Hey yall, just wanted to chime in with a quick update on why we were down and have gone down a few times these past few days.

So… for those who don’t know a bit on the backend way of how lemmy works right now, it’s a lil more than a mess. Lemmy itself uses very little computing resources, you could probably run a decent instance on a toaster (I wouldn’t suggest it though) but the problem that arises rapidly is the way photos are managed. The photo database downloads images both that are uploaded and federated. There is an option to disable caching for federated NSFW posts by unchecking enable NSFW within the instance admin panel. That’s the only option related disabling federated images as of right now.

You see where I’m going with this, with this instance being as large as it is? Our photo database has been filling up pretty rapidly. We are attempting to troubleshoot solutions to prevent caching all federated content. Unfortunately as our backend team is attempting to figure that out, our pictures database just keeps ballooning more and more.

We have deleted some stuff in hopes to give more time, but we unfortunately have no choice but to migrate to object storage ASAP. Tomorrow there will likely be downtime as we migrate things over, and unfortunately there is no telling how long that will take.

Thank you for being patient and understanding while we navigate this. If you want to see updates to our status when we go down, check out our mastodon page here or come to our matrix public operations channel for updates (link in the sidebar.)

Things should work today though. Emphasis on should.

We are working on open collective still, but hosting this instance does cost money. If you are able to, donations are greatly appreciated. Especially as we will have to factor in object storage into our costs now.

  • @rustling_leaves
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    18
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    1 year ago

    One of the worst things when it comes to porn is videos or pictures being deleted. Especially frustrating to browse old forums and none of the download links work or none of the images show. Or when pornhub deleted nearly 80% of their videos. There are videos out there which I am still looking for. Probably will never find again. Partly the reason I am a hoarder.

    • @zabadoh
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      111 year ago

      I completely agree.

      The models retire, the photographer or rigger retire, or shut down because of piracy.

      Torrents and download links disappearing.

      Fuck pornhub for multiple reasons.

      It’s such a shame.

      Support the artists while you can, because that’s what they are, and preserve their works for posterity.

    • Arobanyan
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      61 year ago

      Yeah that was such a heartbreak, like over half the website just disappeared over false allegations and so much really popular amateur content gone forever was deleted for no reason in the purge.