Forum suddenly stops working!

[Rikywarbirds]

Hi, 

there is anyone that haves problems with the server in Spain or other countries? I can navigate in Britmodeller for about 2 minutes and then its impossible, it hangs up....

[Rikywarbirds]

Except for today, I can see. I had been in the page for about 10+ minutes 🤔

[AdriaN (MLT)]

This doesn't always happen, but happens every so often...
I open the forum and open one or two threads. Everything fine. Then when i go back into the forum index or open up a new thread... the page would keep searching/loading and remains that way. If i quit the Firefox tab and re-open my britmodeller link again, britmodeller doesnt open. It will remain on 'loading page'. The sort of blank page you get when you have no internet. Funnily enough any other internet page will open. It happened a few times after writing a long post & i lost everything!

Any ideas why? Down for maintenance?

Edited October 8, 2018 by AdriaN (MLT)
123

[AdriaN (MLT)]

On ‎10‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 9:32 PM, AdriaN (MLT) said:

This doesn't always happen, but happens every so often...
I open the forum and open one or two threads. Everything fine. Then when i go back into the forum index or open up a new thread... the page would keep searching/loading and remains that way. If i quit the Firefox tab and re-open my britmodeller link again, britmodeller doesnt open. It will remain on 'loading page'. The sort of blank page you get when you have no internet. Funnily enough any other internet page will open. It happened a few times after writing a long post & i lost everything!

Any ideas why? Down for maintenance?

@Mike any ideas?

[Mike]

Sorry - missed this.  Honest answer, I don't know. Have a read of the FAQ here, and see if any of the collective "wisdom" I've accrued over the years will help resolve the matter.  There are so many variables with almost every browser these days due to Add-ins and such that it's increasingly difficult to be able to point a finger without going through this process first.  I'm not sure what verification processes Add-ins have to go through before they're allowed to be offered, but some of them do have negative effects on some sites.

[colin]

Same happens with me quite often, click back and drags for what seems forever.

Click out from BM, clear history, cache etc and try again seems to do the trick with me until the next time

[AdriaN (MLT)]

8 hours ago, Mike said:

Sorry - missed this.  Honest answer, I don't know. Have a read of the FAQ here, and see if any of the collective "wisdom" I've accrued over the years will help resolve the matter.  There are so many variables with almost every browser these days due to Add-ins and such that it's increasingly difficult to be able to point a finger without going through this process first.  I'm not sure what verification processes Add-ins have to go through before they're allowed to be offered, but some of them do have negative effects on some sites.

Thanks Mike. It doesn't always happen. It happens every so often. Next time it does, i'll take a screen shot. Could it happen when the site is under maintenance?

[Spiny]

Had this happen myself a few times a few months back (I think you can probably see my thread on this towards the bottom of the front page if it hasn't reached page 2). I couldn't work out what was causing it either, but someone else later posted another thread describing the problems the new(ish) emojis were causing them. I hadn't made the connection, but their symptoms rang a bell so I've been much more wary of emojis since then.

 

And since then, I've only had the forum seize thing happen once, and that was when I wasn't thinking and used an untried emoji (the blush one if you're wondering). I'm just wondering if it's not just posting the emoji which is causing problems for people - are they also triggering by displaying them too. (DISCLAIMER - this is coming from someone who is not particularly IT literate so could be a load of cobblers!)

[Mike]

1 hour ago, AdriaN (MLT) said:

Thanks Mike. It doesn't always happen. It happens every so often. Next time it does, i'll take a screen shot. Could it happen when the site is under maintenance?

I'm wondering if there's still a bit of low-level interference going on, as every now and then the CPU loads up to a ridiculous level, then calms back down as the countermeasures make themselves felt.  That usually means some kind of "thing" is going on.  It settles back down pretty quickly, but it's annoying.  We found out the other day that the first attack we suffered was when our old server (the really old one) was taken down in 2014, so it would be unsurprising if it was something like that.

[AdriaN (MLT)]

On ‎7‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 12:52 PM, Rikywarbirds said:

Hi, 

there is anyone that haves problems with the server in Spain or other countries? I can navigate in Britmodeller for about 2 minutes and then its impossible, it hangs up....

Hi! I've had the same problem, and im not from Spain.
I posted a thread here:

@Mike I am not the only one...

Edited October 11, 2018 by AdriaN (MLT)

[AdriaN (MLT)]

12 hours ago, Spiny said:

Had this happen myself a few times a few months back (I think you can probably see my thread on this towards the bottom of the front page if it hasn't reached page 2). I couldn't work out what was causing it either, but someone else later posted another thread describing the problems the new(ish) emojis were causing them. I hadn't made the connection, but their symptoms rang a bell so I've been much more wary of emojis since then.

 

And since then, I've only had the forum seize thing happen once, and that was when I wasn't thinking and used an untried emoji (the blush one if you're wondering). I'm just wondering if it's not just posting the emoji which is causing problems for people - are they also triggering by displaying them too. (DISCLAIMER - this is coming from someone who is not particularly IT literate so could be a load of cobblers!)

Yes I just found your thread. We are not he only ones who are reporting it.
It has happened to me even just by viewing posts, not posting any emojis.
 

 

[Mike]

I'll merge the two.  I'm not from Spain either

[Rob de Bie]

2 hours ago, AdriaN (MLT) said:

Yes I just found your thread. We are not he only ones who are reporting it.
It has happened to me even just by viewing posts, not posting any emojis.

Same problems here, all the time, while simply viewing postings. My usual way of reading a forum section is to open each thread that interests me in a separate tab in my browser. My preliminary conclusion is that I should not open too many tabs with Britmodeller content, because the server hangs up after say five or six. I now read a forum section within one tab, and that seems to work. It's not so convenient though, and it's a problem unique to Britmodeller.

 

Rob

[Mike]

Could you guys keep a note of the times that this is happening please?  It might give us a pattern that we can use to help track things down.  It's certainly worth a try

[AdriaN (MLT)]

33 minutes ago, Mike said:

Could you guys keep a note of the times that this is happening please?  It might give us a pattern that we can use to help track things down.  It's certainly worth a try

yes sir 🕵️‍♂️

[Mike]

Mucho obliged.

[Rob de Bie]

38 minutes ago, Mike said:

Could you guys keep a note of the times that this is happening please?  It might give us a pattern that we can use to help track things down.  It's certainly worth a try

Immediately after your request I tried opening multiple tabs, and the loading stopped after the 8th tab. I could not reach the site for half an hour. That fits perfectly with my earlier experiences.

 

Rob

[Mike]

1 hour ago, Rob de Bie said:

Immediately after your request I tried opening multiple tabs, and the loading stopped after the 8th tab. I could not reach the site for half an hour. That fits perfectly with my earlier experiences.

 

Quickly opening a LOT of tabs could result in you getting blocked by the countermeasures we have been forced to use to combat the frequent DDoS attacks we've been suffering from over the years.  It's better to work in a few tabs initially, and only open up any extra as and when they're needed.  All the content we have on the site is persistent, so unlike Facebook you'll always be able to find it again if it slips off the front page, so there's no need to store things in open tabs.  One of the big benefits of forums over (anti)social media

 

Reduce your instances of opening up multiple tabs at once, and you'll end up happier Mind you, if the sad "people" that keep arranging the attacks would find something nicer and more productive to do with their time, we'd all be happier

[Rob de Bie]

1 hour ago, Mike said:

Quickly opening a LOT of tabs could result in you getting blocked by the countermeasures we have been forced to use to combat the frequent DDoS attacks we've been suffering from over the years.  It's better to work in a few tabs initially, and only open up any extra as and when they're needed.  All the content we have on the site is persistent, so unlike Facebook you'll always be able to find it again if it slips off the front page, so there's no need to store things in open tabs.  One of the big benefits of forums over (anti)social media

 

Reduce your instances of opening up multiple tabs at once, and you'll end up happier Mind you, if the sad "people" that keep arranging the attacks would find something nicer and more productive to do with their time, we'd all be happier

Thanks for the tip, but I had already adopted and I'm a happier using since 🙂

 

Rob

[Redstaff]

I must admit I've been getting it occasionally where I view something and follow a thread then try to go back to the home screen to browse another part of the forum and It just times out

I was wondering whether it was just a bandwidth issue or suchlike, but it appears not looking through this post.

I only usually have the one tab open and keep clicking the back arrow to get back to where I started, so it's not a multiple tab problem for me

 

Regards

 

Ian

[Rikywarbirds]

On 11/10/2018 at 12:46, Mike said:

Could you guys keep a note of the times that this is happening please?  It might give us a pattern that we can use to help track things down.  It's certainly worth a try

I had been navigating ok since that time, but If I note any issues again I will let you know, Mike 👍 

[Rikywarbirds]

On 11/10/2018 at 12:46, Mike said:

Could you guys keep a note of the times that this is happening please?  It might give us a pattern that we can use to help track things down.  It's certainly worth a try

When I had finished writing the last time (saturday) , again I have that problem... 🙁

[Mike]

Times and dates are what we need. If there's something slowing the forum at certain times, we need to know what those times are.

[Spiny]

On 11/10/2018 at 11:46, Mike said:

Could you guys keep a note of the times that this is happening please?  It might give us a pattern that we can use to help track things down.  It's certainly worth a try

Happened to me tonight about 9pm. I'd just posted a thread with the clapping emoji in it (looking more and more as though for me at least some of the emojis are acting as triggers). The thread posted ok, then I couldn't get back to the index, or indeed access any of BM until I tried again now.

 

Not sure how much help that is, but you did ask

[bhouse]

08:44 BST 25 Oct.

I was on a page in my "view new content" feed and clicked the"back" button. I was greeted with (paraphrase) "this page cannot be displayed. The server at Britmodeller took too long to respond". I waited 10 secs and a refresh delivered the page I initially expected. Everything normal now (08:50 BST).