There has been alot of speculation as to what caused our downtime, I am posting this to end that speculation.
We experienced database errors when we moved to the new server. Moving an mysql database from one server to another usually breaks the database in all cases. The experiences we have had in the past have been the same in all cases, only now the difference is that most of the site is database driven (where as before it was not)
Our host took Neowin offline late last night to perform a local repair using a program that can search and repair broken templates in the sql database. The repair can only be performed if the database is offline.
A broken database will attempt to execute all the requested commands until it hits an error (thus taking the whole site down) that happened 2x yesterday which is why we finally requested our host to perform a repair.
We have nothing to do with the problems other sites are currently having, this is completely un-related and is just a server move to better serve Neowin visitors. We are now on a dedicated server which has been placed especially for the purpose of hi-volume sites and we again want to thank Hosttyme for all the effort they put in to Neowin.
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