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Posting Reponse "downtime" - please read
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Posting Reponse "downtime" - please read |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart 
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At Ron's request I'm posting the following question: "I've been posting responses in other poets' posts...and while they are counted in the reply section as "being there" they are not showing up. Is there a glitch? This has happened the last two days." Anyone else having this problem? < !signature--> Sunshine Look, then, into thine heart, and write ~~~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [This message has been edited by Sunshine (edited 05-23-2000).] |
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Poet deVine
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-26
Posts 22612Hurricane Alley |
I've noticed the forums are very slow lately, so I thought Ron was doing some work to the software in the back room...haven't had this problem....  (Hi Moderator-newbie) |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Ron wants to see if anyone else is having a similar problem and that's why the post, PDV...by the way, you should SEE the grin on this face! |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Yes, I too have had this happen the past couple of days.....refreshing the page and exiting and re-entering did not resolve the problem....so I've just been dealing with it.  Denise |
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MagnoliaBlue Member
since 2000-05-12
Posts 367 |
Yes, me too. Also refresh doesn't cure it. Also having problems with search. You click on someone to search for their poems and sometimes you only get a list that shows four poems...when the person has posted many more than that. Anyone else having this problem w/search ? MBlue |
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PhaerieChild Senior Member
since 1999-08-30
Posts 1787Aloha, Oregon |
I also have the same problems. I've noticed that it takes about 15 minutes at times to see a posted reply. Search has been giving me fits as well but not as badly as reply posting. Poetry~ Words falling on paper, painting a dream. Shawna R. Holder Boise, Idaho |
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Nan
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-20
Posts 21191Cape Cod Massachusetts USA |
I haven't had the problem... but I see the grin....  |
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Marge Tindal 
since 1999-11-06
Posts 42384Florida's Foreverly Shores |
Well, Ron will be smiling BIG TIME to know that I haven't been having this problem.  My only CONSTANT problem is in Editing a post for a 'boo-boo' ... the Edit feature clicks me through just fine and I make my correction and SUBMIT ... it sits there and percolates, but as ALWAYS it disconnects me from the server and throws my connection to my internet service provider out. When I get connected again ... my 'correction' is usually there. It's always been this way ... and I can't figure it out ... must be more to it than 'pilot error' ... but darned if I know what. Other than that ... I'm a happy poet ! ~*Marge*~ |
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Marina Member Elite
since 2000-02-10
Posts 2245Pickering, Ontario |
Yes, I have experienced the same problem and I too have found the forums to be exstremely slow. Particulary Open 7. |
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WhtDove Member Rara Avis
since 1999-07-22
Posts 9245Illinois |
Marge you're just gonna have to quit making mistakes then eh? Can't say I've had that problem with not seeing the reply. But it has been as slow as a snail with lead boots on. (As Tori would say)  |
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Severn Member Rara Avis
since 1999-07-17
Posts 7704 |
Yep...me too..grrrrrr...I am NOT a patient person so I finally got off my butt and d/led netscape...so now I have two servers to stress over - thanks for the motivation slowpoke Passions! K |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Just updating, Ron, to let you know I am still having this problem... |
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LoveBug
Moderator
Member Elite
since 2000-01-08
Posts 4697 |
I haven't been having this particular problem, but I do have a problem with my computer screen freezing several times within a manner of minutes when I visit Passions. This has been going on since I've been here, though, so maybe I just have a screwy computer... "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -Oscar Wilde |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Ron, I'm still having this problem. I am hitting "refresh" and it just won't bring up my responses. I am refraining from backing up and hitting submit a second time...but it's really doing a trick with my brain "did I do it? Did I hit submit? Am I losing it?" [Well, the answer to the third one is ... probably...] Sunshine Look, then, into thine heart, and write ~~~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
The issue of replies not appearing could be caused by two different things, which is why I asked Sunshine to post her question here. When you post a message and then see the "We're forwarding you to…" message after hitting the submit button, our server is still hard at work processing your request. Theoretically, she has a minimum of 3 seconds to finish everything before you actually see a new page (and 3 seconds is a LONG time to a computer). Nonetheless, I thought it just marginally possible this was Sunshine's problem, because if Ceres wasn't able to completely process the post before the "forward" happened, you might get the old HTML page before the new one had a chance to be generated. If this was the cause of the problem, I knew I could fix it. But, I'm afraid if this was the cause of the problem, it would be happening to a very large percentage of our Members and not just a relative few of you. After Sunshine reported the problem, I threw in a few lines of code to log the amount of time it took Ceres to process a post - and we ain't no where near that 3 second window yet. That means the problem is likely caused by the second thing I mentioned - caching. Caching is simply geek talk for saving something you suspect you'll use again later. When you visit a web page on the Internet, there is a statistically excellent chance you will visit that same exact web page in the near future. Knowing this, your browser saves a copy of the page on your local hard disk and, when it detects you returning to the page, it gives you the local copy instead of asking a web server for the remote copy. Since your hard disk is substantially faster than even the fastest modem line, it makes a lot of sense. In fact, were it not for local caching - if every single web page had to be sent across the wires every single time it were requested - the Internet would quickly bog down and become unusable. So caching is a "good thing." Unfortunately for us, the forums are a dynamic environment, where caching can quickly turn into a bad thing when everyone involved doesn't follow the rules. Rules? You mean there are rules to this sort of thing? Hey, I'm glad you asked! Rule #1 - if the web page you visit ends in certain extensions, it should never be cached. In our case, that extension is .cgi and that's why when you visit the main page or a forum index page (all of which are cgi programs), you should see the reply count going up or the post you just replied to being moved to the top of the page. All Internet processes recognize that cgi pages are dynamic and shouldn't be cached, so you should always see the freshest view. Unfortunately, that's not true of .html pages, which are where we store the actual posts. Rule #2 - if you look at the source for one of our html files, very near the top you'll see a line that says META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache". This is our server's way of telling the rest of the Internet world that this page SHOULD NOT BE CACHED. It's a warning that the content is dynamic and will change. Sadly, this is the "rule" that not everyone seems to be following. Ceres warns them, but is ignored, and you see a cached web page instead of the one sitting on our server. We do, fortunately, have some control over what our browser does. It's slightly different for every one of the many browsers, but I'll give you some clues. In Netscape 4.61, for example, you go to the menu and select Edit and then Preferences. In the little popup window, click on the "+" sign next to "Advanced" and when it opens its hierarchy list, click on "Cache." The right hand side of the popup will change and you'll see an option telling Netscape when it should compare the network document with the cached document. The options are "once per session," "every time," or "never." You want to select "every time." In Internet Explorer 4.0, from the menu, you go to "View" and then "Internet Options." You'll see tabs at the top of the popup window and you should click on the "General" tab (unless you're already there). In the section where it says "Temporary Internet Files" click on the "Settings" button. You will again see the same three options (worded a bit differently), and you want to select "Every visit to the page" as your setting. In some browsers, after you click the OK button, you'll still have to close and then reopen your browser for the new setting to become active. These setting effectively turn off caching in your browser. The down-side is it turns it off across the entire Internet, and not just our forums. Depending on the type of web sites you typically visit, you many have just substantially slowed down your Internet experience. The up-side, of course, is that you should now see dynamic pages refreshed, uh, dynamically. Before we leave the topic of browsers, I want to mention one more thing. Many of you have mentioned clicking the "Reload" button in Netscape or the "Refresh" button in IE. Clicking these buttons, alone, does nothing more than reload the page out of your local cache. I suspect that's why many of you are finding them less than useful. To force Netscape to ask our server for a fresh copy of a page, you should hold down the SHIFT key while you click on the "Reload" button. To force Internet Explorer to ask for a fresh copy of a page, you need to hold down the CTRL key while clicking on the "Refresh" button (and please don't ask our browsers for something so simple as consistency). I've listed those steps separately because they're important for our next discussion into the wonderful world of the Internet. If you are on a page you know is wrong (probably because you just posted a reply and it ain't there), and you cannot force the browser to reload it using one of the procedure above, then your caching problem is probably not being caused by your browser. Er, you mean someone else might be caching the page, Ron? Yep. No one has a direct connection between their computer and our server, but rather is being routed through their ISP's computer (probably several of them, but let's keep it simple). When you request a page from Ceres, your request goes from your browser, to your ISP, and only then goes to Ceres. Some ISP's have come up with this great idea to intercept your requests and automatically simplify your life by - you guessed it - giving you back a cached copy of the page you just requested. Two ISP's that are infamous for this are AOL and Mindspring, but many others are following suit. Why? Because it saves them money. In spite of rumors to the contrary, the Internet isn't really free. Bandwidth, those pipes we're all using to send our bits and bytes around the world, costs money. And many of the larger ISP's are realizing that disk space for caching is cheaper than bandwidth. So when you go to a web page they consider static, they save the page on their server (it's going through their computer any way, right?) and, when you go there again, give you that copy instead of asking Ceres for a fresh copy. AOL actually does a pretty darn good job. With over 20 million users, they've had a lot of experience and, over the years, have fine-tuned their caching to work fairly well. Many of the new-comers, however, have been far less successful. The bad news, unfortunately, is really bad. You have absolutely no control over the process. There are no settings in your browser, no short-cut keys to load fresh pages, no digital tricks to convince your ISP to again ask Ceres for a fresh page. The only choice you have is to wait. Because disk space is still limited, most ISP's cache visited pages only for a short time. When their cache times out, you will again have access to the "real" pages on Ceres. Your other alternative, of course, is to find a new ISP - one that doesn't cache. |
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Marge Tindal
since 1999-11-06
Posts 42384Florida's Foreverly Shores |
Hi Ron~ Just to let you and others know, on Internet Explorer 5.0 browsers - the Internet Options selecton is located under the TOOLS menu. Thank you so much for all of the information you share with us. ~*Marge*~ ~*The pen of the poet never runs out of ink, as long as we breathe.*~ noles1@totcon.com |
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Nan
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-20
Posts 21191Cape Cod Massachusetts USA |
Googols of thanks...  You just answered some of my site-building questions.... Like why things don't refresh when I tell them to... Have I told you today that you're awesome? |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Hey awesome Ron...I've re-read your post about what I could do but I am still having problems seeing a reply I've sent... yes, Ceres shows that it is there in number and by date/time, but no actual response is attached to the thread... sometimes it pops up after somebody else replies... but as I stated somewhere else before, sometimes my replies are lost altogether. [Banging head on keyboard...] Have a wonderful weekend... Karilea Sunshine ~~~Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. Helen Keller ~~~ |
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