Community Support & Help Center for Hosting, Dedicated Services, Colocation, Design & Development

Upgrade Notice: Main Server Cluster

Shawn Hyde — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:29:00 GMT

The main windows platform cluster was upgraded, if you experience any issues please notify support asap.

Downtime was: 15 minutes / 10/25/2009

Status: Completed

an error occurred opening that folder on the ftp server

Shawn Hyde — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:09:00 GMT

Error:

an error occurred opening that folder on the ftp server
227 entering passive mode (32,169,22,20,19,167)

Solution

Disable passive mode on the browser
- control panel
- internet options
- advanced
- browsing
- uncheck use passive FTP

Done.

Raid Array Upgrade

Shawn Hyde — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:00:00 GMT

Additional Storage will be added to the raid cluster.

Some Web / Mail will be down for this period.

1:30AM Until 3:30 AM

Master Server Cluster - Reboot/Hardware Upgrade

Shawn Hyde — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:23:00 GMT

The system went down during our maintenance window tonight for a few minutes longer than a standard reboot as some hardware was upgraded on a Master Server Cluster.

The Outage was approximately 10 minutes and effected some mail and web services.

Maintenance (Brief Outages)

Shawn Hyde — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:19:00 GMT

Network Grid Maintenance

Brief downtime on the main Switches while they are moved to new UPS system.
Brief downtime on main dns & dns management while they are moved to new UPS system.
Brief downtime for several web clusters as while they are moved to new USP system.

No system will be down for more then 5 minutes.

Brief Down time for main Web Server Cluster Maintenance

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:59:00 GMT

Brief Down time for main Web Server Cluster Maintenance

12:00AM 11-04-2008

Server Upgrades

Shawn Hyde — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 07:53:00 GMT

Some Shared Servers within the Area51 Network have been upgraded to support the growing client base. These Upgrades were done between our normal maintenance periods this morning from 1:00am until 3:00am CST.

Upgrades Done:

Increased RAM on most servers
Faster HDD Arrays Implemented on some high traffic servers
Increased Disk Space on some servers nearing our designated maximum allocation.

Main Server Cluster Maintenance

Shawn Hyde — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 03:20:00 GMT

Possible partial outage of services"

From: 09-13-2008 12:00AM CST

until: 09-13-2008 1:00AM CST

Maintenance on Main Power Grid (Brief Outage)

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 07:33:00 GMT

This will affect all services for not more than 5 minutes while we do some work on the main power grid. All systems/servers will remain online however this grid down will affect some core routers causing unreachable errors for approximately 5 minutes.

Downtime: 5 minutes Time: 1:45AM CST

We are very sorry for any troubles this may cause you and thank you for your understanding.

-Area51 Team

Network Upgrades

Shawn Hyde — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:09:00 GMT

Between the hours of 1:00AM and 4:00AM we will be doing Some Network Upgrades, Some systems may go offline for as long as 10 minutes. If you have any questions or concerns about this please contact your personal account specialist.

Dates: 12/07/2007, 12/8/2007, 12/14/2007, 12/15/2007

Firmware Upgrade on a Core Switch - 1 to 5 minutes of downtime for some systems.

Shawn Hyde — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:09:00 GMT

Firmware Upgrade on a Core Switch - 1 to 5 minutes of downtime for some systems.

A core Switch is undergoing a Firmware upgrade that requires a full reboot of the switch, this reboot will affect many of our hosted services.

The downtime will be a maximum of 5 minutes.

The full reboot will be done at 7:30PM CST so it does not affect nightly maintenance and backups on the network.

Quick Security Patch 8:00PM

Shawn Hyde — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 01:16:00 GMT

Some reports of being disconnected from the mail services at 8:00PM today when a small security patch was done. Users may have had to close outlook or similar mail client and reopen it again in order to see email.

Sorry for any troubles this may have caused.

Power Grid Falure

Shawn Hyde — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 03:58:00 GMT

Some Services will be down while we work on the grid.

10:59PM 08/18/2007

Community Server Drop Down Menu and Quick Navigation

Shawn Hyde — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:31:00 GMT

You'll notice this site has a drop down menu / Quick Navigation and is using Community Server.

After reading some about it I thought it best to write down the basics as it's currently not very easy to understand in the sources that I had found.

Here is all that has been done to make it look this way.

In SiteUrls.config within the "navigation" tag

<link name="cs-community" navigateUrl="#" text="Navagation" />



<link name="controlpanel" resourceUrl="controlpanel" resourceName="controlpanel" roles="SystemAdministrator,BlogAdministrator,ForumsAdministrator,Moderator,GalleryAdministrator,FileAdministrator,ReaderAdministrator,MembershipAdministrator" />

<link name="purchase" navigateUrl="/purchase" text="Purchase" />
<link name="emaillogin" navigateUrl="/mail/" text="SSL Email" />
<link name="calendar" resourceUrl="calendarhome" text="Calendar" />

In Master.Master

<script language="C#" runat="server">

protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)
{
  switch (CSContext.Current.SiteThemeData.GetIntValue("columns", 2))
  {
   case -1:
    // one column, left (right content is rendered below left content)
    lc.Controls.AddAt(0, new LiteralControl("<div id=\"CommonSidebarLeft\">"));
    lc.Controls.Add(rc);
    lc.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("</div>"));
    break;

   case 1:
    // one column, right (left content is rendered above right content)
    rc.Controls.AddAt(0, lc);
    rc.Controls.AddAt(0, new LiteralControl("<div id=\"CommonSidebarRight\">"));
    rc.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("</div>"));
    break;

   default:
    // two columns
    lc.Controls.AddAt(0, new LiteralControl("<div id=\"CommonSidebarLeft\">"));
    lc.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("</div>"));
    rc.Controls.AddAt(0, new LiteralControl("<div id=\"CommonSidebarRight\">"));
    rc.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("</div>"));
    break;
  }

   Telligent.Glow.PopupMenu communityMenu = CSControlUtility.Instance().FindControl(this, "CommunityPopup") as Telligent.Glow.PopupMenu;
   if (communityMenu != null)
  {
   communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem(" Introduction", SiteUrls.Instance().Home, null, null));
   communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem(" Help Center", SiteUrls.Instance().ForumsHome, null, null));
   communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem(" Downloads Area", CommunityServer.Files.Components.FileGalleryUrls.Instance().Home, null, null));
            communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem(" The Gallery", SiteUrls.Instance().GalleriesHome, null, null));
   communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem(" News Articles", SiteUrls.Instance().WeblogsHome, null, null));
   //communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem("Events", CommunityServer.Files.Components.FileGalleryUrls.Instance().Home, null, null));
   //communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem("Fighters", CommunityServer.Files.Components.FileGalleryUrls.Instance().Home, null, null));
   Page.ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(this.GetType(), "menus", @"
   <script type=""text/javascript"">
   // <![CDATA[
   var menu = document.getElementById('communityMenu');
   if (menu)
   menu.onmouseover= new Function('navigation_showPopup(" + communityMenu.ClientID + @", this);');
   // ]]>
   </" + "script>", false);
  }
base.OnInit(e);
}

</script>

and

  <TWC:PopupMenu ID="CommunityPopup" runat="server" MenuGroupCssClass="CommonContextMenuGroup" MenuItemCssClass="CommonContextMenuItem" MenuItemSelectedCssClass="CommonContextMenuItemHover" MenuItemExpandedCssClass="CommonContextMenuItemExpanded" MenuItemIconWidth="0" MenuItemIconHeight="0" MenuDirection="UpDown" />
  <script type="text/javascript">
  // <![CDATA[
  var navigation_popup = null;
  function navigation_showPopup(popup, element) { if (popup && !popup.IsOpen()) { navigation_hidePopup(); popup.OpenAtElement(element); navigation_popup = popup; } }
  function navigation_hidePopup() { if (navigation_popup) { navigation_popup.Close(); navigation_popup = null; } }
  // ]]>
  </script>
   <div id="CommonNavigation">
    <div class="Common">
     <CSControl:NavigationList runat="server">
     <HeaderTemplate><ul></HeaderTemplate>
     <ItemTemplate>
    <CSControl:CSLinkData runat="server" Tag="Li" LinkCssClass="Selected" LinkTo="Link" Property="Text" onmouseover="navigation_hidePopup();">
        <DisplayConditions>
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsSelected" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
            <CSControl:Conditions Operator="Not" runat="server">
                <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="Name" Operator="EqualTo" ComparisonValue="cs-community" />
            </CSControl:Conditions>
        </DisplayConditions>
    </CSControl:CSLinkData>
    <CSControl:CSLinkData runat="server" Tag="Li" LinkTo="Link" Property="Text" onmouseover="navigation_hidePopup();">
        <DisplayConditions Operator="Not">
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsSelected" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="Name" Operator="EqualTo" ComparisonValue="cs-community" />
        </DisplayConditions>
    </CSControl:CSLinkData>

    <CSControl:CSLinkData runat="server" Tag="Li" LinkCssClass="Selected" LinkTo="Link" ContainerId="communityMenu" Property="Text">
        <DisplayConditions>
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsSelected" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="Name" Operator="EqualTo" ComparisonValue="cs-community" />
        </DisplayConditions>
    </CSControl:CSLinkData>
    <CSControl:CSLinkData runat="server" Tag="Li" LinkTo="Link" Property="Text" ContainerId="communityMenu">
        <DisplayConditions Operator="And">
            <CSControl:Conditions Operator="Not" runat="server">
                <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsSelected" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
            </CSControl:Conditions>
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="Name" Operator="EqualTo" ComparisonValue="cs-community" />
        </DisplayConditions>
    </CSControl:CSLinkData>
</ItemTemplate>
<FooterTemplate></ul></FooterTemplate>
</CSControl:NavigationList>
</div>
</div>

Thats it, you can of course change the css and modify how the menu looks.

Information for this guide was derived mostly from Ben Tiedt on the http://communityserver.org/ forums.

Today's Average Screen Resolution?

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:44:00 GMT

As a developer we all want to tailor to as many clients without neglecting others so optimizing your designs for today's average screen resolution is a very good idea. Well their maybe an average overall you may want to consider checking on a per site basis, this can be done with scripts and logging. One application that offers such tools that is free is Aw-stats and open source logging application that works with most hosting platforms. An example of these logs can bee seen in our own web hosting statistics here at Area51. After you have determined the resolutions/screen size your clients use on this site you can design around those requirements.

Area51 Services Launches new Reseller/Data Center community area!

Shawn Hyde — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 02:45:00 GMT

In our continuing effort to provide better services to our clients we have revamped the reseller/data center community area at http://fusionzero.com.

Security Exploit - Patch/Maintenance

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 01 May 2007 20:12:00 GMT

Normally we do not take down any services during daytime hours however do to a potentially large security risk some services where taken offline while we patched for the exploit between 13:36 CST & 14:42. The services will be taken down again between 01:00 & 03:00 CST tonight to update additional services for best performance. We are sorry if this cause you any inconveniences however we determined the risk with this exploit to supersede the need to wait until our nightly maintenance times.

This affected some web based interfaces on our servers. This did not affect the ability to use or send email via SMTP, POP3, IMAP services.

Automated Database Backups - Maintenance

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:21:00 GMT

Every Sunday from 00:00 to 01:00 Area51 does a full backup of all databases on our systems, Services may seem a bit slow at this time. This does not affect custom database services (CDS) provided to some clients.

Main Database Server Cluster Maintenance - 03/03/2007 at 01:00 (Mar 3rd 1:00am)

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:17:00 GMT

Main Database Server Cluster Maintenance:

Downtime will be approximately 15 minutes and will affect all database operations.

Sorry for any inconveniences this may cause you.

Community Server - Service Pack 2

Shawn Hyde — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 21:54:00 GMT

Below are changes between Community Server 2.1 SP1 and Service Pack 2

Note: All Service Pack 1 changes are also included in SP2.
See the "CS 2.1 SP1 release notes.txt" file for changes included in SP1.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

User Experience Improvements
Updated error page text from generic 'Site Unavailable'

Help text clean-up and Improvements
Corrected spelling error in the Error-NotFound.aspx page
Reviewed Messages.xml for spelling and consistency
Reviewed Resources.xml for spelling and consistency
Reviewed Emails.xml for spelling and consistency

Security Improvements
Abuse of Report Post feature functionality
Section permissions check after user is removed from a role ignored global/default permissions, which could cause a user's forum subscriptions to be cleared
Tighter security on MarkAsAnswer in Forums

Performance Improvements
Ensure all Search Barrel stored procedure calls are owner qualified to increase database performance

Feature Enhancements and Bug Fixes
Added support for the MetaWeblog API newMediaObject method to allow images & files to be saved to a blog from a MetaWeblog client
Ensure that titles are always HTML encoded in RSS feeds
Fix: Accessing a member's profile page causes infinite redirect if name includes special characters
Corrected required ID and nested content duplication issues in the ContentPart control
Updated EULA text and images
Fix: Profile sidebar was not finding user so it was displaying as anonymous
Fix: Resource in FileAdmin Control Panel was not being found due to incorrect scoping
Fix: Blog subscriptions are sending out incorrect/incomplete emails
Fix: Setting a forum as it's own parent causes site to crash and become unavailable
Fix: Recent Posts Comment Permalinks url wrong
Fix: Regex bug in Email formatting

Community Server - Service Pack 1

Shawn Hyde — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 21:49:00 GMT

Changes between Community Server 2.1 RTM and Service Pack 1
-----------------------------------------------------------

User Experience Improvements

4514 - If a gallery is in tag mode, the next/prev and album highlight image are shown when viewing a photo but don’t do anything.

4515 - Subscribing to a gallery photo uses a process which is not back button or refresh safe.

4604 - Inline Tag Editor text area too small when first opened in IE7.

4612 - Notify All Owners option always hidden on blog create new post screen. Also add default setting for this to the Default Options blog setting screen.

4647 - Blog control panel Post List screen should use User Time (adjusted to user time zone) instead of server published time.

4646 - Weblog number of moderated comments includes ones rated as definite spam. Change behavior to ignore spam comments in the moderation count.

4679 - CSS fixes and improvements for blog skins

4678 - Updated blog post auto-naming to remove extended characters and convert all text to lower-case.

4682 - Blog comment form does not remember name/url when "remember me" is checked. Cookie expiration should be set to +1 year.

4685 - Telligent store web service update.

4696 - Trackback subjects are not properly parsed from HTML documents

Help text clean-up and Improvements

4236 - Enable comments now says "enable comments to your blog" when editing a photo (text change).

4255 - Help text for "Enable Download Disclaimer" is incorrect (text change).

Security Improvements

4260 – Address potential cross-site scripting issue

4356 - Weblog post IP address property not populated.

4625 - Added additional Control Panel web.config authorization

Performance Improvements

4285 - TinyMCE editor is slow when editing long posts due to HTML validation.

4626 - Aggregate blog caching and performance improvements. Changed default cache time to 1 min from 15 mins, removed double permission checking in GetWeblogs, weblog cache cleared immediately when updating or adding a blog.

4657 - DiskUsage field not returned by cs_weblog_Weblogs_Get sproc. Degrades performance by causing handled exceptions when retrieving a list of weblogs.

4684 - Very long trackback names can cause the form options to stretch off of the blog Comment Manager screen.

Feature Enhancements and Bug Fixes

4173 - ContentParts with default content duplicate the ContentPart control javascript.

4228 - Moderate.GetForumsByForumGroupID() could cause a null reference.

4241 - Content duplication bug in TinyMCE when using IE.

4256 - When using an external blog feed (FeedBurner), category/tag feeds are also redirected.

4283 - In Forum Admin TreeView, creating a subforum of a deleted forum is some times possible and causes an exception.

4517 - Gallery web service does not save tags/categories when creating a photo.

4579 - All elements in the blog sidebar for all core blog skins should be wrapped in a div tag with a unique ID. This makes it easier to customize the blog appearence with the CSS Override field.

4516 - When subscribed to a gallery photo, the gallery fails to send emails.

4608 - Every other row on the Blog Tags and Snippets pages in the Control Panel are missing the delete confirmation dialog and will automatically remove the tag or snippet when clicked.

4658 - When you toggle a blog comment's properties in the Blog CP Comments creen, the comment body gets stripped of its formatting.

4681 - Save additional data to the deleted post archive to allow us to better investigate why posts were auto-deleted and improve the spam engine. We now collect SpamScore, PostStatus, and PropertyNames/Values.

Microsoft Launches Internet Explorer 7

Nicole Williams — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 04:59:00 GMT

On October 18th, Microsoft officially launched Internet Explorer 7. This is the first major update for Internet Explorer in just over five years.

I've just recently installed the latest installment of Internet Explorer and it has many new features for users to enjoy. The first thing you will probably notice is its new slimmer look, maximizing the available space for browsing websites. There is also new button placements increasing the ease and speed of common tasks.

What I am enjoying most is the new tab feature and customizable search bar. The new tabs allow you to more quickly change between sites you are browsing and helps to reduce clutter by getting rid of unneeded multiple browser windows.

Register Minnesota Domain .MN

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:37:00 GMT

.MN is now available for private and non-private registration via our online registation service. This is a great chance to aquire a short domain name spacific to your Minnesota Business. Many times we've seen short domain names that could be used as a great business domain snatched up by "domain squatters" trying to barter these internet properties off to people who could really used them at much higher prices than should be paid for a domain.

If you are a Minnesota based business and have a domain name that's long and hard to remmeber consider a short .MN domain in addition to your current domain. Area51 Services can help you deploy this new domain as a great marketing tool.

Service Issue ID#d84gw89b39-dfg9sd23

Shawn Hyde — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 22:48:00 GMT

Service issue start time: 10/14/2006 5:41PM CST

Faulty L3 switch, replaced with backup, load config, tested clean.

Service issue resolve time: 10/14/2006 5:44PM CST

Unscheduled Security Patches.

Shawn Hyde — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:02:00 GMT

An unscheduled security patch was done today. In order to prevent any exploits of our servers we did this patch as soon as the security patches were released from Microsoft. This may have affected your service for 1-3 minutes during business hours.

Patch Release Links:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms06-063.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms06-065.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms06-057.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/ms06-061.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms06-064.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS06-056.mspx