Website Issues

[ZXDunny]

Had a couple of issues yesterday where the page wouldn't load but also wouldn't stop loading, had to wait for the timeout and then refresh, whereupon it would load fine.

Was this the forums or the main site? If main site was it a specific page. Some game pages do contain a huge amount of content, some of which is taken from other sites.

There doesn't seem to be anything major going on, or I think lots would be mentioning issues. Just general internet stuff I guess

Main site seems fine, it's just forums. Mostly when clicking the "view latest unread post" icon.

[spider]

Many moons ago (many) when I was with a different provider for internet and it would act up a lot, I ended up switching to opendns and never really had many issues after that.

This may or may not be something those who have issues want to try ?

Just a thought. I've not used it for maybe 4 or 5 years if not longer...

Code: Select all

https://use.opendns.com/

[RMartins]

@RMartins,

I'm assuming by the radio silence all is OK. It's really useful to know if things are fixed.

Sorry, I have been busy.

But yes things are OK now. Hasn't failed again.
I said it was working in a previous message.

So I was saving for when it failed again to post something with details.

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]RMartins[/mention] for the update,

I was asking as one of our members is still having issues. Keep me posted, good it bad.

Thanks

[ZXDunny]

Weird one. I have a bookmark for the forum: search.php?search_id=newposts which just brings up new posts since my last visit.

It froze during loading, just now, so I killed the page. Tried again with a new tab; no difference. Killed the page. Tried again... and again... etc. Until instead of killing the tab, I waited for Chrome to time out and then hit "Reload" on the error page. Then it worked fine.

[Morkin]

Both your issues sound familiar. In many cases yesterday I would click a link to a post from the search results and the page would look fine, but no buttons or links would work - after a minute or so Chrome would ask if I want to kill the unresponsive page. Re-loading usually fixed it.

Other times, especially with the small icon next to a search result to jump to last-unread, the page would load nothing at all and just sit there spinning away for ages before erroring out. Clicking on the main topic link would always be fine, however. It's really strange.

In the last week or so I've been having the same issues using Chrome (Windows 10). Never had issues before.

It's hard to pin down, but it sometimes happens if I've been away from the page for a bit (Forums). I found clearing the site's cookies and closing/reopening the window sometimes fixed it but not always. Looks OK in incognito.

The issue has occurred pretty much every day, but it's one of those intermittent things that I haven't been able to pin down.

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]Morkin[/mention],

There does seem to be a very intermittent issue, but as you say it's very hard to pin down these types of things.

If anyone has any ideas please PM me directly. Thanks.

Peter

[R-Tape]

In the last week or so I've been having the same issues using Chrome (Windows 10). Never had issues before.

It's hard to pin down, but it sometimes happens if I've been away from the page for a bit (Forums). I found clearing the site's cookies and closing/reopening the window sometimes fixed it but not always. Looks OK in incognito.

Yep I've had a bit of this too.

Something that has worked every time is to come via the 'forums' button on the Spectrumcomputing.co.uk front page. Obvs we shouldn't have to do that, but it's a reliable way to do it while we work out what's going on.

[Morkin]

Something that has worked every time is to come via the 'forums' button on the Spectrumcomputing.co.uk front page. Obvs we shouldn't have to do that, but it's a reliable way to do it while we work out what's going on.

Unfortunately getting to the forums via the 'Forums' button on the home page still triggers the issue for me (intermittently again unfortunately).

I've just switched to a different web browser for now.

[PeterJ]

I did some reading up last night and apparently a common cause of intermittent issues are extensions.

Therefore I have temporarily disabled some recently added ones. These are Smartfeed and Dark mode.

With these sorts of issues it's often a guessing game!

[1024MAK]

I did some reading up last night and apparently a common cause of intermittent issues are extensions.

Therefore I have temporarily disabled some recently added ones. These are Smartfeed and Dark mode.

Which date and at what time have you disabled these extensions?

Mark

[PeterJ]

Hi [mention]1024MAK[/mention],

About two minutes before I posted.

Peter

[Morkin]

Well I don't want to jinx it, but I haven't had any issues (using Chrome) at all today...

...Now, nobody disturb the site chuntey..!

[Andre Leao]

Online now, but it was down since 9 PM

[roganjosh]

If it gives any clue then on my system (W10, Edge browser), more often than not, on first accessing the forums URL, I eventually get the Page Not responding alert box. If I select "Exit page" from the box, go into devtools using CTRL+Shift+I, right click on the page refresh icon and select "Empty cache and hard reload" then everything works OK.

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]roganjosh[/mention],

I have now seen that behaviour on Chrome Desktop on Windows, but never on Firefox Windows Desktop or Chrome on Android. The issue is not happening every time though.

Just got to find out what's causing it. Any suggestions, please PM me because I'm out of ideas. Thanks

I think we have enough reports of this now, but if you see different behaviour and you can document the steps to reproduce it, please post here.

[Joefish]

Lately when I access the site, if I use a link that takes me direct to the forum, the page comes up but is frozen. None of the links respond to a mouse-over or a click and the page seems to be permanently busy doing something.
However, if I arrive at the main spectrumcomputing.co.uk title page, then click through to the Forums, everything works fine. Is it some auxiliary / script / style file that's being held up, but works if it's already cached?
And before anyone asks, yes, I have deleted cookies and logged in again.

[Joefish]

May have fixed this - I noticed the bookmarked URL I was using as a link to the forums included a 'session ID' as part of the URL. I edited and removed this so the link is just to spectrumcomputing.co.uk/forums/ and - so far - it seems to work OK.

[8BitAG]

I've been having this problem for a week or so; and I don't use a link of that kind.

Doesn't seem to happen on Edge, but the forum frequently seizes up Chrome.

[namco]

Same here. Chrome is the one with the problem. Firefox works fine (how I'm typing this now).

[edit]:
I was coming in from Chrome's frequently used shortcuts straight to the site. The site freezes when there is no forward slash. However, I've just changed the shortcut to add the forward slash and it's working fine now(?). Caching issue?

[PeterJ]

I have merged these two threads together. We don't know yet what's causing the issues.

What we need is 'every time I do A&B, Y&Z happens. When using C Web browser, on D OS' and for people to be able to replicate it.

These intermittent issues are a pain to resolve.

We are a few updates behind on phpBB so when I have time I will do an update. I have already disabled any recently added extensions.

The freezing is only happening on the forum, not the main site.

[Jbizzel]

Often I can't get in the site at all. Sometimes the front screen loads but I can't long in, or click on anything. It's like I'm looking at a picture of the forum home page.

Just to let you know.

[PeterJ]

If you are adding to this please include browser and OS. Also try on other browsers and report if issues continue.

I occasionally see the issue on Chrome running on Windows, but never on Chrome for Android.

[Joefish]

Yep, happening again today on Chrome under Windows 10, using a /forums/ bookmark.
Again, works fine if I go to the main page first, then click FORUMS. I'll change the bookmark to the home page and try that a few times.

[PeterJ]

Thanks for the report [mention]Joefish[/mention], I will try that too

Please could you try on Edge or Firefox? I'm trying to ascertain if it's a Chrome only issue.

I've only had issues on Chrome Desktop W11.

Thanks