IMPORTANT: At 9PM ET tonight (Monday, March 25) we will be making our second attempt at a required software update

[EarlG]

This discussion thread was locked by EarlG (a host of the Announcements group).

tl;dr: DU will be offline for up to an hour starting at 9PM tonight (Monday) for a required update. After that, we may have to temporarily restrict access to the site for certain visitors, depending on what happens after the update is complete.

If the site cannot handle a full traffic load, we will temporarily restrict access so that only registered members can access DU.

If the site cannot handle the traffic after that, we will temporarily restrict access so that only Star Members can access DU.

While we have done everything we can to avoid the possibility, there is still a small but non-zero chance that we will have to take DU offline again, revert the update, and try again at another time.

While the goal is to have DU up and running for all visitors as soon as possible, this situation could last for anywhere from a few hours to a few days. For a complete explanation, read on.

On February 28, we attempted a required software update which we needed to perform in order to avoid issues with our service provider. Unfortunately the update failed and we had to restore the site from a backup. Ultimately, it turned out than the update process was significantly more complicated that originally anticipated.

Elad has spent the last 3+ weeks working behind the scenes to resolve these issues, and we are now ready to attempt the update again. Here are some important things you need to know.

At 9PM ET tonight (Monday) DU will go offline for a brief period of time while Elad performs the update. This is (hopefully) the easy part, and we expect the downtime to last for no more than 30-60 minutes.

The next phase is more complicated. All the work on the update so far has been performed in a test environment, which means we don't need to interrupt the live site. The problem with this is that the test environment has essentially zero traffic compared to the live site, which means that everything can look good during testing, but once the site is opened back up to everyone and we have a full traffic load, issues can arise. And the only way we're going to be able to identify and fix these issues is when they start occurring.

So once the update is complete, one of two things will happen:

1) Everything will work just fine and there will be no major issues. Any minor issues can be resolved while the site is open to everyone.

OR

2) The updated software will not immediately be able to handle a full traffic load, and the site will slow down to a crawl (which is what happened last time).

We're not going to rule out number 1, but to be completely honest, number 2 is the more likely scenario. However, this time, instead of reverting the update and restoring the site, we will push through the problem and fix it as it's happening. Elad will work on optimizing the software while we have live traffic coming to DU.

In order for this to work, we may have to restrict access for certain visitors, possibly for anywhere from a few hours to a few days. If the site cannot handle a full traffic load, we will temporarily restrict access so that only registered members can access DU. If the site cannot handle the traffic after that, we will temporarily restrict access so that only Star Members can access DU.

These restrictions will only last for as long as it takes to resolve the issues, at which point the site will re-open for everyone. If we do have to restrict access at any time, we will provide clear explanations and updates about what's going on.

This update has been a huge project and an enormous pain in Elad's ass for months now, so we are really hoping to get it over and done with as soon as possible, so that we can move forward and get back to working on other DU development. We're sorry for the service interruption which may occur starting tonight, but we will work as hard as we can to make sure DU is back to normal as soon as possible.

As always, we appreciate your patience while we work on improving DU.

Thanks for reading!

EarlG, on behalf of Elad -- the DU Administrators