# I'm having trouble to load www.cyclechat.net at times



## Manonabike (24 Feb 2011)

I've tried different browsers with the same result. 

Is it a DNS problem or is the site the problem?

Thanks in advance


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## Shaun (14 Mar 2011)

AFAIK there are no issues with the server or the network it is hosted on.

Is this still an issue? or has it resolved itself?

Shaun


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## Manonabike (21 Mar 2011)

It was ok until just now.... I couldn't load the site for over an hour


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## Shaun (22 Mar 2011)

Have you rebooted your router recently?

Is it only an issue with CycleChat or do other sites exhibit this behaviour?

Who's your Internet provider?

Are you using a PC, Mac, or mobile device?

Cheers,
Shaun


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## dave r (7 Apr 2011)

Admin said:


> Have you rebooted your router recently?
> 
> Is it only an issue with CycleChat or do other sites exhibit this behaviour?
> 
> ...




Ubuntu 10.04, Firefox, o2, running better privacy and no script as security. Most of the time CC won't load, if it does load it mostly takes ages, I was able to eat my morning porridge whilst it was loading a page this morning, occasionally it will load normally. get CC was taking too long to respond messages when it times out. Been like this for a couple of days. Rest of internet is working normally with no problems.


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## ColinJ (7 Apr 2011)

I've noticed a few delays at times myself over the past couple of days.

Opera 11.01, desktop PC, ISP = Freedom to Surf, as bought out by Tiscali, Talk Talk, whoever (can't keep up with them!)


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## dave r (7 Apr 2011)

Interesting! It loaded and I could select threads and read posts, but it was still showing as loading the page, as I was reading ColinJ's post it timed out and went to the CC is taking to long to load page, strange!


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## ColinJ (7 Apr 2011)

Oh, I've just remembered ... 

From time to time I get a strange error page popping up and did a search for the URL displayed. It seems that external links from CycleChat are being redirected through some portal which shares any eventual advertising revenue. That portal sometimes seems to choke on the traffic.

I don't have any objection to that being done, though I haven't seen any mention of it anywhere on this site and I think it would be a good thing to declare it. I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be allowed in the USA without a clear declaration that it was being done.


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## Shaun (7 Apr 2011)

ColinJ said:


> Oh, I've just remembered ...
> 
> From time to time I get a strange error page popping up and did a search for the URL displayed. It seems that external links from CycleChat are being redirected through some portal which shares any eventual advertising revenue. That portal sometimes seems to choke on the traffic.
> 
> I don't have any objection to that being done, though I haven't seen any mention of it anywhere on this site and I think it would be a good thing to declare it. I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be allowed in the USA without a clear declaration that it was being done.




It's something I'm trialling for a couple of weeks. If it works without disrupting the site too much and generates a reasonable amount of revenue, then I'll post an announcement - which will include an opt-out link for anyone who doesn't wish to participate.

It only applies when you click on an "external" link though and shouldn't have any impact at all on the general day-to-day use of/access to the site.

Cheers,
Shaun


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## ColinJ (7 Apr 2011)

Admin said:


> It's something I'm trialling for a couple of weeks. If it works without disrupting the site too much and generates a reasonable amount of revenue, then I'll post an announcement - which will include an opt-out link for anyone who doesn't wish to participate.
> 
> It only applies when you click on an "external" link though and shouldn't have any impact at all on the general day-to-day use of/access to the site.
> 
> ...


Okay, fair enough.

It gave me a bit of a fright when the error page first popped up because I thought I might have some sort of malware on my PC. When I Googled the URL, I realised what it was doing.


That's actually quite a clever idea if it turns out to be successful. Good luck with it!


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## Shaun (7 Apr 2011)

It's unobtrusive and doesn't affect the server/database/members or anyone's ability to enjoy CC.

At the same time it doesn't involve spending any visual real-estate and/or disrupting the page layout.

Another week of trialing it and I'll make a decision and post any announcements.

Cheers,
Shaun


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## italiafirenze (7 Apr 2011)

I've noticed that I don't get a server response 1 time out of every ten. Either accessing the main page or a sub forum. 

It seems to be server loading.

Which brings me on to; who pays for all this? Can he afford a better server? If not, how can we help?


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## Shaun (7 Apr 2011)

italiafirenze said:


> I've noticed that I don't get a server response 1 time out of every ten. Either accessing the main page or a sub forum.
> 
> It seems to be server loading.
> 
> Which brings me on to; who pays for all this? Can he afford a better server? If not, how can we help?



It's possibly due to me recently reducing the number of "spare" Apache instances (to lower the memory footprint).

I'll increase them when I'm next fiddling with the settings.

Cheers,
Shaun


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## Shaun (7 Apr 2011)

Oh, and I pay for it all


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## italiafirenze (7 Apr 2011)

I applaud you for funding the whole thing without adverts. Must be a fair bit of bandwidth.


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## ColinJ (7 Apr 2011)

italiafirenze said:


> I applaud you for funding the whole thing without adverts. Must be a fair bit of bandwidth.


Non-logged-in users _do_ see adverts. 

We had a whip-round some time ago to tide Shaun over for a while when the server costs were becoming too much for him.

You can pay an annual CC subscription to help out and in return you get some nice extra features. Those of us who made donations got 18 months of subscription when it was introduced.


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## ColinJ (7 Apr 2011)

I had a really bad server hiccup this evening. I tried entering CycleChat at about 22:28 this evening and it took well over 20 seconds to respond. 

After the long delay, the page loaded fine.

My internet connection was working well on other sites while I was waiting for CC to come up.


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## dave r (8 Apr 2011)

Admin said:


> It's possibly due to me recently reducing the number of "spare" Apache instances (to lower the memory footprint).
> 
> I'll increase them when I'm next fiddling with the settings.
> 
> ...




I'm sorry if this seems a silly question, I know very little about the technical stuff but could this be what's causing access problems, or the stuff trialling? This morning the pages are loading properly, for the first time for a couple of days, but are varying between very slow and instant, and I've been timed out once.


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## Shaun (8 Apr 2011)

I'll talk to the guys at the datacenter and ask if there are any currently know network issues, but generally that sort of thing would manifest for everyone using CC.

If you can PM me your IP address I can possibly grep the Apache/server logs to see if there are any specific connection errors reported.

Same for you Colin as well please.

I can't promise anything, but there's no harm in looking at it (might be after the weekend though).

Cheers,
Shaun


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## ColinJ (8 Apr 2011)

I'm not a geek, but I sometimes wonder if I should have tried harder and become one! 

It looks like GeeksChat might be quite interesting once it has grown a bit. I saw that you had posted a Welcome message but perhaps you should also create an About page?

I played about for a few minutes and there were no hiccups, but they have only been sporadic here on CC.

Also - why don't you try writing an eBook for the Kindle? You could give it a catchy title like - "Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts", "Geek Salad", "CORBA, the Geek" ...


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## Shaun (9 Apr 2011)

ColinJ said:


> It looks like GeeksChat might be quite interesting once it has grown a bit. I saw that you had posted a Welcome message but perhaps you should also create an About page?



 ... I'm still tweaking the new Geek site, which is why I've removed the previous reference and haven't announced it here yet.

There are a couple of things I want to try on it yet, but once it's good-to-go I'll let the CC membership know.  

Cheers,
Shaun


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## betty swollocks (10 Apr 2011)

Very sluggish and unresponsive (at times ) for me too, over maybe the last three days or so.
I run an iMac and it's slow on all the three browsers I use: FF, Safari and Chrome.
Thanks.


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## Shaun (10 Apr 2011)

I'm looking into some potential network/MySQL issues. I'll post more if we manage to find a resolution.

Cheers,
Shaun


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## dave r (10 Apr 2011)

untu software


betty swollocks said:


> Very sluggish and unresponsive (at times ) for me too, over maybe the last three days or so.
> I run an iMac and it's slow on all the three browsers I use: FF, Safari and Chrome.
> Thanks.



I've downloaded and tried several browsers from the Ubuntu software centre, Chrome, Epiphany and Midori. I found out there had been some issues with Firefox not loading some websites and applied all the fixes, I deleted my profile in Firefox, I upgraded to Firefox 4 and had a fruitless phone conversation with my broadband provider, all without success.


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## dodgy (11 Apr 2011)

There's a definite problem, on a variety of platforms and ISPs, sometimes the site is not accessible. When it is, it can take up to a minute (any more and it fails) to return the page.
Been going on for a few days now.


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## dodgy (11 Apr 2011)

Pinging cyclechat.net [80.87.131.154] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 80.87.131.154: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=56

Ping statistics for 80.87.131.154:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 1, Lost = 3 (75% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 26ms, Maximum = 26ms, Average = 26ms


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## dodgy (11 Apr 2011)

If it helps, I'm now going via a US proxy server and everything has speeded up. So perhaps this is a network issue between some UK ISPs and Cyclechat? My ISP is BeThere (part of O2).


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## Shaun (11 Apr 2011)

dodgy said:


> My ISP is BeThere (part of O2).



The same ISP as *dave r* - where we've already identified an issue on their network via a traceroute Dave did - but unfortunately they don't seem interested in looking at it. The hop time was in excess of 11000ms from bethere.co.uk to Positive (where the server is hosted) ...  

Once it hit the Positive network the remaining three hops were 30ms as expected.

I am though, liaising with Positive to ask them to check the server/switches/transport route at their end to make sure it's all running as expected - just in case.

Also I've identified a MySQL issue specifically related to the CC software and am working with Invision to try and resolve it. The effect, from your perspective, will be pages failing to load after a minute or more and having to reload them to get the site working again.

Hopefully we'll get it resolved fairly quickly.

Cheers,
Shaun


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## Shaun (11 Apr 2011)

From Positive support:

------------------
Hi Shaun.

We've been noticing that users of Be Internet have been having problems
reaching Positive servers. This appears to be because of a congested
peering link between Be and Cogent at peak times. They are aware of the
problem and have been arranging a fix.

It's only Be users that have been seeing this.

Sorry for the inconvenience but it's -it should all be resolved by
Be/Cogent shortly.

Regards,
David
------------------


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## dodgy (11 Apr 2011)

Thanks Shaun


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## dodgy (11 Apr 2011)

Thanks Shaun


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## Shaun (11 Apr 2011)

Your welcome


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## Shaun (11 Apr 2011)

Your welcome


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## Shaun (11 Apr 2011)




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## dave r (11 Apr 2011)

Thanks Shaun, and theres o2, Be Internet, insisting that it was nothing to do with them, and all but calling me and you idiots during my phone call to them Saturday. If I could find a better deal I'd move.


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## Shaun (11 Apr 2011)

dave r said:


> Thanks Shaun, and theres o2, Be Internet, insisting that it was nothing to do with them, and all but calling me and you idiots during my phone call to them Saturday. If I could find a better deal I'd move.



No worries, at least we know a fix is in the pipeline.


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## dave r (11 Apr 2011)

Admin said:


> No worries, at least we know a fix is in the pipeline.




I think they've sorted it, CC has been behaving itself all night.


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## Shaun (11 Apr 2011)

dave r said:


> I think they've sorted it, CC has been behaving itself all night.


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## dodgy (11 Apr 2011)

Yep all sorted here too by the look of it, and by the way, I absolutely wouldn't consider any ISP other than BeThere, they are exceptional. I rely on them as I work from home 100%.


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## betty swollocks (12 Apr 2011)

Nice and quick now.
I'm with o2.
Thank you Shaun.


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## Manonabike (16 Apr 2011)

I've been having trouble for hours to connect. It had been Okay but the same problem as I had before.

With o2

Tried to connect using Windows 7, Vista, Win XP and Ubuntu 10.10

Browsers Firefox, Chrome and explorer.

I tried to ping the site without success and yet everything else worked fine.

Oh and I tried with and without opendns (o2 dns is bit unreliable or at least it used to be  )


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## Manonabike (23 Apr 2012)

After a year I'm having the same problem connection. Yesterday evening I tried several times without success. The error was something like "Server taking too long to respond" and something about serve been too busy and try later.


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## Shaun (25 Apr 2012)

Has it been happening for a whole year or has it just started again after a year of good connection?


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## Manonabike (25 Apr 2012)

It was fine but I have noticed this connecting problem once, about
two months ago, and more recently over the last week (twice)

Every other website I try loading loads properly. My friend loads CC website from France when I can't so I know CC is up and running.


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## Shaun (25 Apr 2012)

Hmmm, okay, who's your Internet Service Provider? It could be a routing issue between them and the CC server.

Also, when it happens again, try another site on the server - http://geekschat.net/ - see if you get the same problem. If you do then I'd go with the routing issue, if that loads fine then it may be more specific to CC itself.


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