Guys –
This site periodically throws ‘Database Connection Errors’ up when we navigate the forum. It’s taken a while but I’ve identified this as symptomatic of a denial of service type attack by Chinese forum spam bots. Basically they are repeatedly trying to post spam and, while they’re being handled by my Akismet spam protection software, the sheer force of them hitting the server causes the site to slow, and eventually can crash it.
I can identify the IP address the attack is coming from and block it and immediately return all to normal, but I am not always paying attention.
If you get a Database Error–especially more than once–please email me at ZachMatthews@gmail.com immediately so I can log on and block the bot. I am hoping to find a way to block all of China (no lie–this is where they are all coming from), but it isn’t simple and I’m not able to just yet.
Thanks,
Zach