technical details
Some of you may have experienced problems when trying to access PlanetJune lately. I’ve been complaining to my webhost for months about intermittent errors that happen sometimes, for some people, and they haven’t been able to help at all – all they said was that there were no server problems. It’s been highly frustrating!
They finally admitted on Thursday (coincidentally, just after I renewed with them for another year – I hope they will give me a refund!) that my website is just too popular for them to handle:
You are receiving a very large amount of daily traffic to your sites and this is the cause of the long loading times and 503 errors. This kind of traffic is much too large for a shared hosting environment. I would recommend moving your sites to a VPS or dedicated hosting provider.
So, I’ve just signed up for a new and expensive VPS (virtual private server). This means that I won’t be sharing system resources with any other people any more, and I should have more than enough resources for PlanetJune.com pages (and FoldingTrees.com pages, incidentally) to always load quickly and without errors 🙂
I have another announcement and a new amigurumi tutorial for you, but I’ll save them until you can see them on the new server – there’s a waiting period until “planetjune.com” points to the new server (it takes a couple of days). If you’ve been having problems loading my shop or any other pages, these should all be resolved shortly – thank you so much for your patience!
Jessica said
June, if it’s been less than 30 days you should have no trouble getting a refund.
Before you shell out for a VPS, I’d take a look at a Grid Server, either through Media Temple or GoDaddy. I’ve used both and loved them. Much more affordable than a VPS and probably more what you need right now.
-Jesi
June said
Argh, Jesi, isn’t that typical! I spent ages comparing my options, but nothing I read even mentioned a Grid Server as an option, and now I’m committed to the VPS! I think it’s a sound investment anyway – it gives me ample opportunity to expand without having the hassle of having to upgrade yet again. The host I found (ServInt) sounds amazing – they have automatic daily backups, and it’s fully managed so they can help me with the heavy tech stuff. And the CEO personally welcomed me via Twitter – talk about good customer service 🙂
Kelly said
I hope they refund the dollars paid on your renewal and look forward to things running more smoothly for you! ~Kelly
unDeniably Domestic
June said
Thanks Kelly – me too! It’s been such a worry for me.