Apollo

Apollo is back online (Apollo.rip)

The music tracker is back online at Apollo.rip. The newly created site at Apollo.cd seems to be down and probably inactive in the future.

Apollo (APL) is down (again)

The private music tracker Apollo is currently down. This only affects Apollo’s website not the tracker or IRC server. New website on Apollo.CD shows an error 502 while old domain Apollo.rip does not resolve (shows an Cloudflare error message).

Apollo moves to new domain Apollo.CD

Apollo has switched to the new domain Apollo.cd. The old domain Apollo.rip does not redirect to the new one but shows up an Cloudflare connectivity error. In a new statement published on the new domain and a Reddit thread, the team behind Apollo says it’s working on the migration of the new site.

Apollo’s latest announcements:

FYI — 20.07.2017

We have been in contact with A and are in talks to take over the old domain and servers – the site might be back up tonight on the APOLLO.rip domain, more news will follow with an update tonight.

-APL Staff-

————————–

New domain — 19.07.2017

Here is a little update for everyone: We’ve acquired a new domain: APOLLO.cd! We’ve also received enough donations to begin the process of migrating our site over to the new digs. For all who chose to donate, thank you so, so much for the support and faith in our abilities. There is still a long road ahead but we are excited to be over the mountain. Going forward, each subsequent donation will be used to support our long term goals and to keep us afloat going into the future.

So, now the hard work begins! We will be posting a myriad of updates in the coming weeks in an attempt to keep everyone informed as much as possible. You can view this progress via our new domain and our current IRC channel where many of our staff will be available to answer questions and alleviate concerns.

<3

-APL Staff-

————————–

To be or not to be… — 18.07.2017

As many have noticed, we are all once again bereft of access to our tracker (surprise, surprise). The same reasons still apply: A has the keys, he refuses to make contact with staff and we still have no control over the servers nor the apollo.rip domain. Our only known fact: the latest downtime is a product of A’s inability to pay the monthly server bill on time. Alas, there is a somewhat pleasant finality to the realization that A, despite whatever negligible amount of faith we continued to have in him, is never going to change his present course of action.

We are here to firmly and unequivocally say that, in its current state and despite whether or not it resurfaces, apollo.rip should be presumed dead.

Fret not, however, as work on our backup site has been receiving all of staff’s attention since the FUBAR announcement. The coding phase is nearly over and hardware integration is the next big step, with a set of servers, proxy servers and server security parameters meticulously chosen to continue our mission. Here is the big kicker: the Apollo BTC account is also under A’s control, meaning none other than him have access to Apollo’s past donations – funds that are conducive to spurring this new site. This fact was one of the key reasons why staff have been hesitant to speak aloud about A’s absence, as the loss of your donations could spell an almost certain death for us. With longevity in mind, it was critical that we did everything in our power to save the website (and your donations if possible) prior to burning this final bridge between us and A. To that end, community updates have remained infrequent on a need-to-know basis in order to keep communication lines open and civil. Now that we are full steam ahead with this new venture, problems of this sort will no longer be a burden for both staff and users alike. But, with access to the old donation pool lost, the final hurdle right now is acquiring startup costs.

As we have inched nearer to the final stages, staff have recently conferred and all have unanimously come to a sobering but important conclusion: Apollo was, is and shall continue to be a tracker built for the people and with the people’s input/ideas shaping it’s potentially grand future (hence the initial name change to “Apollo”, our long-awaited bonus points system, etc). From staff’s perspective, it was initially assumed that we would pay for this migration, which seems fair at face value but is ultimately a death sentence in and of itself. As such, we have decided against this plan. The fact is, if Apollo is to continue, it will be doing so with the support and continuing interest of our users. We believe this to be the only course of action that guarantees a successful reboot and potential re-imagining of the standard to which all music trackers currently adhere to.

Asking for your hard-earned money at this juncture may seem wrong, given the excessive frustration everyone has experienced in the last several months. For those who scoff at this decision, we simply ask you to ponder our current fork in the road and question “what would be in Apollo’s best interest long-term?”. Since the days of Xanax, we have aimed to be as progressive a music tracker as possible, with special attention being given to the collective voice of our user-base. Regardless of whatever reservations you may have, please understand that staff simply cannot be asked to bring Apollo back to life on our own. With the indelible loss of trust we have gained from these issues, coupled with the obscene amount of work we have done behind the scenes to keep it together amidst the chaos, the potential for seeing our beloved site come back online due to YOU is the only true and approachable cure – a type of catharsis which will undoubtedly give us the perfect foundation to begin again.

The upfront cost of migrating is nearing the 1500 euro mark, and everything is ready to go sans the funds to kickstart this new and improved Apollo. If you would like to donate, please follow this link to our donation page (we currently only accept BitCoin):

3HyioN5s2B6RNxrjE83zFmWKNAvPLLxHQ9 (bitcoin:3HyioN5s2B6RNxrjE83zFmWKNAvPLLxHQ9).

Important: If/when the old site returns, we ask that Apollo members refrain from contributing via donations to the BTC account hosted there. We do not know the balance in that account at this time (best guesstimate is between 0-1000 euro) but we are regarding any remaining donations residing there as lost.

Plan of action

As donations begin to trickle in, many changes will begin to immediately take shape. In order of importance, this money will be put towards these necessities:

1) A new domain (this has already been chosen and will be announced once purchased)
2) 1 new IRC server
3) 4 Proxy Servers
4) 1 Main Servers
5) Security
That will be six servers in total. Expected monthly expences aproximately 800 euros.

If everything goes as planned, we expect to be up and running no later than August 17th of this year. That may seem like a long time to some, but we refuse to half-ass anything for fear of running into the same issues once again. If you give us a second chance, trust it will not be squandered. We care about this place too!

As a side note, we know you care about your money and where it goes, especially if this project never gets off the ground. If that happens, we will revisit with the community and discuss where it should be funneled. To state the obvious: no, it will never end up in staff’s pockets.

A word about future communication

As long as we are able, future announcements will continue to be made here, on irc.apollo.rip. We are also expanding our Reddit presence and will be simultaneously posting any and all announcements there as well. Expect to see Athena, Ellipsis, Sea, and Tea making the rounds over at r/trackers. We will continue to monitor your questions and concerns and anyone is free to contact us there at any point, for any reason.

In the likely event of our IRCD going the way of the dinosaur, we also want to remind our users of the old backup irc channel:

Network: irc.p2p-network.net
Port: +7000 for SSL
Channel: #apl-chat

Obviously, this should only be used as a last resort.

The End?

Surely not! Because we are nearly there, friends. We love you and appreciate you immensely. Staff are hopeful and excited about the future and we trust there are several of you out there who feel similarly. Some of the greatest achievements are born out of much work and strife and we wish to parallel those examples with our own, and with your help.

Onward and upwards!

-APL Staff-

An old announcement on irc.apollo.rip reads:

^ That would best describe Apollo’s behind-the-scene situation for the last several months as all of us, staff and users alike, awaited patiently for our lead sysop/developer A to return. Given the site was coasting along just fine prior to the recent, egregious downtime we now face (a product of A’s inability to 1) turn the server back on, and 2) hand over the keys to the kingdom so we could do it ourselves), staff have been keen to avoid unnecessary drama, instead hoping and praying like the rest of you that A would make his return sooner rather than later.

Dumb. That was dumb, and we apologize for not acting on our basic instincts sooner. A big lesson with a high cost.

Obviously, given recent events, we have now been forcefully tasked with a monumental decision none of us were ready or willing to make:

1) Migrate to a new host/server/etc and hope that we can rekindle the flame before it is too late
2) Cut our losses and bid farewell to our community that we have grown to seriously admire and respect and love

It was unanimous. We are still here to stay, and to (hopefully) flourish. We feel there is much we can offer with Apollo – opportunities that are currently not and have never been possible via our predecessors and our contemporaries alike. The real estate for bittorrent communities focusing on music is vast and there is much ground to share with fellow sites RED, NWCD, and Waffles. We hope to continue working with them behind the scenes so that each community may thrive for as long as possible. We love, appreciate and respect all of them for their hard work!

So what next? Where do we go from here? FINALLY, we have these answers and thankfully we can stop teasing the age old quip of “coming soon”.

First thing of note: we are thrilled (and somewhat relieved) that a flawless backup of the entire Apollo database has been made, thanks to some hard work by the unflappable duo of itismadness and O. For the uninitiated, this means nothing was lost: comments, collages, links, etc – all are there as they were before. Along with the help of a new team member, Coeus, we have made remarkable headway on prepping for a brand new domain (TBA), server setup and an upgrade to the security of all our backend systems. And for all of those wondering, yes, Cloudflare will be gone posthaste. And yes, the “Apollo” name will remain.

What’s more? All of those long awaited updates we have been teasing for months will finally be pushed to the new site, as we now have full control. A brand new logchecker, bonus points system, ease of use bugfixes, and a myriad of other small features are planned implementations to be introduced immediately. Our staff have always been immensely passionate about Apollo, and now that we have unrestricted access it is time to put all this pent up energy to work. Essentially, we will be better than ever before!

…except we know that this cannot possibly be true or expected without THE crucial ingredient – you.

We recognize the many hoops we endured have been shared by our users as well. Asking for you to once again place your trust in us when communication has been little and downtime has been frequent is not only arrogant but out of touch. We are soon to be back and have a solid game plan, but it is all for naught without users continuing to bring fresh content and ideas to our site. If your answer is no, we certainly understand your reasoning and wish you well. If your answer is yes, rest assured that your continued involvement will be cherished and rewarded. Empty promises are a thing of the past and your forgiveness will go a long way in cementing that fact.

For now, thank you for hearing us out and for those of you that have been idling in #apollo, thank you as well. For those that continue to defend us, even when all seems lost, thank you too. We love you all and have much in store for our future, which is finally looking bright as we near the end of this unfortunate tunnel.

More to come very, very soon. Please stay tuned!

-APL Staff-

Apollo’s IRC status reads:
SITE: DOWN, We will update ASAP. SSL tracker issues? We know! Check the forum!

Apollo’s backup IRC channel

Network: irc.p2p-network.net
Port: +7000 for SSL
Channel: #apl-chat

(updated July 20, 2017)