the middle of a tracert looks like this:

14 121 ms 121 ms 122 ms 216.200.6.237.theplanet.com [216.200.6.237]
15 120 ms 119 ms 119 ms vl32.dsr01.dllstx3.theplanet.com [70.85.127.61]

16 121 ms 123 ms 122 ms po31.dsr01.dllstx5.theplanet.com [70.85.127.106]

17 117 ms 120 ms 117 ms po1.car04.dllstx5.theplanet.com [70.84.160.134]

18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.

I'm getting the same thing today. I think I last logged into MeFi at about 10pm last night and it was ok then (London time).

Interestingly, now that MyYahoo has favicons for each rss feed, it won't finish loading either because it can't get the metafilter icons.

metafilter: it can't even fail right

it's up now, I have no idea what's wrong with it but I DO know how to fix it.

maybe the load was awesomely high due to some crappy scriptkiddie fecking about? Then it won't say anything, like it would if th apache server was of/down, it would just load forever and ever and ever...

could be, I know earlier in the week there was some sort of trackback spam thing going on, this is definitely not the server having the JRUNs

i've been getting "the connection was reset" a lot lately.

nooooooooooooooooooo we will all go into withdrawal! The shakes are starting already!

I am more curious about why it loads forever instead of timing out. I didn't fire up a packet analyzer (not installed my current machine) but does that mean I am receiving part of a page and then just stuck waiting instead of getting nothing and timing out?

It's up now so I can't even check and see what is happening http wise.

I think if spammers ahve been mucking at Mefi lately, this is what's going on: spammers/scriptkiddies start asking the server a million stupid questions "got a file here? No, How about here? Here? Here then?" but picture that like 200 times a second. Metafilters apache is a nice boy and starts answering all those questions, and our as we ask "yo where's metafilter!?" but we're stuck in the back of the que. Apache is sincerly trying to get back to us with the reply "over here mate!" but is so busy saying "Nope, no. Nu-uh. Not there either" to the scriptkiddies that eventually the loads shoots straight up to hell and we all wait forever for a reply.


Or when I got ddos:ed off teh web I found that the latest fad is executing code via a vunerability in xml-rpc (which metafilter might have), enabling a person to install and execute more code on the poor server. While they much about running their scripts searching for stuff they might get away with, they can shoot the load of teh server up to awesome numbers and we all who just wanna see the old webpage get left in the dark. I'm assuming that new game isn't only being tried on my server but any old server and big fat wads of IP ranges. Else I'd feel kinda lonely. ;)

Sucky.

yaknow this preview deal does nothing for my shoddy spelling.