• Welcome back to Pokécharms! We've recently launched a new site and upgraded forums, so there may be a few teething issues as everything settles in. Please see our Relaunch FAQs for more information.

Spring Cleaning - Heads Up

Teapot

Virtual Duck Enthusiast
Staff member
Administrator
Just letting everyone know we will be starting a spring clean on 'Charms on Saturday, which may result in some or all of the site being slow or unavailable for a few days. We'll be doing this by moving 'Charms to a backup server while the main one is taken offline. Depending on how well the backup server runs, this may result in the Trainer Card Maker being taken down temporarily while the work takes place so that the rest of the site is still usable - we'll let you know more as we see how it handles the load.

However, this should pay off by hopefully reducing or getting rid of the lag that 'Charms has suffered from for a while, and will get the server back into a pristine condition to run us for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for your patience while we try and get this all sorted. :)[prebreak][/prebreak]

For those interested, the process will go roughly like this on Saturday:
  • The current server will be put into maintenance mode, and the backup server switched on and loaded with all the data from live. The site will then be changed to point to the backup server - however, this could take up to 12 hours to come through for some users after we flip the switch, unfortunately.
  • The site will run with as much functionality as possible on the backup server - however, as the backup server is much less powerful than the main one, we may have to take the TCM offline to maintain the rest of the site if it doesn't stand up to the load.
  • Once we're moved over to the backup server, the main server will be wiped and reconfigured from scratch with all the software needed to run 'Charms. This process will take at least a couple of days, but will hopefully cure the speed problems we've been seeing
  • Once the main server is ready to go again, we'll switch back - once again, this will take a while to make it through to everyone, and the backup site will be closed while this happens.
We'll try to keep everyone up to date via the maintenance page on the site while it's closed, but if you can't access them for whatever reason, the updates will also be posted on the Pokécharms Twitter account, as well as updates if things don't go completely according to plan.

Feel free to ask if you have any questions - but hopefully, minus a couple of short downtimes, no-one will even notice what's going on! :)
 

YueliaBreeze

Formerly Midnight Midna, MoonSnow
No wonder everytime once in a while i always get lag and sometimes google says this site isn't here half the time but i hope it pay's out for when you do get this spring clean up done cause to me when i get bored this site feels like home :)
 
I appreciate the maintenance and the patience that is put into the website to keep it running well for the public. I am always willing to wait as long as it takes. :)
 

Linkachu

Hero of Pizza
Staff member
Administrator
Definitely looking forward to Charms running a bit more smoothly again. I wish all involved a smooth server move and cleaning! :up:

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