We’ll give the upgrade new try tomorrow. I’ve had some good input from admins of other instances, which are also gonna help troubleshoot during/after the upgrade.
Also there are newer RC versions with fixed issues.
Be aware that might we need to rollback again, posts posted between the upgrade and the rollback will be lost.
We see a huge rise in new user signups (duh… it’s July 1st) which also stresses the server. Let’s hope the improvements in 0.18.1 will also help with that.
Technically speaking, yes, a portion of our issues are due to the highest user base of an Lemmy instance. So in theory, if half of our users dispersed to other instances, we would likely see some performance improvement here. However, lemmy.world is intended to be an accessible instance for the general population. The server itself that is running lemmy.world is beyond spec’d to handle much more than this user load. We are running up against code-level issues that we may or may not be able to get around with our internal configurations. This is just part of developing software in an environment were you go from a few thousand users total to hundreds of thousands in the space of a few weeks. There is no directive to have users create accounts on new instances, though if you are looking for an immediate performance improvement, that may be your best option currently. That is up to you to decide :)
Gotcha. So pretty much if I want to personally avoid the growing pains (or possibly ease them for others), I should consider it, but doesn’t particularly help you directly. Thanks for clarifying and thanks for all the work you all put into it!
Yup you nailed it. For additional context, Ruud is running an almost identical server for his Mastadon.world server which has 160k users. Relatively speaking, these are large, performant, and expensive servers. They can absolutely handle the current user influx we are getting from the Reddit exodus. Are hands are tied by software limitations unfortunately. I can confidently tell you were are constantly in communication about ways we can amplify user experience with the tools that we do have access to. For instance, this status page was recently spun up which you can access anytime you think there might be server issues to help confirm that what you are seeing is recognized at a server level. Things like that.
All that being said, for users who are looking for a smoother experience right now, I can recommend lemm.ee as a solid home as well. Their admin Sunaurus has been very active and helpful throughout this process and handles his instance very professionally. He is essentially another Ruud (though Ruud is the best! ;)). Just something to keep in mind going forward as I can’t make any promises about the time frames for these issues being resolved. Hopefully once we get contact back from the Lemmy devs we can start expediting a resolution. They have a lot on their plates right now though, haha, so we will see. Cheers!
Thanks for the additional context, you guys rock!