was there a problem? - Writers Forum

Wannabee · 07-30-2007, 07:41 PM

For the last 2 weeks I couldnt view any posts, although I could see from the home page that new posts were appearing pretty regularly. Was this a software glitch or a problem on my end? I would always get the error that the site wasnt found, "please check the URL or try again later".
I got the same message when I tried to go to the contact page, so I couldnt contact anyone about it. I was able to send a message to admin the very first time it happened a couple weeks ago, but nobody every replied....Needless to say this has been pretty frustrating. May I suggest putting a contact email address on the www.writingforums.com page so at least someone can be contacted when this happens? If the link to "contact us" doesnt work its pretty useless.

Wannabee · 08-03-2007, 11:21 AM

SeanFields · 08-03-2007, 01:12 PM

I dont think the admin or mods pay attention to what is going 99% of the time. I haven't been here long and it truthfully makes me want to find new forums or start my own.

I will say this. I have had no trouble with viewing anything so it must have been something going on from your end buddy. Hope that helped!

Baron · 08-03-2007, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeanFields

I dont think the admin or mods pay attention to what is going 99% of the time. I haven't been here long and it truthfully makes me want to find new forums or start my own.

I will say this. I have had no trouble with viewing anything so it must have been something going on from your end buddy. Hope that helped!

I've experienced this problem a few times but it usually clears after about fifteen minutes and I've put it down to the server being too busy.

SeanFields · 08-03-2007, 07:04 PM

Well the forums get pretty busy and depending on your connection and computer speed plus a few other things its possible to time out during peak periods.

rcallaci · 08-03-2007, 09:18 PM

SeanFields

We pay attention to this site as best we could. Considering the size of the membership I think the Mods and mentors do an excellent job.

Before you make judgement, stick around for a while, flex those writing muscles and make magic ,,,,

my warmest
bob

harishankar · 08-03-2007, 10:53 PM

I have had the same problem on and off as well. The problem seems to be resolving the domain with the www. part and the site works fine without the www appended to the URL. Sometimes I get nothing but the home page.

I tried to contact the admin but it seems that nobody is in charge around here. Sending PMs to anybody here seems to lead to no responses.

Could a moderator or site admin please help resolve this issue?

lin · 08-04-2007, 12:14 AM

The check URL thing generally just means the site is loading so slowly that the browser times out and pops returns a Can't Find message.

This site loads REALLY slow much of the time. It's not something they can really resolve. Unless they want to switch servers or hosts. Which I doubt you'd enjoy, since it almost always means down time and weirdness.

It's a free site with very little advertising, and a really good forum. So I put up with a little slowness.

Rob · 08-04-2007, 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wannabee

For the last 2 weeks I couldnt view any posts, although I could see from the home page that new posts were appearing pretty regularly. Was this a software glitch or a problem on my end? I would always get the error that the site wasnt found, "please check the URL or try again later".
I got the same message when I tried to go to the contact page, so I couldnt contact anyone about it. I was able to send a message to admin the very first time it happened a couple weeks ago, but nobody every replied....Needless to say this has been pretty frustrating. May I suggest putting a contact email address on the www.writingforums.com page so at least someone can be contacted when this happens? If the link to "contact us" doesnt work its pretty useless.

Good suggestion, Wannabee, about the email link.

I haven't seen the kind of problem you describe. As you can see, many people have been posting during the period you mention. Doesn't seem like a general problem, then, but who knows, maybe others were affected in a similar way and we won't know unless they too now come forward (if they're still interested enough to try again).

As others have said, the site is pretty slow. I also find that pages fail to load on a fairly regular basis, which is frustrating. Sometimes you lose all the text you've typed in, and that happens a little too often at the moment for comfort. I was hoping that would change with the recent movement of the site, but it seems to still be a problem.

I do think those managing the site are doing a good job generally, and thank them all for their efforts. I hope these time-out problems or whatever they are get resolved, though. I don't know any other forum, of the ones I use, that suffers from the same problem as often as WF.

Cheers,
Rob

The Backward OX · 08-04-2007, 04:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob

Sometimes you lose all the text you've typed in, and that happens a little too often at the moment for comfort.
Cheers,
Rob

I don’t know much about anything. I’m no writer, nor am I a nerd with an IT degree. But I have learnt something, and that is about the way one’s text can be lost whilst the typist/would-be poster is only half-way finished, and what to do about it.

First suggestion may not work on all sites, second suggestion definitely will.

Hitting F5 regularly may refresh the page and stop it from timing out. You might need to know the cycle on which it times out and ‘F5’ more frequently than that. One site I visit occasionally has a (Whoops - edit - corrected time) 35-minute cycle.
This one is foolproof. Open a word-processing window, type your nonsense there, then Copy/Paste it to the forum window.

Cheers

Rob · 08-04-2007, 05:07 AM

Thanks Ox. There are work-arounds, as you say. Shouldn't be necessary though.

Cheers,
Rob

Mallignamius · 08-04-2007, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

Hitting F5 regularly may refresh the page and stop it from timing out. You might need to know the cycle on which it times out and ‘F5’ more frequently than that. One site I visit occasionally has a 37-second cycle.
This one is foolproof. Open a word-processing window, type your nonsense there, then Copy/Paste it to the forum window.

Cheers

I frequently type in NotePad, too, to avoid that.

After submitting a reply, just hitting the back button in FireFox (I don't know about IE), and the text is often still present.

I've noticed that after waiting several minutes after clicking the Submit Reply button, sometimes I'll get the time-out message. I think this leads to double posts as well because even though you might have gotten a "time out" page, the post -might- have been posted. Before trying to submit the reply yet again, I'll open up another tab and wait to load the same page to verify this.

lin · 08-04-2007, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Sometimes you lose all the text you've typed in, and that happens a little too often at the moment for comfort.

Yes, that truly sucks. If things are iffy, I usually highlight and copy my message before sending it. If there are long delays, I sometimes paste it into notepad while waiting.

Mallignamius · 08-05-2007, 08:01 PM

I noticed that there is some slowness in the page loads up to listing the Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread. Maybe disabling that would increase page load speed. Is it something we need?

Wannabee · 08-08-2007, 08:51 AM

This is not a time out issue. When the forum isnt working I get the error message instantly, and with any browser I use. I dont believe the problem is on my end. I have no problem with any other website. Since I posted this message 9 days ago I have only been able to view the responses twice. Every other time I get the error "cant find www.writingforums.com".

The lack of help (I still dont know how to contact admin when the site isnt working, and they dont answer when I do) means I'm leaving. 8 days without a single helpful reply from admin is really appalling. When/if they do reply it will be here, where I wont be able to read it 99% of the time.