Outages - 02-11-2016

Apparently the data center when my server resides is having some network issues causing intermittent outages. Hopefully they can resolve this problem quickly.

Seen that, back to normal now.

Been getting intermittent MySQL errors that seem to come in waves but only last for about a minute. So some people might be experiencing that problem. I've been on the site all day and haven't seen any such problems, but I noticed that the active members dropped down substantially suddenly, and have been getting email notifications of those MySQL dropouts. I have the server people working on it, so odd things may happen while they are checking out the server.

Clear cache and hard refresh got me back in... some blocked network stuff, refusing connection. I was on my phone so could not save you any network errors. I also seen not able to store cookies, PHP errors and myself stuff.

Sorry, but no, just coincidental. The server was experiencing problems. After not getting anywhere with my server people, I rebooted the server around 12:05am on 02-25-2016 and that apparently brought the site back up.

The weird thing is that it was ONLY this site having problems on the server, none of my other sites. And the error message was pointing to a problem with the chat system code, possibly the port it uses being blocked or inactive. Since no one is using the chat here for quite a while, I will probably eventually have the code for it removed anyway.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Since no one is using the chat here for quite a while, I will probably eventually have the code for it removed anyway.

Hasn't it been disabled for at least the past 6+ months? It's been at least that long since I've been able to enter the chat room at all.

Originally Posted by Fangthane

Hasn't it been disabled for at least the past 6+ months? It's been at least that long since I've been able to enter the chat room at all.

Not intentionally on my part. I'll look into it. Has ANYONE been able to use the chat at all recently?

A couple of us were using it fairly regularly when it just stopped working one day. I'd assumed that you disabled it to close up some possible security hole or something.

If need be I have a couple screen shots from last night showing the error messages that I can post. Glad you figured it out though.

Originally Posted by Fangthane

A couple of us were using it fairly regularly when it just stopped working one day. I'd assumed that you disabled it to close up some possible security hole or something.

Well, I can't remember exactly, but I believe I looked into this a while back. I just looked into it again with mixed results.

Here's the error message I get when I try to log into the chat system:

Could not connect to www.faunaclassifieds.com:8080.

Possible reasons include:

- The chat server system at www.faunaclassifieds.com is temporarily unavailable.

- Your computer is behind a firewall or proxy server. Please ensure that your firewall permits outgoing TCP connections to www.faunaclassifieds.com on port 8080.

I had the server tech people verify that port 8080 was open.

The chat server appears to be working on the server

I am not using a proxy, I have temporarily disabled any firewall restrictions or blocks.

I tried four different browsers (IE, FireFox, Google Chrome, and Maxthon) on my desktop running Windows Vista. None of them will work the chat system. Some give me the following error message:

Faunaclassifieds Chat Client requires a Java Compatible web browser to run! Please use new and compatible a browser to join our chat room..

I tried three different browsers (IE, FireFox, Maxthon) on my laptop running Win 7. Maxthon will open the chat system, but the other two will not.

So it appears that the server side HAS to be working if even one of the browsers on one of my PCs can access the chat system.

So where does the problem lie? Even if I figure out the voodoo chant necessary to be able to get the chat system to work on all browsers on all systems (not even addressing the issue of mobile devices), do I really want to spend the time writing up a document of all the steps necessary for everyone to be able to get chat to work on their own devices?

Perhaps the problem really is the chat system itself, since the code is quite old, and the developer has left the building. But is it really worth it to me to spend the money to buy another package and pay my programmer to install it?

Is it something that would actually be a draw to anyone here? Chat systems were pre-texting age bells and whistles on websites. Perhaps they are as desirable and useful now to people as slide rules are.

Unless someone can prove me wrong, it appears to me that to prevent problems that the chat system apparently can cause with anyone being able to access the site if it chokes up on something, the best solution would be to just remove the code completely and be done with it.

I will run the two options (find out why the chat system doesn't work reliably, or remove it) by my programmer for his advice. I believe he once told me a while back that I was the only one he knew of that still even had chat systems on their forum sites. So maybe that means something...