The “August Crisis” (8月危機(きき), Hachigatsu Kiki) was an event in 2channel history where its userbase had rushed to save the website from shutting down on August 25, 2001. Since then, it was mainly known for popularizing the 'dedicated browser' and creating Futaba Channel.

For context, 2channel was rapidly gaining attention in the declines of Ayashii World and Amezou, as well as the Nishi-Tetsu bus hijacking, so the traffic was exponentially growing to a point where the server costs became unreasonable. On Saturday, August 25, 2001 at 1:49am JST, Yoshihiro Nakao, also called “FOX★” or “Yakin★” (夜勤★), would post “it's all being liquidated” (みんなはさーん, minna hasān).¹⁾

This gradual shutdown would occur in stages, causing an uproar as people flocked to whatever server they had left. However on 8:23am JST, a /unix/ thread addressing the core problem was made, and some user named “Perler” submitted an improvement for 2channel's 'read.cgi' file by 4:48pm JST. Nakao would appear in the thread by 7:05pm JST, reviewed the code, and published it on 7:52pm JST.

As one would expect, the difference was felt across the website, while the developers in those threads kept proposing new fixes that dealt with the issues of 'data compression' and 'transfer volume'. Their new and improved 'read.cgi' was eventually published around 11:00pm JST, reaching a point where the shutdown was called off, as the changes were 'visibly noticeable' and the situation was 'satisfactory' for now.

This incident would cause the userbase to be more 'mindful' of the server data, so 'dedicated browers' which saved thread data locally became popular, while former refuges like Futaba Channel or Onpu Channel had become independent websites. While the story is often treated as 'legend' where anonymous users cooperate to save the website, the situation was harshly criticized as things calmed down.

For starters, you'd think that 2channel would've had a team of developers to fix the issue themselves, but the collective panic made people overlook the fact that they were writing code for free, and people wondered if shutting the boards down in stages was really necessary. In addition, the traffic had far exceeded the levels of where it was at back then, but now, their servers can spit out the “hito oosugi” (人大杉) error.²⁾

Records of a Certain Uproar (ある騒動(そうどう)の記録(きろく), Aru Sōdō no Kiroku), also called the August Crisis or Unix, was a commemorative Flash video that summarized the aforementioned incident, set to the song “Komm, süsser Tod” from The End of Evangelion, and it used an English narrator. There seems to be two versions, but it really comes down to whether the “don't thank us” warning is there or not.

• Densha Otoko

• Records of a Certain Incident (Old) on Niconico Douga
• Records of a Certain Incident on YouTube - Translated into English.