restart
Latest
Rolling restarts, some maintenance
The opening in game announcement tells us that there will be rolling restarts tomorrow beginning at 5:00 a.m. PDT / 8:00 a.m. EDT. Each realm will be down for about 15 minutes, and all the restarts should be done by 7:00 a.m. PDT / 10:00 a.m. EDT.This is important in that shows patch 3.1 will not be going live tomorrow. No server downtime means no patch, so everyone can relax and enjoy the game as is for another week.There is a possibility a few more realms will be down for an extended amount of time – and if that turns into anything major we'll let you know here.
Large Hadron Collider restart delayed till September
Oh, bollocks! When CERN's Large Hadron Collider started up this past September, we figured it was only a matter of time before the world as we knew it imploded. Thus, we did as any reasonable group of individuals would do and evaporated our life savings before being beamed up. Now, we're stuck waiting around (with four or five pennies) for this September, as that's the new restart date following the LHC's run-in with bad luck late last year. If all goes to plan this go 'round, the machine will run into autumn of 2010, when engineers will hopefully see collisions of lead ions. Needless to say, gurus are implementing a new enhanced protection system to keep things from going so wrongly again, but you never can tell what'll happen when smashing atoms, now can you?[Via CNET]
Breakfast topic: Forgive and forget?
Wrath has been out for about a month now. We were excited about the game, but boy were we angry. We had restarts, extended maintenance, server queues, and whole host of other anomalies. Blizzard's solution was to address as many issues as they could and give us each three days of credit. There are still problems with random disconnects, server lag, and some other bugs. There's still work to be done, but it's getting better.The one thing that I'm still very frustrated with is the evade issue. This seems to happen to me far more frequently than it did pre-Wrath. I hate it when a mob resets just as it would die, particularly when it's an elite. It always reminds me of Jester diving below the hard deck. I have nothing to do but try to kill the mob again or move on to another one that's (hopefully) not evading.Over all though, I'm happy with Wrath of the Lich King. There are some dreadful quests, but some awesome ones as well. A lot of things are reused, but many are new as well. I'm over being mad and back to enjoying the game. But Blizz, if you're reading: please stop the mobs from bugging out and going home.Now readers, it's your turn: Do you forgive Blizzard yet? What will it take to make you happy with WoW?
Rolling restarts to usher in new phase of the zombie invasion?
The announcement on the login screen tells us that there'll be rolling restarts for all realms between 5:00 a.m. PDT and 6:00 a.m. PDT. Each realm should be down for no less than 15 minutes.These restarts have become a common thing in the past few days. From previous information given to everyone from Bllizzard, we know that restarts correct server lag and other connectivity issues. And there have been quite a few of these issues since patch 3.0.2. A restart fixing these things is nothing new. But you have to ask yourself now, are these updates secretly pushing new things onto the server?It seems like for the past few days after every "rolling restart" a new phase or two of the scourge invasion has begun. So I'm going to make an educated guess based on what may very well be completely unrelated variables – tomorrow or Monday we'll see phase five of the invasion, complete with something new we haven't yet seen.Prove me wrong, Blizzard... prove me wrong.
Rolling restarts
Between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. PDT today (Sunday July 27th) all U.S. realms will be undergoing a rolling restart. Each realm should be down for about 15 minutes, though these things have a tendency to last longer than scheduled.The login announcement tells us that the servers are getting a hotfix applied to them, however there is no indication what the hotfix is for. If anything does happen to extend this restart, you'll see it here on WoW Insider.
Extended downtime for Tuesday May 6th
The announcement on the login screen tonight tells us that the realms will be down for extended maintenance on Tuesday May 6th, from 3:00 a.m. PDT until 11:00 a.m. PDT. It's curious how extended maintenance used to last from five until eleven, but now lasts an extra two hours – from three until eleven.Today we've seen the PTR (Public Test Realm) go down, and then come back up again. Earlier we thought this was a good indication that patch 2.4.2 was going to be released on May 6th, however with the PTR still being up, we don't believe that will be the case. Of course I could be completely wrong here – and we all might get a shiny new download screen tomorrow morning. Only time will tell, and stay tuned to WoW Insider for the latest. We'll also keep you abreast of when the realms come back online, and any lingering issues that may arise.
Rolling restarts for most US realms this morning
It's Tuesday, and you know what that means: weekly maintenance! This week most realms are getting rolling restarts instead of a full maintenance -- which means the vast majority of US players won't notice a thing. (Sorry, Australian players, as the restarts still fall dead in your prime evening hours.) For rolling restarts, Blizzard brings down all of the realm servers for a quick reboot (no longer than 15 minutes of downtime) one by one. (The restarts no doubt follow some kind of pattern which we are not privy to.) The restarts will begin at 5:00 AM PST, and though your realm may not be restarted exactly at five, the whole thing should be over by six or so. A handful of US realms will have a brief maintenance: an hour of downtime between 5:00 AM PST and 6:00 AM PST. Sounds like a good time for an powernap for players on: Area 52, Auchindoun, Azuremyst, Blade's Edge, Blood Furnace, Coilfang, Exodar, Ghostlands, Shattered Halls, Terokkar, The Scryers, The Underbog, Velen, and Zangarmarsh.
iPhone Troubleshooting: How to Restart, quit frozen apps and Reset iPhone
I'm starting to think there is some sort of bad luck attached to my iTunes Store account, as tonight I experienced the third iTunes Store song that completely locked up an iPod - only this time it was my iPhone. While listening to 'Again with the Subtleties' from the Yppah album You Are Beautiful At All Times (US iTunes link) in my iPhone's iPod app, the phone completely locked up at the end of the track with an almost-faded out display. What was worse, the iPhone became completely unresponsive - the display wouldn't accept any of my taps, and even the external buttons were ignored. Momentarily wishing I could simply yank the battery to cut the power and reset the phone, I realized Apple must have some sort of a contingency in place for lock-ups like these.Fortunately, I was right: The iPhone troubleshooting section of Apple's main iPhone support site contains a walkthrough for situations like this, complete with instructions on how to restart the phone, force quit a frozen app or reset the phone in cases like mine where it has completely locked up. Here are these steps in a nutshell: Restart your iPhone: Most people probably already know how to do this, but just in case, you can simply hold the sleep/wake button on the top for a few seconds to bring up a red slider at the top of the display which allows you to power off the phone. Quit a frozen iPhone app: I know it's a crazy thought, but it is entirely possible that Apple's wondrous iPhone apps can lock up from time to time. In this case, simply hold the Home button when in the app for about 6 seconds to kill the app. You should be able to jump back into the app without restarting the phone itself. Reset your iPhone: Note that this is not Restoring your iPhone; that's the button in iTunes that wipes the iPhone and all your information on it. Resetting an iPhone is nothing more than a hard reset or a forced reboot - you're simply cutting the power and making it reboot. To do this, hold the sleep/wake button and Home buttons simultaneously for a few seconds; the display will quickly wipe itself and you should see the black background and white Apple logo, signifying a reset well done. Fortunately, that reset fixed my problem and I'm jamming again with my iPhone as I write this. Still, you can be sure that I'll ping iTunes support to find out what's going on with these files, as this is the third one I've downloaded from the iTS that's caused an iPod to stop dead in its tracks. Anyone else experience something like this? You know where to sound off.
Rolling restarts this week for US realms
Happy Tuesday, everyone! This week's regular maintenance cycle for US realms will be performed via rolling restarts of all realms, starting at 5:00 AM PDT today. What this means, of course, is that we shouldn't expect more than 15 minutes of downtime while the realms are restarted -- though we can't say precisely when the restarts will occur for each realm. (Blizzard will be working their way down the realm list, so your realm could come up right at five o'clock or could be left for last.)In addition to the rolling restarts, Blizzard will also be performing some authentication system maintenance during an unspecified time period today. However, the maintenance shouldn't hinder our ability to log on to the game. So play on, everyone![via Breaking News on the login screen]
Ground control to DirecTV TiVo users: reboot, please
As a good few PC users will tell you, sometimes the only solution is the three fingered salute, and for TiVo users having an array of troubles with your DirecTV service, it seems the answer could be as easy as flipping the power switch. Oddly enough, it seems the list of recent complaints surrounding unexplainable deletions and problems with Season Pass recordings can be remedied with a simple reboot. A DirecTV spokesperson even stated that "a reboot will clean things up and the unit will start recording again," but we've got a sneaking suspicion there's just more to it than that. Nevertheless, that's the word from the higher-ups, so if you're on the verge of a total meltdown due to AV misbehavior, try the trusty restart trick a time or two, and if it still doesn't get things ironed out (read: the likely outcome), at least you now know precisely who to yell at.[Via PVRWire]
Rolling restarts this morning
US realms will be seeing rolling restarts beginning at 5:00 AM PST today to apply a small fix to introduce a necessary reagent to vendors across the world. Drysc isn't specific about what he might be referring to, but I can only assume he's talking about Wild Quillvine, a reagent required for a druid to cast Gift of the Wild rank 3 (the group buff version of Mark of the Wild). Complaints about the lack of the reagent go all the way back to beta, so it's good to see them finally getting some notice. To those of you hoping for Drysc might be talking about the missing Khorium veins, his wording seems pretty specific to a vendor reagent. The restart process shouldn't last more than 15 minutes -- perfect time for a breakfast break!
Rolling restarts for US realms Friday morning
Drysc informs us to expect rolling restarts for all US realms starting at 5:00 AM PST to apply a "minor hotfix." Downtime is expected to be minimal (around 15 minutes), and US players probably won't notice any interruption. But a hotfix? Blizzard's not said what they're fixing, which leaves us to guessing games as to the exact nature of the problem. However, poster Tuhljin seems to be on the right track when he points out that "if they won't tell you what the hotfix is for, at least part of it probably involves fixing an exploit." After all, they wouldn't keep us in the dark just for the fun of it... would they?
Apple Support doc on Intel Macs and 3rd party routers: "just restart it"
Well this doesn't sound like any fun: enough Intel Macs running 10.4.8 must be having a problem connecting wirelessly to some 3rd party routers that Apple had to publish a support doc on the topic. As icing on the cake, Apple's solution isn't a pretty one either. If your Intel Mac is having this problem, here's Apple's solution: restart the router. If that doesn't fix the problem, Apple then recommends calling the router's manufacturer to spend 45 minutes on hold, getting tossed around between operators who probably dish out the same troubleshooting technique, just like the books taught 'em.Not exactly the most effective solution I've ever heard to a problem like this, but I guess one must take what one can get - at least until one can download Mac OS X 10.4.9.
Rolling Restarts on US Realms Tonight
Well, they may have already happened on your realm, but starting at 4:38PM PDT rolling restarts began across all US realms. The restarts were apparently necessary to hotfix an issue with enchantments and items vanishing from players' inventories that was mentioned earlier. There's still no details on exactly what the issue with enchantments was, but it would have been serious to merit prime-time restarts...
Rolling Restarts Friday Morning
All realms will be going offline starting at 4:00 AM PDT Friday morning (that's seven hours from the time of this post). They should all be back online by 5:00 AM PDT, with an expected downtime of about 30 minutes per realm. There's no real information on why the restarts are necessary - Drysc only says they're being done to address a server-side software issue. (Perhaps this is connected to last night's database maintenance - though that was only on a few realms, rather than all realms.) So if you usually play during that time, you'll need to find other distractions.
TUAW Tip: shortcuts for Sleep, Restart and Shut Down
We here at TUAW are suckers for productive shortcuts, and since yesterday's System Preferences tip was such a hit, I thought I'd post a few shortcuts to speed up the Sleep, Restart and Shut Down commands. There's actually quite a few ways to accomplish these tasks, so I'll try to mention all the methods I've heard of. The first: hold the option key while selecting Restart or Shut Down from the Apple Menu to bypass the 'Are You Sure?' dialog, and cut right to the chase. You even get visual feedback in the Apple Menu; click the menu, then press the option key to see the trailing dots disappear from those two commands (as far as I know, this is a typical UI feedback element used throughout the OS; any commands - at least in Cocoa apps - that have keyboard modifiers will change their appearance in the menu if you press the modifier before choosing the option).The second method is my personal favorite: 100% keyboard shortcuts. Here's a list: Sleep = opt + cmd + eject Restart = ctrl + cmd + eject Shut Down = ctrl + opt + cmd + eject The third method, involving the power key, can still be counted as a keyboard shortcut, but since I almost never touch the power key (I Sleep my Macs about 99% of the time via my aforementioned favorite method), I don't really consider it part of my typical keystroke regimen. For you power key lovers out there, you can press your Mac's power key, and at the resulting 'Are you sure?' dialog that contains four buttons (Restart, Sleep, Cancel and Shut Down), you can press the first letters of a couple of these actions. Specifically, 'r' for Restart, 's' for Sleep and Enter for Shut Down. 'C' for Cancel doesn't seem to work, but Esc should get you out of the dialog if you need to keep computing.Here's hoping you don't have a Homer Simpson-like brain, where each new shortcut you learn knocks out an old one. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts on these shortcuts, and enjoy one more trick for working with your Mac just a little bit faster.
Rolling Restarts Wednesday Morning
All US realms will be restarted starting at 5:00 AM PDT Wednesday morning. The servers should only be offline for about 15 minutes, but you should be prepared for a bit of downtime if you play at that that time of day. The restarts are required in order to fix what CM Eyonix refers to as a "minor technical issue," though I can't find any further information on what the trouble may be. I haven't personally seen any problems in playing since today's patch deployment, but perhaps others have. If anyone has the scoop on what's requiring these restarts, do share in the comments!
Early Morning Server Restarts
On Thursday morning at 4:00 AM PDT, there will be rolling restarts across the US realms to apply a "small server-side fix" for an unspecified problem. (If anyone notices any specific performance differences after the realms come back up, I'd be curious to hear it, however!) If all goes as planned, each realm should only be offline for 15 minutes. While this shouldn't have much impact on players in the US, it seems to hit prime Australian playing time. Fortunately the scheduled downtime should be brief, and you can get back to your normal playing quickly.
Rolling Restarts on US Realms
Not all, but most US realms will be hit by rolling restarts Wednesday morning starting at 5:00 AM PDT. There's no listed reason for these restarts, but be prepared for a brief downtime if you're going to be playing in the early hours of the morning. Unaffected realms - which I believe are all running on new hardware - include Andorhal, Anetheron, Archimonde, Black Dragonflight, Dalaran, Dalvengyr, Deathwing, Dentarg, Doomhammer, Duskwood, Executus, Haomarush, Icecrown, Kel'Thuzad, Khadgar, Mal'Ganis, Norgannon, Scilla, Steamwheedle Cartel, Thrall, Turalyon, Ysera, Ysondre, and Zuluhed.
Automate shutdown and restart processes
Yet more apps that have made my "why doesn't OS X do this natively?" list are Mac Shutdown X and Mac Restart X. The concept of Mac Shutdown X is simple: shut down a Mac automatically based on various kinds of events, such as a download finishing or a file disappearing. While the list of usable events is slim at the moment, the developers state on their product site that they're very open to suggestions. Mac Shutdown X can shut down on a schedule, just like OS X's Energy Preference Pane, but you can also use a calendar and clock to specify a specific date and time in the future for shutting down. Conversely, Mac Restart X does exactly what you might think: it allows you to set a schedule or specify a date (but not events - yet) for automatically restarting your Mac.While I'm sure some people could find these separate apps handy in various ways, the fact that they sell for $10 each makes me think they should simply be combined into one utility for one price. Regardless, it's a good niche to have filled by a simple little to-the-point app.[via MacNN]
