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A Note on Recent Downtime

If you're a returning visitor, you may have noticed this blog was offline for over 7 days, with all posts seemingly vanished. This post explains what happened and outlines the changes made to prevent future incidents.

The Situation

Previously, this blog was hosted on a VPS with automatic monthly credit card payments running smoothly for almost a year. Last month, the automatic payment unexpectedly failed, and I missed the notification email. As a result, the blog went offline, and the subscription ended.

To restore service, the hosting provider required a penalty payment, which I paid to get the blog back online. However, the following month, the same payment issue occurred again. For your information, the provider gave only a one-day notice before it set as penalty.

After consulting with my credit card provider, who assured everything was functioning correctly on their end, I made a decision:

This time I wouldn't pay additional penalties for a problem I didn't create.

A billing history showing VPS hosting charges and reactivation fees for September and October 2024, displaying recurring charges of $5.50 for VPS S SSD service and $7.50 reactivation penalties, followed by a $13.00 payment to clear the balance.

Moving Forward

The blog is now back online, albeit with a fresh start. While the previous posts are temporarily unavailable, I have backups and will restore them gradually.

To prevent similar issues in the future, I've implemented several changes:

  • Switched to a more reliable hosting provider
  • Set up phone reminders for payment dates
  • Updated contact information to my primary email
  • Selected a provider with more reasonable payment policies

Wondering why 7 days long to restore this blog?

The week-long restoration period wasn't just about changing providers. I took this opportunity to rebuild the blog using Rails 8, which involved some trial and error (a detailed post about this experience is coming soon).

I'm now using Kamal for deployment - while the initial setup requires some patience, the efficiency gains are substantial. A simple kamal deploy command now handles the entire deployment process.

And thank you for those who still visit this blog. I am very sorry for 7 days offline.

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