Testing a new libofa release

libofa, the Open Fingerprint Architecture library had many issues in the last release and quite a few of them were cleaned up, including the notorious incorrect output bug on Intel Macs. I’ve put together a test release of 0.9.4 to see if people can build this tarball without major problems. If you’ve had issues with … Continue reading “Testing a new libofa release”

libofa, the Open Fingerprint Architecture library had many issues in the last release and quite a few of them were cleaned up, including the notorious incorrect output bug on Intel Macs. I’ve put together a test release of 0.9.4 to see if people can build this tarball without major problems.

If you’ve had issues with previous builds of libofa, please build and install this tarball. Report any bugs/problems to the usual place, please.

Search server upgraded

The search server has undergone a complete overhaul and things are looking much better and much more stable now. In the last two weeks we have: Upgraded the search engine to use Lucene 2.2 (we were using 1.0) I would expect a number of bugs and idiosyncrasies to go away now that we’re using an … Continue reading “Search server upgraded”

The search server has undergone a complete overhaul and things are looking much better and much more stable now. In the last two weeks we have:

  1. Upgraded the search engine to use Lucene 2.2 (we were using 1.0) I would expect a number of bugs and idiosyncrasies to go away now that we’re using an improved search engine. If you have a search bug pending, please take a minute to see if your bug still applies.
  2. Removed all numbered types from the indexes. For instance, if you wanted to search for a band previously you had to search for artype:1. Now you can search for type:group or type:person. In the release search languages, scripts, countries, type and status are now indexed using text strings.
  3. Purchased, installed and deployed a new search server with gobs of RAM. Searches are happening quite fast now.

For details on the new improved search syntax, please take a look at the search syntax page. If you find new bugs, please report them.

General update: Search troubles and solutions

It appears that the world is slowly discovering MusicBrainz. Last month we pushed nearly 2M pages per day and smoke is pouring out of our poor search server. Fortunately we have some money in the bank so, the board of directors approved the purchase a new RAM-heavy server for use as our new search server. … Continue reading “General update: Search troubles and solutions”

It appears that the world is slowly discovering MusicBrainz. Last month we pushed nearly 2M pages per day and smoke is pouring out of our poor search server. Fortunately we have some money in the bank so, the board of directors approved the purchase a new RAM-heavy server for use as our new search server. Then yesterday, Matthew Mullenweg of WordPress fame donated $5000 to the MetaBrainz Foundation!! That nicely covers the costs of our new search server (~$3000) and then some.

I’m also working on improving the search server so that it runs more efficiently and that we get fewer timeout errors. Things improved yesterday when I redirected all web-based searches to our new server. I hope to cut over the rest of the search traffic (web service traffic) to a better suited server later this afternoon.

In other words — I’m working hard to make sure the site stays responsive, even under the growing loads. Things should improve much more once we can deploy the new server mid-next week.

Stay tuned for more details on the changes on the search server!

Working With Picard, Episode 1

Hi! The first episode in my series of “Working with Picard” screencasts has now been recorded, and is available for public consumption 🙂 A YouTube link to the video is available, and a higher resolution Ogg Theora file is also also available. You’ll probably find the Ogg Theora easier to read due to the higher … Continue reading “Working With Picard, Episode 1”

Hi!

The first episode in my series of “Working with Picard” screencasts has now been recorded, and is available for public consumption 🙂 A YouTube link to the video is available, and a higher resolution Ogg Theora file is also also available. You’ll probably find the Ogg Theora easier to read due to the higher resolution.

In this first screencast I go through the basics of Picard – how to load files, how the interface works, and basic usage with clusters.

If there’s something that’s unclear, or you have future ideas for screencasts – let me know! Other wise, enjoy the screencast – and show you’re friends and convince why MusicBrainz is so cool (if you haven’t already 🙂

UK mirror downtime

Our mirror server in the UK suffered a power supply failure yesterday. The mirror will be down for at least a week as the replacement power supply finds it way to the UK. We’ll post an update once the mirror is back online. Sorry for the hassle!

Our mirror server in the UK suffered a power supply failure yesterday. The mirror will be down for at least a week as the replacement power supply finds it way to the UK. We’ll post an update once the mirror is back online.

Sorry for the hassle!

Failed drive in database server RAID array (updated)

Yesterday afternoon a drive failed out of our RAID array in the master database server. We have four drives in this server, with two sets of two drives (using a RAID-1,0 configuration) so a single drive failure isn’t a big deal. We’re still up and running, but we’re quite a bit more vulnerable until we … Continue reading “Failed drive in database server RAID array (updated)”

Yesterday afternoon a drive failed out of our RAID array in the master database server. We have four drives in this server, with two sets of two drives (using a RAID-1,0 configuration) so a single drive failure isn’t a big deal. We’re still up and running, but we’re quite a bit more vulnerable until we get this drive replaced. If the last drive in our RAID-1 array fails we’d have to deal with data loss for today — fortunately the data dumps ran last night and backed us up until then. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we do not have any failures today.

Once I got notified that the drive failed, I promptly called Sun for a warranty replacement. In the back of my mind I thought: “I should order a new drive from NewEgg, just in case”. But, the Sun representative assured my that they would have a replacement drive for me today. This morning a clueless service engineer called me to tell me that they shipped the wrong drive to our data center. When I called back, they informed me that they did not have the correct drive and that the vendor would ship one to me by Thursday morning.

Having lost faith in Sun to do the right thing, I ordered a spare drive for the server from NewEgg — I should’ve done this a couple of months ago when the prices for these drives become reasonable. Now we’ll have a spare on hand for the next time this happens (and it will quite soon, I’m sure — both Seagate drives that originally came with the server failed within one year. The first drive failed within the first month!)

So, I am curious to see who will win: Sun who had an 18 hour head start to replace the drive, or NewEgg/UPS who got my order just this morning. I’ll post an update once this plays out — in the meantime keep your fingers crossed for no further drive failures!

UPDATE: DHL delivered the Sun drives 1 hour before UPS delivered the NewEgg drives. The drive is now in the server and the RAID array is working optimally again.

Unplanned downtime

The primary web server has just gone offline unexpectedly – we’re looking into it. Meanwhile you can still the other parts of MusicBrainz (read on for details). Sorry for the inconvenience – please bear with us, and check back here for updates. Thanks!

The primary web server has just gone offline unexpectedly – we’re looking into it. Meanwhile you can still the other parts of MusicBrainz (read on for details).

Sorry for the inconvenience – please bear with us, and check back here for updates. Thanks!

Continue reading “Unplanned downtime”

Happy new year: MetaBrainz reaches sustainability!

Now that the holidays are over its time to get back to work and kick MusicBrainz work back into high gear! Its been my goal for many moons to make MetaBrainz self sufficient in order to not have to hold fundraisers in order to make ends meet. I’ve playing with these thoughts since 2002 when … Continue reading “Happy new year: MetaBrainz reaches sustainability!”

Now that the holidays are over its time to get back to work and kick MusicBrainz work back into high gear!

Its been my goal for many moons to make MetaBrainz self sufficient in order to not have to hold fundraisers in order to make ends meet. I’ve playing with these thoughts since 2002 when it looked like a business model could emerge with which to build a non-profit. And finally near the end of 2007 we reached this exciting milestone. Taking on new customers like Last.fm and the BBC made all the difference — we now have slightly more money coming in than we’re spending. We’re far from rich, but we’ve never been on more solid footing than this.

This gives me lots of hope for 2008! My plans now include trying to raise even more money so we can hire a full time server developer in order to make more progress on fixing bugs, writing new features and finally breaking ground on NGS. There is lots to do to keep things moving, but reaching sustainability is a strong vote of confidence from the universe that MusicBrainz and MetaBrainz may be up to something that could really work.

And that makes me smile. Onward!

P.S. Year end finances are more work to wrap up than usual. So, it will take longer than normal for me to post the finances for December and all of 2007.