I typically log on around 10:00 or 11:00 pm Alaska standard time. Does this site occasionally shut down to update, etc at that hour? I ask this due to often getting an unable to open message. However, I can pull up the same thread during the day and not have this problem, If you could let me know, I'd appreciate it. The nights are long here in Alaska.
Thanks.

The exact message I receive is "Unable to connect to the database"

The server does automatic backups every night. Gene and I watched it do this on Thursday night, and it was around 1:00 AM Eastern Standard time that the SQL backup utility closed the Café database so the backup could be performed. That would coincide with the time you were getting that error message.