Site Errors (Slow pages, slow posting, connection reset, uploads failing)

Posts: 19,107

Thanks: 457

Fixes: 21

Thanks for the explanation Bob.

Posts: 5,163

Do you understand what a bracketed (s) means
It means one or more, in case of any others in the future
& so far it has been one / now bordering on two (if you need numerical observations)
I make no apologies, for not phrasing it in a term that you would not class as offensive, however I am no English professor & I speak from the heart
& for a truthful observations & being curious, does not make for one being offensive in any capacity
Can we please keep this on par with non negative posts towards other members & just stick to the facts
So lets look at the facts (AGAIN!!!)
1. The forum software is 6 years out of date (no doubt a generous amount of bug / glitch fixes would of been resolved in 6 years of software updates)
2. #Kelly openly admitted looking in the wrong place because the evidence appeared to lead him in the wrong direction
3. There have been several fixes (some of which had to be reverted) yet (none of the Forum software based) (as yet, if @ all)
4. We were told by #Kelly back in August, that he was going to get the forum software update prioritised (Yet it is still awaiting to happen (Nearly Two months on)

Quote from: Bob
Firstly, let's stop dissecting each others posts before things end up getting derailed
Quote from: TORPC
Not saying PN staff are
However there are some coders / programmers etc that stick to what they know
It makes one wonder if they got the credentials to bring the old code up to today's standards

I don't want to get drawn into the debate (I don't have the time to stay on top of developments if I'm honest), however I'm not entirely sure what's being implied here? What credentials are you talking about? If you mean the admin login for the forum install, then of course we have those credentials. If you're asking whether or not we have the technical aptitude, then again, it's fairly trivial. SMF is open source software and upgrading standalone instances isn't difficult. The problem is the integration we have with the Wordpress installs for Community and the Library. Whilst the forum software is relatively easy to upgrade, it would probably break a load of stuff elsewhere on the site that we would then need to invest development and QA resource towards fixing/testing.
I don't know where this work currently sits on our list of priorities but I'd be surprised to see it done during the coming weeks.

Hi Bob
As anotherone said
Thank you for the explanation
To clarify what was meant by "Credentials"
The coding skills / time etc to bring the old software up to today's standards (I know it is not always going to be easy & also can be time consuming, including any testing etc)
For which (& thank you for your honesty) as it proves that there is not enough hours in the day you said "You do not have time to stay on top of developments" (Fully understandable)
You mention the problem with integration with wordpress installs (For clarity) may I ask what version of wordpress that is currently in use ?

Also again thank you for you honesty in that "you'd be surprised to see it done during the coming weeks."
However as you know there have been ongoing issue(s) for a few years, (that were never fixed)
Therefore, are we ever to likely see a fix to the most common of issue(s) that the Forum presents ?

Posts: 24,477

Thanks: 10,455

Fixes: 180

TORPC,
You have been told before - the issues we see have little to do with the version of the forum software. Changing versions will involve a large number of other system integration issues.
This is an infrastructure issue. Even though this is immensely annoying for those of us who use the forums daily, beyond the possibility of a quick fix, it does not warrant more priority than resolving other main line of business issues for the vast bulk of users who never use the forums.

In another browser tab, login into the Plusnet user portal BEFORE clicking the fault & ticket links

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

If this post helped, please click the Thumbs Up and if it fixed your issue, please click the This fixed my problem green button below.

Posts: 19,107

Thanks: 457

Fixes: 21

I had the "Connection was reset" error at ~1545 when try to post. Had to click Try again, which worked.

Posts: 5,163

Quote from: Townman
TORPC,
You have been told before - the issues we see have little to do with the version of the forum software. Changing versions will involve a large number of other system integration issues.
This is an infrastructure issue. Even though this is immensely annoying for those of us who use the forums daily, beyond the possibility of a quick fix, it does not warrant more priority than resolving other main line of business issues for the vast bulk of users who never use the forums.

In that case
Why have we been going round in circles & no further forward
So basically you & others are clearly saying the software that is clearly 6 years out of date (does not play a fair part in some of the known forum issue(s) )
This is a good place to start
http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Special:RecentChanges

Posts: 26,785

Thanks: 965

Fixes: 10

There are people running the old version of SMF without problems - the difference will be that they are not behind load balancers etc.
If you want to try to push PN in to upgrading the forum software which will divert attention away from the real problem you won't have my support as it will delay the problem being fixed.
There's very good reasons why the forums should be upgraded, but Site Errors (Slow pages, slow posting, connection reset, uploads failing) is not one of them!

jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)

Posts: 5,163

Is anyone else forgetting what #Kelly stated

Quote from: Kelly
<snip>
Our original theory on this being a load balancer configuration issue has turned out to be incorrect. We've also fixed a problem meaning that when the community site code need to talk back to the community site (an XML-RPC call for example) it was mistakenly going back through the load balancers instead of talking to itself, which was causing session issues.
<snip>
Sorry for taking so long over this one. It seems that we were looking in the wrong place! (but it really did look like a load balancer config problem! )

When other things have been routed out of the equation by being tested & had to be reverted back
& issue(s) still remain
Then that clearly speaks volumes
As I have clearly & previously stated

Quote from: TORPC
I am not saying it is bee all & end all the of the cause(s) to the problematic issue(s)
What I am saying
It is a main factor, of being on an old outdated code base
Of course there are other factors to be taken into consideration
But update / upgrade to the latest code should help to some degree & wouldn't hurt for various reasons

Posts: 5,442

Thanks: 631

Fixes: 25

I think it would be more use to start a data collection thread where each person makes a single post to provide one-line answers to the same series of questions e.g.
1. Web browser name and version
2. Operating system
3. Software firewall if any
4. Router make and model
5. Broadband type and speed / quality
6. Brief description of issues encountered and frequency
So my answers would be:
1. Firefox 31 / latest
2. Linux (Fedora 20 / latest)
3. Standard Linux netfilter/iptables
4. Netgear DG834G v3
5. ADSL / 3Mb / poor quality line
6. Occasional pages failing to finish loading
May need to add some questions to cover anything I haven't thought of, and probably re-think question 6.
Kelly did PM me approx. a week ago saying they wanted to do some captures on my IP address regarding https browsing and the packets arriving from 84.93.230.178:44340, however I hopefully should not be around the forums much during office hours, and my broadband tends to drop on answering the telephone that's plugged into the same socket as the modem/router, so I'm probably not the best person to ask to help with that.
Perhaps they are incorrect about thinking the problem isn't with the load balancer. Perhaps the load balancer is completely unnecessary anyway.

Quote from: TORPC
This is a good place to start
http://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/Special:RecentChanges

What's the point of looking at the list of most recent edits to pages on the SMF wiki?

Posts: 5,163

As I said it is a good place to start
From their if anyone wishes to research any known issue(s) that were fixed then, they need a place to start

Posts: 5,442

Thanks: 631

Fixes: 25

The SMF wiki might be useful in general, the list of pages recently edited on that wiki, not so much.

Posts: 1,136

Thanks: 2

I just had a few minutes of the forums being unresponsive and index.php taking 57 seconds to serve content.
I did notice that at the time, the Site Links and Related Sites sections of the page footer were blank. (attached).

F9 member since 4 Sep 1999
F9 ADSL customer since 27 Aug 2004
DLM manages your line the same way DRM manages your rights.
Look at all the pretty graphs! (now with uptime logging!)

Posts: 31,320

Thanks: 1,589

Fixes: 565

Thought it was just me and Bob had been tinkering with my odd account configuration

Windows 10 Firefox 109.0 (64-bit)
To argue with someone who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead - Thomas Paine

Posts: 38,460

Thanks: 741

Fixes: 63

I haven't seen this one before Firefox 32

Posts: 12,616

Thanks: 579

Fixes: 20

I have - possibly FF 32?

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

Posts: 38,460

Thanks: 741

Fixes: 63

It is FF32