db4free.net users may have noticed that they can't access the server on port 3307 anymore.

It isn't gone (yet), but soon will be. I plan to reduce the db4free.net service to a single server again which means that the 2nd server will be removed. So in order to make people notice that a change is going to happen, I moved the server to port 3308.

If you have data on this server which you want to keep, please move it to the port 3306 server until February 28, 2010. After then, the server will no longer be accessible.

Another change which is going to happen is that I will delete db4free.net accounts again which are not being used anymore. If you have - or will until end of February - accessed your port 3306 any time in the year 2010, you will be safe (unless you use up excessively much disk space or do other naughty things, so your account gets deleted for that reason). The purpose is to create more resources for those people who really use this service.

But there is more going on. Just a few minutes ago, db4free.net received its first major code update in a long time. I have to ashamedly admit, the code is a mess and I have made many bad (some very bad) design decisions when I first created the application (almost 5 years ago). The first set of changes (which went online right now) became necessary because parts of the code and libraries that I used would not work with PHP 5.3 anymore. So now, db4free.net is ready for PHP 5.3, but a lot more is required to be done. So I'm going to apply more code updates over time, some of which you may notice, but most (especially in the beginning) are probably under the hood so that they are not very noticeable. What should happen though is that at some points you should notice that the website will (hopefully) load significantly faster.

Another update which I plan in the first half of 2010 is to update the MySQL server to MySQL 5.5, the new development release. I am thinking about giving db4free.net a totally new start. So what is now the port 3306 server may also be moved to a different port, and a totally fresh MySQL 5.5 server will be available for your use. You may even have to register again, but (as with the port 3307/3308 server now) your data will be available for long enough to allow you to migrate it to the new server. Please remember that db4free.net is a testing environment and not a hosting service for productive data. Changes like these can happen, and will happen.

Also outages (most probably only for short periods of time) may become more frequent during the upcoming months, while I apply the updates. But when they are finished, db4free.net will be a much better service again, which may even allow feature additions. So rather than getting frustrated, please consider these outages as necessary to get improvements in the future. They will pay off in the end.

Until then, please apologize for the inconveniences they may cause.

Thanks,
Markus

PS: and please remember: backups, backups, backups for data which you need!