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Forum Functions & Functionality: Technical Problems & Known Issues

EnolaGaia said:
Mytho / Carlos:

Please advise me what device and connection you're using:

- Mobile / laptop / desktop
- Hard-wired / your own wifi / random wifi or wireless connection wherever you happen to be

It might also be helpful to know which browser you're using.
Click to expand...

Sorry for the delay..

W10 desktop
Chrome
Hard-wired
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
Sorry for the delay..
W10 desktop
Chrome
Hard-wired
Click to expand...

No problem. Thanks for the report.

I've seen similar bog-downs and loading failures in the last 24 hours. We suffered a spate of server-side errors circa 12+ hours ago, and I'm hoping that transient weirdness explains the most severe smiley access problems.
 
W10 desktop
Chrome
WiFi

Still getting problems.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Thanks for the report, Vardoger ... :twothumbs:

I'm pretty confident the problem has something to do with downloading the smilies from the forum server (which is in North America).

The odd part is why there seems to be a consistent set of smiley calls that are timing out during the download process. My experiments indicate the number and identities of the smilies that time out (and never arrive) can change from call to call - sometimes including additional items above and beyond the ones noted above.

The outages don't correlate with smiley name, size or date of accretion to the available set.

I'll have to refer this to our tech cadre.
Click to expand...
Re 'emojigate'
Ive noticed that emijis that arent working have retrospectively stopped working on older posts where they were origionally fine.
 
Souleater said:
Re 'emojigate'
Ive noticed that emijis that arent working have retrospectively stopped working on older posts where they were origionally fine.
Click to expand...

Yes, because the problem is at the origin.

When you are entering an emoji, you are really entering a link to one graphic outside your post that is retrieved every time the page is loaded.

Edit: for the record, they all load correctly for me.
 
I'm having trouble loading some of the emojis for a while as well. As of right now I'm getting pretty much the same as Vardoger showed in post #894 - that is, those exact ones (plus "bs") missing. If I try to "open image in new tab" it works for the emojis I can see, but I get this for the ones I can't:

1619802164331.png


I'm in the US, Windows 10 on a surface pro. I'm using work WiFi now (working well at more than 60 Mbps downloads) but at home I use my cheap ZTE phone, either by itself or a hotspot for the same surface pro (reliably 5 Mbps). Chrome on both.
 
ChasFink said:
... If I try to "open image in new tab" it works for the emojis I can see, but I get this for the ones I can't:
Click to expand...

I'm not understanding this part. When are you trying to open a single emoticon image? Are you trying to open one that did download, or one that diidn't?
 
EnolaGaia said:
I'm not understanding this part. When are you trying to open a single emoticon image? Are you trying to open one that did download, or one that diidn't?
Click to expand...
Chrome has a right-button option called "Open image in new tab". If you do it over an image in a page it basically opens a new tab with the exact url of the image, rather than the whole page. Unless the webmaster has done something funky, the new tab will show that image alone, surrounded by black.

If I do it with an emoji that did download, I get that tiny image on a tab by itself. But if I try it on the broken image icon of one that didn't download, I get a page with the usual forum header, color scheme, etc., and the no-permission error message I posted.

Edit: I'm doing this in the little window that pops up from the smiley face when you want to choose an emoji.
 
ChasFink said:
... If I do it with an emoji that did download, I get that tiny image on a tab by itself. But if I try it on the broken image icon of one that didn't download, I get a page with the usual forum header, color scheme, etc., and the no-permission error message I posted. ...
Click to expand...

The fact that you see an error image means the download has already timed out or been signaled as completed / concluded. Until the server and / or browser truncates the download process for a given image there will be no visible icon to mark the failure.

I can think of two possibilities - both of which mean you're attempting to view an image file that's not accessible to you as a browser user:

(1) There's a default error image served up from our server when an image transmittal fails. This error image is not part of the emoticon set users can access. It's a reserved file buried within the XenForo installation's admin file system. When you attempt to open it you're generating a call to the reserved image file, and this is triggering the error.

(2) Same general scenario, but the failed call isn't out to the server but to a reserved error image buried in your browser installation. The browser can pre-load the page context, but it chokes on showing you the reserved error image.

I mention option (2) because the "image didn't download" error icon I see isn't anything "broken" - it's a question mark. If we see different icons for a failed image download that almost certainly means the error image originates with the browser rather than the server.
 
Thanks. I agree that the broken image icon is generated by the browser. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. As for the error message, I thought it odd that it said no permission rather than doesn't exist or something similar, but I guess that's the way some things are programmed.

I'm on my phone now, so it's a different network entirely from earlier. What I still find interesting is that the images that appear to be timing out are exactly the same ones I had missing at work, and the same ones Vardoger and Souleater and others had missing days ago, but at least one person - Yithian - said all were loading for him a few days later.
 
I was experiencing the same slow or partial emoticon downloads some days / weeks ago when it was previously reported, but I haven't noticed any problem other than occasional slow-downs in loading since then. I wasn't able to force any download failure(s) on at least one emoticon when researching your report.
 
I wonder if it is G**gle Chr*me problem. I have the same problem for as long as others have been reporting it. I to use the same browser and same version of Wndws. I just choose the emojis that work for me. My browser is up to date as I just checked it today.
 
I keep getting a server error message coming up this morning on the forum, bring on the update.
Screenshot_20210506-081426.png
 
This is a minor query and not of much importance. It doesn't bother me, I'm more curious than anything else.

I use a vpn and if I log on to the forum with it switched on I get 'your IP address has been banned'.

Is there a reason why using a vpn comes up with that? Thank you.
 
kesavaross said:
This is a minor query and not of much importance. It doesn't bother me, I'm more curious than anything else.
I use a vpn and if I log on to the forum with it switched on I get 'your IP address has been banned'.
Is there a reason why using a vpn comes up with that? Thank you.
Click to expand...
Yes, there's a reason ...

A VPN affords you online privacy by masking your 'Net location (your IP address). When you cruise the 'Net using a VPN you arrive at sites with your location identifiable as an IP address other than the IP address from which you're really connecting on your end. The IP address temporarily assigned to you is drawn from a huge pool of addresses the VPN service has available.

Who else has a need to mask their IP addresses? Nefarious types (i.e., scammers, hackers, spammers, etc.).

Whenever your VPN service assigns you an IP address that matches a known point of origin for bad guys, it gets automatically blocked.

In effect, you arrive at our gates displaying the passport of a known source of trouble.
 
I have noticed that there is a possible problem with the display of notifications in the 'Alerts' page.
It used to be that all the old alerts that I had already seen were 'greyed' on their background, whereas the newer ones that had been added since I last looked would be 'white' backgrounded (if that makes sense).
Now I see that everything has a white background so there is no demarcation between the old and new, I have to rely on remembering what it was that I last looked at.
Which kind of ruins the point of the 'alerts'.
 
Trevp666 said:
I have noticed that there is a possible problem with the display of notifications in the 'Alerts' page.
It used to be that all the old alerts that I had already seen were 'greyed' on their background, whereas the newer ones that had been added since I last looked would be 'white' backgrounded (if that makes sense).
Now I see that everything has a white background so there is no demarcation between the old and new, I have to rely on remembering what it was that I last looked at.
Which kind of ruins the point of the 'alerts'.
Click to expand...
I.think the unread alerts have a solid dot next to them and the read one have an oitline circle although that may not be the case, just getting used to it myself.
 
I hadn't noticed the little dot.
I think you may be correct.
But I preferred the obvious colour difference - it was nanoseconds quicker than looking for a solid/non-solid dot.
 
Is it my imagination or is the laughing like emoji really overdoing it now?
 
And just to be clear, I am still consistently missing the same emojis, regardless of network, browser, or device:
headbang
clap
omg
thought
dunno
evillaugh
doh
roll
bs

I wonder if it has something to do with location. I think most affected parties are in North America.
 
ChasFink said:
And just to be clear, I am still consistently missing the same emojis, regardless of network, browser, or device:
...
I wonder if it has something to do with location. I think most affected parties are in North America.
Click to expand...
Yes, it most probably has something to do with location - more specifically, the time required to download the emoticons. The ones you listed are all dynamic / animated images which are larger than the static ones. If I recall correctly, the "BS" cow emoticon is by far the largest one in the entire set.

The download (and / or possibly the transient connection of the moment) is timing out before the downloading of these largest ones can be completed.
 
ChasFink said:
I only see the dots if I hold the cursor over where they might appear.
Click to expand...
Yes - that's the same behavior I'm seeing. At first I thought you had to hover over the spot where the dot appears to make it visible. Subsequent experimentation seems to indicate all you have to do is hover over the given alert entry in the list to make the dot for that entry appear.

My first guess is that the XenForo folks decided to make the list more dynamic by allowing you to inspect (and / or manipulate) the "read / unread" status alert-by-alert, rather than using background shading to code which ones you'd seen versus hadn't seen.

I haven't yet found any XenForo documentation confirming this is what's happened.
 
I prefer the dots to the shading difference as I didn't find the contrast great enough for my old eyes. I was disconcerted at first but spotted the er ... spots and 'happy days' :)

Sollywos x
 
EnolaGaia said:
Yes, it most probably has something to do with location - more specifically, the time required to download the emoticons. The ones you listed are all dynamic / animated images which are larger than the static ones. If I recall correctly, the "BS" cow emoticon is by far the largest one in the entire set.

The download (and / or possibly the transient connection of the moment) is timing out before the downloading of these largest ones can be completed.
Click to expand...

I don't have any issues with the emojis (but I rarely use them anyway) but I see they all appear for me - possibly because here we have the super-fast fibre broadband FTTP.
I wondered if it would be possible to provide a separate download for those with slower connections which could be stored on the users device and used when required instead of waiting for each emoji to download every time they are on the site?
 
If the issue is with timeouts, and exactly the same emojis are 100% consistently causing the problem with the affected users - is there a way to increase the timeout threshold, at least for those emojis?

I hate to harp on this, but I still find it difficult to believe that a timeout results in denying permission to a user to see a particular image - not just inability to show the image, but a "you do not have permission", even when doing a hard reload of the image, all by itself on a page.

Mods, no need to reply - especially to the second paragraph - if there's nothing new to add. I'm just venting frustration, but it's hardly the end of the world.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit: I just read for the second time, but understood for the first time, item (1) in EnolaGaia's message #909. That may explain the "do not have permission" message. But my question about timeouts still stands, if only for your consideration.

Peace.
 
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Trevp666 said:
I don't have any issues with the emojis (but I rarely use them anyway) but I see they all appear for me - possibly because here we have the super-fast fibre broadband FTTP.
I wondered if it would be possible to provide a separate download for those with slower connections which could be stored on the users device and used when required instead of waiting for each emoji to download every time they are on the site?
Click to expand...

No, I'm afraid not.

All the emojis the board uses are already 'here' on the board (they reside on a thread in website issues):

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/smileys.62784/

When you click on the smiley icon from the toolbar in the reply box, the list is populated by following the file-path to the attachments to those particular and fetching each emoji from there to display. That is to say, if I now deleted that thread (including its attachments), all our non-basic emojis would disappear (I think)--they're the 'originals'.

Similarly, when you select an emoji from the list, click on it to enter it into your message, and then hit 'post', you aren't uploading anything, you are entering the same link to the attachments made to those posts to tell the browsers of future viewers to retrieve and display the requested emoji.

I have no idea why some people are experiencing such a delay. Even with slow connections, these file sizes are tiny, and I can't think of a reason why the board should be slow at serving them up.
 
ChasFink said:
If the issue is with timeouts, and exactly the same emojis are 100% consistently causing the problem with the affected users - is there a way to increase the timeout threshold, at least for those emojis?
Click to expand...
There's no "one size fits all" answer, but the answer in most all possible cases is essentially "No."

Assuming the problem lies with a download timing out (which I still believe is a near-certainty) ...

The downloading is not a function of the forum software per se. It's a function of the lower-level connection / transaction processes between our server and your device, as mediated by the who-knows-what circumstantial conditions in effect between those two end points (type / speed of connection; channel shifting with mobile devices; bandwidth bog-downs / blockages; etc.).

We don't have a means for tweaking how long it takes for our server (and / or your setup) to give up on a download and throw a default error icon or message as a substitute for what you requested. In any case (and as I tried to explain earlier) if you interrogate whatever is served up as this substitute you're not re-requesting whatever image failed to download but rather interrogating the error icon itself (which is not yours to directly invoke).

The "don't have permission" error aspect almost certainly comes from one or the other of the extreme ends of the connection (our server / XenForo; your browser and / or associated software). Without knowing what was being called to trigger that error message we have no basis for saying more than that.

One thing you can try that might help is to check and revise your browser's cache settings (if possible). During a given session a competent browser should be caching such files when first called / downloaded and then serving them up locally thereafter. If your browser isn't doing this (or your cache settings are too limiting) you're basically doomed to trying to download the entire emoticon set from our end each and every time you invoke it on your end.

One indirect strategy that could be considered from our end would be to simply reduce the number of emoticons in the available set. Adding or deleting files is easy. However, doing so while avoiding the creation of a lot of dead / null emoticon instances within posts means finding substitutes for some of the larger ones and inserting them under the same reserved name (which is laborious). Even if we invest the effort to perform such a purge it's not guaranteed to resolve all problems for all users.
 
So when I type a 'colon' : and a 'close brackets' ) to produce a regular 'smiley' thusly :) this is producing the 'smiley' from a stored version within this site and not from a general 'emoji store' elsewhere on t'internet then?
 
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