Vroute Not accessible?

[Jason Thompson]

Hi Folks,

 

Anybody else notice that they can't access Vroute or the website?

 

Thanks

 

Jason

[Norbert Pflug 899571]

Hello Jason,

 

yep, same here...

 

 

General Error

SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

 

Can't connect to MySQL server on 'db' (111) [2003]

 

An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.

[tom van der elst]

Same here for me.

[Sean Harrison]

The web address says "Address is unavailable, contact system administrator."

 

Hope this doesn't mean the end.

[Mark Richards]

Hi all

 

UPDATE: Tuesday 23 MARCH 2010

 

I've been continuing to do the moderation of routes and posts for vroute.info while Michal has been away on a skiing trip in Switzerland.

 

Michal contacted me yesterday my email from his iPhone:

 

Hi Mark,

 

I'm not back from my skiing trip yet - broke my leg on Friday (while skiing, of course) and I'm stuck in a Swiss hospital until tomorrow evening. Apart from some metal stuff in my bone I'm perfecty fine.

 

Michał

 

Since that email from, the site and service has gone offline. Unfortunately, I don't have access to fix the current issue with the server and it means no vroute, no vorute mobile for the iPhone, no vroute support forums and no moderation by me.

 

I hope you all understand Michal's predicament and bear with us until he is well enough to travel back to Poland and rectify the server issues, or finds some way of doing so from his hospital bed.

 

This is not a permanent thing and I have no doubt that Michal will remedy this as soon as possible.

 

On behalf of Michael, I appreciate your patience.

 

Mark

vroute.info Moderator

Edited March 23, 2010 at 02:24 PM by Guest

[Sean Harrison]

Best wishes Michael, and speedy recovery.

 

Thanks for the update Mark.

[tom van der elst]

darn.

 

Wishing you a speedy recovery,Michal.

Take care.

 

Tom.

[John Hubbard 967668]

Bad luck, Michal. Wish you a speedy and complete recovery.

 

John

[Michal Rok]

Thanks everyone!

 

With the help of Swiss nurses and doctors (Kanstonsspital in Stans - the best hospital team I ever experienced!) I'm roughly fixed now with a robocop-style device screwed inside into my right leg bones .

 

I'm home already and trying to fix vroute's filesystem which apparently went nuts for some unknown reason. From what I can see it won't take more than a few hours until we're back online.

 

 

Michal

 

ps. the server being down had nothing to do with my email to Mark. I wasn't aware of the problems until today morning - tried rebooting the server but it only broke down further, so I had to wait until coming home.

[John Hubbard 967668]

Amazing! The Swiss are the best in the world for fractures, and probably a lot else besides.

Take it easy - not too much too soon.

 

John

[Alistair Thomson]

Can I take it then that if Michael had broken his neck (and I'm glad he didn't!) that vroute would be no more?

 

Does this show us just how insecure the whole virtual flying business really is?

 

Let's start a list of key players, without whose daily personal actions this hobby would be in serious trouble. Of course, just one of these individuals going off-line (to say it gently) would be a majoir problem (for us as well as for them!), but hopefully not totally catastrophic. But if, say, a third of them went off-line, where would we be?

 

I'll start with:

 

Michael Rok - vroute

Pete Dowson - FSUIPC

Nico Kaan - Lekseekon

Larry James - FSINN support

Richard Jenkins, David Klain, Kyle Ramsay - VATSIM, and in fact all of the VATSIM BoG!

Tim Arnot - Plan-G

Tim Krajcar - Vataware

… and others. But who, exactly?

 

Actually I'm not so sure about the VATSIM folks listed above. My criteria for inclusion in this list is that someone appears here when they are irreplaceable, and pivotal to virtual aviation. So although all VATSIM officials are really centrally important, they are part of an organism which would remain functional if they were to go, so maybe Larry, Richard, David and Kyle shouldn't be there? Unless VATSIM would fold in their absence and, well, maybe it would?

 

So just how sensitive to fate is this hobby of ours? Who should cancel their ski-ing holidays?

[Ross Carlson]

Who should cancel their ski-ing holidays?

 

Actually I'd say that VATSIM would do just fine if everyone on your list vanished. The group that we really depend on are those that pay for our servers. And who knows, even if the server donors all disappeared, perhaps new server donors would step up quickly enough before everyone jumped ship to IVAO.

[Randy Tyndall 1087023]

Can I take it then that if Michael had broken his neck (and I'm glad he didn't!) that vroute would be no more?

 

Does this show us just how insecure the whole virtual flying business really is?

 

 

Gee, that's kinda insensitive. I understand the intent, but the delivery could have used something along the lines of:

 

"Sorry to hear about your misfortune Michal (by the way...you spelled his name wrong), but this does bring up a potential problem. What if..." and then go one with your gloom and doom.

[Luke Kolin]

Actually I'd say that VATSIM would do just fine if everyone on your list vanished. The group that we really depend on are those that pay for our servers.

 

Ah yes, the people who provide the most fungible commodity in all of recorded history. Clearly irreplaceable.

 

Cheers!

 

Luke

[Michal Rok]

Alistair,

 

I'm not considering quitting on skiing - my very first question when meeting the chief doctor was "may I go skiing next year?", which caused the student doctors to burst into laughing... The answer was "yes", by the way.

 

Guess I need to tell my wife where the backups are and whom to contact

 

 

Michal

[Ross Carlson]

Actually I'd say that VATSIM would do just fine if everyone on your list vanished. The group that we really depend on are those that pay for our servers.

 

Ah yes, the people who provide the most fungible commodity in all of recorded history. Clearly irreplaceable.

 

The servers are fungible, but are the donors? The question is, if all the current server donors vanished, would we get enough donors to step up before the existing servers were unplugged due to unpaid bills? Probably ... my point is that I think that's a much weaker chink in VATSIM's armor than any of the folks on Alistair's list. Especially the software developers ... even if every current developer was hit by a bus at the same time, VATSIM wouldn't skip a beat. The fact that the MSFS development shop shut down and VATSIM keeps on chugging is testament to that.

 

It's just a fun hypothetical anyway ... we're too big to fail!

[Sean Harrison]

Ross' name should be on there too, but there are probably hundreds when you start looking in all the regions/divisions etc.

 

VATSIM really is community, hence we are fairly open in many ways.

 

God save every member of the VATSIM community whether they are the 'current' key players or just the ones that make it what it actually is.

 

PS. Good to hear Michael will be sking again (subject to wife).

[Alistair Thomson]

- my very first question when meeting the chief doctor was "may I go skiing next year?", which caused the student doctors to burst into laughing... The answer was "yes", by the way.l

Reminds me of the guy who broke his arm in three places. After the doc fixed him up with pins and splints and plaster, the guy asked if, once all this stuff was removed, would he be able to play the violin. The doc said, "Yes, there's absolutely no reason why not," to which the guy replied, "That's great! I've always wanted to play the violin!"

[Luke Kolin]

The servers are fungible, but are the donors? The question is, if all the current server donors vanished, would we get enough donors to step up before the existing servers were unplugged due to unpaid bills?

 

Actually, I was referring to the money even more than the servers. If you look at the DVA example, our server costs us about $120, and that number is going to jump to $165 or so this fiscal year as we add a second server for redundancy and load spreading. Three months' worth of bills are around $500, and it's something that I or plenty of others at DVA could easily cover if we needed to keep the lights on. We're certainly not unique in this regards.

 

I don't believe that this network, with its over 10,000 active members, couldn't find a dozen or two dozen folks to pony up the equivalent of a PMDG plane or two each to keep the lights on for a few more months. I see lots of folks who don't mind dropping $100 or more on hardware, add-ons, aircraft, etc. I don't think it would be hard if VATSIM was faced with a p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] the pail exercise to keep things going with a hard deadline for the organization to raise the funds required. Based on what I've seen as well, I expect that there are more than a few folks in the VATSIM ecosystem who could at a very minimum lend VATSIM the funds required to keep the whole thing up for a year if it was necessary.

 

The obstacles are not financial, they are organizational. VATSIM has worked hard to control and restrict its donor base.

 

Cheers!

 

Luke

[Ross Carlson]

The obstacles are not financial, they are organizational. VATSIM has worked hard to control and restrict its donor base.

 

Indeed, the obstacle would be the stigma surrounding soliciting donations from the membership. The way it has been since the start is that the servers come from individuals who either have free access to a server or are willing to shoulder the expense of a server themselves. That's what I mean when I say we are dependent on the donors.

 

If VATSIM could find a way to accept donations from a wider group of people, without reopening the can of worms that apparently caused issues with SATCO, then that chink in the armor would be strengthened significantly.