Author Topic: An "Other" Prisoner (Read 9565 times)

Sidewinder · « **on:** December 25, 2007, 05:43:50 AM »

Alright, who pissed off Santa Claus?

Couldn't login to the forums this morning, kept getting "Opening index.php from http://www.computerhope.com" popup with options to open or save. Finally got to CH main page and was able to login by taking the December poll! This carried me to the "other" board where I am currently trapped. Clicking the home button brings up the popup, all the other buttons work correctly; the links to the forum boards bring up the popup.

[saving space - attachment deleted by admin]

Broni · « **Reply #1 on:** December 25, 2007, 09:35:59 AM »

Quote

This carried me to the "other" board

What is the "other" board? Nasty one?

WillyW · « **Reply #2 on:** December 25, 2007, 10:34:50 AM »

Quote from: Sidewinder on December 25, 2007, 05:43:50 AM

Alright, who pissed off Santa Claus?

Couldn't login to the forums this morning, kept getting "Opening index.php from http://www.computerhope.com" popup with options to open or save. Finally got to CH main page and was able to login by taking the December poll! This carried me to the "other" board where I am currently trapped. Clicking the home button brings up the popup, all the other buttons work correctly; the links to the forum boards bring up the popup.

Slightly different experience here. I don't get the pop up at all.

However, I can get to some of the other boards, if I have the link.
http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/board,1.0.html
will take you to the Windows board, for example.

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/board,2.0.html
for the Dos board.

A quick experiment, and I found that I can get to them by changing the number in the url:
http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/board,5.0.html
goes to the Hardware board.

www.computerhope.com/forum just gets me a blank white page though.

Broni · « **Reply #3 on:** December 25, 2007, 11:32:17 AM »

Same here. And very slow.

Sidewinder · « **Reply #4 on:** December 25, 2007, 12:11:33 PM »

I also found that if I click on another poster's profile and then click "Show the last posts of this person.", I can get into any of the boards that the other poster has visited.

If I go to http://www.computerhope.com all is well, but if I click on the forum link, i get a white blank browser window.

I suspect the problem is with index.php. Shouldn't this run on the server instead of wanting to download to the user machine?

Oh well, just another fun present from St. Nick. Bah Humbug.

Broni · « **Reply #5 on:** December 25, 2007, 12:21:48 PM »

Quote

I suspect the problem is with index.php

No. http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php is normal forum address.

WillyW · « **Reply #6 on:** December 25, 2007, 12:42:11 PM »

I've got it!

It's a test!!

No more CH for everybody. CH is now only for people that are smart enough to figure out how to use it!!

I is a gene-ree-us! Are yoo wun to?

homer · « **Reply #7 on:** December 25, 2007, 05:28:16 PM »

it seems as though the forum index is down. every topic i have been to works fine if given a direct link to it.

Broni · « **Reply #8 on:** December 25, 2007, 05:42:27 PM »

Yep...

Dilbert · « **Reply #9 on:** December 25, 2007, 10:42:11 PM »

I have an identical problem; I am unable to access the main boards. Perhaps someone could drop Nathan a line via email?

dl65 · « **Reply #10 on:** December 26, 2007, 07:44:54 PM »

I sent Nathan a message.

dl65

Zylstra · « **Reply #11 on:** December 26, 2007, 08:48:51 PM »

Yes, something went completely wrong. http://www.computerhope.com/forum.htm explains it all

"Admin notice: The forums have encountered an issue that I've yet been able to identify and resolve. I've been working with the ISP who seems to believe it's an forum related issue. The forum appears to work fine as long as you don't attempt to access the main page (index.php) directly. Below is a link to each of the forum boards as a temporary solution. I'm sorry I haven't been able to answer all incoming e-mails about this issue as I've been trying to focus first on getting it resolved."

dairyman · « **Reply #12 on:** December 26, 2007, 08:57:41 PM »

Quote

Alright, who pissed off Santa Claus?

LOL

--------------

This morning, when I tried to log on to CH forums, I didn't get this error.
Instead, I got "SMF could not connect to database. This may be caused by the server being busy blah blah blah blah blah blah." I assume this is because SMF has done self maintenance?

Then again, I'm not expert at PHP or MySQL...

Computer Hope Admin · « **Reply #13 on:** December 27, 2007, 12:43:56 PM »

Thought that I'd make some type of mention on the forums. Some type of Christmas present this is. I've been working with my ISP and SMF for the last few days and neither of them or me are able to determine what's causing this issue. ISP seems to think it's a SMF issue even though nothing was changed on the forum and this just all the sudden started happening and SMF seems to think that pretty much any time out issue is caused on the ISP's side.

Really a tough issue spent 12+ hours trying various things yesterday and it appears that today may be the same.

It doesn't appear the that forums are getting overloaded so I don't think they're getting slashdotted or digged or anything. I honestly don't know what's going on other than the big cell phone bill this month.

WillyW · « **Reply #14 on:** December 27, 2007, 04:03:59 PM »

It's working now!

What did you do to un-clog things? Use the super-sized plunger on it?

dairyman · « **Reply #15 on:** December 27, 2007, 04:48:12 PM »

Quote from: Computer Hope Admin on December 27, 2007, 12:43:56 PM

Really a tough issue spent 12+ hours trying various things yesterday and it appears that today may be the same.

+12 Hours?!

I wouldn't have had the patience to fix it!

But working fine now.

street1 (RIP) · « **Reply #16 on:** December 27, 2007, 05:01:13 PM »

Great job Nathan.Sorry if it ruined your holidays.

Computer Hope Admin · « **Reply #17 on:** December 27, 2007, 05:34:08 PM »

Man alive it always seems that the hardest issues are caused by the stupidest things doesn't it. The forums are in fact back up and running after a lot of work with the webhost, who are the true hero's. After a lot of work they tracked down the cause of the issue being the calender PHP file that parses the birth dates getting stuck up on users who have their birth dates as 0-0-0.

What triggered it on the 24th right before Christmas is still a Mystery but hopefully with the fix should not happen again.

I must say I wasn't happy with Santa's gift this year.

Computer Hope Admin · « **Reply #18 on:** December 27, 2007, 05:41:17 PM »

One final note. In trying to find the cause to this issue I reset, re-uploaded, pretty much reset as much as I could without having to resort to restoring a backup and loosing posts. Sooo.. If something is abnormal or a feature that was changed it the past is missing let me know and I'll fix it again.

In addition I ran a full recount on everything so post counts, board counts, etc. may be different, but are accurate.

Finally, I'll be also be going through and deleting older members more frequently now at the suggestion of the webhost. I do this usually at least once monthly but will be a little more strict on deleting old users (year+) who will likely never be coming back.

Speaking of that *big congratulations* and thanks to everyone for their help in reaching 300,000+ forum posts.

Happy new year.

michaewlewis · « **Reply #19 on:** December 27, 2007, 06:03:21 PM »

Good job nathan! We knew you could do it.....

Zylstra · « **Reply #20 on:** December 27, 2007, 06:55:49 PM »

Great job, did you report that to SMF?
That ought to be affecting a few people.

dairyman · « **Reply #21 on:** December 27, 2007, 06:57:25 PM »

Quote from: Zylstra on December 27, 2007, 06:55:49 PM

Great job, did you report that to SMF?
That ought to be affecting a few people.

Actually, COMODO Forums use SMF and they weren't having problems.

Computer Hope Admin · « **Reply #22 on:** December 27, 2007, 08:10:25 PM »

I think the situation was unique to Computer Hope and it's users and after looking at the birthdates as I'm doing cleanups it appears that a lot of people have birthdays on or around the same time (strangely a lot of 38-year-olds too)??

Broni · « **Reply #23 on:** December 27, 2007, 08:14:35 PM »

Thank you for all your time, and getting us back to normal.

homer · « **Reply #24 on:** December 27, 2007, 09:04:59 PM »

where would CH be without the odd bug(s) plaguing it?

i still remember the ex-member bug, what a hoot that was...

Computer Hope Admin · « **Reply #25 on:** December 27, 2007, 09:22:51 PM »

Heh ugh, now I'm going to have nightmares tonight Homer. Thanks!

Zylstra · « **Reply #26 on:** December 27, 2007, 09:24:22 PM »

Quote from: homer on December 27, 2007, 09:04:59 PM

where would CH be without the odd bug(s) plaguing it?

i still remember the ex-member bug, what a hoot that was...

I remember turning into an ex-member once... that was fun.

I am more than glad to see the forums up, looking at the statistics was fun though... it seems there is an abnormally high amount of users posting today as well...

homer · « **Reply #27 on:** December 27, 2007, 10:53:58 PM »

Quote from: Computer Hope Admin on December 27, 2007, 09:22:51 PM

Heh ugh, now I'm going to have nightmares tonight Homer. Thanks!

this will chase away those nightmares.

who else got baileys for christmas?

patio · « **Reply #28 on:** December 28, 2007, 08:30:43 AM »

Nathan,
Could it be that the trigger for "listing" the BDays is set to eight or nine days prior to the actual date ? ?

Just a thought.

Computer Hope Admin · « **Reply #29 on:** December 28, 2007, 01:59:25 PM »

Patio,
I believe the calender.php file runs each night and checks for birthdays set at the amount of days set to be viewed. In the past I've had this setting at seven, which is why I think it happened on Christmas because it's seven days (assuming ran at 12am) before the 31st where all the birthdays that didn't seem to get changed properly seemed to be.

patio · « **Reply #30 on:** December 28, 2007, 03:25:28 PM »

So that means i made a good guess or i was totally off base...correct ? ?

Zylstra · « **Reply #31 on:** December 28, 2007, 04:07:14 PM »

From what I recall, the calendar was only used about... once before. (That was back when we first transformed into SMF from YaBB)
I cant help but notice it never gets used. Is it worth keeping? (This is moreover if this issue occurs again, if it becomes something common, then perhaps disabling it would be a solution)

(And I see the Search bar has been moved)

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Author Topic: An "Other" Prisoner (Read 9565 times)

Sidewinder

Broni

WillyW

Broni

Sidewinder

Broni

WillyW

homer

Broni

Dilbert

dl65

Zylstra

dairyman

Computer Hope Admin

WillyW

dairyman

street1 (RIP)

Computer Hope Admin

Computer Hope Admin

michaewlewis

Zylstra

dairyman

Computer Hope Admin

Broni

homer

Computer Hope Admin

Zylstra

homer

patio

Computer Hope Admin

patio

Zylstra