rolling-restarts
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Breakfast Topic: Uptime
What? No regular long downtime for this week? That kind of... ruins my plans. I mean, the weekly maintenance usually means going out for coffee or a movie. Now that servers are actually going to stay up, the option to stay at home and play becomes available. For a lot of people, I think, this probably isn't even an issue. They'll be at work or in school, so the rolling restarts don't get in the way of any plans. Or do they?While it's common for many players to do something outside of the game when it's server maintenance, I'm curious to know what happens when server maintenance doesn't happen or happens in the form of rolling restarts. Since Blizzard never announces too much in advance whether or not the maintenance will take a long time, some of us make plans for Tuesdays. What happens when servers don't go down? Do you take the unexpected uptime to catch up on some play time? Finish the Lunar Festival Achievements, maybe? Run a couple of heroics? Or hey, maybe it's business as usual.
Tuesday Morning Post: The calm before
It's now been one week since patch 3.0.8a was deployed, and things are at least calmer around the game. Whether that's because the bugs were actually fixed or because people are just tired of complaining about them is a whole other issue. But at the least, this week will probably be another uneventful one. Of course, the Month of February itself will actually end up being a bit busy, as you can see in our February event roundup. Whether we'll add a 3.1 PTR to that list of events remains to be seen, but here's hoping.Whatever else, there's not going to be much going on this morning. downtime is a set of simple rolling restarts starting at 5 AM Pacific. Proudmoore and Tichondrius players do have to suffer through an extra hour's downtime, though. Luckily, you have WoW Insider to browse while you wait. As usual, I've rounded up a list of some of the best stories and content from the past seven days after the break.
The restarts, they will be rolling
In game announcements have let us know there will be rolling restarts tomorrow morning. The restarts will happen at 5:00 a.m. PST / 8:00 a.m. EST. Each realm is usually down for only 15 minutes.There will be additional realms that will be down for longer maintenance. Currently Tichondrius and Proudmoore are listed as needing to be down for an extra hour. Additional realms will eventually be listed on the official Service Status Forums, although nothing is up there just yet.We'll update this post, and keep you updated throughout Tuesday morning if this turns into anything else other than just a restart.
Tuesday Morning Post: Blinded by the Light edition
Have you seen Blind yet? Seriously. It's on the site, I swear. It's so good we posted it twice, even. Well, I guess three times, now. And seriously, guys. The music is fine. Awesome even. This is probably the most dynamic, well plotted, well choreographed WoW Movie to come across the desk here at WoW Insider, so even if you don't watch WoW videos, you are going to want to give this one a watch. Also, I just realized that the title "Blind" refers to the rogue skill, so that's cool too.If you can't find the time to watch it now, you'll have time in a little bit when the rolling restarts start. They start at 5 AM Pacific for American servers, 10 AM Pacific for the Oceanic servers. And once you're finished watching that and you pop your jaw back into place, try some of these articles:
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?
The Tuesday Morning Post: It's quiet. Too quiet.
So. Here we are. It's coming up on a month into the expansion and... I don't know, it's sort of quiet. Well, I mean, not too quiet. We have plenty of stuff to do. About half of you are still trying to make it to 80. I say you when I mean us, because I haven't quite made it there myself. In my defense, I'm leveling a Death Knight, so I started handicapped. But anyway, I mean quiet as in, there seems like we should get some earth shattering news soon. Maybe a 3.0.4 PTR if nothing else. But I shouldn't complain, we have a whole expansion to keep us busy for a while. Still, I'm going to make a prophecy anyway. 3.0.4 before the new year. You heard it here first. In the meantime, we'll have to satisfy ourselves with news from the past week. You can read while your server's down for the 5 AM rolling restarts:
Breakfast Topic: Realm (in)stability
In general I've been pleasantly surprised at how stable my own realm has been since the launch. Yes, we've had queues, restarts, lag, and yes, we've also had an insanely annoying subgroup of people with absolutely no scruples over stealing quest spawns (to be fair, this isn't Blizzard's fault, unless you count their refusal to allow us to kill members of our own faction. I have been sorely tempted over the last few days). But in general, play has been pretty trouble-free apart from the crowds you'd expect at all the usual quest hubs, and the response to the expansion has been universally positive from everyone to whom I've spoken. Wrath, at least on my own realm, has gone live to a very happy and excited bunch of players.But with a look at WoW Insider's inbox, I'm not sure it's worked out that way for everyone. We've seen a spate of recent complaints about server crashes and giant queues, and this weekend we've gotten a lot of them from people playing on Oceanic servers particularly (one of our readers, James Flannery, wrote in to tell us about an Oceanic server queue that went from 86 to 161 minutes during the half hour that he'd already been waiting). While in general I think it's safe to say that Wrath's launch went much more smoothly than Burning Crusade's did, I'm not sure everyone's benefited despite Blizzard's efforts. Possibly it's a function of Wrath being even more popular than anticipated in certain regions. If you play on multiple servers, which realm(s) seem to be doing best and worst? Have queue times (if they existed) and server lag improved for you?
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.
Rolling restarts at 5am PDT today
Just a heads up to all our American night owls and Oceanic players: There will be rolling restarts for all Realms starting at 5am PDT, about an hour and fifteen minutes from now. Each realm will be down for about 15 minutes, and the entire process will take about an hour. It's likely that this downtime is for working out a few kinks with the Midsummer Fire Festival. Kisirani confirmed earlier that there is a problem with the Striking Back quest for those under level 65, so it's likely that these rolling restarts will institute the hotfix to that problem. In addition, there's been some rumors that Lord Ahune's Normal and Heroic loot tables are not properly separated, so it's possible that this will fix those issues as well. Speaking of Ahune, be sure to keep your eyes glued to WoW Insider today. We're writing a complete loot guide and a strategy walkthrough for the new holiday boss as well speak. You can also check out the Midsummer quest walkthroughs we already have set up -- they're perfect reading material for the downtime. Happy reading, and we'll see you on the other side of the restarts.
Rolling restarts extend; multiple US servers down
Bornakk posted on the forums about rolling restarts for all realms to affect an issue that was preventing the proper display of realm names in the Battlegrounds. Instead of realm names, players from other servers would have their names displayed with cryptic tags such as US1B-BG, which -- aside from being unintelligible -- prevented identification of premade groups. The issue had reportedly been present in the PTR builds but seems not to have been addressed completely when Patch 2.4 went live.Although the rolling restarts were estimated to affect each realm for approximately 15 minutes and take a total of around 2 hours for the entire process, some realms -- roughly half of all US servers -- continue to experience further issues, necessitating more downtime. As of this writing, Bornakk reports that Blizzard estimates that all realms will be available for play at 4:30am PDT. Interestingly, it seems that the issue is not Battlegroup-related as some Battlegroups have both up and down servers.
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.
Voice chat being rolled out to all US realms
Rolling restarts are happening this afternoon on all US realms that do not yet have voice chat enabled in order to enable voice chat. I can only presume that voice chat is working well on the 42 realms it's currently enabled on, because Blizzard is adding the remaining 183 realms to the service en masse. I can't personally comment on the quality of the service, as it has not yet been implemented on any of the realms I play -- but if this round of restarts goes well, we'll all know by tomorrow. Drysc's original thread about voice chat has been updated with the list of realms that will have voice chat enabled today and Nethaera chimes in to clarify that, yes, this is all remaining realms. Restarts are expected to be finished and all realms back online by 2:00 PM PDT (that's 5:00 PM EST for you on the opposite coast). So if all goes well, expect your realm to be back up soon.
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]
Some downtime, some rolling restarts for this week's mainteinace
This week in server maintenance, most realms will have rolling restarts instead of downtime (these restarts will be starting at 5:00 AM PDT, and such things usually involve around 15 minutes of downtime per realm), but selected realms will have a longer than usual maintenance cycle starting at 3:00 AM PDT and lasting until 1:00 PM PDT. No word on what the additional downtime is for (perhaps this particular hardware simply needed a regular maintenance cycle this week?), but if you're playing on any of the following realms, expect downtime during this week's maintenance cycle. The list includes: Agamaggan, Alexstrasza, Alleria, Azshara, Baelgun, Balnazzar, Blackhand, Cho'gall, Dark Iron, Destromath, Dethecus, Detheroc, Emerald Dream, Garona, Gorgonnash, Greymane, Gul'dan, Hellscream, Illidan, Kael'thas, Kalecgos, Kirin Tor, Lightninghoof, Maelstrom, Malfurion, Moonrunner, Nazjatar, Ravencrest, Sargeras, Spinebreaker, Staghelm, Stormreaver, Twisting Nether, Ursin, Whisperwind, and Wildhammer.For those of you without downtime tonight, grats. For those of you with extended downtime... well, I can recommend some good books.
Rolling restarts to fix 2.1.0 error [Updated]
If you were attempting to play this evening, you may notice your realm vanishing out from under you. That's because Blizzard has been in the process of rolling restarts to fix a serious issue with today's 2.1.0 patch. As of 3:45 PM PST (that's 6:45 PM to you east coasters), restarts began, with an anticipated downtime of 15 minutes for each realm. The problem that caused all this hubbub? The official forums are a bit flakey this evening, but reader SirCasey reports that stacked items taken from mailboxes are vanishing from players inventories -- and I don't know about you, but I can see this resulting in hundreds of gold lost. What to do if you've already lost something? Blizzard poster Hortus says talk to a GM, but makes no promises that they'll be able to restore items.Update: CM Drysc reports at 6:30 PM PDT (9:30 PM EST) that complications from the earlier fix has prevented some realms from coming back online. However, they're working on bringing the remaining realms back online and plan to have all realms back online by 9:00 PM PDT (12:00 AM EST).
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?
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.
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!
