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Hi everyone -
Sorry about the server downtime yesterday - there was a transformer explosion which blew both primary and secondary power to our data center in Las Vegas. Our web hosts say the issue is now under control.
Unfortunately, we're not quite out of the woods just yet. As luck would have it, we're also in the middle of migrating the Cryptograms.org box to a brand new server. The new server will be significantly faster and better equipped than our current one, and will be housed in an entirely separate data center.
The new server is being set up today/tomorrow, and once its ready we're going to copy all content over to it.
What this means in practical terms... basically, at some point today or tomorrow, we'll be taking a "snapshot" of the database on the current server. Any games played on the old (current) server after that point will essentially be lost - and different players will start to see the new server at different times, depending on their webhosts and DNS settings. This also means there is potential for games to be marked as unsolved/failures, i.e. if you happen to start the game at say 6:00pm, our data dump occurs at 6:02 pm, and you finish the game at 6:04pm.
So if you're the type of player who is fanatical about playing percentages and maintaining a 100% solve rate, I highly recommend you log out of your account and play only as a guest until the entire migration is completed. It may be 2-3 days or even longer before you will start accessing the new server, though for most people it will take just a few hours.
If, on the other hand, you just play for fun and don't care much about the statistics - it's perfectly fine to continue playing as you normally do. The worst that will happen is that you may lose a day or two of solves, and perhaps accrue one or two "missed" puzzles in your solving percentage.
I will be adding a message to the old (current) server on every page that will indicate you're on the old server. When that message disappears, you'll know you're seeing the new (upgraded) server, and at that point it will be safe for you to log back in and resume normal play.
Apologies for the hassles, especially after yesterday's outages - but our server has unfortunately reached the end of its usable life span. We're at a point where it is starting to experience periodic slowdowns and failures due to increased site demands. The new server should alleviate this and everyone should experience a much faster and responsive site when this is all over.
Thank you for your patience!
Stephen
Sorry about the server downtime yesterday - there was a transformer explosion which blew both primary and secondary power to our data center in Las Vegas. Our web hosts say the issue is now under control.
Unfortunately, we're not quite out of the woods just yet. As luck would have it, we're also in the middle of migrating the Cryptograms.org box to a brand new server. The new server will be significantly faster and better equipped than our current one, and will be housed in an entirely separate data center.
The new server is being set up today/tomorrow, and once its ready we're going to copy all content over to it.
What this means in practical terms... basically, at some point today or tomorrow, we'll be taking a "snapshot" of the database on the current server. Any games played on the old (current) server after that point will essentially be lost - and different players will start to see the new server at different times, depending on their webhosts and DNS settings. This also means there is potential for games to be marked as unsolved/failures, i.e. if you happen to start the game at say 6:00pm, our data dump occurs at 6:02 pm, and you finish the game at 6:04pm.
So if you're the type of player who is fanatical about playing percentages and maintaining a 100% solve rate, I highly recommend you log out of your account and play only as a guest until the entire migration is completed. It may be 2-3 days or even longer before you will start accessing the new server, though for most people it will take just a few hours.
If, on the other hand, you just play for fun and don't care much about the statistics - it's perfectly fine to continue playing as you normally do. The worst that will happen is that you may lose a day or two of solves, and perhaps accrue one or two "missed" puzzles in your solving percentage.
I will be adding a message to the old (current) server on every page that will indicate you're on the old server. When that message disappears, you'll know you're seeing the new (upgraded) server, and at that point it will be safe for you to log back in and resume normal play.
Apologies for the hassles, especially after yesterday's outages - but our server has unfortunately reached the end of its usable life span. We're at a point where it is starting to experience periodic slowdowns and failures due to increased site demands. The new server should alleviate this and everyone should experience a much faster and responsive site when this is all over.
Thank you for your patience!
Stephen
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