Halogen Place

What happened to Halogen Place?

In brief, the hypervisor seems to have gone down some time in June. I have no visibility into why; both out-of-band management and shell access are unavailable to me, and my colocation provider has not offered any statements about the downtime. My last contact with them was on July 14th, 2026, where they indicated they would get the server back online that day.

Will Halogen Place be coming back?

Probably not. While database and VM backups exist, I no longer have interest in hosting a large multi-user Matrix homeserver. This is not a new statement for those of you that have seen the discourse in the General Discussion; I voiced a bit about my increasing disengagement with ecosystem and community there.

What should I do if I used Halogen Place as my Matrix homeserver provider?

At this time, please consider creating a new Matrix account with another homeserver provider, if you had not already done so in 2025. You may also consider hosting your own homeserver utilizing a lightweight Matrix homeserver software.

What will you do with the data on the host/in the backups?

This data will be retained while "Halogen" domains are still actively registered. Upon their expiry, this data will be destroyed; backups will be deleted, drives will be zeroed out, and then the host box will be handed off to a local e-waste service provider. Any communications, correspondences, and media should survive solely in a federated context; any "local-only" communications and content will be destroyed.

Can I stay in touch?

I'll be retiring this handle entirely and intend to break continuity of communication via this identity once all traces of Halogen Place are gone. Unless you know and communicate with me via other pre-established channels, please regard any communications from anyone claiming to be "iodine" with skepticism. With that said and done, I bid you all adieu.