*Xanga sucks!  Xanga sucks!*

er.. the Server's back up?  Really?

Never mind.

Perspicacious Update:

Being an outstanding troublemaker, I mean, troubleshooter , I've isolated the source of the message that I and some of you were getting on our webpages this morning:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80040e31'

Timeout expired

E:XANGAWWWROOTBLOGRINGS../Includes/include_blogrings.asp, line 171

The pinpoint source is not all Blogring Groups--just the larger ones like Music Blogrings (1022 rings) and Friends Blogrings (1841). 

In other words, *BIG THINGS* on Xanga serve as ticking timebombs.  When the servers are running fast, the *BIG THINGS* get away with getting bigger and still have time to load before a timeout limitation.  But when the servers get slower because they are challenged with an ever growing load of more page views from more users, the *BIG THINGS* like BIG Blogring groups or a 100-entry Featured Content List (BIG compared to the now diminished 20-entry Featured Content List--small) cannot load before exceeding a stipulated timeout, so CRUNCH~!

So is Xanga getting too big for its britches??

Or does it need bigger britches?!

Early this morning, though my site here “appeared”, my blogs had “vanished” and were effectively inaccessible--even to me.  

Overload!  Xanga was listing and my site was impacted.  But what?

I tried everything to reinvorgate my site: eliminating all *Header* material, all *Website Stat* material, all *More Stuff* and all graphics. I even eliminated over 360 entries from my SIR list (long overdue, yet with over 280 entries still remaining) but still was blogless. Those were rough waters that I was sailing in .

It appeared the error was a Server timeout involving loading the Blogring module.  For the moment, the Blogring module is gone—and my blogs have returned.  I’m glad that the Xanga techs figured that out promptly.

Still, it's triage time at Xanga. It looks like: 1) the *Newly Updated* list is gone, 2) the *Featured Content* list is curtailed from 100 entries to 20, 3) the *Blogrings* module is gone, and 4) though they returned the *Stats Box* to the Premium customers (is that the problem?), they eliminated the cumulative stats for everyone that accrue over your Xanga lifetime (as previously viewable in your Public Profile) and now just have relativistic week-to-week resetting stats.  I was closing in on 600 subscribers, but getting a read on that crossing is somewhat problematic now—unless matters emerge from this barrage of triage and return to normalcy.