Fixed Server Errors
February 16, 2008
While this really doesn’t have any effect on any of the users of this service, I just wrote the following on my personal blog and thought I would share it here as well. It is just the way things need to be done!
I have now officially made it through my entire error log and fixed every single application that I have running so they are not generating anything in my apache error log. While this seems like a simple task, it wasn’t so easy this time around. With the latest move to my newest server with php5 and mySQL5, there were some things that were not working correctly. I managed to get most of them fixed in the past couple of days.
I was lucky enough to get _ck_ in the bbPress IRC on Freenode and with some help was able to fix the remaining errors that were only bbPress related. This amounted in a couple of fixes and a couple new TRAC tickets, but all errors are gone! Thanks again _ck_!
One thing I was a little disappointed with was the migration tool from one (dv) to another on my Media Temple servers. Everything went across OK, but there were some permission problems that were created. That was actually the easy part. The other major issue was that all tables in all databases that had “auto-increment” magically lost that attribute. That required a manual change to every single table to get it working again and me frantically looking at schema.php in WPMU to find out all tables that I needed to adjust. Lucky for me, there were only 20 blogs in my WPMU install and was able to move the DNS over to the new server in a about an hour. Not sure if the “auto-increment” was a product of moving from mySQL 4 to mySQL 5, but it sure was a pain in the ass.
All and all, I am happy to not have to fix anything for at least a little while! It never ceases to amaze me the amount of server operators that don’t check the error logs. They figure if an error doesn’t show up in a browser, then it really doesn’t exist. While this logic has some merit on small sites with excessive resources available, it is not a long term solution
In fact, it is not something I like to deal with myself. No errors is a much better solution I think!
Server Improvements
February 12, 2008
I beefed up the server.  It should be even faster now and has some greater limits.  The problem with WPMU (and wordpress for that matter) is that it is kind of a “resource hog” at times.   We are constantly working on finding improvements in the plugins we use as well as themes to get things working better.   The code is constantly being improved by the WPMU team and it is always better.
I was having a few minor issues with CPU time usage and just decided to get more resources.   Nothing is even close to capacity now and hope to keep the structure of the server so this is always the case.  It is most likely overkill for the time being, but as for the users, this is a great thing 
Unscheduled Upgrade Completed
February 5, 2008
I know I didn’t give anyone any warning, but from 10:40am MST to 11:40am MST the service was unavailable.   This was due to an unscheduled security upgrade that was applied on the service.   It was released around 10:15 am MST and I applied it immediately.   It wasn’t a problem with any blogs or users on the service, but rather preventative maintenance.
The upgrade is now complete and all blogs are back in action. Â Â Sorry about the delay and lack of notice on the upgrade, but due to the nature of the upgrade in question, I thought it was best served by just applying it first and apologizing later!
As my Dad always told me:
It is better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission!
In my mind, this was one of those times. Â Please direct all hate mail to me through the “support” tab in the admin
Trent Adams