h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good to be back... six minutes before 24 comes on TV, but still good to be back.

Crashed big-time last night, I think.

There must still be some SSO problems. A few minutes ago the server recognised me in one sense (hello SEF etc) but refused to let me post a reply because it claimed I hadn't registered on a site (on which I had posted only yesterday and finally managed to post again today).

Yep, and my PS just vanished for a while...

Nephew Who tapping on many consoles
"If we are nagging about minor problems:

--The search does not work for the last half an hour.
--I had to login too, even posted before today."

"There must still be some SSO problems."

Not this time. We just had a strange spike in activity which was causing the database to run really slowly. Not sure exactly what the initial cause was yet - it might just have been a lot of people hitting the site at the same time. So pages were timing out, and database queries were timing out.

But this time it definitely wasn't SSO related.

When I logged on this morning, I was greeted as "Researcher 205946" and there was nothing in my personal space, just like a newby. I logged off, logged on again, and finally got to my personal space by way of some other website. Everything seems normal now. (At least as normal as it gets on H2G2)

RtC

The problem I had last night began as if it was the old SSO problem, that is refusal to update an entry that I had been editing, then claiming I was not logged in. An attempt to login was greeted with a technical problem page.

Why does BBCi add new sites, when it cannot get the existing site to work properly?

Old Hairy, if that happened between midnight and 1am it wasn't a "problem", it was the planned outage this thread was set up to announce!

I got caught by it too. I'd entered a long and detailed journal entry; it previewed OK, but I was seconds too late to actually submit it.

...and I just got a "Greetings, Unknown Hiker" page when I tried to post this.

Traveller in Time on his toes
"Can you pass me the GLOWNUTS please? "

I logged in this morning and everything was fine and dandy. This afternoon it has taken me ten minutes to sign in because every time I tried to I was told the page I needed had moved.

This is a fab place to hang out when it's working properly, but boy is it frustrating when techie things don't go smoothly (which is a bit too often).

I logged in this morning and everything was fine and dandy. This afternoon it has taken me ten minutes to sign in because every time I tried to I was told the page I needed had moved.

This is a fab place to hang out when it's working properly, but boy is it frustrating when techie things don't go smoothly (which is a bit too often).

(I've had to have several goes at posting this message because apparently "This service is not available."

... and as you can see, my first post WAS accepted, even though I had a message telling me it wasn't.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarh!

Here's a tip - don't edit your post after first submitting it, just try and repost - we'll spot if it's a duplicate and you'll be saved the embarrassment.

I usually hit "Back", then right-click "Click here to return to the Conversation without saying anything" and open the link in another tab to see if the post went through...

Sadly, it's indicative of the scale of the problem that I've had to develop a standard workaround...

That's how I was dealing with the same problem last weekend. Then I ran out of patience..

My "standard" workaround has been similar, except that if it failed on the URL with #p in it I knew it had been posted really.

Bossel recommended that trick a couple of years ago - I've been thankful for it on several occasions in the past. Funnily enough though, not recently, while everyone else has been having problems.

The trick I use (in Opera) is to open another window with CTRL-N and start another Personal Space. This can be reloaded again and again to see whether the post came through.

So what exactly was done last night?

I keep some 5 pages open many times, using the MP page and right-clicking and opening-a-new-window for each thread. also that way I can have any of them go back to my PS at any time.