Something needs to be done. OS is bleeding to death. It's now almost continuously dead for a week. The API has been non-functional for so long that I've had to put routines in my software to automatically retry every few minutes as it was useless otherwise.
OpenSubtitles is the best option out there, and there's no real alternative for its API-based matched-ashes system but a condition for it to be useful is that it works.
For the first time in years it's become easier to go to my older websites and just pick up the subtitles I needed manually, testing them and keeping the best one myself.
If the problem in OS has been isolated then remove the methods that provoke it (probably some specific SQL queries tying up the engine). That's better than having the whole server down for days because someone did a search.
Also, consider static files (something TheTVDB and TheMovieDB do) for some of the queries. It may even make sense to use Google Base for some of the searches, I don't know.
I can't recommend OS any more. I have stopped recommending my software the uses OpenSubtitles.
It's depressing and upsetting to see a great site degrade so much over time while people are offering help left and right.
Hell, I think I have even recommended that spammy, morally-questionable piece of crap that is SubLight. It's got to be that bad.