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Forum Functions & Functionality: Technical Problems & Known Issues

I notice that on the 'Home' screen, although the "Members' Lounge' heading will emboldenify itself when one hovers over it with the mouse, clicking on it does not take one to a sub-menu of topics, such as what happens with the other headings.
Is this by design or it just that it doesn't achieve anything different?

EDIT: No hang on - I'm being an arse. It does it with all the other headings too - it's clicking on the separate areas (such as 'chat') beneath each heading that takes one to a sub-menu of other topics.
As you were.
 
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I notice that on the 'Home' screen, although the "Members' Lounge' heading will emboldenify itself when one hovers over it with the mouse, clicking on it does not take one to a sub-menu of topics, such as what happens with the other headings.
Is this by design or it just that it doesn't achieve anything different?

EDIT: No hang on - I'm being an arse. It does it with all the other headings too - it's clicking on the separate areas (such as 'chat') beneath each heading that takes one to a sub-menu of other topics.
As you were.
I wondered what you were on about ha! ha!
 
Weird. I just tried to access the ABC's thread and my browser is warning me that it contains malware. I have bounced to other random threads and they are ok.

I did install a new browser a couple of days ago. I have not had this happen on this site before.
 
Weird. I just tried to access the ABC's thread and my browser is warning me that it contains malware. I have bounced to other random threads and they are ok.

I did install a new browser a couple of days ago. I have not had this happen on this site before.

One particular page on the ABC Thread (the first?), or multiple (all?) pages.

If not an error, I suspect it will be reacting to a link. If you can narrow it down to a single page, I can check through the suspects, though I suspect it's some daft sensitivity to old 'less secure' pages.
 
Weird. I just tried to access the ABC's thread and my browser is warning me that it contains malware. I have bounced to other random threads and they are ok.
I did install a new browser a couple of days ago. I have not had this happen on this site before.

Did this happen while you were attempting to access the ABCs thread as a whole, or while you were following a link to a specific post or page *within* the ABCs thread?

If you were following a link to the whole thread it would have been directing you to the thread's first page. There is / was an embedded link in the thread's very first post that is dead and seems to have involved something anomalous when it was archived at the Wayback Machine.

I've recovered and inserted the full text of the MIA webpage (from the original link) to eliminate the need to follow the original link.

If the anomaly with that old link on page #1 was the thing that triggered your security software, it should be fixed now.

Otherwise, post back here with details on what and where you can / cannot access within the ABCs thread.
 
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I'm getting 500 internal server error code some times.
I've been getting that too.

Unless you're Bing vainly trying to get a sitemap there are no such errors logged on the server side. It might be you're getting generic 500 errors owing to a connection time-out or a cookie / cache mismatch.
 
Unless you're Bing vainly trying to get a sitemap there are no such errors logged on the server side. It might be you're getting generic 500 errors owing to a connection time-out or a cookie / cache mismatch.
I was getting these about 6 hours ago, it was fairly intermittent and seems to have cleared up now.
 
Did this happen while you were attempting to access the ABCs thread as a whole, or while you were following a link to a specific post or page *within* the ABCs thread?

If you were following a link to the whole thread it would have been directing you to the thread's first page. There is / was an embedded link in the thread's very first post that is dead and seems to have involved something anomalous when it was archived at the Wayback Machine.

I've recovered and inserted the full text of the MIA webpage (from the original link) to eliminate the need to follow the original link.

If the anomaly with that old link on page #1 was the thing that triggered your security software, it should be fixed now.

Otherwise, post back here with details on what and where you can / cannot access within the ABCs thread.
I tried another browser and it seems to be a browser issue. I was trying to link from my "alerts" to Swifty's latest post and also tried directly from the thread for ABC's.

I'm ok using another browser.
 
For the record ... The disruptions and issuances of cryptic 500 errors were almost certainly the result of major service disruptions involving one of our outboard / partner service providers (as opposed to our own server). The uninformative 500 errors were a known side-effect of that service's temporary problems.
 
For the record ... The disruptions and issuances of cryptic 500 errors were almost certainly the result of major service disruptions involving one of our outboard / partner service providers (as opposed to our own server). The uninformative 500 errors were a known side-effect of that service's temporary problems.
Makes sense, ta @EnolaGaia
 
As Enola suggested, It was down to Cloudflare.
The problems appeared to be the result of issues at Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure provider that powers much of the web.

Many sites rely on the company’s tools to actually serve their information and media to users, meaning that the problems at Cloudflare rapidly hit other, apparently unconnected, sites.

People visiting those sites saw error messages instead of the usual pages. “Eyeballs attempting to reach Cloudflare sites in impacted regions will observe 500 errors,” the company said on its website.
 
I am currently reading "Strange Folk" thread and all buttons, but 'like' are not there. The other threads that I have been catching up on in the past 1/2 hour are fine. I even went back and forth between threads and nothing in this respect changed. It seems to be the one thread.
 
I am currently reading "Strange Folk" thread and all buttons, but 'like' are not there. The other threads that I have been catching up on in the past 1/2 hour are fine. I even went back and forth between threads and nothing in this respect changed. It seems to be the one thread.

At the risk of sounding dull, logging out, flushing your cookies and browser cache, and then logging in again are the 'turn it off and on again' of the message board.

The LIKE buttons are all functioning as normal on that thread, so the error is at your end.
 
I am currently reading "Strange Folk" thread and all buttons, but 'like' are not there. The other threads that I have been catching up on in the past 1/2 hour are fine. I even went back and forth between threads and nothing in this respect changed. It seems to be the one thread.

The Strange Folk thread has been locked down while major housekeeping / editing is being performed.

It will continue to sit in a read-only status until the remodeling project is completed.

The Strange Folk thread was established for discussion of folk observed who may or may not be supernatural (alien, whatever ... ).

Most of the postings made over the years ignored the thread's stated context.

The biggest revision underway is stripping out and moving all the posts concerning ordinary humans (nutters, eccentrics, weirdos) to a different thread dedicated to that subject. That new thread's working title and location is:

Odd People (Human, But Strange)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/odd-people-human-but-strange.69685/

If you want to post something new about everyday oddballs, that new thread is open during the remodeling work.

The original Strange Folk thread will remain closed until the work is finished.
 
The Strange Folk thread has been locked down while major housekeeping / editing is being performed.

It will continue to sit in a read-only status until the remodeling project is completed.

The Strange Folk thread was established for discussion of folk observed who may or may not be supernatural (alien, whatever ... ).

Most of the postings made over the years ignored the thread's stated context.

The biggest revision underway is stripping out and moving all the posts concerning ordinary humans (nutters, eccentrics, weirdos) to a different thread dedicated to that subject. That new thread's working title and location is:

Odd People (Human, But Strange)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/odd-people-human-but-strange.69685/

If you want to post something new about everyday oddballs, that new thread is open during the remodeling work.

The original Strange Folk thread will remain closed until the work is finished.
Great, I was always disappointed how that thread turned out after the promising OP.
 
Today I got emails of posts that I'm watching but was a bit surprised to see a Meeting Nicola one then noticed it was from May. Awhile later I got another one the same.
 
Today I got emails of posts that I'm watching but was a bit surprised to see a Meeting Nicola one then noticed it was from May. Awhile later I got another one the same.

If it was circa 3 - 3.5 hours ago the notifications may have been issued as a side effect of editing in the Meeting Nicola thread. That's just a guess; I don't recall notifications being triggered in response to thread editing before.
 
The Strange Folk thread has been locked down while major housekeeping / editing is being performed. ...
Most of the postings made over the years ignored the thread's stated context. ...
The biggest revision underway is stripping out and moving all the posts concerning ordinary humans (nutters, eccentrics, weirdos) to a different thread dedicated to that subject. That new thread's working title and location is:

Odd People (Human, But Strange)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/odd-people-human-but-strange.69685/
Great, I was always disappointed how that thread turned out after the promising OP.

The Strange Folks cleanup and renovation project has been completed.
 
Thank you for replying. The 1st was at 1.54 and the second was at 5.52.
 
Thank you for replying. The 1st was at 1.54 and the second was at 5.52.

In that case, the alerts probably weren't triggered by editing changes.

Yours isn't the only report of notification time stamping weirdness lately. A few days ago I received what should have been an immediate alert email, but it wasn't issued until more than 30 hours after what should have been the triggering event. :dunno:
 
In that case, the alerts probably weren't triggered by editing changes.

Yours isn't the only report of notification time stamping weirdness lately. A few days ago I received what should have been an immediate alert email, but it wasn't issued until more than 30 hours after what should have been the triggering event. :dunno:
The other day I had the post notifications saying someone replied to a topic tomorrow at … time.
 

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The other day I had the post notifications saying someone replied to a topic tomorrow at … time.

Yes - we've seen this odd behavior before, but it's been a while since the last outbreak (that I've seen ...).

Generally speaking, the cause obviously involves some sort of mismatch between what the forum server's database indicates as time / date and what the member's own device (including software) renders as the final expression of a date / time specification.

In prior instances these mismatches have always seemed to be consistent in portraying time / date, but displaying reasonable values for a wrong time zone and / or date.

We have a worldwide audience, and that audience is scattered on either side of the International Date Line. The date line may explain some of the date mismatches. I've never been able to pin down a single cause for mismatches involving time zones within a single date.

In theory, it could be as simple as a member located in country X arriving at the forum from a latest / last IP address located in country Y on the other side of the planet, faking the server into adjusting time / date attributions to match location Y rather than actual location X. This could - I'd say "should" - be a common occurrence for anyone using a VPN.
 
I don't seem to have the ability to edit posts at the moment.

I wanted to change something in the attached post - it should be 16-24 hours and not 16-34 - but there's no edit button visible. (But there is for this post...)
 

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I think the ability to edit ceases after a certain amount of time
 
I don't seem to have the ability to edit posts at the moment.

I wanted to change something in the attached post - it should be 16-24 hours and not 16-34 - but there's no edit button visible. (But there is for this post...)

Will investigate.

In the meantime, just post everything again as you want it and I shall remove the first post once the replacement appears.
 
Will investigate.

In the meantime, just post everything again as you want it and I shall remove the first post once the replacement appears.
Many thanks for that.

It's not a game-changer, so I'll leave it as is for now.
 
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