Site was down for 12 hours today. Solved.

[Glenn MacGrady]

The site was down from about 11 pm last night to noon today (EDT) because our SSL certificate (the "https"), which is supposed to automatically renew every 90 days, hasn't been doing so for the past three cycles. I worked overnight with our Webmaster, Driven 2 Services, to resolve this issue and we are working on permanent solution.

And of all days, it happened on National Canoe Day.

 

[Erica]

Thank you so much for your hard work, Glen.

 

[Gerald]

Was wondering why my VPN blocked a logon attempt early this morning. Thanks for the info.
G.

 

[Chip]

I missed the outage. However, thanks for reviving CT, and pointing out its Canoe Day!

 

[UCanoe_2]

Glenn, thanks for keeping on top of the game when the electrons let us down!

 

[Boatman53]

You have my respect Glenn. Thanks for all your hard work. This is my favorite site and my world doesn’t seem right when logins fail.
Jim

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Some explanation:

Modern websites all should have a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, which encrypts and protects user data and passwords and generally protects against hacking. SSL certificates will also boost a site's Search Engine Optimization (SEO)—that is, how high the site will rank on Google and other search engine lists. You can tell whether a site has an SSL certificate if it has HTTPS in its URL address instead of just HTTP.

The free versions of these SSL certificates have to be renewed every 90 days, which is supposed to happen automatically at the webhost's server, but sometimes various technical complexities interfere with notifying all browsers that the renewal has happened. If a browser like Chrome or Firefox thinks a site doesn't have SSL, it doesn't let you load the page and usually gives some sort of scary warning about security risks. And this all always happens at 3 am GMT when most of us in North America are asleep.

It's the SSL automatic renewal notification process that we're improving so that this doesn't happen again around September 26.

 

[RickR]

Thank you Glenn. I really appreciate your efforts.

 

[snapper]

The outage occurred while I was away but it's nice to know it's fixed. Thanks so much for all you do for this group. If you believe in an after life, then I know your ticket to heaven is already punched due to all your efforts on our behalf.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper

 

[Cruiser]

Thanks for your work Glenn ....

 

[yellowcanoe]

Thanks Glenn. You know you're too old to pull overnighters!

 

[goonstroke]

...

And of all days, it happened on National Canoe Day.

Unfortunate, but kinda fitting to be "windbound".

Thanks for all your hard work!

 

[Tsuga8]

Thank you for keeping the lights on Glenn!

 

[GeoBoy]

Thanks, Glenn.