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The Rust List: Status
(Archive 6: 2001)

Postings below in reverse time order. Newest status is at the top.


Earlier status reports.  <--      --> Newer status reports.

The Rust List: Status -- December 22, 2001

Short outage today

Topica's going down for 4 hours (they claim, and for some time now they've been good about not going over their schedule) to do some fix-ups. Hopefully that'll correct the sporadic late deliveries that have been happening since their last maintenance.

So Rust will stop TODAY, (Saturday, December 22) at 10am California time (that's 1pm US Eastern, it's 6pm GMT) and should be going again by 4 hours later...
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- December 8, 2001

Another Topica "Maintenance"

After a couple of months with no outage, Topica has to make sure we're aware enough of their power over us, so they've scheduled a "maintenance" outage for TODAY (Saturday, Dec 8).

Topica, and therefore The Rust List, will be shut down at 8am California Time (that's 11am Eastern, it's 4pm GMT) today. Their expected outage time is 18 to 24 hours. In each of the last several scheduled "maintenance" periods (see below) they've come back online in less time than scheduled.

Hopefully, though, there won't be a side-effect problem like last time!

Everybody have a nice vacation from Rust today & tonight!
(I know *I* will.... :-)

. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- October 16, 2001

Boo Topica

This morning Topica started screwing up and they shut down for emergency maintenance this afternoon. As of the time I post this they claim that they should be back up between 6pm and 8pm California time (that's 9pm-11pm Eastern US time, or 2am-4am GMT). Cross your fingers that they don't drag this out...

I've also received word from a number of AOLers that delivery to them has been sporadic. Let's hope whatever they are fixing will help in that area. If you're on AOL and your Rust delivery hasn't settled down within a day or so after this outage is over, please let me know.
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- October 14, 2001

Yo, Topica

I see you're back on-line. Took about 26 hours for you to show up, but you're here at 1pm Eastern Time (that's 10 hours to spare on your "24-36 hours" promise). You seem to be taking about an hour to process posts at the moment. I hope this improves soon. Overall your move seems to have gone well.

Crossing my fingers...
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- October 12, 2001

Major Outage Coming

This Saturday, October 13, Topica will be relocating their servers. They claim this will take between 24 and 36 hours. Thus Rust will be off-line for a day, or possibly a day and a half...

Rust will stop Saturday morning at 8am, California time. (That's 11am on the US East Coast, or it's 4pm GMT.) It won't be up until a full day later, maybe more. If their work moves smoothly as it has in recent outages, they should be back up Sunday morning, California time, mid-day East coast time, late Sunday afternoon Europe time.

But it could be longer... :-(
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- September 9, 2001

Digest Problems

Topica's "maintenance" yesterday has screwed up delivery of the digests. At first after they came back online, EVERY digest subscriber got an empty message from "list-errors.1234......@boing.topica.com" in place of each digest that was supposed to be delivered to them. After a few of these, it APPEARED that Topica had fixed the problem. But some Rusties have continued to get those notes in place of some (or in some cases, most) of their digests.

I've reported to Topica list support that the problem continues. However to get their attention, everyone who encounters this should also send a note with a complaint about the problem to the Topica address "support@get.topica.com". Topica is much more responsive when they get a lot of complaints.

I'll be keeping the Rust Digest Archive up to date with all digests as quickly as possible.
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- September 8, 2001

... and again, and again...

Topica is going down for maintenance one more time today. This time it'll be during the day (in North America). They shut down at 8am Pacific Time (that's 11am Eastern, 4pm GMT). Scheduled for 10 to 12 hours, so it should be back up by this evening. The last several times they come up sooner than scheduled, so cross your fingers it'll come up promptly tonight.
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- August 31, 2001

Topica "Maintenance" again, and again, and...

We had one glorious maintenance-free Friday last week, but tonight Topica is back at it....

Topica shuts down at 6pm Pacific Time (that's 9pm Eastern, 2am GMT). They claim it'll only be down for 6 to 8 hours, so we should be up and running before tomorrow morning...
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- August 27, 2001

Rust delivery to msn.com

It's come to my attention that a lot of people with addresses at msn.com are not getting their Rust mail. This is a problem at MSN, where they are not delivering mail from Topica. However I've found a work-around that will get your Rust mail to subscribers there successfully. Follow these steps:

  1. Go to "My Topica" (at http://topica.com/my) If you haven't registered at Topica, you'll have to do so to complete this processs.

  2. On your "My Topica" page, in the "Preferences" column on the left, click on "Email Addresses".

  3. Click the "new address" button, and in the screen that follows enter your current mail address ("____@msn.com") but change it to "_____@email.msn.com"). (Don't include those "quotes".) Click the "Add Address" button to get it into the system.

  4. Go back to "My Topica" and click on "The Rust List".

  5. In the slot beside "Deliver to:" select the "___@email.msn.com" address that you just created, and hit the "Save Changes" button.
That's it. Your mail should still get to your regular mailbox, and you will still be able to post. You can post with either mail address (__@msn.com or __@email.msn.com) on your "From:" line.

Sorry about the hassle -- MSN just doesn't seem to be able to avoid problems like these from time to time... :-(
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- August 17, 2001

Still more Topica "Maintenance"

Despite last week's outage, Topica will be doing it again tonight. Last week they predicted a 24 hour outage but finished in 14 hours. The time before that they predicted between 12 and 15 hours, but came back in less than 12 hours. This time they're saying the same (12 to 15 hours), hopefully they'll again finish promptly.

So tonight at 8:00pm Pacific Time (that's 11:00pm Eastern, or 4am Saturday GMT) Topica shuts down for about 12 hours. Again.
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- August 10, 2001

More Topica "Maintenance"

Though they just had a "maintenance" shutdown week before last, now they are going to do it to us again today (Friday, August 10). And what's worse, this time they're saying that the shutdown will probably be 24 hours! :-(

Soooo, tonight, at 8:00pm Pacific Time (that's 11:00pm Eastern, or 4am Saturday GMT) Topica shuts down and could be down until the same time tomorrow night...
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- August 3, 2001

Mail TO Rust

Due to system resource problems on the "rustlist.org" redirector, a lot of the mail that SHOULD be passed onto Topica isn't making it. So for now you'll have better luck posting if you send your Rust posts directly to Rust@Topica.com... :-(

Note that problem behind this is the "code red" virus. Although the rustlist.org server is not infected (and is protected from infection), all those damn Microsoft web servers out there that ARE infected are now busy probing other systems all over the internet, looking for unprotected ones. There are so many infected ones doing the probing that they're causing a real strain on a lot of others, including the one hosting rustlist.org.

Until this gets resolved (either the service provider figures out a way to stop the denial of service that's in progress, or I move the rustlist.org redirector to a system that's not affected this way) stick with rust@topica.com when you send your posts.
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- July 27, 2001

Yet Another Topica "Maintenance"

Topica is pulling one of their "maintenance" outages tonight. I was really hoping they'd wait until The Horse was finished touring (luckily they didn't do any during Euro 2001) but unfortunately they'll be out during the lead-up to tomorrow's Fuji Rock show. :-(

They'll be shutting down tonight at 6pm Pacific Time (that's 9pm in the US East, it's 2am GMT) and won't come back up until tomorrow. They say they SHOULD be back up between 6am and 10am Pacific time on Saturday (that's in the range 9am - 1pm in the US East, or between 2pm - 6pm GMT).

So unless they finish early, Rust will be down during most or all of Neil's Fuji Rock performance tomorrow (which MIGHT be webcast). Cross you fingers that their work goes smoothly...
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- June 5, 2001

Another Topica "Maintenance"

Topica will being doing another of their infamous "maintenance" shutdowns tonight (Tues) at 6pm Pacific Time (9pm Eastern, 2AM Wed morning GMT). They say it'll last up to 14 hours, and that mail will be a slower afterward while they clear their backlog of queued posts.

If it goes well, this timing isn't as bad as it might have been. It could have been this coming weekend, just as the tour starts. But knowing Topica, it wouldn't surprise me if they hose things up during the tour, too.   :-(


. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- May 14, 2001

Digests wake up again...

As of about 1:30pm EDT, the Digest clog was disolved and all Rust messages that had been shipped invidually since Sunday morning were shipped within newly generated digests.
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- May 14, 2001

Digests back to sleep   :-(   :-(   :-(

After one night of digest delivery (Saturday night/Sunday morning), Topica again stopped delivering digests.   :-(   Once again this is being pursued with Topica and I will report back here once I know something more...
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- May 12, 2001

Digests wake up...

Topica finally fixed the digest delivery problem this evening, and all Rust messages that had been shipped invidually have now also been shipped within digests.
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- May 12, 2001

Topica still hosed   :-(   :-(

Topica, the amateur mailing list service, has still not fixed their digest delivery problem... :-(

The (slightly) good news is that I'm only about one day behind now on manually creating and uploading the digests to the Digest Archive (through Digest 2133). I hope to finish catching up later today.

More news as it develops...
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- May 11, 2001

Still no Digests :-(

As of mid-day (eastern time) today Topica has still not provided any guidance on where we are with the digests problem.  :-(

I've decided to go ahead with manual creation of the digests that would hold the Rust posts that have hit the list since the digest outage began on Tuesday. I'm doing so on an "as time available" basis, so it'll take me a while to get up to date. But I'll keep plugging at it, and hopefully Topica will obviate the need soon...

The last digest that Topica sent out was digest 2020 (but it's only been placed on the Digest Archive today). Digests numbered higher than that are the ones I'm manually creating. At the time that I'm writing this note, I've placed Digests 2021 - 2024 there. More shortly.
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- May 10, 2001

No Digests!

By yesterday evening Rust message flow seemed to have recovered and they were being received and delivered okay. But no digests are being delivered! I'm pursuing this with Topica and will report back when I know more. :-(

Individual posts can be read via Topica's pages. You might also try switching your rust subscription to individual messages mode until the digest is fixed. Details here.
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- May 9, 2001

Partial recovery

About mid-day today the "rust@rustlist.org" relay was fixed, so you can use that for posting again.

Topica extended their estimate of when maintenance would be complete to about 3pm Pacific Time (6pm Eastern, 11pm GMT). However the backlogged messages started trickling out at about noon (pacific time), and some new messages started getting through not long after. At this time Rust still can't be accessed at Topica's pages.
. . . RE*AC*TOR


The Rust List: Status -- May 9, 2001

Double Whammy

Yesterday the "rust@rustlist.org" forwarding mechanism broke and still isn't fixed. That prevents all Rust posts sent to that address from getting to the Topica servers. The work-around for this is to go ahead and use the "rust@topica.com" direct address to post to Rust. In the past I warned people to always use "rust@rustlist.org" for posting (because that address would always follow Rust to whatever server it would reside on). However the problems with the forwarding mechanism lead me to suspend that suggestion. Feel free to use "rust@topica.com" until further notice.

Not long after that broke yesterday, Topica did what they warned us about last Friday -- they shut down for maintenance for the night. Consequently it's not available now, and they say it will probably be about 6AM Pacific Time before they resume (could be longer, of course). That's 9AM Eastern Time, or 2PM GMT. Once it comes back up, any posts that were sent there during the outage will be processed.
. . . RE*AC*TOR


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