Changing the font color to black (or at least a darker gray) is my main wish. But I don't want to sound ungrateful -- it was so nice of you to build this playground for us!
He said everything. Also, can you do that status-thingy? Like, forum Thor, skald, Grade-A Blessed Feline...You can see above my avatar, there's a thing that says "Oh, look, a custom title!" I put that up there to show everybody that there's a location you can edit in your profile settings. You can give yourself a little title or status or something; it's purely nominal, and doesn't really affect anything, but it is fun. You can also add things like pictures or short bits of text in your signature, if you feel like it. Try playing around with the profile settings for a bit, and see what you can come up with.
Hi, Nimphy. If the "He" in "He said it all" = me, I'm actually female. :D
In the real world, I get that a lot too because I have a masculine first name. Even when I use its more feminine-sounding nickname, people mispronounce it. At Starbucks, I just tell them "Ann."
I've already noticed a slight lag with posts updating, the default font color is a light gray that's kind of hard to read, and the avatar sizes are limited to be kind of small, so I'll be looking into those things for the next few days.Posts, and the markup signaling new stuff (or lack thereof) in (sub)fora ...
If any of you find anything annoying of problematic, just tell me about it here and I'll see what I can do.
Posts, and the markup signaling new stuff (or lack thereof) in (sub)fora ...If you're taking about the update lag after making a post, I think that's just something with the host I'm using. I'm using a free host at the moment, but if the something unusual happens to the site, I plan on upgrading my account so we can get better speeds. I've just been refreshing a lot, and that overcomes the lag problem for the time being.
I don't see image formats, size, or filesize limits for the avatars posted anywhere. (I started with a 200x200 PNG and quickly scaled that down to 100x100 when it came out much larger than other avatars. Which still seems to be noticeably larger than what Disqus displays on the Minnasite.)
(Edited after getting bitten right now) Got auto-logged-out while typing this, had to copy-paste into a new reply form, as hitting "post" in the old browser tab didn't work anymore. I take it that the "after 60 minutes" autologout doesn't refer to idle minutes ... ?
I feel like the forum looks a bit bland. How about a picture in top, some kind of banner?I do plan on getting someone to help me out with redesigning the site. I chose this pre-made theme because it had a good ui and a neutral enough palette to start working with. I'll have to see whether or not I can share or give admin rights to someone so they can help out with making the place pretty.
If Minna allows it, I can see plenty material from the comic - even in the very first page, one of those scenery shots would fit perfectly up there, I think?
Is there any way to fine-tune the "duplicate post" detection? I decided to start a series of threads, one for each main character, for discussion of character development. For consistency I decided to use a cut-and-paste on each O.P.s, modified to fit each person. The forum refuses, claiming I am double-posting!That's unchangeable, unfortunately. Even if I could change up stuff like that, I don't have the kind of programming knowledge to do so. I think the best option is the one you suggested, editing the posts is probably the best way to go about getting around that. Though I'm not sure a separate thread for each character is necessary. It's more convenient for conversation's sake, but the threads will most likely end up scattered around on different pages of the board.
For now I will go ahead but with more significantly changed text, and see if I can edit it later.
I don't know if this is relevant, as it seems to be gone, but yesterday I tried to post a reply and the page redirected me to the 'create a new topic' option without displaying my comment. This happened three times, actually. I didn't have any problems this morning, but I thought I'd report it nevertheless.That's happened to me on SMF in the past. Not sure why it happens, I just back up and try again, usually. :\
I've found a few oddities. When I've replied to a topic (using quick reply), the site redirects me out of the thread to the sub-topic thing (not the main page, but the ones like the SSSS Board etc.). Also, I tried logging in while viewing a thread, and it redirected me to a completely different thread after logging me in. And of course, actually showing the comment posted took a while, but that's been mentioned.Aright, so we're getting lots of SMF issues. I'll search around the SMF site and look for some modifications that might be able to patch the issues y'all are having.
I have had quite lot of problems when modifying my posts. I get a message that I have already saved the post.FWIW, I'm under the impression that that's connected to the "delayed content update" symptom. The one time I had that error message, I had a second look at the post I wanted to edit and saw that it was missing the previous edit I had saved. Shift-reload fixed that, and the second attempt at the second edit sailed right through.
Yes, I think that is at least part of the problem. Yesterday I deleted a post, went back to the home page, looked into the thread again and my post was still there. So I tried to delete it again (thought I had clicked on somethinkg wrong) and received an error message.
When I reloaded the thread, I saw that my first attempt to delete it had already been successful, but I couldn't see that without reloading.
Thanks for the fix Eich!Yep!
"Richard Weir" here, posting using a new user account - because I forgot my password and can't reset it. The forum "reset password" email fails to be sent, or can't get to me. I have checked all my various spam folders etc.
Eich, it might be a good idea to check this out - good luck! (My suspicion is that the relevant blank email document is missing a mail-merge field or two.)
Alright, so two people haven't gotten change password emails. I'll look into it after I get the site backed up in a few minutes. I sent you a pm with a change of password, so go ahead and check your messages.
Let's hope the change of password hasn't invalidated her cookie, in which case she won't be able to check! :o
Something very weird is happening with these spam bots.
I looked at their IPs and hostnames, and their IPs were all the same as mine, and their hostnames were all from the forum's host. Not only that, but when I was cross checking everyone's accounts to make sure it was okay to ban them without affecting anyone, about 95% of you all had the same thing going on... I've just deleted the bot accounts because I don't want to banlist an IP address that might belong to a real member.
This weirdness and the bots are definitely connected. My hunch is that it either has something to do with my backing up the site yesterday, or Minna's posting a link on her site. Most likely the backup thing. If anyone can help, or has any general knowledge on this kind of thing, it'd be appreciated.
I have no idea how to help you in this. Sorry. Could we have some sort of spambot-filter, like email confirmation or writing numbers/letters like in some registeration sites?
Something very weird is happening with these spam bots.According to Netcraft (http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://ssssforum.pcriot.com), there's a HTTP accelerator (a.k.a. reverse proxy) sitting in front of the actual server (Apache running on a Linux host?). That'ld mean that the Apache sees the requests coming from the IP of that proxy, with the IP of the actual client stashed into an X-Forwarded-For HTTP header - which SMF likely isn't equipped out of the box to expect, if it knows to deal with that in the first place.
I looked at their IPs and hostnames, and their IPs were all the same as mine, and their hostnames were all from the forum's host. Not only that, but when I was cross checking everyone's accounts to make sure it was okay to ban them without affecting anyone, about 95% of you all had the same thing going on...
http://wiki.apache.org/httpd/FAQ#Why_the_name_.22Apache.22.3F ;)That's what I'm worried about. I can't very well ban an IP or hostname used by a troll or bot when it's the same IP and hostname for everybody else.
If neither you (as part of some SMF add-on you installed?) nor X10HOSTING (nor whoever acts as a go-between between the two of you) installed that reverse proxy, back when the client IPs changed from diverse to "everyone looks the same", I'ld suspect some kind of hostile intrusion ...
That's what I'm worried about. I can't very well ban an IP or hostname used by a troll or bot when it's the same IP and hostname for everybody else.
Can you suspend it, though? You could try for a day or so of suspension, and see if it affects the rest of us. Otherwise a captcha seems a pretty logical and easy solution to me.It's my IP now, too. That's the big problem. I don't want to risk nullifying the site entirely by locking myself out.
I just posted, and the forum reports "my" IP as being 198.91.81.5, which is the server's IP and definitely not the one my connections go out onto the Internet with (says the local net admin). There must be something like the mentioned reverse proxy shielding the SMF software from the incoming requests.
OK, the "You have tried to post this before" problem is a bug!
I wonder if I am getting the wrong error message, and instead it should be telling me I have tried to post too soon after the first post? That is a sensible anti-spam option!
OK, the "You have tried to post this before" problem is a bug!I think that's connected to the slowness of the site. You know how you have to refresh to see any posts or changes? I think it's just assuming that you're still in the process of posting a thread. I'll ask the SMF pros about it, just in case though.
I posted a new thread for us to map out Sigrun's character development. I then tried to post one for Mikkel but with new text, new title etc - and got the error message. I then tried to post a new thread starting with complete gibberish and still got the error message!
Basically, this feature seems extremely bugged.
EDIT: Posting here seems to have cleared the jam. Still, it's a nuisance.
I wonder if I am getting the wrong error message, and instead it should be telling me I have tried to post too soon after the first post? That is a sensible anti-spam option!
Yup, I've been having the same problems- I'll click on a link, page turns white and says it's not connected to the server. Refreshing the page needs to done a few times, and then you get plain text, and anything you've written is deleted. Other times when this happens I just press Back, which is ok, it doesn't delete stuff, but you can't click anything :/I also had the same problems earlier today- but they don't seem to be happening that often as of now.
Usually when the weird thing happens it tells me I'm logged out, but when I click another link or go back a page, I'm logged in again? Heh, even when I log in "forever" I have to log in every couple of minutes or pages :P
The forum has been loading strangely today; before the 25th October I've not had any issue with it in any way, but starting this morning, some time after I read a post where Origami Owl mentioned needing to try 6 times to post something, there's been occurrences where the page doesn't load and there's an error instead. I can't remember what the error page said, but the site has also loaded once or twice with plain text only. Will keep an eye out if it happens again.
Domain document root not found.
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator at no-reply@x10hosting.com to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Hey, I'm having trouble getting into my account on the Fan-forum. I forgot my password and the password reset doesn't seem to be sending me the email I need to get in. Can anyone from the forum help? Apologies to the rest.
Potatobunny's last post reminded me -- I got the Internal Server Error message once or twice yesterday. Not this evening, though.
I just noticed that when I keep hitting "reload" in the browser, the "News" in the top right corner will switch back and forth, every couple reloads, between the "Link to the Comic" and the "Hey, Everyone!". IIUC it should be the latter, and naught but that one? If so, there's definitely something amiss proxy/cache-wise, rather than on the server running the forum itself ...I intended for there to be two news posts at once, but they liked to switch back and forth. We already decided to make the new language board, so I was going to take it down yesterday. Thanks for the reminder. Also, it seems that was causing the problems. As soon as I cleared the news, I stopped having to reload the pages to get the to load.
Got one completely empty page and one with the one-liner "Domain document root not found." right now. (Which I find interesting because the DocumentRoot (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/core.html#documentroot) IIUC is a concept only available on the server itself, not the caches and proxies.)
00:25:20.552966 IP mylaptop.33297 > 198.91.81.5.80: Flags [S], seq 254282685, win 29200, options [mss 1460,sackOK,TS val 195881290 ecr 0,nop,wscale 7], length 0
00:25:20.669602 IP 198.91.81.5.80 > mylaptop.33297: Flags [R.], seq 0, ack 254282686, win 0, length 0
00:25:20.669901 IP mylaptop.33298 > 198.91.81.5.80: Flags [S], seq 3575710619, win 29200, options [mss 1460,sackOK,TS val 195881407 ecr 0,nop,wscale 7], length 0
00:25:20.783257 IP 198.91.81.5.80 > mylaptop.33298: Flags [R.], seq 0, ack 3575710620, win 0, length 0
00:25:20.783643 IP mylaptop.33299 > 198.91.81.5.80: Flags [S], seq 3057264016, win 29200, options [mss 1460,sackOK,TS val 195881521 ecr 0,nop,wscale 7], length 0
00:25:20.901366 IP 198.91.81.5.80 > mylaptop.33299: Flags [R.], seq 0, ack 3057264017, win 0, length 0
00:25:20.901585 IP mylaptop.33300 > 198.91.81.5.80: Flags [S], seq 3674252768, win 29200, options [mss 1460,sackOK,TS val 195881639 ecr 0,nop,wscale 7], length 0
00:25:21.017029 IP 198.91.81.5.80 > mylaptop.33300: Flags [R.], seq 0, ack 3674252769, win 0, length 0
FWIW, I just had a series of "cannot connect" and threw a packet sniffer at it while it lasted. There's nothing going on but the browser sending (a total of four) SYNs, and promptly getting RSTs back:Is it because there's lots of people, or posts, or something?Code: [Select]00:25:20.552966 IP mylaptop.33297 > 198.91.81.5.80: Flags [S], seq 254282685, win 29200, options [mss 1460,sackOK,TS val 195881290 ecr 0,nop,wscale 7], length 0
00:25:20.669602 IP 198.91.81.5.80 > mylaptop.33297: Flags [R.], seq 0, ack 254282686, win 0, length 0
00:25:20.669901 IP mylaptop.33298 > 198.91.81.5.80: Flags [S], seq 3575710619, win 29200, options [mss 1460,sackOK,TS val 195881407 ecr 0,nop,wscale 7], length 0
00:25:20.783257 IP 198.91.81.5.80 > mylaptop.33298: Flags [R.], seq 0, ack 3575710620, win 0, length 0
00:25:20.783643 IP mylaptop.33299 > 198.91.81.5.80: Flags [S], seq 3057264016, win 29200, options [mss 1460,sackOK,TS val 195881521 ecr 0,nop,wscale 7], length 0
00:25:20.901366 IP 198.91.81.5.80 > mylaptop.33299: Flags [R.], seq 0, ack 3057264017, win 0, length 0
00:25:20.901585 IP mylaptop.33300 > 198.91.81.5.80: Flags [S], seq 3674252768, win 29200, options [mss 1460,sackOK,TS val 195881639 ecr 0,nop,wscale 7], length 0
00:25:21.017029 IP 198.91.81.5.80 > mylaptop.33300: Flags [R.], seq 0, ack 3674252769, win 0, length 0
Could be a firewall throttling traffic or the connection rate, or the server running out of sockets or file descriptors to accept the connection attempts ...
Is it because there's lots of people, or posts, or something?People, or bots, or the limits (payable quotas?) are just way too low. And keep in mind that that's just my first off-the-cuff remote diagnosis ...
People, or bots, or the limits (payable quotas?) are just way too low. And keep in mind that that's just my first off-the-cuff remote diagnosis ...I can upgrade the site. It's pretty cheap, but I think it more than doubles the space we can use.
People, or bots, or the limits (payable quotas?) are just way too low. And keep in mind that that's just my first off-the-cuff remote diagnosis ...
Huh. So IIUC, there's just more traffic than the site can currently handle? And that's why we have to essentially "wait our turn" to get a socket connection, by refreshing several times?Still nothing but a theory, mind. To put it into perspective, I'm standing behind Lalli right now, hear him shout "ONNI!" and an eerie voice answering "GO AWAY!", and guesstimate that Onni might be hard at work and has a bunch of (real world) customers waiting in line to get served.
If I looked up SYN, RST, and so forth via Google or glossary, would I get a usable definition?Dunno ... In order to "open a (TCP) connection", as your browser tries to do, there needs to be a "three-way handshake" done. The client side sends a packet with no data and (only) the SYN flag set, the server replies with an (empty) packet with SYN and ACK(nowledge), and the client should reply in a timely fashion with an ACK (still empty if there's no data to be sent yet). From there on, packets get sent back and forth with ACK (and possibly PSH (push) for "urgent" data) set. When the time comes to terminate the connection, another three-way handshake is done, only with the intent being signaled with a FIN flag instead of SYNs.
Eich, Clayres has forgotten his password and would like you to email him a replacement. Thanks!
See the Discus comments from http://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php#comment-1663105246
Also I'm female.^^Note to self: Expand set of flag icons to gender flags, demand for methods of clarification beyond SSSS cast is confirmed. :P
Also I'm female.^^Sorries!
Note to self: Expand set of flag icons to gender flags, demand for methods of clarification beyond SSSS cast is confirmed. :P:D Could be helpful.
Sorries!No problems reported here. ;)
So what was that thing yesterday with the entire forum missing? ???IIUC the server (not the forum software) went into lockdown after finding that the admin hadn't logged in for some time.
IIUC the server (not the forum software) went into lockdown after finding that the admin hadn't logged in for some time.Aaaaaah. Thanks for explaining!
It has everything to do with [being the 1st of the month].
No free trial ran out, or anything. I just didn't realize it was a requirement of the host site that I visit at least monthly. I haven't had cause to make a backup in a while, so I haven't been there. Now I know how to avoid it, so it shouldn't be a problem in the future.
Do we really need that profanity filter? So far I don't see many people trying to use profanities, but I do see regular words being mangled because the overzealous filter looks for spelling variations as well.
Do we really need that profanity filter? So far I don't see many people trying to use profanities, but I do see regular words being mangled because the overzealous filter looks for spelling variations as well.It's there for a reason. I wanted to keep this place somewhat "kid safe." I know, it's weird, I'm weird, but it keeps things a little tidier on my side, in the long run. Could you give some examples or quotes? I can dial it back if I know what to look for, or what's causing problems.
It's there for a reason. I wanted to keep this place somewhat "kid safe." I know, it's weird, I'm weird, but it keeps things a little tidier on my side, in the long run. Could you give some examples or quotes? I can dial it back if I know what to look for, or what's causing problems.
Thank you for keeping it kid safe, Eich! While some swearing every now and then is not something I mind (heck, I even swear from time to time), when every other word becomes a profanity it's definitely not fun.I'm actually trying to tone down how much I swear irl. :P
But it is indeed true profanity filters sometimes filter out normal words. For example, when Bunny was sending some text in Japanese to me, it filtered out s-- in what were just normal introduction phrases!
Yeah it filters sequences like f.u.k.u and s.u.k.u in Japanese words. I believe the Latin word for "with" would also pose problem.I'll look into it. That's one of the things I can edit without help from the SMF guys.
What about the video game Assassin Creed? edit: ok this one comes out fine. You win this time!
I just noticed that the forum censors the B-word. (5-letter word for "female dog." Can I say "bee-yotch"?)I can't change where it applies, unfortunately. I'll work on making the filter more comprehensive this weekend, to avoid things like that in the future. I'll probably just uncover the first letter or something.
At the risk of being called a beeyotch, I'd be OK with letting that word be used. I used it in a PM to someone saying, "I hope I don't sound b****-y." Instead, the software censored the whole word, so it was "*****y." In a way, that was worse -- those asterisks could stand for ANYTHING...!
In fact, is it possible to set looser standards for PMs vs. forum posts? Prissy as I am about our level of public discourse, I'm OK with consenting forum-ites using whatever language they want in one-to-one messages.
On second thought, I guess that would open the door to someone unilaterally using bad language on someone else in a PM. But none of us would do that, would we? :-\
It seems that Clayres can't upload a new avatar (http://ssssforum.pcriot.com/index.php?topic=31.msg9544#msg9544), and when I tried to upload an attachment (http://ssssforum.pcriot.com/index.php?topic=41.msg9547#msg9547) (PNG of a measly 23 kB), I got "The upload folder is full. Please try a smaller file and/or contact an administrator." Same cause for both, mayhaps ... ?Just checked it out. The site says that there's currently 49 Mb of attachments. I'm not sure if that includes avatars or not, but they are listed under the same page, so I would assume so. If nobody minds, I can prune the attachments to whittle down the space they're taking up. It'll get rid of them, but it'll free up some space.
Perhaps I'll add an announcement on the first post of the SSSS and aRTD forums that attachments are discouraged? If the site can only take 49Mb of them, it's best not to use them too much.Good idea. I'll do the same on the GDB museum.
Since the same space seems to be used for attachments and avatars, it might be best to search for ways to disable the use of attachments, or new users are going to be forever unable to use avatars!There's a way to. I'll get on that after I get back from the thing I'm about to go do in a while.
Perhaps I'll add an announcement on the first post of the SSSS and aRTD forums that attachments are discouraged? If the site can only take 49Mb of them, it's best not to use them too much.
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator at no-reply@x10hosting.com to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
The avatar thing still won't work for me. While I usually get a blank page, this time I actually got an error report. Could it be connected to something else than the attachment problem, assuming that it is already solved?What method are you using to upload avatars? There's "Specify avatar by url," "Upload an avatar," and one other option that lets you choose from some pre-installed images on the site. I just tested it out, and those all work on the test account. It's most likely a problem on your end, but you can try the other methods, if you haven't already.
What time did this happen? It's easier looking through error logs if Eich knows roughly when to look!The first time this happened was on Nov 13 around 4:30 p.m. I think. That's when I got the first error. The only other time was right before my earlier post, apart from that literally nothing at all.
What method are you using to upload avatars? There's "Specify avatar by url," "Upload an avatar," and one other option that lets you choose from some pre-installed images on the site. I just tested it out, and those all work on the test account. It's most likely a problem on your end, but you can try the other methods, if you haven't already.I use the upload option, but I'll try the other ones right know and report back once I have results.
So, I don't know if this is happening to anyone else, but all of a sudden the forum icons have all become broken images? But only the default ones, the ones that are emoticons or the "moved thread" icons are still okay I think?Weird. Is that still happening?
Like so:
(http://i.imgur.com/Hv5agjc.png)
This is, as far as I can tell, happening on every board, not just this one... Just thought I would bring it to Eich's attention.
So, I've figured out the trigger for my problem. Long posts. A long post can't get through, a short post can. It's NOT restricted to my laptop, I have the same problem on my phone. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get to another WiFi source in order to test if it also happens on other networks. Also I don't know the exact definition of "short post" "long post" (as in how many characters they entail), only vague.This is the problem you've had with posting in the last couple of weeks?
Yes, that problem. Also, I still can't edit or reply via the Reply function rather than the Quick Reply function without receiving Connection Reset errors. Post length does not matter there.
Doesn't matter whether your posts are short - frankly, I'm just glad to have you back :)
-Discovered that it spreads over to mobile and is most likely restricted to my account
Pinging ssssforum.pcriot.com gave me a "request timed out" at 1464 bytes and below and a "Packet need to be fragmented but DF set" at 1465 bytes and above. If it's an MTU problem, it's an odd one.Assuming that you're giving the number of payload bytes you asked "ping" to add to its packets, your 1464 translates to an MTU of 1492 bytes (adding 20 bytes of IP header and 8 bytes of ICMP header), which is a quite common pMTU for people going through a DSL uplink (PPPoE needs to add another eight byte around the packets as they get sent). In that case, the FRAGMENTATION NEEDEDs you see should come from your own uplink, and you may recognize the IP they're being sent from. ;)
Hmm.
I tried going further, and after a whole no-mans land of "request timed out" it ended up being 1438 bytes.
Error 503 Backend fetch failed
Backend fetch failed
Guru Meditation:
XID: 353009669
Varnish cache server
I recently get this message a lot:
When I refresh for some times, it disappears and I can load the site. Is the problem on my end?
I recently get this message a lot:Can you be more specific about when you got the error? I got it some the other day when the site was lagging (was that Monday night?), but I haven't gotten it since. I think it's related to the host site.
When I refresh for some times, it disappears and I can load the site. Is the problem on my end?
As I PM'd Eich a few minutes ago, I'm having problems PM'ing one particular member. I keep getting this error message: (Imgur link shows screenshot.)
http://imgur.com/msWf6qp
Any suggestions?
Just wanted to mention that the word p**** is cencored, which is okay, but the word p****cat is also cencored, which can get weird. Any way to fix this?I also noticed this, and thought it odd, but you beat me to it. :)
Just wanted to mention that the word p**** is cencored, which is okay, but the word p****cat is also cencored, which can get weird. Any way to fix this?Thought this might happen eventually.
Feel free to laugh at my not-knowing if it's only my browser/coding problem. ;)It's a forum problem. I was working on a fix, but I hit a snag.
I'm Polish and decided to introduce myself in Polish in the language-introducing thread. After sending the post I saw that Polish diacritics don't show properly (I get question marks and other things instead, like in cze?? (hello), ending normally with versions of "s" and "c"). It seems to me as a problem of the forum, couse I cuoldn't see them afterwards when I edited the post, either.
Just wanted to mention that the word p**** is cencored, which is okay, but the word p****cat is also cencored, which can get weird. Any way to fix this?
That's a pain when saying stuff in Japanese, because "s***" comes up quite often inside words and gets censored, such messing up what little comprehension I do have.
mysterious disappearances
There are missing posts as far back as day one, in the GDT.
:( this is not nice.Not at all.
Tried posting this on the Forum just now -- no luck. (I can tell if it won't Preview.)Posting for Sunflower.
Looking in my *received* PMs, I am missing 13 in all, ranging from Sept. 22 to Dec. 26. They affect 4 or 5 people -- just a few of each that they sent me. The most frequent "silenced" ones were Dec. 22 or so to Dec. 26.
I'll count the casualties among my *sent* PMs shortly.
Also, Eich, I replied (randomly) to one of your Disqus comments about an hour ago, just to have another communications channel. I may also see if your external e-mail works, for backup.
Meanwhile, COPY AND SAVE, everyone!!!
Not sure why, but the "Preview" function is also not working correctly. I think it has to do with the length of the posts, because I couldn't see my preview when I tried posting one of the errors from the host site's error log.
Alright, I've got Hushpiper on the case. She knows more about this kind of thing than I do, and she's helping us figure out what went wrong and what we can do about it.
Alright, I've got Hushpiper on the case. She knows more about this kind of thing than I do, and she's helping us figure out what went wrong and what we can do about it.Phew OK. Sounds like a plan! Detective Chief Inspector Hushpiper!
Alright, so...
Hush has done a marvelous job of investigating what happened, and it appears that we can restore the missing posts. The text is still in the database, it just seems like it doesn't know where to go, and is getting caught in limbo somewhere. Restoration is still a little up in the air, atm, but the text is at least there, and not lost to the ages forever and ever.
Alright, so...
Hush has done a marvelous job of investigating what happened, and it appears that we can restore the missing posts. The text is still in the database, it just seems like it doesn't know where to go, and is getting caught in limbo somewhere. Restoration is still a little up in the air, atm, but the text is at least there, and not lost to the ages forever and ever.
Oh, that sounds much better than anything I'd expected. At the most I'd thought that the phenomenon could be stopped - that the missing text could be returned somehow is very good indeed.Yeah! That's a fantastic discovery!
FIX'D (the pussycat one. The other one will just take running into every romaji word with "s***" in it, unfortunately). That was a weird workaround, but I got it figured out. If you stumble into any more compound words that are partially censored, I now have a way of un-censoring them.
I distract myself by thinking about something compussycated, either multipussycation problems or words in Hawaiian...
The good news: We can now say "pussycat."Goodness gracious, that's hilarious.
The bad news: Some weird substitute command has taken every instance of the string "P-L-I-C" in my PMs and replaced it with "P-U-S-S-Y." For example:
This is probably a compussycated problem -- can you repussycate it? ;)
EDIT: Let me stipulate that I spelled the above two words the right way, e.g. R-E-P-L-I-C-A-T-E. So now we have proof that the substitution operates in regular posts too...
Error 503 Backend fetch failedthen
Backend fetch failed
Guru Meditation:
XID: 270467113
Varnish cache server
Connection Problems
Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again later.
Service Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
we have to figure out why they're not showing up first, which is proving elusive.FWIW: 19 of my newest 150 posts, 12 of the oldest 150, 1 of 5 PMs received.
FWIW: 19 of my newest 150 posts, 12 of the oldest 150, 1 of 5 PMs received.
If I may ask, is it established that it's always the same posts/PMs that fail to display across a) users and b) times / (re-)logins? The last white-out post I see right now in this thread is my own from 07-12-2014, 20:45:27.
So, it seems that not only can I not post images, but I also can't quote people without my post disappearing...
Confirmed: quotes breaks things.Nevermind, spoke too soon. The preview was blank, mind. Let's try out an image:
The forum is baack! :)I couldn't even reach the Forum in the a.m. Chrome browser just said
I don't know if it's of any help for you, but while the forum was down I got a lot of different error messages.
Firstthen
and then
Aand then again the first thing with the Guru. (I always imagine Guru Pathik...)
We've confirmed that it's always the same posts, yes. If a post is appearing blank for one person, it will consistently appear blank for everybody all the time (they don't flicker in and out, for example). There don't seem to be any commonalities between which posts go missing either--not even the time of the posts seems to be consistent. We've got some disappearing as soon as they're posted, and some disappeared that were originally posted back in September. All the missing posts are in the database, and as far as I can tell there's no weird syntax errors/blank rows/etc associated with them (not that I'm very familiar with the simplemachines database structure). Piney tried posting a couple times in the same thread last night and it consistently came out empty for her as soon as she posted--I didn't think to test at the time whether she could post in other threads, but I think she can.
The good news: We can now say "pussycat."
The bad news: Some weird substitute command has taken every instance of the string "P-L-I-C" in my PMs and replaced it with "P-U-S-S-Y." For example:
This is probably a compussy[glow]cat[/glow]ed problem -- can you repussy[glow]cat[/glow]e it? ;)
EDIT: Let me stipulate that I spelled the above two words the right way, e.g. R-E-P-L-I-C-A-T-E. So now we have proof that the substitution operates in regular posts too...
Plz excuse weird abbrevs; typing on my phone w/banana fingers.ObJoke (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vWm47yPLGc) ...
We've confirmed that it's always the same posts, yes. If a post is appearing blank for one person, it will consistently appear blank for everybody all the time (they don't flicker in and out, for example).Hmmm. I take it that you tried restarting stuff as well (so that, if any temp contact-to-database errors led to empty posts getting cached in the actual forum software, they should've gotten flushed out)?
ObJoke (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vWm47yPLGc) ...
(... promptly doesn't preview.)
Hmmm. I take it that you tried restarting stuff as well (so that, if any temp contact-to-database errors led to empty posts getting cached in the actual forum software, they should've gotten flushed out)?
I would expect established forum s/w like SMF to have a rather elaborate database scheme where there's not only tables storing the content of the posts, but also index tables to speed up access to that data. Any idea whether that's the case and, if so, whether those indexes might have gotten damaged? Does SMF happen to provide tools to verify and/or repair its own database?
There does seem to be a tentative connection with quotes and/or links in the affected posts: not all posts with links/quotes have issues, but all the posts I checked with issues seem to have links/quotes.And the post I kept editing in and out of existence turned out to have a link making the difference. Which would IMHO point to a (parsing?) problem in SMF, rather than a corrupt DB ...
And the post I kept editing in and out of existence turned out to have a link making the difference. Which would IMHO point to a (parsing?) problem in SMF, rather than a corrupt DB ...
Good DB (backup) with current SMF vs. "broken" DB under a downgraded SMF ... ? Or did the updates come with a DB schema change preventing that?
I followed your link and got a "This Page is Not Available" error message on my Chrome browser.
IIUC, JoB suspects that the character length of the link could trigger The Silence?
EDIT: That's weird, it didn't quote any of hushpiper's message (as you can see from the BBC code above).
What I'm wondering now is how and if this relates to the issues with quotes and PMs. I'm trawling through my examples of broken posts now, so far they all have 72-character or longer links in them.
Those of you with missing PMs, do you know if they had links in them?
I now have about *20* sent PMs eaten!! They run from about Dec. 18 to the present -- but oddly, not EVERY message in that time frame -- about 1 in 10 is preserved.
Most of those, esp. on Dec. 22 and 23, were fairly routine: "Merry Christmas, _____. Here's your Christmas music playlist, at Dropbox (long URL follows)." But a few were fairly lengthy personal correspondence -- so it would be nice to get them back.
What I'm wondering now is how and if this relates to the issues with quotes and PMs. I'm trawling through my examples of broken posts now, so far they all have 72-character or longer links in them.
Those of you with missing PMs, do you know if they had links in them?
I now have about *20* sent PMs eaten!! They run from about Dec. 18 to the present -- but oddly, not EVERY message in that time frame -- about 1 in 10 is preserved.
Most of those, esp. on Dec. 22 and 23, were fairly routine: "Merry Christmas, _____. Here's your Christmas music playlist, at Dropbox (long URL follows)." But a few were fairly lengthy personal correspondence -- so it would be nice to get them back.
I'm fairly certain all my missing PMs had links in them, since all of them were people turning in gifts for the Secret Santa/ me sending out said gifts. I currently have three PMs-with-links remaining, and all those have urls less than 72 characters long.
What I'm wondering now is how and if this relates to the issues with quotes and PMs.I note that in a normal quote (with the "[ quote ]" having "author", "link", and "date" parameters), the "Quote from ..." caption above the actual quote is automatically turned into a link ... with an URL typically 60+ characters long, slowly increasing as the (decimal) board and message IDs get more digits ...
ETA: Looks like 64 is the magic number, actually. ftp:// followed by 64 characters seems to consistently blank out, ftp:// followed by 63 doesn't. Same with http://.
Huh, interesting. 64 is 2 to the 6th power -- could it have something to do with how the binary code on the underlying database is structured?That would imply that the database tries to parse words / links out of the stored content of the entire post (and actually bases the storage format on the result). I didn't dive into any forum software so far, but I don't think I've ever seen anything much different from the DB storing a VARCHAR and the parsing being done in the application on top in such cases - not the least reason being that it'ld take years until changes to the parsing (say, recognizing https:// URLs in addition to http://) would be reliably available in common databases.
I did find a utf8 conversion script that had a couple 63 character cutoffs that looked likely, so I tried updating the mirror site to use utf8. (Updated the table collations to use unicode, installed the utf8 english language pack.) It worked in terms of making alternative character sets work, so that was nice! :P Buuuuuut it didn't affect the blank posts. Maybe I missed something?Converting SMFs to Unicode has apparently been done in various, more or less different ways at different times, sometimes with two (maybe more?) official methods at the same time. I'm afraid that we can't be sure short of retracing Eichs exact steps ... which is one reason why I'ld guess trying to identify the problem in the code-as-is still is more likely to succeed than reproducing the timeline.
Sooooo for fun, I decided to do a brand new install of simplemachines, import only the content-related tables (none of the logs or settings ones) from the broken database, and see what that did. It worked: none of the posts that were previously missing are missing in this install.
FWIW, there was an option to enable UTF-8 in the installation process, so I tried it twice to see what it did. It made no difference either way. I then tried it again, with all brand-new files freshly unzipped, but this time importing the full dump from the broken database, and the posts disappeared again.
Sooooo for fun, I decided to do a brand new install of simplemachines, import only the content-related tables (none of the logs or settings ones) from the broken database, and see what that did. It worked: none of the posts that were previously missing are missing in this install.Wait, so... we have a solution? Or does the problem still have a chance of happening?
FWIW, there was an option to enable UTF-8 in the installation process, so I tried it twice to see what it did. It made no difference either way. I then tried it again, with all brand-new files freshly unzipped, but this time importing the full dump from the broken database, and the posts disappeared again.
I've narrowed it down to a single db table: the settings table. [...] The issue is that [reinitializing it] screws with... all kinds of things. The theme, in particular, goes all screwy because it's both installed and not installed at the same time. Post counts go wonky, member counts go wonky.I take it, then, that that table's holding data about the global forum's settings, rather than the users'? Like ... (the recent changes to) the profanity filtering ... ?
I take it, then, that that table's holding data about the global forum's settings, rather than the users'? Like ... (the recent changes to) the profanity filtering ... ?
[Puts elaborate theory about SMF UTF8 conversion and the DB holding both pre- and post-conversion versions of posts and SMF doing on-demand conversion back into the mental drawer]
Yaaaaay you guys are amazing! I could hug both of you right now! :D
*stares at you*So far for why I didn't inquire about the profanity filter - the other recent change besides the UTF-8 topic - right from square one ... :-X
Holy son of a ever-[insert long-winded string of things for that filter to work on here]-!
The substitution was treating the *'s used to bleep out bad words as wildcards. I can only assume this was causing some kind of strange bug with its post conversion that possibly we should let SMF know about, just in case. JoB, you'd probably have more relevant ideas than me.Ehhh you might want to note that, while I can guess my way to how some application interfaces with the semi-known field of SQLDBs, I've never touched SMF (or any other forum software) and have no idea whatsoever what those profanity filter rules might actually look like. (Right now, I'm wondering how regex-style "*"s even can act as wildcards, given that DBs typically use "%" and the "*"s were in the texts rather than the filter expressions ... !?)
JoB, if you want admin status too, just say soYou, too, should take note of my actual level of ignorance (e.g., I have no idea what functions admin status even would unlock in the first place) before handing me the keys to the Minuteman silo ... !
(I'll try to get new titles for the both of you. Solovei suggested "Slayer of Silence," which I quite like.)Considering that the actual result (for now?) is that the profanity filter is back to its original overzealousness, "Four-Star Chaperone" might be more accurate ... ;)
I could hug both of you right now! :D... I didn't know they make arm extensions. >:D
*stares at you*
Holy son of a ever-[insert long-winded string of things for that filter to work on here]-!
And holy bleep this is like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, where in all the stories the detective has two cases but by the end they turn out to be the same case, cuz guys! Guys! This is what was causing the issue Sunny was talking about (http://ssssforum.pcriot.com/index.php?topic=10.msg15259#msg15259) where words like "reciprocating" turn into "recipussycating" and so on.
The substitution was treating the *'s used to bleep out bad words as wildcards. I can only assume this was causing some kind of strange bug with its post conversion that possibly we should let SMF know about, just in case. JoB, you'd probably have more relevant ideas than me.
I'm totally doing the "the clues were right in front of me all along!" thing right now. :P I was scouring through the code just yesterday, I saw the censorText references over and over and--nope, didn't think it was important. Lesson learned: when working on two issues at once, don't be afraid to assume they're related.
The issue with the over-strict profanity filter is easy enough to fix though, assuming I understand the issue correctly. So far we've been bleeping out bad words with asterisks, which have the downside of apparently also acting as wildcards. ... In the meantime, subject to further tweaking, I've checked the option to have it replace whole words only, so pussycat is safe while p**** should be bleeped. :)
P.S. Ooooohhh I love the sound of Slayer of Silence! It's all cool and mythological whilst also being goofily over the top. Trust Solo to come up with the best titles!
Let's see whether this gets posted, the one I'm trying to send in the "Health & ..." thread runs into a 404 ...
Edit2: It's again a content dependent problem in posting. ::)
Edit3: The trigger is the (unmasked use of the) word "p e n i c i l l i n". :(
I wonder if it's a coincidence that the naughty word the Forum is (presumably) confusing "pen-cillin" with also starts with P...?I'd assume that the match in the swear word library actually startes with "peni" ...
I'd assume that the match in the swear word library actually startes with "peni" ...
Furthermore, *I* wonder whether there's a browser plugin to automate rainbow-ing penicillin and its ilk ... ? >:D
I'd assume that the match in the swear word library actually startes with "peni" ...That word isn't censored. That's just biology, which I trust everyone to be mature about. Plus, it's not exactly like it sounds good when used as an insult, so I don't see anybody calling names like that.
Furthermore, *I* wonder whether there's a browser plugin to automate rainbow-ing penicillin and its ilk ... ? >:D
That word isn't censored. That's just biology, which I trust everyone to be mature about. Plus, it's not exactly like it sounds good when used as an insult, so I don't see anybody calling names like that.
have you seen a 403 error on that word before?I don't think I've ever tried to use it in the forum before ...
And is anybody seeing this happen with any other words? (I think Kex was saying something the other night but there was too much New Years partying going on.)Back to fuzzballing ...
Small development: under the theory that there was some sort of anti-pharmacy-spam measure at fault in the 403 mystery, I did some testing and found that via-gra also triggers the issue, as does cia-lis (though it's not consistent). So it does look like an anti-spam filter of some kind, though frankly not a very good one. :P Eich, did you put anything like that in place at any point?Nope. That must've been there from the beginning.
Additionally, attempting to preview a post with one of those words in it also redirects you to a 403, which is useful for troubleshooting at least.
Might be something on the host's end, to prevent spam/hacking via form submissions and protect their servers. The mirror of the site on my webhost doesn't appear to have that issue. *shrugs*The pcriot server has a reverse proxy sitting in front of it - Varnish (https://www.varnish-cache.org/), to be precise. If the filter's not on the server itself or part of SMF, it's either the proxy or some intrusion prevention system ...
$ host ssssforum.pcriot.com
ssssforum.pcriot.com has address 198.91.81.5
ssssforum.pcriot.com mail is handled by 0 ssssforum.pcriot.com.
$ ( echo "GET /index.php HTTP/1.1" ; echo "Host: foo.bar.baz" ; echo "Connection: close" ; echo "" ; sleep 10 ) | telnet 198.91.81.5 80
[...]
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
[...]
Via: 1.1 varnish-v4
[...]
Domain document root not found.
Connection closed by foreign host.
$ ( echo "GET /index.php?foobar=$EVIL_WORD HTTP/1.1" ; echo "Host: foo.bar.baz" ; echo "Connection: close" ; echo "" ; sleep 10 ) | telnet 198.91.81.5 80
[...]
HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
[...]
Connection: close
00151
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<html><head>
<title>403 Forbidden</title>
[...]
After poking around I'm pretty well convinced that it's mod_security doing it, not varnish. They've probably got SecFilterScanPOST turned on.Seeing that we're not getting the 1.x default "deny" code of 500, but the 2.x's of 403, you might want to try SecRequestBodyAccess (https://github.com/SpiderLabs/ModSecurity/wiki/Reference-Manual#SecRequestBodyAccess) as well ... ?
<IfModule mod_security.c>
SecRuleEngine Off
SecFilterInheritance Off
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
SecRequestBodyAccess Off
</IfModule>
Ummmm I don't know if this is just me, but all the Norwegian flag icons have been replaced with:That is incredibly bizarre. So, to you, I'm now learning... lonely elf man?
(http://www.shadowfantasy.com/packages/Varjohaltia.jpg)
Yeah, I've been getting "Forbidden" for almost a week now every time I try to post something on the foorum. Can read what others post thoughI checked her profile and didn't find anything out of the ordinary. Is this something we can try to fix, or should I ask for more specific information from her in the comments?
That is incredibly bizarre. So, to you, I'm now learning... lonely elf man?Oh.
Not happening on my end...
Ummmm I don't know if this is just me, but all the Norwegian flag icons have been replaced with:
(http://www.shadowfantasy.com/packages/Varjohaltia.jpg)
Ummmm I don't know if this is just me, but all the Norwegian flag icons have been replacedHmm. I don't see any mixup right now, and where the pictures in question do show up, they have very dissimilar pathes/filenames, so I cannot quite imagine them getting mixed up in the filesystem. Hushpiper, you have seen what a post looks like in the database - any chance that in that raw format, included images are referenced by some ID that needs to be resolved by another table lookup (which would IMHO be much more likely to replace one image with an existing other one than some URL garbling would)?
Also, Hush and JoB, magic problem solving dream team of the century: Pessi has been unable to log in for a while. [...] I checked her profile and didn't find anything out of the ordinary. Is this something we can try to fix, or should I ask for more specific information from her in the comments?Sounds quite like the mod_security issue, you just posted the username without a problem, if it's truly logging in that doesn't work, my first guess would be that the password triggers the Filter of Despair (That Looks at the Entire POST Data). Does trying to log in with an empty password "work" (i.e., yield a proper "login denied")?
Sounds quite like the mod_security issue, you just posted the username without a problem, if it's truly logging in that doesn't work, my first guess would be that the password triggers the Filter of Despair (That Looks at the Entire POST Data). Does trying to log in with an empty password "work" (i.e., yield a proper "login denied")?
Ohhh! As Patient Zero for the P-Word Problem, now I get it! Her password may be something like "Pessi-catapult" and that would have the same effect as my "complication."You were not Patient Zero... I had the same problem with my PMs, but didn't bother to say anything. It was more amusing than anything, really.
Or worse, "pen-icillin"... ;)
Owl, I've been seeing your avatar as a tiny Australian flag since yesterday.D: well, it's not on purpose- I'm not that patriotic! :S
Not really an improvement, but was there any reason the Language learning discussion (http://ssssforum.pcriot.com/index.php?topic=180.msg15611#new) was locked? I've been offline for a few days, and maybe something came up that I missed, so sorry if the answer's really obvious. :-\
Reposting this here, because noako appears to have gone MIA:Got it. Not sure why that happened... :-\
This is Varjohaltia's icon. He just joined the Forum today, (http://ssssforum.pcriot.com/index.php?action=profile;u=359) and has made exactly one post (that we know of).
I doubt he wields enough dark magic to do this deliberately. OTOH, about an hour ago I *did* share with him tips on how to create language flags in his Forum profile (i.e. : country : ) and he promptly did so. Could a software glitch somehow have caught onto the new flags on his profile?
...and I just made it through this forum thread, only to find I'm suddenly notorious. Yikes! No, alas, I'm afraid I have no explanation for what might have caused that. I did try a bunch of different BBCode variants for flags ([flag]fi[/flag]) etc. that resulted in nothing happening until being pointed in the correct direction, but that's about as much mucking with things that I tried to do :-o
people are now learning the languages of JoB and Piney![Imagines the two current avatars shown next to each other]
[Imagines the two current avatars shown next to each other]I know, I giggle when I see it....so it's not a baaaaad glitch at least...
Well, it seems that the glitch has a bit of humor, at least. ;)
Hehehehe it's happened again XD people are now learning the languages of JoB and Piney! As it's probably only on my phone, I can endure it and it goes away eventually: so no fuss needed :3
[Imagines the two current avatars shown next to each other]
Well, it seems that the glitch has a bit of humor, at least. ;)
She could be right. A common feature of spam is a huge number of links, so the anti-spam system that bans peni-cillin could well be banning multiple links.I thought about that, but I woud've had to think about that when I was making the post, and "Reserve" a certain number of posts below the first one to edit later as needed. I don't think you can do that after the fact?
The way round it would be to have more than one forum index post, each with a number of related links. So, say, "Forum Index - SSSS", "Forum Index - Other". Something like that.
... I changed the max number of recipients for PMs to 20, because 10 was rather low.
Thanks! Now I can invite more people to the rank-promotion "receptions." :)That was part of why :)
There's no admin setting that limits the number of links allowed in a post, that I could find.That doesn't surprise me, since the symptom of getting a 403 page is the one where we suspect mod_security, not SMF itself, to be the showstopper ...
A few minutes ago, I got a new error message while writing a PM:
"You have timed out." (The whole text of the PM *and* all addressee info disappeared. Luckily, I had copied the text.)
I didn't have the PM open that long -- maybe 10-12 minutes, which is certainly less than other times I've been laboring over a long PM.
Could this be related to problems I've been having for the last 48 hours accessing this Forum? When I hit the Fan-Forum button on the main comic page, the browser spins for about 60 seconds, then times out. If I just close that browser tab and start fresh, it still often doesn't load. But if I hit the "Refresh" key on the browser tab that timed out, generally it'll load immediately.
I've tried a couple of times to PM Sunflower the list of links found on the following link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5rtnacqvlvkegmn/List%20of%20songs.txt?dl=0, something that has earned me the forbidden error almost all the time.
I had some luck breaking it to pieces and sending only a few links at a time, trying first to send the five first links on the list. This worked, so I got bold and PM'ed six links - getting the 403 error again. So, back to five links again - this worked - then the next five links - which gave me the forbidden message again.
I fear I have fallen prey to seeing connections where there are none so I gave up. Is there anything in that list that should trigger the error message?
I'm getting 403 errors when I try to edit the first post in this thread:I think you're hitting the same issue I got with editing the forum index - the anti-spam protection thingy sees a post with (what it thinks is) too much links and stops it from going through...
http://ssssforum.pcriot.com/index.php?topic=181.0
We're losing some images -- could it be a hosting problem? You can see it on the list of emoticons above and the nation/language flags, in particular.
I just noticed this about 15 minutes ago, i.e. 6:40 p.m. PST on Thursday.
That was my post :-) Maybe I should quit posting, if I keep breaking things (even unintentionally)!
Anyhow, I saw the same, and the site randomly would refuse to serve me pages on several threads when trying to move forward a page. Currently both issues seem to be better, though?
403 Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /index.php on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Running into a 403 and 404 error over in the general discussion thread.
...I was talking about the ice on the lake nearby and the wreck that went into it and how I hope origamiowl got the good pain meds and that it didn't end up like my experience where the meds I got does nothing for me in regards to pain.
Edit: I think I may have figured it out. Apparently the full name of the pain meds I got when my wisdom teeth got pulled was what was kicking me me over onto the 403 page...
EDIT:
Aha! Now that I've seen your redacted post, I'm almost certain the pharmaceutical name was the trigger. We have previously noticed this problem with other prescription drug terms -- pen-icillin, Vi=agra, and so forth. Eich & Co. think it's probably due to an overactive spam filter, most likely on our host site (i.e. not an SMF software problem).
You'd think a spam filter would just kick you back to the reply screen with a big red message that reads "your post contains word(s) that are against the terms of use"... but no it has to be cryptic about it with a 403 page with a 404 error attached to it. That's the worst kind of page because it's one that simply doesn't give a person any idea what just happened.
We assume that the spam filter is part of the host server's software.
It's probable that it operates by inspecting all packets that are sent to the server, regardless of type, and blocks ANY packets that look like spam. It would be too complex for it to be programmed to understand what the packets contain, so all it can do is send back a generic transfer protocol error code that your browser reports.
The server software never sees the dropped packet, so it can't deal with the event in any way at all!
Maybe, if Eich and co work at it long enough, they will discover that the forum software is attempting to access a misplaced resource in the wrong directory, and that is causing the error.That's why, as part of my experimentation, I threw "naughty words" at the server in such a way that the request wouldn't go to the forum s/w in the first place. They still triggered the error, so that very likely happens before SMF ever receives the data.
That's why, as part of my experimentation, I threw "naughty words" at the server in such a way that the request wouldn't go to the forum s/w in the first place. They still triggered the error, so that very likely happens before SMF ever receives the data.
So IIUC, our *host*'s sensitivity to pharma/spam terms is what's causing the 403 problem. Nothing to do with SMF. Yes?That's what I'ld conclude from the experiment's result, yes. Though I have to brandish Occam's Razor a bit to get there. ;)
Would it make sense to issue a general warning (either in the "News" slot at the top of the page, or via sticky at the top of this board) to all posters, to avoid the 403 problem by not using the proper name of any prescription meds? (And any other known trigger terms.*)Considering where new forum users come from, and how likely they are to start posting about their health issues before even having caught up with currently active threads :P , I'ld say it'ld be a tad more sensible than the current link back to the actual comic. 8)
Considering where new forum users come from, and how likely they are to start posting about their health issues before even having caught up with currently active threads :P , I'ld say it'd be a tad more sensible than the current link back to the actual comic. 8)
Why, JoB, are you casting aspersions on the nice people who read the Guardian? ;)No, I'm saying that new users of the forum are likely to have been pointed to it on Minna's site, and unlikely to have much use for the link pointing back to it on the forum's top right very often.
There seems to be a problem with the password reset system.
I created an account a few days ago (undefined (http://ssssforum.pcriot.com/index.php?action=profile;u=391)), but couldn't log in (incorrect password). I thought the password was correct, but I tried resetting it anyway.
It didn't send an email. I tried resetting it a few times using my username and email address, but still nothing. I checked the spam folder, there's nothing there.
I think it might be my email address: I'm using a Gmail address with subaddressing (it has a + in it).
There seems to be a problem with the password reset system.I've reset your password. Check your email and follow the instructions! :)
I created an account a few days ago (undefined (http://ssssforum.pcriot.com/index.php?action=profile;u=391)), but couldn't log in (incorrect password). I thought the password was correct, but I tried resetting it anyway.
It didn't send an email. I tried resetting it a few times using my username and email address, but still nothing. I checked the spam folder, there's nothing there.
I think it might be my email address: I'm using a Gmail address with subaddressing (it has a + in it).
I've reset your password. Check your email and follow the instructions! :)Thanks! :)
Is it okay with you if I delete the "Undefined_" account?
Not MeThat sounds like a computer problem, not a forum problem.
My computer gave me "the blue screen of death" when I visited the forum today ( ? )
And a 403 Forbidden it was. Looking at the network routing, it indeed blocks any posts with spammy words even before they reach the server, it looks at the content and if it spots forbidden words, it just returns a 403, which your browser then renders as the error message. If the server returns a 200, then you get access to the actual site, but otherwise nope. The 404 not found attached means that the server doesn't provide the default explanation file (its status is 'not found').
Basically there's nothing you can really do about this apart from switching to another forum provider, or advising people that when they get this error message, they should look through their posts for any words that might be considered spam.
What a crude way of handling things! But I guess it has to be, since spambots often behave like regular users. :/
Judging by what Richard said its an issue with the host server, rather than the forum. SMF is a pretty common forum system, I don't think they would have an anti-spam system like that in place that couldn't be turned off, there are too many different interest groups out there for that to be a practical thing to include in their product.
Unwary Sunflower • 4 minutes ago
I am getting a 508 error when I attempt to connect. could I get a direct link?
My favourite is this though:The cat's there to implement blackhole routing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_route) for IPoAC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers)? :P
The cat's there to implement blackhole routing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_route) for IPoAC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers)? :P
I've gotten the 508 error twice now, once yesterday and then just now.
(http://i.imgur.com/hNTC1Lp.png)
Growing pains, I'm sure. In a way, this is good -- a sign of our expanding popularity. But before long we may need to form a bucket-brigade to help Eich expand and/or move our host site.
I don't remotely have the tech skills to be useful, but does anyone else? Our Admin and his two "right-hand warriors" are really short on free time right now.
When I click the link it's never that interesting, because it says: Table 'achamber_ssss.smf_settings' doesn't existSomething tells me that it's the future server, which is currently in its setup and testing phase, that sends you those e-mails ...
Is it just me, or Owl's kittie (that adorable furball) suddenly turned into some scheme? Same result when I check from my computer and my phone.That's... oddly specific. I'm still getting a picture of the cat.
(http://i60.tinypic.com/2rh5obt.png)
It may be some little bug that will disappear soon, perhaps?
That's... oddly specific. I'm still getting a picture of the cat.
At first glance, I thought this was a picture of something I had a test on yesterday. o_o
Every time I log in for the past couple of days once logged in I am taken to a (seemingly) random thread, rather than the forum homepage. Has anyone else noticed this?No such effect here, I always end up on the same page you get when clicking "Home" in the top bar, the topics list with the grey/red SSSS logos. (I would prefer being taken to the "Show unread posts since last visit" page directly, but that's just one click, anyway.)
I usually type the url into the browser (firefox).That invokes autocompletion, and IIUC Firefox prefers to autocomplete into the most frequently used URL, which may change. Or do you ignore the autocompletion and type the entire thing?
No such effect here, I always end up on the same page you get when clicking "Home" in the top bar, the topics list with the grey/red SSSS logos. (I would prefer being taken to the "Show unread posts since last visit" page directly, but that's just one click, anyway.)
How do you get to the login page in the first place? Never-changing bookmark, or some other method? Could you try deleting all cookies for the forum site, just in case?
That invokes autocompletion, and IIUC Firefox prefers to autocomplete into the most frequently used URL, which may change. Or do you ignore the autocompletion and type the entire thing?
Can't be [cookies], happens on the incognito browser I use at work.
At home, I use autocompletion from time to time, but at work I type the whole URL.... 'fraid I'm stumped for the moment, then. :(
This may be either a bug or an, ah, "undocumented feature."With a message like that, it's probably forum related. If it persists after the move, could you let me know?
I was trying to track down one of my 100s of PMs containing a certain word -- let's say "skald." I ran the search feature in the PMs, and it showed me half-a-dozen messages containing that word. I recognized the message I wanted, and clicked on it.
It refused to open the message, saying "You don't have access to this part of the forum."
However, when I went back back through time (e.g. 6 screens out of 15) and found the message manually, it opened just fine.
Is there some reason why I wouldn't be able to open a message directly from Search Results?
If that *is* a known behavior of SMF, no biggie. I was just wondering whether this is yet more evidence of how overburdened our current server is. (The Forum loads reeeeallly sloooowlllly for me. And from time to time I get the "cannot display b/c resources are overloaded" error message.)
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /index.php on this server.
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
So, Sunflower posted in the comments how the Forum's local time is supposed to match your location, but mine has always been EST/EDT, though I'm decidedly in CA. Is this me not using it right, or what?
Have you set the time offset among the settings? If you haven't, go to Profile -> Modify profile -> Look and Layout. It's right there, you can auto-detect the time zone.
(If you've done that already, sorry for the useless post)
Odd: the forum doesn't seem to remember my login from one session to the next. Perhaps the cookie recipe needs adjusting?
Odd: the forum doesn't seem to remember my login from one session to the next. Perhaps the cookie recipe needs adjusting?
Happens to me too when I follow the link to the forum on Minna's site. But everything's fine when the link is chosen from bookmarks or typed manually.
In the meantime, try just typing in https://ssssforum.com in your browser bar and see if it works properly then.
I dunno if it is the site or not, but some threads, when I open them makes me download weird files. it worked mostly on my tablet pc (I use it desktop mode), and now on laptop it happened once.
wait, maybe this is my devices, I checked, and only those treads are doing this, where I can find links, and both my tablet or laptop is not fully having all flash and such things and probably it is, if someone is more expert with computers, they should tell me what it actually is or my thought is right.I tried to find the post where Hushpiper explained this, but I don't remember what thread it's in right now.
I am sorry!
I tried to find the post where Hushpiper explained this, but I don't remember what thread it's in right now.thank you, now I understand this a bit. (I also saw it mostly in the fanvideo thread, and the music thread, so yeah)
I get the same thing if I visit a thread on my tablet that happens to have some embedded videos in it. IIRC, these files aren't harmful in any way and are just little cache files. You can delete them if you want.
thank you, now I understand this a bit. (I also saw it mostly in the fanvideo thread, and the music thread, so yeah)No no, it's no problem at all! :) That's what this forum is for!
sorry for disturbing
No no, it's no problem at all! :) That's what this forum is for!and do you know how to fix it? it is kind of annoying I can't see any videos in the replies, but it downloads these files. (on laptop at least)
and do you know how to fix it? it is kind of annoying I can't see any videos in the replies, but it downloads these files. (on laptop at least)Okay I went and found the bit where Hushpiper talked about this...
and do you know how to fix it? it is kind of annoying I can't see any videos in the replies, but it downloads these files. (on laptop at least)
Annoying, isn't it? Sadly there will probably not be a fix anytime particularly soon, since it would require custom PHP coding that's a bit above my knowledge. I'll be contacting the youtube embed extension's author and asking him about it at some point though. My apologies!I'm getting the same issue on an Android tablet (Kindle Fire)- it happens with some embedded pictures too. I think it's something to do with the way the Android OS handles these embedded files, but I'm an absolute novice with PHP so I can't help I'm afraid.
I'm getting the same issue on an Android tablet (Kindle Fire)- it happens with some embedded pictures too. I think it's something to do with the way the Android OS handles these embedded files, but I'm an absolute novice with PHP so I can't help I'm afraid.
Hmm, if you could point out a particular page that's doing that, and the name of the file that's getting downloaded, I'd appreciate that. It's probably something to do with flash, same as with the youtube thing, but I'd wanna confirm it's not a separate issue.Okay, so I tested it on page 2 of the 'Music in Your Language' thread (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=489.msg42164#msg42164)
I am unsure it is a bug or not, but I turned of the email notifications (I guess) but i still get emails, how can I turn it off then, if that does not do anything? can you fix that?
Are you unsure if you actually turned off the e-mail notifications? Would you mind trying it again, and tell us what you did? Screenshots would help. Thanks!well, thanks, I went back, all settings were right, but for some reason, one topic was added to send me notification (I also realized why only from that topic I kept getting emails since i turned it off)
Ok I don't know if this is just me or what, but instead of the little green squares next to people's names when they are online I see little german flags. Also for some strange reason the little green square is showing up as one of the happyfaces. I am currently viewing on safari on my iphone 4 if that helps any. I took screen shots but I can't post pictures from my phone easily.
Hmm, I'm not seeing the problem on my iPhone 4. Have you tried refreshing the browser?
I dunno how to fix on tablet, but I accidentally fixed on laptop, which had same problem. I just downloaded adobe flash????
but I dunno what to do with tablet. it can open youtube vids, but not if it is embed on the forum.....
Ok I don't know if this is just me or what, but instead of the little green squares next to people's names when they are online I see little german flags. Also for some strange reason the little green square is showing up as one of the happyfaces. I am currently viewing on safari on my iphone 4 if that helps any. I took screen shots but I can't post pictures from my phone easily.
I reset my phone and it seems to be back to normal now. I guess it just means I need a new phone :PNah, something like that would happen anyway. Although you could use it as an excuse...
I reset my phone and it seems to be back to normal now. I guess it just means I need a new phone :P
This is the home screen, where are the logos? how do I know if there are posts I haven't checked?SMF devs decided to hide that functionality on mobile. Working on undoing that right now.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/oILobzYoZLlx-NFgPxiGlWuc0ew70D0O8Pg4LAfW5K8=w369-h655-no)
The S.S.S.S. thread looks WRONG. All the thread options are jammed on one side! And I can't tell if there are any new posts like in the computer version.Known bug in SMF's mod.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/0K6kwuqRA6ZvJPmN06WayVZDrs0eF5RUnCHvY-92NWA=w369-h655-no) (https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/9Oh7CPXcEnOiVDimNPJ529Tth7cXqKDLFRsA0ljV9qk=w369-h655-no)
There aren't any pictures to go with user accounts anymore!That's weird, I had user avatars when I last checked. Will look into it.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/XvNhEnT0myx5SAXffHzTZYcNENc83PvcoglkeD5PTvQ=w369-h655-no)
How do I reply to a topic? I CAN'T, THERE IS NO BUTTON ANYMORE
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/YA8aPw2sd63VFim6BklirVxA2OY1pkGWsEs7cq6VffU=w369-h655-no)
Currently there's no option for users to turn off mobile layout, but I can make one real quick if there's demand. ;)
Most of the issues experienced are not our fault (http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/arrow-signs-not-my-fault-shifting-blame-18471565.jpg), but bugs and/or wrong design decisions in SMF's mod, which is in admittedly in Beta, so it can have bugs and wrong design decisions.
>snip!<
Currently there's no option for users to turn off mobile layout, but I can make one real quick if there's demand. ;)
Making an off button didn't succeed, but we fixed all them bugz! Namely:*applause*With these fixes I believe the mobile layout is now usable. Enjoy! :)
- Make the new posts stars appear on every layout ✔
- Make avatars appear on every layout ✔
- Make avatars have the right size everywhere ✔
- Fix topic lists and the like getting squeezed ✔
(and keep reporting odd things as you stumble across them)
Well I feel silly now *blushes profusely*
Sorry for freaking out guys, I just really like the mobility of having the forum in my pocket wherever I go. I'm gonna try the mobile version now (whilst actually being logged in) to see how it looks.
Don't feel silly! We've been working on the mobile theme specifically to help out people like you, so if it's not working for you we do want to know.
One tiny thing about the mobile version... On the main forum page could there be a "new replies to your posts" link, like there is on the PC version? That is something I use almost constantly, and I don't want to have to type out the URL every time. :-\
Otherwise, the fixes to the mobile version are great so far. :)
I don't think the forum theme appreciates it's new child(thread):Interestingly, it looks fine on the mobile version.
(http://i1375.photobucket.com/albums/ag444/Fimbulvarg/wt_zpsgm3frwze.png)
iiit's probably not a bug but more like a Coding Thing, but I've realized that if you put an apostrophe (and probably other punctuation) in a spoiler description, the spoiler won't work.Spoiler: this is an example showSpoiler: it's an example too show
one can read apostroph'd spoilers with the quote function though. this has been a psa
[spoiler=Doesn't work]Nope[/spoiler]
These two characters mark beginnings and ends of strings (variables for storing text) in computer code and when the program encounters them, it may think that a string has ended there and messes up. If you cannot avoid these characters in spoiler titles, write a \ before the ' or ". This tells the little buggy piece of code that that ' or " is just a piece of text, not the end of a string, and it should go on. ;)[spoiler=Don\'t test, does work]Hey, this works![/spoiler]
Unintentional side-effect. Fixed. :)
Has anyone complained about images being really squished on phone version yetI believe I can blame this on old phone browsers, the expected behavior (and what happens on decent browsers) is:
Now that is messed up.
What kind of browser are you viewing this in? Because on that picture either the browser is some dumb old one or some styles didn't load at all. (The second is more likely because that search field lacks all its styles.)
Have you triedturning it off and on againdoing a hard refresh?
Hope this is the right place to post this....
Has any one had trouble with using the little bold/italic/etc buttons? they don't seem to work for me. Although it could just be my computer (recently upgraded to Windows 10?) as Flickr is also refusing to give me BBC codes to post photos here. :(
So we may be running into some possible issues: the hosting account the forum is currently on might be getting force-upgraded some time in the next few weeks. This is a good thing and a bad thing. The new server will be faster, shinier, and easier to upgrade if we outgrow it. However, it will also probably result in bugs. Possibly a lot of bugs.Well, that's irritating- you don't get any choice?
Needless to say I will be yelling at people on my end over this: it's gonna be a good idea to upgrade eventually, but I'd like to do that at a time when I know the new platform better and am more prepared to deal with any bugs that may arise. If I'm not successful... I'll let you guys know so that you'll be prepared. So this is just a heads-up.
I had a similar problem. Are you using the Edge browser? Because on Edge the code buttons don't work and you can't insert quotes. It's some sort of browser error. If you use chrome it shouldn't be a problem.Ah, yes I believe I am using Edge. I'll ask my computer-guru father (aka the one who insisted on installing it) about looking into Chrome. Thank you!=D
I just discovered Friday that if I click on any individual board from the Guest view, the page automatically logs me in, without my inputting my ID and password. Can that be right?Any chance that you ever ticked the "Always stay logged in" box on the login form? Explicitly jumping to the login form might override your browser's having a perpetual access already at hand ...
Any chance that you ever ticked the "Always stay logged in" box on the login form? Explicitly jumping to the login form might override your browser's having a perpetual access already at hand ...
Why yes, I did tick that box. In that case, is the forum software behaving as expected?I don't know for sure, I don't want my machines to do eternal automated logins, so I never tried that out myself.
If you want to know for sure, tell your browser to delete all cookies for the domain ssssforum.com. (Um, if you can still find those controls in current browsers, that is ... >:( ) That should restore it to the original behavior, and automatic login shouldn't reoccur until you tick that checkbox again ...
I don't know if anyone's had this problem before, but the forum keeps telling me I have a new PM, even though I don't. The popup only comes up when I login, but the little [1] notification won't go away. It's not a huge problem, just a bit annoying, but I'd be grateful if anyone knows how to fix it.
You could try deleting your forum cookie, maybe it the problem is done for the moment.
Does the problem exist on any device or only on mobile (I had it on mobile once and deleting cookies helped)
Sooooo the PerSSSSona star icon thingy isn't popping up when I'm in the SSSS board. Is it just me or ?Same for me.
Sooooo the PerSSSSona star icon thingy isn't popping up when I'm in the SSSS board. Is it just me or ?
Sooooo the PerSSSSona star icon thingy isn't popping up when I'm in the SSSS board. Is it just me or ?
Same for me.
Likewise. I see the broken GIF indicator where it should be.
Fixed it (the easy way, for now). Sorry for leaving it in for so long. ::)
Thanks so much, Eriaror! Have I mentioned lately how glad I am to have an official Forum-Smith in residence?
Is the General Discussion Board supposed to be invisible to users who aren't logged in from now on or is that a bug?As per Forum-Thor Eich, that was intentional:
As per Forum-Thor Eich, that was intentional:
https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=590.msg64551#msg64551
(FYI, it was an issue of visitors possibly taking an inappropriate interest in posters' personal info.)
Um, so I've noticed a problem with pictures and icons while on mobile. Namely, profile pictures and flags and other icons get switched a lot. The ones I noticed so far are as follows (I think)
Feartheviolas and squirrel emoticon switched
JoB and Canadian flag switched
Mail icon in place of Danish flag
Those are the ones I've been able to discern just by looking at the mobile version. There are probably more subtle ones that I haven't noticed. Just thought someone ought to know! (I'm on an iPhone by the way, if it makes a difference)
Um, so I've noticed a problem with pictures and icons while on mobile. Namely, profile pictures and flags and other icons get switched a lot. The ones I noticed so far are as follows (I think)
Feartheviolas and squirrel emoticon switched
JoB and Canadian flag switched
Mail icon in place of Danish flag
Those are the ones I've been able to discern just by looking at the mobile version. There are probably more subtle ones that I haven't noticed. Just thought someone ought to know! (I'm on an iPhone by the way, if it makes a difference)
I get different glitches every time I go on mobile (iPod touch, also an Apple product), and mobile for me is just synonymous with glitches at this point:Spoiler: show
i'm so sorry for laughing but I'm finding the screencaps incredibly funny
(http://i.imgur.com/hm9V1FX.png)
JoB and Canadian flag switchedWhat! This is an insult, and maple reason to leaf this forum at once! :P
I get different glitches every time I go on mobile (iPod touch, also an Apple product), and mobile for me is just synonymous with glitches at this point:Spoiler: show
This is wonderful. xD
(http://i.snag.gy/bcesD.jpg)
Chapter breaks = heart breaks. Truth.
(http://i.snag.gy/mLPsb.jpg)
This must have some implied hidden meaning...
Ok so the forum has all of a sudden decided I am not authorized to view my own PMs...Try logging out and logging back in?
Try logging out and logging back in?
If it persists, I'll look at it when I get home from school.
so there's a thing that annoys me with the child boards, namely the "new" buttons that appear when there are unread replies. sometimes these glaringly orange buttons won't leave the main page until ALL the new replies are read/marked as read - anyone else have that problem?
Huh. Sometimes I have that problem, sometimes not. I just checked it out now and the "new" button on the Personal/GDB child board disappeared as soon as I read *one* of the unread threads. But in the recent past, I've had not only your problem, but in fact that the "new" orange button won't disappear even *after* I've read every single unread thread.
Huh. Sometimes I have that problem, sometimes not. I just checked it out now and the "new" button on the Personal/GDB child board disappeared as soon as I read *one* of the unread threads. But in the recent past, I've had not only your problem, but in fact that the "new" orange button won't disappear even *after* I've read every single unread thread.
I'm not entirely sure that this is the problem you're referring to, but:I almost never press back...
If you read one unread board/thread and then press Back, there's a good chance that the browser loads the whole page from cache, instead of getting it again from the server, so you're actually seeing the page in its past state, when you haven't read the said board/thread yet. So, try pressing the Home option in the menu to get the site in its real state.
I have a glitch on the My Messages tab, it keeps indicating I have 1 unread message, but no new message has shown up and it won't go away.
Ana Nymus had this problem too, for her getting a new PM solved the problem.
https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=10.msg64054#msg64054
I'll send you a PM and we'll see if it fixes it.
Don't know if this is the right thread for this anymore, but I'm here with more mobile glitches. Got any new ideas?omg yesssSpoiler: show
(http://i.imgur.com/ZNia28c.png)
Don't know if this is the right thread for this anymore, but I'm here with more mobile glitches. Got any new ideas?Oooh, very very broken.Spoiler: show
Oooh, very very broken.
Eriaror should be told about this directly, it's his mobile theme.
omg yesss
- viola is hereby decreed to be the entirety of denmark.
- "trying to learn sunflower but pronounciation"
- "ssssoulcount: 0,5 party karris"
- *jethan peeking out at the sound of party*
that emil header looks pretty good though
(excellent reply #444 if you don't mind me saying so)
Don't know if this is the right thread for this anymore, but I'm here with more mobile glitches. Got any new ideas?
(http://i.imgur.com/EBGy9MH.png) (http://i.imgur.com/tI3sn4i.png)
Also Mélusine speaks Viola not too bad, and Noodly is trying to learn Sunflower...Actually, speak Vi is not really difficult, you just have to remember to try to steal things (and not only clothes) often :P
Curry is the entirety of Norway and Noodly survived Curry.
I kinda want to just keep taking photos the glitches to see what happens, because this is hilarious XD
I kinda want to just keep taking photos the glitches to see what happens, because this is hilarious XD
Curry is the entirety of Norway
It's clearly NOT a glitch, it's a feature.
Glitches of the day:All fear the Fimbulvoid.
(http://i.imgur.com/l1ddihO.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/l1ddihO.png)
what godforsaken infinity rank did fimby get promoted to now
It wasn't even related to Fim; it was like that in all of the quote boxes and header boxes :P
I like the new bubble that tells you the number of messages you have, but...er....Whooops, that's what happens when you publish things before you check how they run. Left a = instead of a == in the code part I edited... ::)
(http://i.imgur.com/sgpyeYa.png)
It seems the bubbles are a bit overzealous. (Forum looked like this when I logged in, and I actually did have an unread message. Upon checking the message the bubble army went away.)
I can confirm this, I came across it once or twice yesterday, when it threw me to about the 500th page of the GDT instead of the new one.
Sadly I'm not certain what is causing this, maybe some quirk in the database. I ran a "Find and repair any errors" admin task, but that found no error, so if you experience this again we'll look into it more deeply. :)
I just was sent to page 28 of the Meetup thread instead of page 59, and when I went to page 59 there were no new posts. Could this problem possibly be caused by someone making a post and then deleting it?
Edit: The same thing just happened with the Language Exchange thread--I was sent to Nimphy's post on page 7 instead of to page nine, and the most recent post on page nine is from October.
Uh, I noticed that the Forum Index thread I made seems to have been unstickied? I can't find it at all, actually... o.O Does anyone else have this happen too?
We moved the forum index to the Forum and Website Discussion board (this one) along with Len's how to insert images thread a month or so ago so that it would be in the same place with the helpful information. It's stickied right there :) https://ssssforum.com/index.php?board=4.0Ah, that's probably a good place for it! Thanks :)
For some reason spoilers don't work when wrapped around tables (I was trying to get the list of Secret Santa people up):Spoiler: show
Yeah I've found that too. For some reason the BBC code is weird about that. I can think of something that might fix it, I'm going to go try it out and get back to you.
Yeah I've found that too. For some reason the BBC code is weird about that. I can think of something that might fix it, I'm going to go try it out and get back to you.
Quotes and embedded videos also don't work with spoiler tags, it was a minor PITA with the advent calendar.
Two questions:
1. Is someone currently changing fonts and font sizes, in particular for the pagetop menubar ... ?
2. Is it possible that edits to preexisting posts do not make the topic (re)appear in the "Recent Unread Topics" page?
(http://i.imgur.com/qiC3JZY.png)
I can't even see the preview on the home page.
It seems certain words like o-f are being replaced by character names thus: Mikkel, which is amusing but also annoying....
I don't think that this is something that needs to, or even can, be fixed on the forum server's end, but let me post this FYI just in case:
For most of the day, my workplace (ISP is a subsidiary of Entega) could not get a connection to the server; still can't. I tried from our hosted servers (at Interxion) just to verify, and everything's A-OK there.
I don't think that this is something that needs to, or even can, be fixed on the forum server's end, but let me post this FYI just in case:
For most of the day, my workplace (ISP is a subsidiary of Entega) could not get a connection to the server; still can't. I tried from our hosted servers (at Interxion) just to verify, and everything's A-OK there.
So do you think our Forum server is rejecting your workplace's connection request?No, that would be ... weird. It rather seems to be something about the peering between the top-tier Internet providers, or even the local ISP on our side. traceroute is showing odd results, too, way before the probes should get anywhere near the server.
got the same problem as Starz. My most recent mail from the forum was on July 2nd
Skimming the thread in the meantime.
Ragnarok and I have noticed the occasional pm vanishing into the ether, generally these are response messages in a chain and not new messages. Is this a known issue or did we stumble onto something new?
Here's a weird thing - very often the site goes offline with this error when I try to load it, especially in the morning and afternoon (European time):
(http://i.imgur.com/Ysdxe2w.png)
It started a few days ago.
In profile, I have this email notifications option:[temporarily activates e-mail notifications and PMs self]
Notify by email every time you receive a personal message: Always
But I didn't get notifications about 2 private messages from 10 April, and I saw them only today when decided to check the Forum.
Hello, if I might request a small change, it would be the banner image inbetween sections on the SSSS site.
When I page down on the site, the image also scrolls and changes in a vertiginous way. The code seems to have an JavaScript onScroll function built into it, that while cool, makes me slightly dizzy.
Part of the problem may be that I'm paging rather than scrolling, but just the same.
Incidentally, I really like the little ribbon running down both sides of the content.
Just a thought. Thank you!
Hi helpful people! I hope this is in the right place. I just had a message from Meran ni Cuill saying "Hey Roísín, I can't get to the next page. Got grabbed off to spam. Can you let someone know please?"
Which is what I am trying to do, but unsure if I'm in the right place? Hope you can help. I'd forward the message, but not sure how to make that work either.
I'm not able to get page 713. I get grabbed off to a "prize page".
Has the comic been hacked???
Issue:Had the same problem here as well.
I have received two reports so far (myself and one other user who cannot use the top right log in menu to log in).
Instead we have to go via the login link on the menu bar.
This one here:
https://cl.ly/273F121x2f38
Wish: Have users able to log in from the top right as well as from the login link in the menu.
...I didn't get notifications about 2 private messages from 10 April, and I saw them only today when decided to check the Forum. They weren't in Spam folder.
So, is there any chance to check and fix it?
...Both the forum and the first mail server are in Bluehost/Unifiedlayer's address space, so that looks OK, but I have to say that I'm a bit puzzled about the envelope sender ("From_") being 'pogopros@fast27.fastdomain.com' (while the "From:" header is '"The Stand Still, Stay Silent Fan-Forum" <webmaster@ssssforum.com>') ...
For some unknown reason, user signatures on mobile are shoved far to the right instead of under the user's post.
Yay, the latest update makes everything pretty and centered again!
Buuut it makes scrolling through a thread on mobile a bit of a hassle- for almost every post I scroll past, the whole thread jumps back, just a little bit. It took me a little while to understand why the thread kept backtracking like that, but it seems to be because a users picture and info line gets bigger when you tap the top of their post?
I got this message just now when I tried to access the forum:
Access denied. Your IP address [**.**.**.**] is blacklisted. If you feel this is in error please contact your hosting providers abuse department.
I'm not sure what if anything the mods can do about this, and I eventually fixed it by disconnecting and reconnecting my VPN, but I still thought that somebody ought to know.
Yes, I can see it, and can read threads on it.
I checked the title privileges and refreshed them, it should be working, Melu is it showing up for you now?Not working on my computer neither my phone. I begin to wonder if I have done something wrong *Doesn’t understand*
Not working on my computer neither my phone. I begin to wonder if I have done something wrong *Doesn’t understand*
Just to eliminate that possibility, would you mind logging out and then logging back in?Done without a change. I see all the child boards except this one.
Done without a change. I see all the child boards except this one.
There is no way à wrong manipulation of mine I wouldn’t have noticed could make it disappear ? :/
Chrome just flagged the forum as "Not secure," citing its security certificate being out of date. Is that right? I'm sure the forum is still safe to use, but wanted to make sure you guys know.
Got a similar warning in firefox.
Hi! It’s been a while since someone posted something in this tread...
I’m new to the forum and as I entered I found the map a cool idea!
But what a disappointment when I visited the map and it is blocked because it has a limit of 100 visits :'( :'( :'(
Is there something to do to bring the map project alive again?
Cheers!
That's sad :-[
I could still access it with my editing link, but indeed the website says:(and that means 100 views ever, not per month/year or anything - making it useless for anything much more than a temporary and not-public use)
"Therefore, as of 1st April 2018, ZeeMaps will limit the number of views on free maps to 100. (Free maps means maps that are not owned by an active paid plan). When you reach 100 views, your map will ‘freeze’ and it can only be unfrozen by upgrading to a paid subscription plan."
Sadly, their cheapest non-free plan costs 20 dollars each month (or 200 a year), which is quite steep in my opinion. The alternative would be making a map on another website (either letting go of old markers and minnions, or importing them: it seems it's possible to export them from Zeemaps, though I didn't have the permissions)
Seems like a good idea. Eik must be able to export the map as an admin
Try it, thenasks me to log in, so it wouldn't do. (there's a "bulk entry" option, but it seems to require a text format).
https://www.mapcustomizer.com/my-maps/SSSS%20Fandom/edit
Although there seems to be no option of importing data. I'll start searching for more websites like this in a few hours, maybe there is something better
Hi, I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, but I'm trying to register on the fan forum, and keep getting an error message. I looked all over the forum and can't find a way of messaging the admins, so I'm hoping someone here will be able to help.-- Jody S (http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=968#comment-4100401051)
Cry for help from the comments section:
-- Jody S (http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=968#comment-4100401051)
Cry for help from the comments section:
-- Jody S (http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=968#comment-4100401051)
w00t! I'm in!
She should be able to log on now, I fiddled around with a few things. There is something wrong with our spambot blocker.Is it possible that the symptom has resurfaced (http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=973#comment-4128058863) (with another user trying to register, of course)?
I seemed to have accidentally deleted the reenactment topic when I meant to delete a post that was not working with attaching pictures. Can this be recovered or is it gone for good?
Is it possible that the symptom has resurfaced (http://sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=973#comment-4128058863) (with another user trying to register, of course)?
I seemed to have accidentally deleted the reenactment topic when I meant to delete a post that was not working with attaching pictures. Can this be recovered or is it gone for good?I suppose there's warning messages when deleting stuff. If this can be done, I recommend changing the *thread deletion* message so that it's stated very visibly everywhere that the whole thread will disappear. These problems are but one miss-click and one only-glancing-at-the-warning away
I seemed to have accidentally deleted the reenactment topic when I meant to delete a post that was not working with attaching pictures. Can this be recovered or is it gone for good?
Another user-to-be (http://sssscomic.com/comic2.php?page=1#comment-4153771091) who cannot register, I'm afraid ...They're in now!
... I don't speak any of the cyrillic-written languages, but I do have a hunch that the antibot filter is a tad too user friendly (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=1653) now ... :(
... I don't speak any of the cyrillic-written languages, but I do have a hunch that the antibot filter is a tad too user friendly (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=1653) now ... :(
Would preventing people with no posts from making new threads help solve the problem, or would it instead just spread it out to pre-existing threads that didn't ask for it, do you think?I can think of an array of limits that would allow newcomer behavior but curb the sudden burst of link-laden posts from a spambot, but that's not very helpful unless the forum software supports such limits (or you want to roll your own code), I'm afraid. Having that said, it seems that SMF 2.x supports putting users into profiles with different permissions (https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Permissions#Post_Moderation) as well as settings so that users below some post count must do "verification" before posting, which seems to consist of randomly chosen knowledge questions (https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Security_and_Moderation#Anti-Spam) from a set that SMF would need the admin to provide ...
I can think of an array of limits that would allow newcomer behavior but curb the sudden burst of link-laden posts from a spambot, but that's not very helpful unless the forum software supports such limits (or you want to roll your own code), I'm afraid. Having that said, it seems that SMF 2.x supports putting users into profiles with different permissions (https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Permissions#Post_Moderation) as well as settings so that users below some post count must do "verification" before posting, which seems to consist of randomly chosen knowledge questions (https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Security_and_Moderation#Anti-Spam) from a set that SMF would need the admin to provide ...
Emails to this site's webmaster come to me, as well as to all the mods and admins, butOffhand, I don't see any menu or help that would direct (non-logged-in) people to try e-mail-ing in case of (login) problems, much less what address to use. Is that intentional?we've already made the blood sacrifice on the Rune of Confidentialitywe take confidentiality seriously.
Sorry to be the one who keepsdragging in somewhat-dead crittersreferring you to users' complaints in the comments section, but here (http://www.sssscomic.com/comic2.php?page=19#comment-4212646630) we have a case of "password lost and cannot make a new account" ...
Also:
Offhand, I don't see any menu or help that would direct (non-logged-in) people to try e-mail-ing in case of (login) problems, much less what address to use. Is that intentional?
Something new ... is it possible that Kis (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?action=profile;u=1450)' home IP has somehow gotten onto a (server side) blacklist (http://www.sssscomic.com/comic2.php?page=22#comment-4220494489)?
Sorry for all the craziness with access lately. In the last few weeks we've had hundreds if not thousands of attemps to access the site by spambots. We're trying to figure out the most effective ways to prevent spam and sometimes it's a little too effective and prevents actual humans.I take it that fail2ban, or something acting in the same way but built into SMF, is already in action?
Can we get an indian flag ( :india: ) added to the list? Or something to indicate Hindi at the very least.
Dilandu reports that he's suddenly banned from the forum, I'm guessing it's the antispam things that are a bit too effective again. Can anyone help him?Poor Dilandu, I can see him attempting to log in from all sorts of devices. This is among the hundreds of continuing attempts by the Russian spambots to enter. (This is not hyperbole. There were well over 800 hits since the evening of 10 Dec, at which point I stopped scrolling back.) I identified several basic IP addresses, but they must switch them around, because a different crop have started attempts this week.
Quick heads-up: I've removed the BotScout mod from our forum, as it was doing its job of keeping spam registrations away too well--by shutting down registrations entirely. I'm looking at options to potentially keep it around, but for the moment, just keep a close eye out for spammers. ;)
Do we have a possibility to set up control questions in the signup process? Super easy ones, but where you need to click the correct answer?
The lovely Wyrd (Hush's other half) has joined the admin team and is working behind the scenes to outfit the forum with protection from spam bots. It will take a bit of time but we should have better security without making things difficult for users.
vaanikapoor55555 is spamming the forum.
Our error logs are filling with deprecation errors (8192: Function create_function() is deprecated), but I found a possible fix?
https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=559573.0 (https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=559573.0)
When I try the "Report to moderator" link below (several of) the spam posts here (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=1117.msg160033;topicseen#new), I get a page that says
"An Error Has Occurred!
The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you."
(Been a while, but I remember that the last time I used that link, I was taken to sort of a feedback page to state why I feel the post to be removal-worthy.)
Edit: Now I get that error just trying to open the thread. Guess the admins just happened to remove it while I still had it open?
When I try the "Report to moderator" link below (several of) the spam posts here (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=1117.msg160033;topicseen#new), I get a page that says
"An Error Has Occurred!
The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you."
(Been a while, but I remember that the last time I used that link, I was taken to sort of a feedback page to state why I feel the post to be removal-worthy.)
Edit: Now I get that error just trying to open the thread. Guess the admins just happened to remove it while I still had it open?
Hmmm, was there an attempt to auto-modify forum signatures lately? Just now I noticed that I needed to adapt the language flags in mine, but also that the image off to its right was missing. Turns out that my .sig was suddenly up to the 500 characters limit, cut off in the middle of the "[url=...]" preceding the "[img]...[/img][/url][/td][/tr][/table]".
(So I lost the image URL, but that's not a problem, as the jokes the images refer to are quite dated, anyway.)
The image url, at least the one that used to hold up the ip address, I'm pretty sure had been broken for a while. I remember looking at it a few months ago and wondering if maybe the url moved.Yeah, seems that danasoft.com went incommunicado about mid-year ... time to tidy up my
Yeah, seems that danasoft.com went incommunicado about mid-year ... time to tidy up myroomsig some more, I guess ...Spoiler: decisions, decisions ... show
so can I center stuff:squirrelcookie: :squirrelcookie:
it should be a doddle
but it never seems to
:squirrelcookie: :squirrelcookie:
Okay, it happens within spoilers. By design, the Advent Calendar uses spoilers. Can this even be fixed?If the "Preview" function properly mirrors the actual "Post"ing, then the breakage happens only when the innermost [spoiler] has a title (i.e., is of the "[spoiler=yadda yadda]" format:
OK, let's see what happens when I actually "Post" this ...OK, seems to be
The center-in-titled-spoiler combo certainly yields interesting failure modes. I've seen one instance (that I cannot reproduce offhand anymore) where properly balanced tags yielded a working spoiler (with non-working centering inside), followed by "[/spoiler]", as if I had put in an extra closing tag ...Ah, this was how (extra tag - here, a [b] - around the [center]):
[spoiler quote=": title text "]
instead of[spoiler=title text]
Does it make a difference if you refresh the page? Sometimes if you hit the back button the site doesn't log that you've read a message.
Um. Apologies if this isn't the proper thread to ask this but I'm really not sure where else to put it. This isn't really a bug/thing to fix (nor is it an "improvement" so far as I can tell) but ...
Is there a way to make "night mode" permanent, rather than toggling it every time I return to the site?
It depends on your cookies, it should stay on if you're using the same device and you have cookies on. If you're switching between devices or clearing your cache or using different browsers it will revert to normal.Hrm. I only have a PC so it's this same device every time. Cookies should be on. Unless the squirrel cookies are staging an uprising. ;) I'll poke it a little more. I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong.
Hrm. I only have a PC so it's this same device every time. Cookies should be on. Unless the squirrel cookies are staging an uprising. ;) I'll poke it a little more. I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong.
ETA: Figured it out, I guess. There's a quirk in the Universe that says if I comment/complain about something, it will fix itself. This seems to be the case once again because now dark mode is staying on! LOL
Tarnagh, that’s offically known as the Demo Effect. Sometimes it materializes by causing a malfunction when you are about to demo something. But even more prevalent occurrence is things working when you are trying to show someone that it doesn’t.If it's any consolation, it's not working properly anyhow. I'm noticing that once I've set it for night mode, it works fine until I close the browser ... which is why I thought it was fixed before.
If it's any consolation, it's not working properly anyhow. I'm noticing that once I've set it for night mode, it works fine until I close the browser ... which is why I thought it was fixed before.
I just have to reset it every time I open the browser again. Ah, well. I can live with it. :)
Two minor things:
- The User Help Page (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?action=help) still tells us to insert flags with the country name,, e.g., ":germany:" (→ :germany:), rather than the two-letter code, ":de:" (→ :de:).
- A number of links in the pinned "Important Information" thread (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=416.msg17211#msg17211) are broken because they're still using the forum's old hostname "ssssforum.pcriot.com". (I suppose that that's not actually limited to that one HowTo thread, either.)
The help page is incredibly frustrating to update becuase it's hard coded into the site and the only way to change it is by updating the code.... change the menu bar instead and have the "Help" entry point to a topic/post for easier editing, then ... ? ;)
Tarnagh, that’s offically known as the Demo Effect. Sometimes it materializes by causing a malfunction when you are about to demo something. But even more prevalent occurrence is things working when you are trying to show someone that it doesn’t.Oh, goodness, my dad used to be a system administrator, he worked with servers for some company and he had tons and tons of stories of how people would call him and some of his colleagues about problems with their computers and the moment they called everything started working perfectly well!
Please try to join the 18+ group (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?action=profile;area=groupmembership) without setting a birth date first. It seems to (now?) have worked for me, too ...
(On the page to enter your birth date (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?action=profile;area=forumprofile), did you notice the "Change profile" button to the lower right to actually submit your changes?)
1. I tried that, and I'm off limits.I can confirm that even if my profile settings page reports "Your profile has been updated successfully" in green, my birth date remains 0001-01-01 (instead of the test values I entered, e.g., 2001-11-11).
2. I know you're being thorough... Yes, I used that button each and every time. And it never worked. The birthdate will not change.
ADDITIONAL: I followed the link in JoB's email and I'm in the Mature Group... but my birthdate hasn't been changed still.
Puzzling!
@Yastreb if you're having trouble joining still I can assign you to the group.
FYI (Róisín herself remains unfazed), it seems that she cannot see all the threads anymore, as the Birthdays one in particular is missing / gives her an error; see details in this post (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?topic=5.msg186510#msg186510) and the replies thereto.
Thank you thank you, whoever fixed this! It now seems to be working again. Yay!
Seeing "Book 4 kickstarter is live" and "Minna live-streams ...", I wonder whether the autorotating "News" box top right could use a little update ... 8)
Is anyone else experiencing loads of ”this site is currenlty unavailable” with he Forum? I am, but I don’t know if it’s my end or the Forum’s, I haven’t had time to surf anywhere else.Yes.
I've finally updated the reaction image hoard!... is it just me (and my FF 103.0 on Linux), or has it become impossible to search for anything other than by hitting "Load all Images" and eyeballing the entire list?
... is it just me (and my FF 103.0 on Linux), or has it become impossible to search for anything other than by hitting "Load all Images" and eyeballing the entire list?
Alrighty, the search function in the reaction image hoard should be working smoothly again!... bar some metadata confusion, I'm afraid ...
... bar some metadata confusion, I'm afraid ...
Example:
- Searching with "Filter for Chapter: Other Media" does not yield any matches.
- Searching for the "AstralSounds" category and clicking the one match open shows "Chapter NaN", then clicking "Edit" does not show any "Chapter", but "Source" is already set to "Other Media".
- The one match for "SwordInterval" listed "Chapter: Prolouge" [sic!], when I changed "Source" to "Other Media", it changed to "Chapter NaN", too.
(Both images correctly show up when searching for "Non SSSS characters" now, though.)
I'm getting timeouts from the server quite frequently lately (like ~15m before now, i.e., 05-Dec 8 am UTC), am I just (repeatedly) picking the wrong time to try or ... ?
I can't find anywhere what is current Forum time, because I have my settings for my own timezone. I know it's somewhere, but where oh where?Funny, I never knew that one could change the forum time... :)
I can't find anywhere what is current Forum timeIt's probably not what that page is meant for, but I do get told what the "current forum time" is here (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?action=profile;area=theme).
On desktop, I can see the Forum time in the 'Hello wavewright62' box with the links to unread posts.No, that's the personal time"zone" (actually a fixed offset) you have set in your profile (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?action=profile;area=theme).
No, that's the personal time"zone" (actually a fixed offset) you have set in your profile (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?action=profile;area=theme).
I just set my offset to +6 for a test, now that page shows me "16-12-2022, 09:33:42" in the "Hello JoB" box but "Current forum time: 16-12-2022, 03:33:42" underneath the field where I enter my offset.
I also know what the time is here now, but I want to see when previous posts have gone up :)FWIW, test-changing my offset from the default "0" to "6" also changes the "Today at 11:28:56" displayed above your post to "Today at 17:28:56".
Do you want me to see if we can change the way that you can self-allocate what personal time it shows you (ie changing it into choosing a timezone from saying how offset you are from forum time which afaik is american east coast time)? It doesn't sound too impossible to do.I would consider it a notable improvement of SMF, but not for myself, thanks. I log in straight to the Recent Unread Topics page (https://ssssforum.com/index.php?action=unread) to catch the news, and when I dig into the forum's past (and were concerned with the original posting timestamp in the first place ...), the important part rather is the date and not the exact time. 8) I'm just noting that if I wanted the timestamps to be properly given per my timezone, the differing DST rules between that and the forum time would prevent the "constant offset" mechanism from achieving that.
Table './pogopros_ssss/smf_sessions' is marked as crashed and should be repaired