The popular opinion around here is "ATRL's server sucks! Get a new server!" OK, ring the bell, school's in.
Years ago, ATRL's server would go down all the time. As in, completely down. The entire site would crash and we would have to contact the hosting support people to restart the server manually. It would throw "Database error" in our face, and it took hours to repair the site and get it functioning again.
Our server isn't the best in the world, but now it knows what to do when ATRL is too busy. These days, ATRL gets more traffic than ever before. So, the server automatically shuts off access to the site until everything calms down. That's why you get those "We're sorry..." messages for approx 15 minutes at a time. It prevents the server from crashing.
Thanks to the server being "smart" and waiting for things to cool down, the site itself has been stable and running for 346 days now.
That means we haven't had to contact support, and we haven't lost any data, for like an entire year.
So, next time you get mad at ATRL for automatically shutting down for 15 minutes, now you know why. It's just 'cause this place is busier than ever. Would you rather the server crash and burn like it used to? No, you wouldn't.
Which brings me to my last point. ATRL has always been and will always be
free to you, remember that. But if you want to eliminate the "We're sorry..." messages once and for all, the only helpful thing to do is donate some cold, hard cash to Joe, so he can put it toward the site. Last I checked, it ain't cheap to run a web site that gets upwards of 2 million views per month, and Joe pays for ATRL out of his own pocket. God love him, because I sure as hell wouldn't do that.
In summary, for all of you too lazy to read anything:
NOT HELPFUL: 
HELPFUL: Donate to ATRL 
Have a nice day!
