What's going on?
First, for those that don't know (and because it came up recently), this site and all the tools that you use here are developed and maintained by just one person -- me. I work hard to make sure it runs properly for everyone, from the 50 item basic shop to the 200,000 item huge shop. I also get to answer questions about Google Base and how to use the feed generator.
The past few weeks, a growing number of cafeToolbox users have experienced errors (like Internal Server Errors) and problems (like cpExtract getting stuck) while attempting to run either the old Feed Generator 2.0 or cpExtract. Initially I believed the problems were directly related to how the script interacted with CafePress. However, last week revealed that the limitations of the current cafeToolbox web hosting package also contributed to these problems. It has become obvious that cafeToolbox has outgrown its current web hosting and needs an upgrade to continue without any other changes.
The monthly cost of the upgraded hosting is more than I can afford to pay on my own. I moved cafeToolbox to a donationware model with the hope that a large group of potential users that did not want to pay the monthly subscription fees would join and voluntarily make donations to help keep cafeToolbox running. Several of you, 74 to be exact, have provided donations over the past 18 months, a handful have done so more than once. I want to take a moment and thank every one of you for your support. You know who you are and you've helped keep the site going.
However, the number of users has increased a lot faster than the donations have come in. As an example there were 349 different users that ran cpExtract during the past 54 days. cpExtract was run nearly 4,000 times (74 times a day, roughly 3 times per hour) and added or updated 98.5 million items (1.825 million items per day, or roughly 74,000 items per hour).
To summarize, cafeToolbox has outgrown its system resources and the problems mentioned will continue until some changes are made. I don't really have an interest in doing this for profit, but have been accepting donations with the goal of covering web hosting costs.
Going forward, here are the options as I see them. If you have other ideas, please let me know.
1. Upgrade the web hosting to a package that can handle the demand
This would allow cafeToolbox to continue and would result in fewer errors. The downside is that I can't afford to pay the cost of the upgraded hosting after the average monthly donations are factored in. I could charge a monthly or annual fee to use the site, just enough to cover hosting costs, but am not sure about what you all would think or do if that was implemented. I could also put advertising on the site, but I don't think the ads would generate enough revenue either.
2. Implement a locking/queue system so that only one or two users can run cpExtract at a time, others would have to wait
This would allow cafeToolbox to continue on the current hosting with fewer errors. The downside is that it is ugly to implement and would be very inconvenient for everyone. I really don't like this idea very much.
3. Close cafeToolbox completely
Hey, it's an option, but not one I like at all. I think I'd rather keep things going as-is instead of a complete shut down.
I'm very unsure about where to go next with cafeToolbox, so I'm asking for your opinions and thoughts. Please post them in the forum topic dedicated to this issue. (Click the Link)
cafeToolbox
http://www.cafetoolbox.com/article.php/future-of-cafetoolbox