I could not reach Scienceforums for 3 days

[Eise]

Hi administrators,

For 3 days I could not reach these forums. As I see no postings telling us what happened, must I assume it was not a problem at science forums itself? I could not connect from my work, and neither from my home. The error suggested that the URL could not be resolved. Was this a local problem? Swiss? European? Or was it really some problem with the URL registration?

I was already desparately trying to find somebody I could contact to find out what was going wrong (WHOIS, trying to find out the email address of one of the moderators). SF is one of my daily mental vitamins. 

Glad to see y'all back again!

Eise

PS My, lucky enough very small conspiracy theory module, thought already that it concerned my posting about trackers... 

PPS At least there seems to be a time gap:

Edited October 20, 2022 by Eise

[LaurieAG]

There is a gap in posts between 5 hours ago (4 hours on the image in your post) and last Monday at 7:25 am (it is Thursday now) so you should assume that something was wrong with the site for 3 days.

[Eise]

8 minutes ago, LaurieAG said:

There is a gap in posts between 5 hours ago (4 hours on the image in your post) and last Monday at 7:25 am (it is Thursday now) so you should assume that something was wrong with the site for 3 days.

Exactly, that's why I posted it.

[Markus Hanke]

1 hour ago, Eise said:

Was this a local problem? Swiss? European?

No - I’m currently in Australia, and had the same problem here too.

[Ghideon]

ICANN Lookup of www.scienceforums.net says (amongst other things)

Quote

Registry Expiration: 2023-10-16 12:23:19 UTC

Updated: 2022-10-20 01:25:12 UTC

My guess: Given the expiration date for next year and a few days of global unavailability the registration expired 2022-10-16 and was renewed 2022-10-20.

 

[Eise]

55 minutes ago, Ghideon said:

ICANN Lookup of www.scienceforums.net says (amongst other things)

My guess: Given the expiration date for next year and a few days of global unavailability the registration expired 2022-10-16 and was renewed 2022-10-20.

Ha! That must be it. Maybe somebody forgot to pay the bill for the address registration? Something like that was my most probable guess. Pity that my networking colleagues didn't think about an ICANN Lookup. Thanks!

Edited October 20, 2022 by Eise

[geordief]

1 hour ago, Ghideon said:

ICANN Lookup of www.scienceforums.net says (amongst other things)

My guess: Given the expiration date for next year and a few days of global unavailability the registration expired 2022-10-16 and was renewed 2022-10-20.

 

Was my guess  at first too but iNow told me it was probably a server malfunction affecting many other forums(sciforums .com came back today as well) after a week offline)

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Eise said:

Ha! That must be it. Maybe somebody forgot to pay the bill for the address registration? Something like that was my most probable guess. 

This has happened before, some years ago. 

[Sensei]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

This has happened before, some years ago. 

Because you did not do what I asked to do years ago - there must be created alarm for mods starting a couple days before the next 16 October 2023,2024,2025+....

There will be probably second problem with expiration of SSL certificate...

Check when it has expiration date.

 

OK. I will do it for you...

https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html#hostname=www.scienceforums.net

"The certificate will expire in 43 days."

 

This shows a severe problem. There should a group of people who have readily access to the server and will be able to pay bills for server, domain and certificate, and edit the settings. If there is one admin who has the all things on an encrypted and password-protected machine, his or her disappearance for whatever reason will be the end, as nobody will be able to pay bills in advance prior expiration date...

Edited October 20, 2022 by Sensei

[joigus]

4 hours ago, Ghideon said:

My guess: Given the expiration date for next year and a few days of global unavailability the registration expired 2022-10-16 and was renewed 2022-10-20.

 

That was my best guess after doing a whois search from Linux command line. +1

[swansont]

17 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Because you did not do what I asked to do years ago - there must be created alarm for mods starting a couple days before the next 16 October 2023,2024,2025+....

As I understand it, the domain name can only be renewed by the owner if the domain name. The mods can’t do anything about it. 

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

4 hours ago, Ghideon said:

ICANN Lookup of www.scienceforums.net says (amongst other things)

My guess: Given the expiration date for next year and a few days of global unavailability the registration expired 2022-10-16 and was renewed 2022-10-20.

Yes, that's it. It's something of a tradition here at SFN: Every few years, we forget to renew the domain name on time, and the site goes down for a day or two while we try to reach the person with the login.

I'm trying to transfer the domain so that's not a problem in the future, and hopefully this time we actually achieve it, unlike all the other past times where we said we'd do it and then didn't get around to it.

[Sensei]

6 minutes ago, swansont said:

As I understand it, the domain name can only be renewed by the owner if the domain name. The mods can’t do anything about it. 

You can/should 1) remind owner about upcoming expiration date in advance 2) ask owner of the server to extend admin list to a few people who will be able to do it..

4 minutes ago, Cap'n Refsmmat said:

I'm trying to transfer the domain so that's not a problem in the future, and hopefully this time we actually achieve it, unlike all the other past times where we said we'd do it and then didn't get around to it.

 Set an alert in cronjobs..

The SSL certificate will expire in 43 days.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Sensei

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

24 minutes ago, Sensei said:

You can/should 1) remind owner about upcoming expiration date in advance 2) ask owner of the server to extend admin list to a few people who will be able to do it..

We've always done (1); we're trying to do (2).

24 minutes ago, Sensei said:

The SSL certificate will expire in 43 days.

It's renewed automatically through Let's Encrypt, so at least we don't have to worry about that.

[Sensei]

10 minutes ago, Cap'n Refsmmat said:

It's renewed automatically through Let's Encrypt, so at least we don't have to worry about that.

It is not always the case: https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/lets-encrypt-not-automatically-renewing-certificates/70678

https://support.cloudways.com/en/articles/5128853-fix-issue-of-let-s-encrypt-ssl-not-renewing-automatically

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Sensei

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

8 minutes ago, Sensei said:

It is not always the case: https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/lets-encrypt-not-automatically-renewing-certificates/70678

Yes, I'm sure it's possible to misconfigure Let's Encrypt, but we set it up several years ago and sorted out the issues then, so I'm not too worried about a failure every time it comes up for renewal.

[TheVat]

Would it be possible to know who the owner is?  Like others here, I used whois search and figured out it was a failed DNR, and wondered who I could email which of course was no one.  I've experienced this with a few other websites where the owner hides behind a veil of anonymity and can't be reached about issues where only owner permissions can access the problem.

I wondered if one of the mods was an owner or knew the owner, so tried to find email for them, but found only a PM button for swansont at thenakedscientist website.  And his last activity there was 2015.

A nice site, btw, having several members who are also members here.  

[iNow]

2 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Would it be possible to know who the owner is?

Blike IINM

[hypervalent_iodine]

8 minutes ago, iNow said:

Blike IINM

Correct. 

They are listed in the staff directory as an admin and the mods and admin all know who he is, but that doesn’t always mean we can get in touch easily. Honestly, it wouldn’t be SFN if we didn’t let the domain lapse every few years. 

[TheVat]

14 minutes ago, iNow said:

Blike IINM

Thanks.  Yup, I found the amusing downtime thread from October 2019 ("it was perfect!")

3 minutes ago, hypervalent_iodine said:

Correct. 

They are listed in the staff directory as an admin and the mods and admin all know who he is, but that doesn’t always mean we can get in touch easily. Honestly, it wouldn’t be SFN if we didn’t let the domain lapse every few years. 

I had to read a book.  Made of paper.  You can't imagine the ordeal of paper cuts and tired wrists!   Seriously, I think it's a lovely tradition, reminds us all of the inherent fragility of the net...

[joigus]

Whois output now gives:

Updated Date: 2022-10-20T01:25:16Z

Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2023-10-16T12:23:19Z

Previous expiration date was October the 17, if I remember correctly.

So brace yourselves in one year's time.

[geordief]

14 minutes ago, joigus said:

Whois output now gives:

Updated Date: 2022-10-20T01:25:16Z

Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2023-10-16T12:23:19Z

Previous expiration date was October the 17, if I remember correctly.

So brace yourselves in one year's time.

Would a surgical truss do the job?

[iNow]

9 minutes ago, geordief said:

Would a surgical truss do the job?

Surely better than a Liz Truss could  /rimshot

 

I'm in town all week folks

[geordief]

3 minutes ago, iNow said:

Surely better than a Liz Truss could  /rimshot

 

I'm in town all week folks

I dunno .I thought she played a belter.

[Peterkin]

 

1 hour ago, hypervalent_iodine said:

Honestly, it wouldn’t be SFN if we didn’t let the domain lapse every few years. 

Just to keep us humble. Like the proverbial father who withheld breakfast and lunch from his children, so they would appreciate their dinner.  

Plus, our own server went down yesterday afternoon and I was reduced to re-watching Stargate Atlantis on DVD, which wasn't all that impressive the first time around. So, anything happen while I was in the dark?

Edited October 20, 2022 by Peterkin