullstar]

Glad that link was provided, I decided to check my own website, and apparently the web host uses Linux servers!

[VMC]

The forums are down again. Its been several hours now. Any word on how, when or why?

BTW- I can ping kubuntuforums.net ok, just cant logon.

[pwnst*r]

Alert the authorities!

[ianmillington]

Working now!

[Jpenguin]

Down again :-(

There site seems to be down alot...

My websites are all on free host, and they don't seem to have much downtime. www.000webhost.com www.110mb.com www.99k.org

[Jpenguin]

its back up