What happened?

Cassandro said:

I suggest we use that one, because it has a clearer title

...Awww, I really like this Thread, but this is a good suggestion, for the "Summer2018-Error503"-Thing, so, I guess I am going to try that now, then, then... (Thanks for the link, Cass-The-Man...)

My withdrawal symptoms are now mild because I'm back at work and that's keeping me busy. And away from these forums.

Thanks for the explanation. The way I understand it, the orange 'You have gone offline. Trying to reconnect...') pop-up might show up for several reasons, such as if my own internet connection has gone down, or I have a poor wireless connection.

(There's a script on the page that seems to check the state of the replies, notifications and connections every 20 seconds, and if it doesn't get a response within about two seconds the box appears, so it is quite sensitive to even a small network disruption. I also sometimes see an orange 'An error occurred' when trying to do a function like upvote or reply and the server is down.)

However, what I was saying was that the orange 'You have gone offline' pop-up also shows up if you are logged in, composing a reply, and the server goes down. If that happens, I open another browser tab to check if the forum is still up or giving the '503' error - if it's the error, I know it's not my connection. So actually the orange pop-up (produced when the script running in the browser can't connect) is quite useful to indicate something's gone wrong at either the host end or my end. If I've written a lot of text, I can copy-and-paste it somewhere else until the forum is up again.

It was giving the same 503 error until about 10am this morning. California's started a new thread on this here:

https://community.autism.org.uk/f/miscellaneous-and-chat/12772/why-are-the-forums-so-often-offline

and I suggest we use that one, because it has a clearer title and this thread seems to include a different technical problem (related to the Domain Name System [DNS]) back at the beginning of 2018.

I'm still wondering what Robert's 'withdrawal symptoms' were. 

We're very aware of these issues, and that there have been serious periods of unavailability over the weekend just past. We are working with our suppliers on this, but various companies are involved, and not only the one that you mentioned.

I see the orange pop-up quite often. Owing to the nature of the way that this system works, it tries to maintain a connection with your browser. That sometimes fails, and an orange warning appears for a few seconds. It is not, as far as I am aware, related to this issue, or even necessarily a fault. However, please do report it here if your experience is different and you're seeing that warning in connection with the 503 error that we have been discussing.

Seems to be 'flapping' a lot at the moment. I would say more down than up since 7pm last night (Fri 29 Jun). I think the forum's come back, go to answer a post and it's gone again (I see a little orange pop-up).

Are the suppliers Sys-Pro/Sysgroup? (first time I noticed it happen over a whole weekend, I emailed them myself, to no avail).

Thank You for writing this, Mr. Webster. At times, when this happens (it was Error 503 again), I think it to be my own old devices, and so I, at least, appreciate such things being admitted.

(Missing Posts, still... やれやれ...)

I am sorry for the further interruptions since the original messages in this thread. We are actively investigating with our suppliers why the forum has gone down several times in the last couple of weeks. As soon as we understand the cause and are able to do so, we will put a fix in place.

Regards

) ( said:

Just checked,,nothing new,,thank you. Glad you now have them.

I am sorry to read this.

The e-mail notifications is the only way how I can follow here the new posts. Without the e-mail notifications I would not be able to follow the new posts here.

So, the e-mail notification are crucial to me.

Um...Greetings, to you both. As you may have seen, I just signed on, and was about to join California in replying, but then you both found this out on your own...

I can send but cannot recieve. I was going to say that this is best done upon the "E-Mail/ Notifications" Thread, but, well, this is here, now... and still nothing doing for either of you? It would be nice if WebPM said something again.

I suppose I just posted to say "Best Wishes", or something...

:-/    ...?  

Just checked,,nothing new,,thank you. Glad you now have them. 

) ( said:

I thought it to good to be true,,begs the question why I got two when WebPM said it must be my provider not the NAS, surely my provider would block those two as well?

I received an e-mail notification for your post on Tue 12/06/2018 22:21.

No new email notifications at all!

thank you California for replying, alas my hopes are not realised after all.

I thought it to good to be true,,begs the question why I got two when WebPM said it must be my provider not the NAS, surely my provider would block those two as well?

take care ,

) ( said:

I shall request email notification of this to find out if it now works.

I am now replying to this so you can find out if it now works.

Hi DC I also saw 

the error 503 screen, while  it was down I received “two email notifications”?

I haven’t had any for months now despite continually asking why.

niether had anything to do with the shut down, one was a random part of a PM conversation and the second a response on a post I had clicked on for notifications, also now none of the posts I requested notifications on are responding now.

I only go off topic as I am wondering was the shut down unplanned or was it to change or maintain this site?

in which case my ramblings may be relevant?

I shall request email notification of this to find out if it now works.

take care and so glad it is back up and running. 

X()x

Greetings to all who may read. Believe it or not, this is the Thread for asking about "What Happened?" whenever the entire NAS Forum "goes down"... (!)

Thank You NAS for stating that upon the Homepage, and Thanks California and Cassandro for mentioning it upon the "CopyBot" Thread... but for others talking about it, I would think it to be my own (old) devices again.

NAS says:

We are sorry for the service interruption on the weekend of 10 June.

...I saw a page saying: "Error 503. Service unavailable." (It makes a change from the Errors 401 to 404 that I usually get....(...)

NAS, if you may, please leave that message up for a good couple of days, since a lot of people do not check this Forum daily. Good Fortune to All in anycase.

Regarding the site being down last week, what I hope is a final post, and apologies again for the problems. As I mentioned, we were expecting that different forum users would regain access at different times. That should have happened mostly by Saturday, so I've been watching for posts here from people who still had problems.

If you're still finding, for example, that since last Thursday you can access on a desktop but not via your mobile (or the other way around for that matter), please do post to say so, as that would help us to assess any remaining impact.

Unfortunately, however, it is still beyond our control to fix the issue for individuals. It was, as I said previously, a wider issue that affected our services, rather than a problem in our services as such. What's more, the way that the Internet works in this area is that the fix is made available, but we have to wait for your various service providers and so on to take it up and make it available to you. That's something that their systems are designed to do automatically, but they will do it at different times. For those who are interested in these things, there was a DNS issue affecting autism.org.uk and (we assume) domains belonging to an unknown number of other organisations. The fix was applied on Thursday, but then had to propagate.

We are aware of the spam issues, but those are outside the main topic of this thread. For that reason, and to make it easier for others to find the thread, we'll make any comment on the main thread on the topic.

Regards

Greetings again... and... apologies again! The "Spam" is gone, finally, and so I Log In... but I was reading, and then switched off, like some others, and now, at past One AM, I am here again...

...but past One in the Morning is too late for me, right now, and so after this, I must sign off again! I Post to THANK YOU to the "Moderators" who solved the SPAM. This is my preferred Thread for such matters just now. I may write more upon the 'morrow, yet it is late for me, just now. And in closing, I know not much else to say just now, apart from the fact that it has been... interesting (!)...

...I had to leave because upon a Touchscreen, it is hard to AVOID such an 'onslaught' in order to 'scroll down'. And, yes, I was also "scared", yet for myself, that links to the feelings of irritation + anger + "...typical, really..."...

Sorry, this is quite long. But, as I say, I must sign off now, due to the time. Thanks again to the "Moderators". (But Posts are STILL disappearing at random). おやすみなさいな.

California said:

What is the name of the company?

I cannot get the name of the company from them.

and:

Sales outsourcing is a way for companies to attract increased, high volumes of sales for their products or services by using a third party. The company typically uses outsourcing companies to improve sales volumes without links to the sales teams that carry out those campaigns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_outsourcing

I, actually, like this platform.

I like that I can subscribe to all the forums I want and receive an e-mail for every post and the post in included in the e-mail. I can quickly read it.

Do not worry.

I have not clicked on any of the links.