MIA forums?

#1

Anyone heard anything about how long the Newtek forums are supposed to be down?

Seems like a good example of why storing so much “critical use info” in their forums (versus migrating it into actual LW documentation) isn’t a great idea. :banghead:

#2

Dunno, seems to have been down for a couple of days now. Maybe they’re weeding it out. :stuck_out_tongue:

#3

I know…
Any news?

#4

Nothing so far, was still down last time I checked.
However, the front end was different, so perhaps they are having issues updating the software version? :shrug:

#5

Possibly. When things run this far awry though, they should at least acknowledge it and reassure customers, even if it’s just a one sentence “Minor delays, still working on it, back soon!”. Information always beats speculation.

#6

This is Newtek we’re talking about… We all know how good they are with handing out information! :thumbsup:

Would be nice to see all the Lightwave discussion sections moved to their own forum over on Lightwave3D.com. Maybe that’s what’s happening, and it’s taking them longer than they thought…

Well, I can dream… :buttrock: :slight_smile:

#7

Explains it, but doesn’t excuse it. Any time a company makes customers and even potential customers feel “uncertain” about what’s going on, it harms their perceptions of the company. All these little things don’t seem like much, but they add up over time to become entrenched reputation problems – something LW can’t afford esp. given its general marketshare/sales issues. :shrug:

#8

Alas, history has proven a track record not to be proud of in this area. :shrug:

#9

Forum software upgrade. It will be up and down for a little while yet as they sort it out. It’s a large forum, so upgrading is non-trivial.

#10

Not only software, hardware as well… from what I heard, they had to move everything to new servers, because the old ones were getting very tired. Bugs like the one displaying more pages avaliable in a thread, but you couldn’t read them, was, partly due to dying hardware as well as software. This could explain why things happened so fast without a heads up on the forums.

#11

I appreciate folks are more than willing to cut Newtek huge chunks of slack. However given the problems have been manifesting themselves for a not inconsiderable time and such an upgrade must have been on the cards, a little polite notice wouldn’t have gone amiss.

If the knowledge was that the hardware and software was at it’s limits, well, any collapse of the system could not be classed as “unexpected”. We used to have a client at my old works who ran the system on the raggedy edge for a long time, but when the final crash came, they held their hands up and said “yup, our fault”. As I say, these things, by their very nature, are not “a surprise”, (not to say though that some software glitches don’t come as a total and unwanted surprise. :stuck_out_tongue: ).

#12

Wow, still down. I saw the new white and dark forum themes for about 20 mins 2 days ago, I guess I got lucky and checked during a brief window of things working.

#13

Yeah… THAT I would love to see. The more separation I see between Newtek and LW3D… the better! I doubt that will happen, but I can dream too. :slight_smile:

#14

Wow, still down. This situation is starting to look a bit clustery.

#15

Nopes… works fine for me… what has been said about it though is that a great deal of ISPs namecache IP-adresses, and if the IP-adress change, the ISPs needs to re-sync the name with the new IP. So, in essence, NewTeks forum has a new IP-adress, but the same html adress as before. This can screw things up, depending on which ISP you are using.

#16

I keep hearing this is an ISP problem, and I’m sure it is to some extent, but I can have access one minute and then suddenly nothing. It is then typically 24 hours before I can connect again, rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

It may not be Newteks fault directly but we didn’t get this BS before they started buggering about with the forums.

More than a little pissed off at the moment.

#17

I tend to agree with post on the lack of NewTek attempting some information sent to users. I have not been able to view page most of week since Monday.

Today I am only able to se the Forums page but clicking a link sends me to old browser page saying that forum is down for maintenace.

Go figure LW having this much of a challenge and decision to make changes during periods higher use than off hours.

aj

#18

This is NOT just a problem with external viewers’ resolution of the proper IP address, there is something taking the actual forums offline as well. Perhaps it’s an ISP problem at Newtek’s end, that I might believe, but not from the external viewers’ side of things. Just try doing resolution from DNS servers “closer” via network to Newtek (say the same as Newtek’s own DNS service), then only referencing by IP address, and you’ll STILL still see extended periods where the forum’s IP-direct-accessed result is “down”.

#19

This is starting to get irritating. It’s hit and miss now; it’s up and it’s down.

#20

Up and down, up and down. Now it’s been down for most of the weekend. Not very professional at all. Who’s running the show?