Server down? - Page 4

Heartz · 12 Apr 2002, 08:04 AM

Good to hear. I hope things get fixed fast.

DavidJX023 · 12 Apr 2002, 09:41 AM

Depending on what services you want, Yahoo could be a service you are paying for, so it can be held upto the same benchmarks because once their new policies go into effect at the end of the month, I doubt their problems will decrease. Plus, I would consider paying $40 a month for an internet provider, paying for email service, so an ISP should also be held upto the same benchmarks.

It's great that Jeremy and Rob are working on the IMAP bug; but, until it's fixed, does the 1 minute a day downtime and the occasional 5 minutes really kill anyone?

PON · 12 Apr 2002, 10:24 AM

The instructions for outlook express give server names of fastmail.fm not www.fastmail.fm for pop and smtp servers. Do these instructions need revision? Paul

DavidJX023 · 12 Apr 2002, 10:31 AM

I have fastmail.fm listed for my IMAP and SMTP server; works fine using Mulberry. What you list for the server name is the same regardless of the email program you use.

Jeremy Howard · 12 Apr 2002, 10:33 AM

They do need revision, since if you use SSL the 'www.' is required. Thanks for the tip!

**psalzer** · 12 Apr 2002, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by DavidJX023
Depending on what services you want, Yahoo could be a service you are paying for, so it can be held upto the same benchmarks because once their new policies go into effect at the end of the month, I doubt their problems will decrease. Plus, I would consider paying $40 a month for an internet provider, paying for email service, so an ISP should also be held upto the same benchmarks.

It's great that Jeremy and Rob are working on the IMAP bug; but, until it's fixed, does the 1 minute a day downtime and the occasional 5 minutes really kill anyone?

Exactly on all counts! When I mentioned uReach, I was paying a good deal of that time. It was very reliable. It wasn't perfect. ISP mail has not been terribly reliable all the time and Yahoo out and out lost some. of my mail. Fastmail hasn't lost anything so far as I know and the down periods have been very short for the most part. In fact, you really wouldn't normally notice them. You'd just go do something else for a few minutes and come back and all is well.

srinathava · 12 Apr 2002, 03:32 PM

Hello!

Its about 11:27 pm (PDT), or 7:27 GMT right now and I see that the IMAP server for fastmail.fm is still down.
Actually its not so much down as it is really really flaky. I use pine and it cuts off the server every minute or so...

The web-page is also completely down.
On Mozilla, I get a "connection refused" or something similar.

These problems have been getting quite frequent lately. I dont mean to whine. I really really like fastmail as of now and I'll be patient for the time being.

The thingie is, I have never really experienced the "faster" fastmail. The IMAP service has been getting flakier.

I did read about the bug in the server or something, but I really hope this gets ironed out soon...

Thanks

Srinath

(member since it started)

***Edwin*** · 12 Apr 2002, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by srinathava
Its about 11:27 pm (PDT), or 7:27 GMT right now and I see that the IMAP server for fastmail.fm is still down.

I don't think the expression "still" down is appropriate.

There was a very brief outage yesterday, then the service came back up. It is up right now (10 minutes after your post) and very fast too. I'm logged into the web interface so that's working as well.

You could say "Fastmail.fm was down very briefly yesterday, and when I tried to connect this morning I also had some problem connecting", which would be much more accurate since it's been UP all the rest of the time!

It's not clear whether the latest problem was at Fastmail's end or something to do with your network connection, by the way. Jeremy will no doubt post to this thread soon if it was Fastmail-related.

chilipina · 12 Apr 2002, 03:48 PM

Actually, I'm having the same problem. Five minutes ago it was down (giving me the "Fastmail server is down" error), althoough now it's doing fine. It's not my ISP--I have a dialup connection which hasn't booted me off yet, and this webpage with the forum is working fine, as is the rest of my ISP email. The status update page told me the servers were up and running, so I tried to go back to my inbox but still go tthe same message. The error lasted maybe 5-10 minutes.

Oh yeah, and I also got that spam from kathy9...@arabia.com or whatever it was (two of them actually). I just deleted it, I didn't want to open up something that might have a virus.

chilipina · 12 Apr 2002, 03:50 PM

Oh yeah, I was using the web interface, not IMAP.

Jeremy Howard · 12 Apr 2002, 03:58 PM

We had two 30 second outages. One was the regular planned IMAP server outage which works around the server bug. The other 2 minutes later was to upload today's code changes.

I've already purchased additional servers and announced their forthcoming installation, which will improve both speed and reliability.

I'm thinking about creating a summary page on the status server that shows the uptime history. That way there would be a definitive source to see exactly how much downtime we have.

We're aiming for around 99.97% uptime (a 30 second outage each day for code uploads and cycling the IMAP server). Since the server install we've been running at a bit over 99.8%.

***Edwin*** · 12 Apr 2002, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeremy Howard
I'm thinking about creating a summary page on the status server that shows the uptime history. That way there would be a definitive source to see exactly how much downtime we have.

That sounds like an excellent idea!

michaelj · 12 Apr 2002, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DavidJX023
The disadvantages of having this forum.

Like you guys wouldn't have found out the server was down... I'm just very used to these big companies without a face, and when email stops working, you're looking at a day for it to work again, and a week before things get back to normal.

My record downtime was three weeks when I used Hotmail for subscriptions. They were doing some server 'upgrades', and three weeks later they lost half the mail, causing many subscriptions to get cancelled.
My USA.NET account was down for four days late last year, and this was my personal, non published account. I had a collection of 'we're aware and we're working on it' messages.
I ended up creating a Yahoo account as a backup. That Yahoo account became my subscription account, and now I'm going through those messages and changing them over to my aliases from my horrible e mail account provided through Roadrunner, which also fails regularly. I convinced them to tell me how to telnet into the account (no webside) so I can delete mail that gets stuck, because it takes them about two days to get to it on their own once you contact them. I don't want all that 'junk' in this account, though I linked my 'master' account e mail to fastmail.fm, as they do send out notifications, etc. that I want to be able to read regardless of where I am. (Oh, and my eBay stuff goes there!)
From everything I'm seeing here thus far I don't expect to have any of these problems.
Now if only Yahoo would release my domain to fastmail!!

Michael

michaelj · 12 Apr 2002, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DavidJX023
The disadvantages of having this forum.

Like you guys wouldn't have found out the server was down... I'm just very used to these big companies without a face, and when email stops working, you're looking at a day for it to work again, and a week before things get back to normal.

My record downtime was three weeks when I used Hotmail for subscriptions. They were doing some server 'upgrades', and three weeks later they lost half the mail, causing many subscriptions to get cancelled.
My USA.NET account was down for four days late last year, and this was my personal, non published account. I had a collection of 'we're aware and we're working on it' messages.
I ended up creating a Yahoo account as a backup. That Yahoo account became my subscription account, and now I'm going through those messages and changing them over to my aliases from my horrible e mail account provided through Roadrunner, which also fails regularly. I convinced them to tell me how to telnet into the account (no webside) so I can delete mail that gets stuck, because it takes them about two days to get to it on their own once you contact them. I don't want all that 'junk' in this account, though I linked my 'master' account e mail to fastmail.fm, as they do send out notifications, etc. that I want to be able to read regardless of where I am. (Oh, and my eBay stuff goes there!)
From everything I'm seeing here thus far I don't expect to have any of these problems.
Now if only Yahoo would release my domain to fastmail!!

Michael

pcguy · 12 Apr 2002, 11:34 PM

These mail server problems, are they affecting all users i.e. IMAP and POP or just the latter?

12 Apr 2002, 03:32 PM	#52
srinathava Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 1	IMAP still down? Hello! Its about 11:27 pm (PDT), or 7:27 GMT right now and I see that the IMAP server for fastmail.fm is still down. Actually its not so much down as it is really really flaky. I use pine and it cuts off the server every minute or so... The web-page is also completely down. On Mozilla, I get a "connection refused" or something similar. These problems have been getting quite frequent lately. I dont mean to whine. I really really like fastmail as of now and I'll be patient for the time being. The thingie is, I have never really experienced the "faster" fastmail. The IMAP service has been getting flakier. I did read about the bug in the server or something, but I really hope this gets ironed out soon... Thanks Srinath (member since it started)

12 Apr 2002, 03:48 PM	#54
chilipina Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 9	the server IS down! Actually, I'm having the same problem. Five minutes ago it was down (giving me the "Fastmail server is down" error), althoough now it's doing fine. It's not my ISP--I have a dialup connection which hasn't booted me off yet, and this webpage with the forum is working fine, as is the rest of my ISP email. The status update page told me the servers were up and running, so I tried to go back to my inbox but still go tthe same message. The error lasted maybe 5-10 minutes. Oh yeah, and I also got that spam from kathy9...@arabia.com or whatever it was (two of them actually). I just deleted it, I didn't want to open up something that might have a virus.

12 Apr 2002, 08:04 AM	#46
Heartz Essential Contributor Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Selangor, Malaysia Posts: 460	Good to hear. I hope things get fixed fast.

12 Apr 2002, 09:41 AM	#47
DavidJX023 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 120	Depending on what services you want, Yahoo could be a service you are paying for, so it can be held upto the same benchmarks because once their new policies go into effect at the end of the month, I doubt their problems will decrease. Plus, I would consider paying $40 a month for an internet provider, paying for email service, so an ISP should also be held upto the same benchmarks. It's great that Jeremy and Rob are working on the IMAP bug; but, until it's fixed, does the 1 minute a day downtime and the occasional 5 minutes really kill anyone?

12 Apr 2002, 10:24 AM	#48
PON Essential Contributor Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Wicklow, Ireland Posts: 449	The instructions for outlook express give server names of fastmail.fm not www.fastmail.fm for pop and smtp servers. Do these instructions need revision? Paul

12 Apr 2002, 10:31 AM	#49
DavidJX023 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 120	I have fastmail.fm listed for my IMAP and SMTP server; works fine using Mulberry. What you list for the server name is the same regardless of the email program you use.

12 Apr 2002, 10:33 AM	#50
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	They do need revision, since if you use SSL the 'www.' is required. Thanks for the tip!

12 Apr 2002, 03:50 PM	#55
chilipina Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 9	Oh yeah, I was using the web interface, not IMAP.

12 Apr 2002, 03:58 PM	#56
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	We had two 30 second outages. One was the regular planned IMAP server outage which works around the server bug. The other 2 minutes later was to upload today's code changes. I've already purchased additional servers and announced their forthcoming installation, which will improve both speed and reliability. I'm thinking about creating a summary page on the status server that shows the uptime history. That way there would be a definitive source to see exactly how much downtime we have. We're aiming for around 99.97% uptime (a 30 second outage each day for code uploads and cycling the IMAP server). Since the server install we've been running at a bit over 99.8%.

12 Apr 2002, 11:34 PM	#60
pcguy Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 79	These mail server problems, are they affecting all users i.e. IMAP and POP or just the latter?