Why is my AVITAR continually disappearing?

[mal from cessnock]

Hey guys, thanks for all your help with "my signature" problem. Now it's just a matter of getting my wings and I'm cool with that

Now I have another problem I would be grateful for help on - my avitar.

Each day since I've registered on this forum, my avitar has gone missing

Each day I've reloaded it.

What could be the problem here

It's the right weight and size

Your help is appreciated

Cheers
Mal from Cessnock
check out my pics http://malcolm.smugmug.com
(new member - signature & url added manually)

[leek]

Mal, As I understand it, there are actually two servers for this site (.net and .com).
The forum posts are repllicated across both servers and normally you cannot tell which one you are looking at.
However, when you add an avatar, it is only loaded to the .net server and will gradually permeate across to the other server.
You don't need to reload your avatar... it'll eventually come good on both servers...

If you have a look at the address bar in IE and find that you are looking at the .com server, try changing it to the .net server and your avatar will magically appear...

There are various discussion on this on the forum as it has caught a few people out in the past... Try a search if you want more information.

[gstark]

Mal, As I understand it, there are actually two servers for this site (.net and .com).

Three are active ATM, in fact.

The forum posts are repllicated across both servers and normally you cannot tell which one you are looking at.
However, when you add an avatar, it is only loaded to the .net server and will gradually permeate across to the other server.

Very close.

The servers all share the same database, and hence the messages all appear on all sites with no issues.

The codebases, while identical, are stored locally on each server.

The avatars too are stored on locally on each server, and that's where the issues arise: if yo're logged on to dslrusers.net, that's where your avatar is stored. If you then go and look at dslrusers.com, the avatar, which is stored locally on the .net sewrver, doesn't (yet) exist on the .com server, and thus it cannot be displayed.

We have routines that run periodically to synch the three servers together, and they take care of ensuring that the three avatar directories match from time to time.

Why three servers is the next question of course.

We started out as D70users.com, then mocved servers. In order to minimise disruption, we acquired D70users.net and then pointed everything there once we updated the new site with the data.

Then we saw that we were attracting a wider base of users. At the same time we dedcided that the D70 wasn't going to be around for ever, so we acquired DSLRusers.com.

Then we had a minor issue with our hosting service, which didn;t like too much memory utilisation of their shared servers. HEaps of bandwidth, heaps of storage, just don't ever try to use it.

They measured that by server, and so, by simply using different servers within their system we could spread the load and still keep the site active and running.

Hence three sites.

[DVEous]

... Obsolete ...

[beetleboy]

That's strange, in the last two weeks I've changed my Avatar a couple of times and it keeps randomly disappearing..I only ever use the .net site tho?