We’re back online!

Annnnnd. Goodnight.

*plops into my pillow*

#MstdnGames Admin Announcement:

MSTDN.GAMES HOSTING TRANSFER DOWNTIME:
During the evening of Thursday, February 5th, our instance will begin transferring to a new hosting provider. This change will significantly improve your Mastodon experience! The downtime is expected to begin anytime between 6PM and 6AM MST and we expect the server to be offline for 3-5 hours. If you have any questions, please send me a message!

See you on the other side, friends!

@stephaniepixie yes!!!!! I’m trying to use them to keep me from doom scrolling and to help with dexterity in my RA affected hands. So far, so good.

@stephaniepixie always looking to level up the nerdiness. I have appearances to uphold

I learned to solve a rubik’s cube 5 days ago and realized I should probably start timing my solves…

Under 4* mins! I’ll take it!

* best time was 3:25 tonight. So much fun!

@Knightky 🫶

If your mastodon instance is hosted with toot.io, I highly recommend moving your instance to a more reliable hosting provider.

I’ve had a terrible experience since they were sold by the original owner and I plan to move our instance to a new host asap.

Unresolved slowdowns. Lack of replies from support. Unnecessary hurdles to get them to respond. Unending hours of stress.

I have lost all faith in their service.

Prior post: https://mstdn.games/@britt/116002357985244292

#MastoAdmin

@MelkyWay Sure, please do! Thank you for asking, my DMs exploded and i'm trying to keep up.

@steter I can confirm it’s not Digital Ocean.

I’m trying to be as respectful as possible regarding our issues. I’m not planning to name the service publically at this time.

URGENT MASTODON HOSTING HELP NEEDED:

Mstdn.games is searching for a new hosting company after our host has not responded to technical help requests and the instance has been slowing and having technical issues for over a month. Auto payments have continued to be taken out.

If you know of anyone who could help with this, please contact me asap.

We are on Mastodon 4.5.5 with Elasticsearch.

Our database is 132 GB
Our media storage is 200 GB

Please help! #MastoAdmin #Admin

Edit: I’m located in Canada and prefer a Canadian or EU host.

@vanzick Thank you!! I'll look into this.

@Alison oh goodness. Okay, thank you.

@Alison oooo interesting. I'll look into it. It seems like only two folks are having the issue who have emailed me but it happened in Dec too.

@Alison My business email is a domain email, so not through any of those. I seem to be having issues with anyone emailing me from another domain email... Gmail, Outlook, etc, come through no problem.

Ugh, so my business email seems to be giving bogus errors to only some of the folks who are trying to email me...

“____email___ is not authorized to relay messages through the server that reported this error.”

Does anyone have any idea why this would be happening only to a select number of senders trying to reach me and not when I test the account myself from multiple send points?

Pls halp.

PSA for any other online sellers out there:

My spidey senses went off about an order this week and I want to share my experience so you don’t potentially get scammed. I received a larger order than usual on Etsy (above the seller protection amount), checked the address, and it was Canadian — BUT —- it had an unusual second line to the address that I’d not seen before, so I went investigating.

Turns out it was a well known ‘freight forwarding’ scam address. The buyer doesn’t live in Canada, and they use this location as a front to be able to ‘buy’ Canadian products.

This location is known to be used by the “my item never arrived” type of scammers who will tell Etsy that the item never arrived and get refunds plus keep the items. They’re not purchasing in good faith, and not actually even located in Canada. They’re overseas buyers using the location as a front to scam sellers. I canceled the order.

Please BEWARE! If something looks off, take the time to look into it.

/end PSA

95% of the reports I receive are about .social accounts, mostly spam or predatory profiles.

I’m so tired of it.

@Timo_Micro yeah, it’s wild! I was very familiar with RA, as many women in my family have had it, unfortunately. But psoriatic is a tricky one because of the word being used to also describe the skin condition by itself.

I try to educate folks who are interested when I can. I feel like the world would be so much kinder if we all took a moment to truly lean in and learn about others lived experiences and challenges. The things that make us connected humans. My post is just a tiny part of that. 🫶

Just to be crystal clear about the difference between rheumatic arthritis and osteoarthritis:

Rheumatoid arthritis (my diagnosis): Is an autoimmune rheumatic condition where the immune system attacks your body, resulting in arthritis and joint deformity, and loss of function. The arthritis is a symptom of the immune system attacking the body. It can also attack any other organ in the body: for me it’s been my eyes, my gut and my sinuses. It causes severe fatigue and brain fog.

Osteoarthritis (what most people think of when they hear ‘arthritis’): this is the natural wear and tear people get in their joints over time. It is not autoimmune and does not require medications like biologics and prednisone.

They are not even remotely the same.

Knowing the difference can help you be a better advocate and friend to someone you know who may have an autoimmune disease, especially a form of autoimmune arthritis.

@erin 1000000%