Hey everyone, I think a good explanation is in order here.
We recently switched to a new host from the existing provider AFN was on and quite honestly, it's been a literal nightmare since the move. We haven't gotten any of the support promised and have been plagued with intermittent downtime from the new host and hardware issues. What we thought was a good calculated decision turned out to be the wrong choice (total blindside, this was a good friend of one of our owners who runs a data center,) but we're actively working on fixing things up, and we're serious about no more "half measures."
As of this morning,
we've purchased a new dedicated server and gone with a very trusted and recommended host (well known, great historical uptime, etc) and we're going to be migrating the site over in the next week with a most current backup (which we'll try to give a good 24 hour notice on.) There's a 72 hour deployment window on the new box, so we'll have to wait until it's ready at the data center for us to get going, but that's the gameplan (and we don't like paying in two places, so we're going to hurry our butts up.)
Our new dev server is officially up and we're also starting the dry run upgrade process to bring AFN on it's current forum software version (old) to the latest and greatest. Our goal is to have this dry run successfully completed within the next week to the point where we're feeling confident, then taking AFN down officially for the technical upgrade (likely over a weekend, as the new version of the forum software isn't compatible with a lot of the add-on's we have currently run, so it's going to take a little sweat and elbow grease to get things up and pretty...) It's a necessary evil but good news is, I've literally just built out the same new version on our new sister site, High of the Tiger (
https://www.highofthetiger.com), so knock on wood, rub those lucky rabbits feet, tack a horseshoe over your door openings, but we've got some good experience in on the new software already.
If you haven't checked it out yet, we're actively developing a new sister-site to AFN called
High of the Tiger, or HOTT, which is being built out specifically for our competitive grow battles and product testing program. We're also using HOTT as a backup meeting place for if AFN goes down, and vice versa.
But we're aware of the issues we've been having and we're sorry that the site's been so unpredictable in uptime lately; we're all extremely frustrated with the experience with the current host, but we have a gameplan in place, things set into motion, and we're working on setting deadlines and goals for some of these things so they just get done already.
And to set the record straight on the rumor (we hear this every single time we go down,) but
no were weren't attacked or hacked lol (maybe our sensibilities and pride, but that's about it.)
Thank you all for supporting us, for all the messages on Facebook, IG, Twitter, asking if we're alright or what's wrong with the site, and we hope to get this ship back on course and quickly!
If we have any AFN down time..Latest news and updates will be at HOTT
https://www.highofthetiger.com/index.php?referrer=20
but....nobody else is there (sigh) 
trust me, the beatings and grinding were unprecedented,....
