FPN Blackout: No Need to Panic

By On · 63 Comments · In News

UPDATE: 31 May 2012 @ 10:00am Pacific

More than 24 hours have passed since Fountain Pen Network went dark and we still have received no news regarding the outage. We will, of course, continue searching for answers and will report anything concrete as soon as it is available.

In the meantime, if you’ve caught up with all your letter writing and brought yourself up-to-date on the 26 episodes of the FPGeeks Podcast, many of your FPN friends are taking refuge in the FPN Lifeboat Thread at the FPGeeks forum (hint, hint).

FPN Blackout

The very popular and highly trafficked Fountain Pen Network website has been non-responsive and non-functional since shortly after 9:00am Pacific, today. As of this writing, we are approaching eight hours of downtime.

That is all the information currently available. Dan and I have reached out to our contacts, some of whom are moderators at the FPN forum, none of whom have any information.

There is no conclusive evidence of any sort of hacking. It could be that the FPN Powers That Be are simply in the midst of an upgrade. Perhaps they’re moving to a new host. Maybe their knickers are in a knot about who-knows-what and they’ve decided to take some time off. No one knows. No one’s talking.

But there’s no need to panic. For those of us accustomed to spending time at FPN, I suggest we take this opportunity to exercise our fountain pens by writing some long overdue letters. If I owe you one, expect it shortly.

If any verifiable news concerning the outage is forthcoming, we will report it here.

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  • Julie (O-kami)

    Thanks for the info. I wondered what was up

  • Norma Stitz

    Maybe the mods got so ban-happy that they banned themselves….

    • Marco

      Ain’t that the truth!

      • Shawn Newton

        That’s just silly.

  • Robert

    Nathan Tardiff should sells a limited edition of his famous bulletproof Black : “The Blackout, No Need to Panic!”

    (^_^) / Long live FPN!

  • Stingy Ray Cyrus

    Y’know, it’s getting a little old to keep bagging on the moderators about YOUR definition of what is and isn’t acceptable on a website that YOU DON’T OWN. I don’t own FPN, but I am a moderator and it bothers me that some people seem to think that FPN is a democracy. It isn’t, nor should it be. It belongs to someone, and that person, as the owner, is THE ONLY person who is entitled to have an opinion about how HIS PROPERTY is used, and who is entitled to use it.

    (Dan & Eric, this isn’t directed towards you. It’s directed towards the people who have this ridiculous perspective that FPN moderators are given carte blanche authority to go on a power trip at will.)

    • madmax

      This is an absurd argument. The “owner” of FPN hosts a site which purports to facilitate the exchange of opinions regarding fountain pens but none of the very users the “owner” has solicited to patronize his/her site are entitled to express their opinions about how those opinions are edited and/or censored? It may bother you that some people think FPN is a democracy (what an unreasonable, horrible thought!) but it bothers ME that you seem to be perfectly comfortable with a dictatorship.

      • Peat

        If you were visiting another person’s house, and they had some perfectly reasonable rules they wanted you to follow, would you call that person a dictator? As far as I’m concerned, a website works in exactly the same way. And I myself are perfectly comfortable with that.

        If you owned no share in the house, and were just visiting it at the invitation of the homeowner, why should you have any input into how that house is run? Why should it be a democracy?

        Sure, I agree that you should be able to express your opinion about it, but that is all, and you shouldn’t expect these opinions to acted upon. Which is what I believe Stingy Ray Cyrus was saying – not that you shouldn’t be able to voice your opinion at all; that would be an absurd argument indeed.

    • Marco

      I think the “owner” of FPN took his cues from Henry Ford, “You can have your car in any color you want, as long as it’s black!” FPN mantra is, “You can have whatever opinion you want, as long as I approve!” Stingy Ray Cyrus have you ever heard of the Nuremberg Defense?

      • subbes

        Godwinnnnnnnnnned.

        FPN is not a democracy. FPN is a private website. Posting on FPN is a privilege, not a right. The owners and moderators of FPN have every right to put restrictions on what you can and cannot do and say on their website, just as those who do not like those restrictions have every right to set up their own websites and/or take their discussions to other locations.

        This same rule applies for every other private discussion forum on the internet. For ex, the Geeks have every right to delete this entire thread since it’s become the familiar merry-go-round of FPN-haters, FPN-apologists, and FPN-i-don’t-care-but-seriously-now.

        &@*$!, I can’t believe I’m having this discussion about a fountain pen forum rather than, say, 4chan or Reddit.

        • http://fpgeeks.com/ Dan Smith

          I’m just gonna sit back and watch this.
          eating popcorn

          • Dgator

            Please pass the M&Ms…..

            • Me

              Can you pass me the popcorn, please?

        • Marco

          I dont think anyone is making the case that FPN doesnt have the right to block or restrict their content. What, I at least, am pointing out is that FPN is not a free exchange of ideas. FPN is a restricted market place of ideas where the ideas are restricted based on the whim of the owner through the moderators. A fountain pen user is not free to say, “this ink/pen/seller is terrible” without FPN agreeing. This method of restriction, in my opinion, brings down the community as a whole. But that’s just my opinion and I am not saying FPN has to publish my opinions. We are just pointing out the fact that FPN is restricting content and for the last two days they have decided to restrict all content. The question I would have is what are FPG’s forum rules in regards to opinions users may have on inks, pens, and/or sellers?

          • ExcaliburZ

            Because saying “X is terrible” is not constructive. Some of the most recent popular threads were the Twsbi problems threads. Some of those threads have arguments going on, (not meant to be posted thread), no posts were edited. You have to be pretty rude to get in trouble on FPN.

          • http://fpgeeks.com/ Dan Smith

            We only have rules in the Market Feedback forum. The post can found here.

            In general, anything goes, at least as far as topics are concerned. We’re not going to tell you what you can or can’t talk about. We believe that people can and should be able to discuss anything they want. If it turns into personal attacks then we’ll step in. Our attitude has always been this is your home. You make it what you want.

    • http://theinkednib.com Lee Smallwood

      The people who pay for FPN are more than welcome to set the rules, and I will base my participation on whether I agree with those rules. I will also feel free to feel however I want to about those rules. So far, FPN and I have gotten along very well. I enjoy the site.

      With that said, I think the philosophy of those who govern FPN is stricter and more top-down than most other forums I frequent. I would use the Lamy forum topic as an example of something that would be very different in a lot of places. A Lamy forum wouldn’t have a ton of traffic. It exists on this site and doesn’t have a ton of traffic. With that said, a number of the pen-specific forums on FPN don’t get a lot of traffic. The people who could put up a Lamy forum don’t want one, so there won’t be one no matter how often the idea comes up. That’s just how it is.

      When FPN is back up, I will post there. I will participate here. I will participate on Badger & Blade and on a number of blogs. I get along with a lot of people. Not everybody has to be that way. If you don’t dig FPN rules, I’m sure Dan, Eric, and anybody else who is involved in FPGeeks would love to have you on their forum. I don’t see much to get worked up over in any of it.

  • kp

    Hey Geeks, thanks for the status! Keep up the good work!

  • Tamara

    Thanks very much for the update! I wondered what was going on and decided to fill my fp needs by visiting FPGeeks instead. Hope all is back up and running soon :)

  • Keith E Bartlett

    Its given me a chance to read the new Conway Stewart catalogue.

  • Maja

    Good time to listen to some of the FPgeeks podcasts I missed due to family dinners on Sundays, LOL! Thanks, Dan & Eric :)

  • youstruckgold

    lol. Well I’m glad I subscribe to more than 1 of these websites. Thanks guys!

  • Will

    Same here, Maja! I always miss the last part of the podcasts because I have dinner!

  • Holdav

    I’m bored at work, when I’m bored at work I usually go and read reviews about pens/ink. I don’t know what to do with myself now, I may have to resort to working again!

    • Cerbeos

      Resist the urge!!!

      Or simply use your FPs to do your work. Seems to burn more of the day when you don’t type it :)

  • Cerbeos

    Thanks for putting something up guys! Kept a browser window open all day yesterday at work and essentially just smashing F5 all day :)

  • riv44

    I was wondering what happened- I had just started posting rather personally and was looking forward to hearing from other people similarly obsessed. It must be something I said!

  • The Good Captain

    There’s me thinking that I’d offended somebody and it was just us Brits that couldn’t get access any more. Always pleased to be of service.
    Gaston F Limoges

  • ExcaliburZ

    Could it be a server problem? Like electrical accident? They put up the blue splash page when they do maintenance.

  • http://penanddesign.blogspot.com Mac Laslak

    Hmm…Please come back FPN!! It’s a historical e-corner of pen history…

  • Will

    Yeah, I think they would have said SOMETHING if this had been maintenance. I think it probably is a problem that is out of their hands. Maybe a mod can see this and inform us all! (I actually don’t have an FPN anymore, but it is an excellent website, so I just read the topics w/o the pictures!

    • reval

      Agreed, since even a simple landing page with a short statement is still absent after two days, I expect there are some serious technical problems.

  • Chuck Stuart

    Arghh! And I have a sumgai story to post!

  • http://www.andersonpens.net Brian Anderson

    Maybe they are going to go back to the old classified listing format? *ducks and runs* :)

  • Sam Capote

    Regarding above comments:

    1) TWSBI 530/540/Vac700 do not work well posted. Poor balance design.

    2) I have started an IV drip with Montblanc Hitchcock Red, It seems to be keeping the ‘eebie jeebies’ under control without my FPN fix, but I’m having some freaky nightmares.

    3) FP Geeks Rule!

    • Sam Capote

      Darn, and I was so careful to do the a href right going to this image with FP Geeks Rule!

      http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h75/pike444/giraffe-smiley.gif

    • http://fpgeeks.com/ Dan Smith

      lol, can’t let this one go unnoticed.

      1) TWSBI 530/540/Vac700 work fantastically well posted.
      2) Could have just used the Ink of Love SE. It’s the same thing.
      3) Sam Capote rules!

      You’re awesome Sam. We need more of you in our forums!

  • Ruth Morrisson

    Anyone know where the FPN server is located? I seem to recall some mention of NJ awhile back. If so, they may have gotten hit with some of the same storms that went through Western PA on Tuesday (we lost power *just* long enough to screw up the satellite dish and DVR, and all the clocks in the house — but not long enough for me to find the phone book to get Duquesne Light’s emergency number).
    I didn’t know anything about it at first (I was on the phone most of the morning). Then, I checked my email around 2 pm EDT, right before heading out to an estate auction, and discovered email from Pharmacist asking if there was a problem with FPN. I tried to log in to it with another window and got the “server stopped responding” error message, so I told him it wasn’t just at his end.
    I’ve tried repeatedly to log on since then. I”m thinking something really major got borked (usually when that happens with my email I’m able to backdoor through something like Google to get to the ISP’s main website). Has anyone tried doing that for FPN — assuming anyone knows offhand what it is?
    Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

    • Sam Capote

      You can look up the IP address which shows where the hosting server is located:

      fountainpennetwork.com:74.200.83.222

      OrgName: Virtacore Systems Inc
      OrgId: VIRTA
      Address: 44470 Chilum Place
      City: Ashburn
      StateProv: VA
      PostalCode: 20147
      Country: US

      There is very likely a significant software or server hardware issue that may very well require restoring from the last good backup. I remember a website host a while back that had a fire that destroyed a number of servers that was a big mess. Anything is possible, including a hacker attack.

  • Lawrence

    I want FPN back it has almost been 2 days! :’(

  • Angel

    Ahhh. I’m suffering from withdrawal D: Maybe I’ll feel better if someone posts something about BSB, or the Ahab… :P

  • BiggieD

    Gotta say I’m starting to suspect it’s something bigger than a website issue — the domain is paid for until 2020 and their DNS providers are up, they could very easily repoint their A records to another location to throw up a “We’re down for a few days while we restore from backups” message or they could post word here, through the Goulet’s, etc…

    Perhaps zombies? I saw something about one in Miami and thought it was an isolated case.

  • BiggieD

    Actually I just realized that the Goulet’s are moving this week — maybe the FPN website is being hosted through a bottle of PdL at gouletpens.com…

  • http://www.SheIsMyLawyer.com Amberlea Davis

    I’m suffering. I need FPN.

  • Dustin

    Hi Everyone,

    I was a newbie at FPN under drconn but I pulled up the cached FPN site and noticed that they run the forum software through iphosting.com; it appears that on the night of the 29th, this company had all clients upgrade their forum software to 3.30 or something. Based on the message boards there, it looks like this update blew up in many many clients faces. There are pages of posts with people scrambling to fix issues and data loss etc.
    Happy to have found this place. It is funny to notice that on the day of the outage, on fpgeeks, ink reviews alone has as many reviews in a day as the previous month or two. They have been so kind that I will join here also.

    • Angel

      Thanks, Dustin! That’s the most logical info on this I’ve come across. Hopefully they’ll be able to get everything running smoothly again soon!

    • The Good Captain

      Yes, this is a more likely explanation, isn’t it?! I’m sure that ‘normal service will be resumed as soon as possible’ as they say. One good thing: I’ve managed to straighten the tines on the nib of my Mum’s old Parker and it’s writing pretty-damned good. first time in about 50 years!

  • negirl

    So glad that it’s not my computer.I was beginning to get annoyed with my internet provider!

  • abhishek

    Im suffering serious withdrawal from FPN outage…

  • 79spitfire

    I’m glad it’s not just me! I wondered what happened. I figured it was someone trying to tell me something. :(

    Perhaps they spilled BSB in it??

  • http://schlockmagazine.net Pietru

    Glad to have found some information here too, thanks for the updates.

  • david1600

    It’s working!!!

  • Marco

    It’s back!

  • BiggieD

    They’re back! For those of you who said database crash… wrong – it turns out it was zombies…

  • Robert

    FPN is back online. The database is damaged. Some data lost, most of it recovered.

    All the details there -> http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/196782-fpn-database-restored-after-crash/page__view__findpost__p__1994518

    • BiggieD

       

      That post is from the May 2011 crash, not the current one.

  • The Good Captain

    I’m glad it’s back but I’m glad I found this little gem too.

  • BentNib

    I’m pretty stoked I found this place. I think I’ll stick around a while.

  • BiggieD

    Robert, that post you referenced is from the May 2011 crash, not this crash (2012). 

    No word from the mods at FPN yet — I repeat, this crash was caused by zombies.

  • Maja

    FPN Admin Wim posted a message re: the (2012) FPN “blackout”on the morning of Friday June 1st: http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/222440-technical-hitch-fixed/

    The problem was (according to Wim) “a small technical hitch with regard to (our) automated system for hosting payments” and added
    “No posts or topics were lost during this outage, we just lost a little online time.”He then added (in a later post) that FPN had only been down for 34 hours (although it felt a lot longer than that to me ;) )