Hmmm, I know you're testing, but...

[Jorden]

Argen, couldn't you then just put the maintenance screen online? I've tried earlier to get on the MURC, only to find download times of between 368 and 495 seconds and then I'd only see the add-banner on top and maybe MURC Forums on screen.

Or was this another fluke of a server?

Jord.

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This cat, is cat, a cat, very cat, good cat, way cat, to cat, keep cat, a cat, fool cat, like cat, you cat, busy cat! Now read the previous sentence without the word cat...

[FaRaN]

Experienced it too, thought it was my crappy ISDN at work...

I'm a spoiled cable user....

[Guru]

Me to! And we also have a new anoying lycos popup banner!

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Join the MURC SETI team! | SETI @ MURC

All extremists should be taken out and shot.

[Sisyfos]

WebWasher.....
ALL YOUR ADDS ARE BELONG TO US!!!

[Ant]

Nothing being done on the redesign is affecting these servers. All of the design work is being done elsewhere.

As I've said repeatedly there are no problems with these servers, the problem lies with the ad server, I've complained and tried to get something done, but as I always say, I have no direct control over the ad servers.

[dZeus]

That's odd, because webwasher should make the ads server not holding up the display of the actual pages on MURC... where I get small delays with the loading of the forum without webwasher, those delays completely went away as soon as I use webwasher. However, this morning local time the forums were really messed up in loading time, often unreachable

[Ant]

Apart from the problems with the ad server which is something seperate and is being dealt with there have been no problems with, the forum or www servers. Remember that not all problems accessing sites are due to the server you are trying to access more often than not it's down to something either at your ISP or en route to the server. My access to the forums (and many other sites) from work shows quite regualarly that the forums appear to be screwed but is actually down to totaly hapless cache servers. I also found that when we switched servers people started reporting the forum server was down or not loading properly when I knew it was, this turned out to be problems with the hosts file on their PCs, and don't get me started on all the supposed problems that are actually down to Netscape 4x!

I check the sites constantly through the day so when there is a problem with the servers I know about it, and then so does GA

By the way shouldn't a certain person who started this thread have known it doesn't belong in this forum but in Site Feedback

[This message has been edited by Ant (edited 31 January 2001).]

[Jorden]

Oh yes, that certain person knew that, but started it here, since this is the place to start a rant
What kept you from moving it, though?

But onto what you said, Ant. If neither Mozilla (latest nightly build at that moment), nor IE5 can load the MURC, but for the ad-banner, you say it's the ad-server that's having a problem?

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">this turned out to be problems with the hosts file on their PCs</font>

My WinME LMHosts.sam file is empty. My LMHosts file is non-existent. I don't have a Services file, for I don't use a proxy and am not attached to a WinNT network at home.
(And when I have problems with getting onto the MURC from work, it should be down to some English ISP, since our AT&T landline connects to the English internet (London Sony HQ). But then I write a Remedy file for the ISSE Helpdesk, so they can look at it)

The 'problems' I had yesterday were purely with the forums. Not with any ohter site on the internet, which includes www.murc.ws ...

Ah, what the heck. I'll start a thread after the next time I had problems, in the right place, okay?

Jord out.

[Ant]

I said exactly that, the problems with the murc or forums loading slowly is DOWN TO THE AD SERVER. It is a known problem, the problem is being worked on by GA. Why is the ad server causing problems? Well it's simple the ad code is a script that queries the ad server and asks what it should load as an ad, it is not a simple matter of loading an image off the server using IMG tags. If the ad server is running slow or is down then your browser hangs around waiting for a response from the ad server, hence the page does not load until your browser finally decides that the ad server is not going to respond. If you don't believe me then the next time you experience a problem simply do a ping or traceroute to the server and see what results you get, if it really is the server then you'll get an horrendous response time. My normal ping to the server is 140ms.

It's all quite simple and straight forward to me I don't know why some people have a problem believing it

[agallag]

I think the reason people have a hard time believing it is because the loading often hangs right after the ad finishes loading. You get the page title, the Murc logo, and both top and bottom banners loaded, but the content doesn't come in for more than a minute after that. I don't see how this sort of thing can be a fault with the ad server.

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Andrew
Carpe Cerevisi

[Liquid Snake]

Actually, what I see, is that usually the whole page loads before the ads finish loading. So there are just blank spaces where the ads are and eventually I get the box with the red x there.

[Ant]

OK you all caught me out I admit it I'm lying my ****ing eyes out. In future I won't bother responding to tell you all what the problem is.

[Sisyfos]

At work (no WebWasher) it's dog slow.
At home (with WebWasher ) it's fast.
Also, if I try it without WebWasher at home it's slow. So, at least for me, it seems it's the add servers playing up.

[dZeus]

I KNOW about the ad server being slow and stuff.... but as other have pointed out, since I've been using webwasher, the ad server wasn't delaying my load time any more.... that morning, it was one of the VERY FEW times I got VERY long loading times, often time outs.

Edit: ok, sorry, I don't really care what's causing the forums not being accessible for either me and Jorden that morning... let's just hope it will not happen again.

[This message has been edited by dZeus (edited 01 February 2001).]

[Ant]

And as I have pointed out just because you are having problems with a site doesn't necessarily mean it is the site that is at fault. I have explained things several times now.