System Status at The WELL

This page is updated only when the status or other content changes.

Fri Oct 2 12:08:50 PDT 2009

A little after 11:15am PDT we had problems with our DNS that made the WELL disappear for approximately 16 minutes for anybody who was not logged in at the time. All of our machines were running smoothly, but due to the DNS problem, our services were unavailable to new external connections during that period. Most email sent to addresses in the well.com domain will be re-sent. However, retrying depends on how other services configure their email servers. There is a chance that some email could have bounced back to the sender saying it was a "fatal error".

We are sorry for the inconvenience.
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Thu Sep 10 09:07:33 PDT 2009

Mail delivery has resumed. It will take some time - several hours, at least - for the backlog of mail to be delivered.
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Thurs Sep 10 8:16 PDT 2009

The WELL's mail servers were updated last night and rebooted. However, this morning reports from dozens of members confirmed that a further fix is needed. We are working on it right now, and delivery of mail will resume as soon as the fix is completed. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
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Tue Sep 8 15:48 PDT 2009

The WELL's mail servers will be down for a system software update between 7:30 and 8:30pm Pacific time on Wednesday September 9th. No email will be delivered or sent during this time. The WELL will queue incoming mail, and it will be delivered when the update is completed.
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Fri Aug 7 09:20 PDT 2009

PicoSpan is unreachable at this time. We're working on the problem. Access to the conferences is available via the Web.
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Fri Jun 5 13:56:09 PDT 2009

The Web interface to WELL conferences (user.well.com) will be taken out of service Monday June 8th from 8pm till 1am US Pacific Time so we can move the database from one host machine to another. This should prevent certain slowdowns. Complete Plan members may use ssh for PicoSpan (command line) access to conferences.

During the downtime, we will also reboot the mail server (mh.well.com). Mail service should be back up again in fewer than 30 minutes. While the mail server is down, you won't be able to get new mail. Incoming mail will be delivered after the mail server is back online.

We apologize for any inconvenience these preventative moves may cause.
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Tue Apr 7 14:10:58 PDT 2009

There will be a reboot of the mail server (mh.well.com), Thursday night at 10:00 PM Pacific Time. The system should be back up again in less than 30 minutes. During the downtime, you won't be able to get new mail. Incoming mail will queue up during that time for delivery after the mail server is back online. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tue Mar 17 16:12:01 PDT 2009

There will be a reboot of the mail server (mh.well.com), Thursday night at 9 Pacific Time. The system should be back up again in less than 30 minutes. During the downtime, you won't be able to get new mail. Incoming mail will queue up during that time for delivery after the mail server is back online.
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Wed Jan 14 01:39:03 PST 2009

The mail server (mh.well.com) will be taken out of service briefly Sunday at 9pm US Pacific Time so we can add additional memory. This should help prevent some of the mail delays we've been seeing the past 2 weeks. The total downtime should be no more than 30 minutes. Incoming mail will be queued locally, and will be delivered after the reboot. We apologize for the inconvenience.
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Wed Jan 14 01:39:03 PST 2009

There will be brief outage of well.com Wednesday night at 11pm Pacific Time to correct a system configuration problem. The total downtime should be no more than a few minutes.
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Thu Jan 8 13:11:15 PST 2009

From Sunday at 6pm Pacific time to Monday 6am Pacific time those WELL services served directly from the well.com server will be unavailable.

We are moving well.com to another machine. During the outage you will be able to get and send email via POP or at webmail.well.com, and to see WELL web pages and update them directly at www.well.com. However, you will not be able to log into the conference system by the shell interface during this time. The Web interface (Engaged) should be available during most of the outage, but may have to be brought down at some point.

Traditionally some people gather at http://www.flickr.com/groups/the_well/ during the downtime. We are sorry for any inconvenience this upgrade causes and looking forward to seeing everybody logged back in on Monday.
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Sun Nov 30 10:07:58 PST 2008

Routing reconfiguration was successful during the scheduled downtime early Sunday. Total downtime was less than expected.
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Tue Nov 25 10:39:37 PST 2008

Sunday morning between midnight and 4am Pacific time, all servers at The WELL and Salon will be down while we revise our routing architecture to end connectivity issues that have arisen due to sharing circuits with other colocation customers.

No email will be delivered or sent during this time. The WELL will queue incoming mail, and it will be delivered when the maintenance is completed.
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Thu Nov 13 16:55:41 PST 2008

Quick reboot: Thursday night we'll restart the machine that serves the Web interface to Conferences. The server will be taken down at 11:30 pm Pacific time. Web access to conferences is expected to resume by midnight (12:00 AM Friday).
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Fri Nov 7 14:56:42 PST 2008

Between 8pm and midnight on Monday, November 10th, our Web page servers, Web conferencing and mail servers (mh, smtp, and webmail) will each be down for relatively short periods of time so that software patches can be installed.
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Wed Oct 29 17:01:27 PDT 2008

Quick reboot: Wednesday night we'll restart the machine that serves the Web interface to Conferences. The server will be taken down at 11:00 pm Pacific time. Web access to conferences is expected to resume by 11:20 pm Wednesday, better than ever.
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Tuesday Oct 28 11:36:09 PDT 2008

Web access to conferences came back before midnight last night, and is running faster on the new hardware with no bug reports since the cutover. All systems are up and running.
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Friday Oct 24 11:46:09 PDT 2008

Web access to conferences will be down from Mon 10/27 9:00 pm to Tues 10/28 3:00 am, Pacific Time. The next step in our hardware upgrade initiative is slated for Monday night/Tuesday morning. During this time slot, our Web conferencing interface will be unavailable as we replace the user.well.com machine. Other services will continue uninterrupted.

We apologize for inconveniences along the way as we upgrade our services.
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Mon Oct 20 10:55:02 PDT 2008

Sunday night and Monday morning we moved our incoming mail server to more robust hardware. There was a short period where POP authentication before sending was not working, in addition to a delay in delivering incoming mail, but all is now working smoothly.
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Fri Oct 17 10:54:02 PDT 2008

Email delivery interruption Sunday 10/19 11:00pm to 10/20 5:00am.

We will take our incoming mail server, mh, also known as mail.well.com, down for several hours over the weekend to move it to more robust hardware.

We will be spooling mail, so no incoming mail will be lost during the delivery outage.

Using WELL Webmail or a UNIX mailer (such as Pine) on well.com to send mail out during the outage will work normally.

Note that POP-before-SMTP won't work while mh is down. If you use POP mail you will be able to send by putting the name of your ISP's outgoing mail server in the place where you currently may have smtp.well.com and leaving your address and other settings as they are.

We apologize for the disruption.
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Tue Sep 23 16:14:35 PDT 2008

Effective Wednesday, September 24th, we no longer allow telnet connections to well.com. Please use SSH, the secure, modern replacement, instead. For information on upgrading, please go to Using SSH or phone us at 415-645-9300.

This change only affects telnet users. You can still log in with your Web browser from this page or at our home page.
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Wed Jul 9 16:38:23 PDT 2008
Web access to conferences and all access to incoming mail and outgoing mail authentication will be interrupted for about 15 minutes at around 10pm Pacific. Mail will be delayed, but will be delivered after the reboot.
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Mon Jun 2 13:28:24 PDT 2008
There will be a brief maintenance reboot of several machines on Tuesday evening starting at about 6pm US Pacific Time to address a clock-timing issue. The downtime should last no more than about 10 minutes, and will affect email and Web-based conferencing. Picospan conferencing via telnet and ssh will remain available, as will the Webmail server (webmail.well.com). Incoming mail will be saved and available when the machines are back up.

We've now stopped accepting mail addressed to @well.sf.ca.us and @thewell.com email addresses, except for those few people who responded to our announcements and email a couple of weeks ago requesting to continue to receive mail to those older addresses. You can still send requests to oldstyle@well.com if you want to receive mail addressed to you in the format: you@well.sf.ca.us and you@thewell.com .
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Mon May 5 11:40:18 PDT 2008
Scheduled Mail Upgrade: Tuesday, May 6th between 8pm-midnight Pacific time, we will move mail.well.com, the incoming mail server, as part of our server virtualization project. Incoming mail received during this period will be delivered after a delay.

You will not be able to send POP mail using smtp.well.com as you will not be able to authenticate with the incoming mail server. Sending with WELL Webmail or with UNIX Mailers will be uninterrupted.

Conferencing and user Web pages will be available during the mail downtime. We apologize for any inconvenience.
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Tue Apr 8 14:57:40 PDT 2008
Our mailserver is up, though work continues to determine the cause of the outage and address any outstanding problems. No mail has been lost. Mail delivery will be slow as the server processes the backlog.
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Tue Apr 8 09:41:15 PDT 2008
We're working on problems with mail. Incoming mail is being spooled on the server and will be delivered when the server is serving again. Thank you for your patience.
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Mon Mar 10 13:20:32 PDT 2008
Scheduled Downtime: Tuesday, March 11th, between 6:00 and 9:00 pm Pacific Time, we will move our www server as part of our server virtualization project. Member Web pages and some top pages of The WELL will be unavailable temporarily at some time during this window. Bookmark user.well.com now to log in to WELL conferences during the move.
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Thu Mar 6 16:28:34 PST 2008
The downtime scheduled for this evening has been postponed to Monday, March 10th.
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Wed Mar 5 12:17:45 PST 2008
Scheduled Downtime: Thursday, March 6th, between 6:30 and 9:30 pm Pacific Time, we will move our www server as part of our server virtualization project. Member Web pages and some top pages of The WELL will be unavailable temporarily at some time during this window. Bookmark user.well.com now to log in to WELL conferences during the move.
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Fri Feb 15 16:44:08 PST 2008
Webmail Downtime: Tuesday, February 19th, between 6:00 and 8:00 pm Pacific Time, we will move webmail.well.com as part of our server virtualization project. All other mail functions will remain available. Both delivered and undelivered mail will be handled normally while webmail access is down. Thank you for your patience.
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Tue Feb 5 11:40:52 PST 2008
Short Mail Outage: Wednesday, February 6th sometime between 6:00 and 7:00pm Pacific time, we will move smtp.well.com, the outgoing mail server, as part of our server virtualization project.

Incoming mail received during this short period will be delivered after a delay. Outgoing mail using using Webmail or Pine will queue until the server is up again. If you use your ISP's outgoing mail server for outgoing POP mail, it will not be interrupted. Conferencing will still be available during the mail downtime. We apologize for any inconvenience.
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Thu Jan 31 15:32:58 PST 2008
The planned email downtime has been postponed. We will announce as soon as we can reschedule, probably early next week.

All systems are up and running.
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Wed Jan 30 12:07:19 PST 2008
Brief Scheduled Mail Downtime: Thursday, January 31st between 6:30 and 7:30pm we will move smtp.well.com, the outgoing mail server, as part of our server virtualization project.

Incoming mail received during this short period will soft-bounce and be delivered after a brief delay. Outgoing mail using using Webmail or Pine will queue until the server is up again. If you use your ISP's outgoing mail server for outgoing POP mail, it will not be interrupted. Conferencing will still be available during the mail downtime. We apologize for any inconvenience.
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Weds Jan 24 17:44:45 PST 2008
Thursday tasks were completed in just under an hour. We are back up using yet another virtual server in the group. All systems are up and running.
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Weds Jan 23 15:33:45 PST 2008
Scheduled downtime: Thursday, Jan 24 between 4:00 and 7:00 pm Pacific Time we will transfer another server over in our energy-saving server virtualization project. Web access to the conferences will be unavailable during some or all of this time. There is also a small chance that some email customers will experience delays receiving some of their email during that time. If you are one of those few, the delay in delivery of any such pieces of mail will be temporary. We're sorry for any inconvenience.
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Tue Jan 22 13:47:58 PST 2008
Between about noon and 2pm Pacific time, we had intermittent dropped connections on all systems at The WELL. The problem was upstream from our collocation facility.
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Tue Jan 15 09:45:26 PST 2008
Mail at The WELL was interrupted between 2am last night and 8:40 this morning (Pacific Time). Senders received bounce messages. We apologize for any inconvenience.
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Fri Jan 11 16:57:34 PST 2008
A brief downtime is scheduled for Monday, Jan 14 between 6:00 and 7:00 pm Pacific Time for maintenance. Picospan, all other shell connections and registration will be unavailable. If you normally use Pine for your mail, you might wish to use WELL Webmail during the downtime. We're sorry for any inconvenience.
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FRI Nov 16 13:47:56 PST 2007
Web access to the conferences was down for less than a half-hour.
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Sun Nov 11 18:51:56 PST 2007
We're back!
The server move is complete, most services are already restored. We are cleaning up the details.
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Wed Nov 7 15:45:07 PST 2007
Scheduled Downtime: Beginning this Saturday, November 10th at 6pm Pacific Time, The WELL will be moving our servers to a more modern and disaster-resistant colocation site. All servers will be powered down, moved, and brought back up at the new location. During that time, our IP numbers will change, though the names of our servers will stay the same. Barring unforeseen difficulties, we expect to have everything back by noon Sunday. During the downtime, properly configured mail to WELL addresses will soft-bounce and be delivered after a delay.

If you attempt to access well.com, you will likely get an error message, which you can ignore.

If you have put IP numbers instead of server names in your mail program, firewall, or other programs you use to access your WELL account, you should change them to their respective names to speed up your ability to use the servers at the new location.

www.well.com (Web site)
user.well.com (Web login to conferences)
webmail.well.com (Webmail email site)
well.com (Picospan login and ftp)
smtp.well.com (outgoing email server - POP mail)
mail.well.com (incoming email server - POP mail)

If you must use the IP numbers, get the new ones from the IP discussion in the Welltech Conference.

We apologize for any inconvenience.
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Fri Oct 19 14:03:01 PDT 2007
The Web version of The WELL conferences will be down Tuesday, October 23rd from 2:00 to 4:00 pm Pacific time, while we change the database format.
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Wed Sep 5 14:49:46 PDT 2007
All systems are running fine after the installation of memory.
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Tue Sep 4 14:27:43 PDT 2007
The Web version of The WELL will be down Wednesday, September 5th from 2:30 to 3:15 pm Pacific time, while we add memory to the server.
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Fri Aug 24 09:12:36 PDT 2007
All systems returned to normal at 1:00am after the scheduled downtime.
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Thu Aug 23 09:52:17 PDT 2007
Our colocation facility has announced 30 to 45 minutes of downtime for all systems beginning at midnight tonight, Pacific time, due to emergency network software maintenance.
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Tue Aug 21 14:43:33 PDT 2007
Today at about 2:30 pm US Pacific Time we completed another nice little facelift to our Web conferencing. Bug reports, browser compatibility hints and questions may be found in the Engaged conference.
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Wed Aug 4 07:37:49 PDT 2007
Engaged is back up and running. All systems at The WELL are running normally.
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Sat Aug 4 02:49:26 PDT 2007
Engaged is currently down due to a crash of the Oracle database server. We're investigating now.
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Wed May 30 13:28:13 PDT 2007
Engaged will be down for about 5 minutes tonight at 6pm US Pacific Time.
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Mon Mar 19 14:46:30 PDT 2007
There was an incoming mail outage starting around 8:30pm Pacific Time Saturday lasting till about 9am Sunday. Spooled mail took a while to arrive after that but we do not believe any mail was lost.
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Tue Feb 27 12:35:18 PST 2007
On Wednesday, Feb 28th, there will be a brief outage of the mail/POP server (mail.well.com/mh.well.com) so we can add some additional storage to the mail spool. The upgrade will start at about 3pm US Pacific Time, and service should be restored in less than an hour.

During the upgrade, you will not be able to pick up new email. Outgoing email to non-WELL addresses via smtp.well.com may also be refused with an "Authenticate with POP first" message during parts of the upgrade. Incoming mail to @well.com addresses will be delayed until after the upgrade is complete.
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Wed Feb 7 14:13:30 PST 2007
On Sunday, Feb 11, the mail/POP server (mail.well.com/mh.well.com) will be down from 8am to noon US Pacific Time so we can migrate to a beefed-up machine. Email service will be totally or partially unavailable during that process, and delivery of your incoming mail will be delayed until the upgrade is complete. Go to the Welltech Conference for more info.
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Wed Oct 18 05:30:46 PDT 2006
The replacement of the webmail.well.com server is complete, and much earlier than expected.
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Mon Oct 16 17:25:58 PDT 2006
Webmail services will be down Wednesday, October 18, from 3 a.m. to approximately noon, Pacific time.

During this downtime we will replace the webmail.well.com server, the weakest link in our hardware collection. The replacement box will make the webmail application run more smoothly; you may even notice minor speed enhancements in some operations.

All other services, including POP mail from mail.well.com, as well as Pine and other UNIX mailers at well.com, will remain in operation. Only webmail will be down, and no mail will be lost in this procedure. We are sorry for any inconvenience.
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Fri Oct 6 15:02:45 PDT 2006:
All systems at The WELL are back after a successful switch back to our original power circuit.
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Thu Oct 5 16:16:08 PDT 2006:
All systems at The WELL will be down for a short time Friday, October 6th, between 2 and 3pm. We're switching back to our regular electrical circuit. We apologize for any inconvenience.
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Thu Sep 28 14:39:10 PDT 2006:
The switch to a new circuit at our colocation site completed, we're back after a brief outage.
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Wed Sep 27 14:43:50 PDT 2006
All systems at The WELL will be down for a short time Thursday, September 28th, between 2 and 3pm. We need to switch to a different electrical circuit so our ISP can do some electrical work. We apologize for any inconvenience.

For information about The WELL or for WELL Customer Support, contact:

WELL HelpDesk
The WELL
101 Spear Street, Suite 203
San Francisco, CA. 94105
(415) 645-9300

Email: Write to helpdesk [at] well.com for more information about The WELL and WELL Customer Support.

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