PHP 5.4.25 and 5.5.9

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.25 and 5.5.9 that fix several bugs. We’ve updated PHP 5.4 and 5.5 on our servers as a result.

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phpMyAdmin updated to version 4.1.8

We’ve updated phpMyAdmin to the latest version, 4.1.8.

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Upcoming scheduled maintenance for MySQL 5.5 upgrades (completed)

Over the next ten days (February 7-15, 2014), we’ll be upgrading the MySQL database on all of our servers from version 5.1.72 to 5.5.35. The upgrade requires that each Web server be taken offline for two minutes, causing brief scheduled “downtime”.

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PHP 5.4.24 and 5.5.8

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.24 and 5.5.8 that fix several bugs. We’ve updated PHP 5.4 and 5.5 on our servers as a result.

The PHP 5.3 version (5.3.28) was not changed.

These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to let us know.

WordPress plugin authors: Please use timeouts when contacting other servers

We occasionally hear from customers saying “my WordPress site suddenly got so slow it’s unusable”. When we look into these, the usual cause is that:

• Our customer has installed a WordPress plugin;
• The plugin attempts to contact another server as part of its normal operation;
• But the other server isn’t working properly: it fails to respond to connection attempts.

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AOL mail delivery delays (resolved)

Update 5:00 PM December 27: AOL has resolved the problem described below. All delayed mail has been delivered, and all services are operating normally.

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PHP 5.3.28, 5.4.23, and 5.5.7

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.3.28, 5.4.23, and 5.5.7 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5 on our servers as a result.

These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to let us know.

WordPress 3.8

WordPress 3.8 was recently released, and as always, we’ve updated our WordPress one-click installer to automatically install the latest version for new WordPress sites.

If you’ve previously installed an older version of WordPress, you should update it from within your WordPress Dashboard.

PHP 5.4.22 and 5.5.6

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.22 and 5.5.6 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.4 and 5.5 on our servers as a result.

In the unlikely event you experience any issues, don’t hesitate to let us know.

Brief outage on web04 server November 11, 2013 (resolved)

Between 11:32 and 11:36 AM Pacific time on November 11, 2013, the “web04” server experienced very high load that led to an outage for sites on that server. (Other servers were not affected.)

The high load was caused by a RAID array hard disk that suddenly became very slow to respond to requests. The disk was automatically reset and the server resumed working normally. We’re keeping a close eye on this and doing further testing, and will replace any defective hardware if necessary.

We sincerely apologize to our customers affected by this problem.