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Forum Functions & Functionality: Technical Problems & Known Issues

I’ve used that button in the past because of a password issue but never got a reply so I emailed Stu. This was just before Christmas.

Thanks for the clues. I ran a series of tests, and it appears the Contact Us feature is "sending", but whatever's sent is not being "received" by the staff.

There's a chance this has been (not) happening for up to circa 4 - 5 weeks now, which would mean the disconnect began around the time of your December incident.
 
When I try to access the Forum from my PC at Work I'm told that my IP address has been banned (since the beginning of Jan) - sorry, don't know how send a PM and already tried the 'Contact us' button.

The apparent breakdown in staff contact comms is still an open issue. Our tech support has been notified.

Meanwhile ... I've been advised that Bad Bungle can access the forum once again. Whatever it was that was blocking access yesterday seems to have resolved itself. That aspect of the situation is now "case closed."
 
On my phone at work, looking at my alerts just now, and the time of each had the hour/minutes followed by 'tomorrow'!
 
On my phone at work, looking at my alerts just now, and the time of each had the hour/minutes followed by 'tomorrow'!

We haven't had the ghosts of future present since the first few days of relaunch.

We'll look into it.

Thanks.
 
On my phone at work, looking at my alerts just now, and the time of each had the hour/minutes followed by 'tomorrow'!

Were you viewing alerts here on the forum (via the Web), or were you reviewing alert notifications sent by email?
 
There are no recorded server-side log entries that would explain this.

My first guess is that your early login a couple of minutes prior to 0600 (your time) caused our server (in North America; up to 8 hours "behind" your time zone) to timestamp your latest alerts with respect to the different / future date.
 
There are no recorded server-side log entries that would explain this.

My first guess is that your early login a couple of minutes prior to 0600 (your time) caused our server (in North America; up to 8 hours "behind" your time zone) to timestamp your latest alerts with respect to the different / future date.

I didn't log in before 6am. My laptop is always logged in.
 
I didn't log in before 6am. My laptop is always logged in.

You had a recorded logon at circa 0558 (your time) this morning from your static IP address. Maybe something triggered your laptop into coming out of sleep mode and it automatically re-established a connection to the forum.
 
You had a recorded logon at circa 0558 (your time) this morning from your static IP address. Maybe something triggered your laptop into coming out of sleep mode and it automatically re-established a connection to the forum.

Oh right, yup, it's a bedside Mac so maybe I prodded it to look at the time and it connected.
 
Now I can't log in on my bedside Mac. I keep putting in the activation code but it's rejected.
 
Now I can't log in on my bedside Mac. I keep putting in the activation code but it's rejected.

You're confusing me ... When you say "activation code", do you mean your password?
 
Now I can't log in on my bedside Mac. I keep putting in the activation code but it's rejected.

The root of the problem--we think--is that you are logging in from so many different I.P. addresses.

I'm going to guess that this isn't a choice and that your ISP or phone company just keeps on assigning new ones, multiple times per day. We can 'whitelist' your existing ones, but the logs show that your connections keep coming from new ones and that you seldom return to old ones. Many users have one or two 'main' IP addresses that make up 99% of their connections with the site.

None of this is your fault, but it is the reason that the automatic security functions keep springing up.

We'll do all we can!
 
There are no security measures that should be blocking any of the IP addresses escargot has used for the last 15 hours, during which time she's accessed the forum from 4 different IP addresses.
 
There are no security measures that should be blocking any of the IP addresses escargot has used for the last 15 hours, during which time she's accessed the forum from 4 different IP addresses.

Buggered if I know then.
 
You're confusing me ... When you say "activation code", do you mean your password?
Nope, the password is stored so I don't need to put it in. I'm being asked for a 6-digit code which the site sends by email.

It's 2-step security. I didn't ask for it.
 
Nope, the password is stored so I don't need to put it in. I'm being asked for a 6-digit code which the site sends by email.

It's 2-step security. I didn't ask for it.

That's a clue.

We'll be back to you!
 
Nope, the password is stored so I don't need to put it in. I'm being asked for a 6-digit code which the site sends by email.

It's 2-step security. I didn't ask for it.

Two-step verification was enabled on Jan 7th. Now disabled.

If it was one of us (an error), apologies.

If it was you, you should check the bottom of your slippers to be double sure that you aren't sleepwalking.
 
*knocks politely on the door of Mod HQ*

:curt:

Could you perhaps assist me with a problem that's been annoying me for a few days? I thought it would go away on its own but apparently not.

I always have the 'stay logged in' thing ticked so whenever I open up my browser I can just go to the site and I'm already in. I am also usually able to open several tabs of the site at once (i.e. different topics I want to read) with no issue.


But for the last few days, it seems that as soon as I have more than one tab open, the page shows this message at the bottom:
1584887548794.png


And then when I reload the page I find I am no longer logged in.

Do you know why this might be? As far as I am aware nothing has changed on my internet (have not changed provider or anything) nor have I changed computer or browser.
 
*knocks politely on the door of Mod HQ*

:curt:

Could you perhaps assist me with a problem that's been annoying me for a few days? I thought it would go away on its own but apparently not.

I always have the 'stay logged in' thing ticked so whenever I open up my browser I can just go to the site and I'm already in. I am also usually able to open several tabs of the site at once (i.e. different topics I want to read) with no issue.


But for the last few days, it seems that as soon as I have more than one tab open, the page shows this message at the bottom:
View attachment 24362

And then when I reload the page I find I am no longer logged in.

Do you know why this might be? As far as I am aware nothing has changed on my internet (have not changed provider or anything) nor have I changed computer or browser.
Not something I would have a scooby’s on, will pass it on to the top minds in the field.
 
*knocks politely on the door of Mod HQ*

:curt:

Could you perhaps assist me with a problem that's been annoying me for a few days? I thought it would go away on its own but apparently not.

I always have the 'stay logged in' thing ticked so whenever I open up my browser I can just go to the site and I'm already in. I am also usually able to open several tabs of the site at once (i.e. different topics I want to read) with no issue.


But for the last few days, it seems that as soon as I have more than one tab open, the page shows this message at the bottom:
View attachment 24362

And then when I reload the page I find I am no longer logged in.

Do you know why this might be? As far as I am aware nothing has changed on my internet (have not changed provider or anything) nor have I changed computer or browser.

I've never seen this message before.

What browser are you using to access the site?

At the very minimum, to save us delving unnecessarily, please log-out, remove the cookies for this website (or just all cookies if you don't know how to delete them individually), then delete your browser cache, log back in and try to generate the error again.
 
*knocks politely on the door of Mod HQ*

:curt:
a75478a66664e61f61aa1b2946c9d097.jpg

Yes? ...

Could you perhaps assist me with a problem that's been annoying me for a few days? I thought it would go away on its own but apparently not. ...

You are arriving at the forum from a variety of different dynamically-assigned IP addresses. In other words, each time you come here you appear to be arriving from a different place. This is particularly probable if you're using a wireless connection on your end of the path. Such shifts in ascribed IP addressing can even occur within a single session.

Therefore, here's my first guess ...

Somewhere along the connection path between you and the forum site (not necessarily here on our end) the shifts in IP addressing make for differences in ascribing your online identity, and whatever system is involved is asking you to reload so as to re-establish a coherent connection where the IP addressing matches the last known user attribution / location.
 



You are arriving at the forum from a variety of different dynamically-assigned IP addresses. In other words, each time you come here you appear to be arriving from a different place. This is particularly probable if you're using a wireless connection on your end of the path. Such shifts in ascribed IP addressing can even occur within a single session.

Therefore, here's my first guess ...

Somewhere along the connection path between you and the forum site (not necessarily here on our end) the shifts in IP addressing make for differences in ascribing your online identity, and whatever system is involved is asking you to reload so as to re-establish a coherent connection where the IP addressing matches the last known user attribution / location.
Is it possible that the Internet provider is using a VPN to route part of the connection?
 
Is it possible that the Internet provider is using a VPN to route part of the connection?

Literally - not likely. It would be odd for an ISP to add another level of service burden on its net-facing side of the connection path (unless, of course, the ISP was configured to be extra-stealthy).

VPN involvement would be more likely if Zebs herself were using a VPN service between her home(?) location and the ISP.

Figuratively - the ISP might well be dynamically managing connections between the client-side and the net-side to juggle traffic loads - i.e., shifting the linkage between Zebs' home node and net-side ports. Such juggling would be expected under heavier-than-normal traffic loads such as the ones undoubtedly occurring nowadays with so many people being sequestered at home.
 
Thanks all for your very swift assistance. (And I like the Mod HQ door!)

As you will see from the screenshot below, I was about to reply to say I'd tried Yithian's suggestion and cleared my browser history and that all seemed fine (even opening a couple of extra tabs of the forum)... but then this message suddenly popped up and I had to refresh the page, which logged me out, and now I'm back in again.

1584893308381.png


Browser I'm using is Opera (it is missed off from the screenshot). More info in the screenshot re: vpn and wifi.

If it is a dynamic IP address problem thingy, is there anything I can do at my end about it?
 
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