Resolved: Bugs? Problems?

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Post by pengdaze » Fri Dec 26, 2008 1:58 am

Nereid wrote:However, if you see spam, or a rule violation, please send me, or makc or bystander (the mods) a private message.

Once bugs, problems, etc have been resolved, the posts reporting them will be moved to the Resolved problems, bugs etc thread.

Dear Webmaster:
Greetings from PengDaze's desk, Chengdu, China.
Would you please unlock me in your "Discuss Anything Astronomy Related". Thanks.

Yours sincerely,

Peng Daze

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rainman
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Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by rainman » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:28 am

Hi,

First of all: I enjoy APOD very much, the pictures and explanations are great!

The problem I'm having is that the RSS feed stopped working for me about a week ago, I just get the message 'Live bookmark failed to load'. I have searched the forums for this, but could not find anything. I am using Firefox 3.0.7, but since my other RSS feeds are still working normally, I doubt that the problem is on my side.

I can obviously still go to the site to view the pictures there.

I hope this helps,

Ramon

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bystander
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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by bystander » Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:48 pm

rainman wrote:The problem I'm having is that the RSS feed stopped working for me about a week ago, I just get the message 'Live bookmark failed to load'. I have searched the forums for this, but could not find anything. I am using Firefox 3.0.7, but since my other RSS feeds are still working normally, I doubt that the problem is on my side.
Just to let you know, this is a discussion forum. We are not directly associated with APOD at NASA. This particular topic is primarily for posting problems with the BBS and forum. However, there are some very technically minded posters in this forum and maybe one of them can help.

Good Luck and Welcome to the Asterisk*
bystander

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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by rainman » Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:57 pm

bystander wrote: Just to let you know, this is a discussion forum. We are not directly associated with APOD at NASA. This particular topic is primarily for posting problems with the BBS and forum. However, there are some very technically minded posters in this forum and maybe one of them can help.
Oops...that would explain why I couldn't find similar reports here. :oops:

Sorry for barging in on your forum like this, and if any of the technically minded posters have any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them!
bystander wrote: Good Luck and Welcome to the Asterisk*
Thanks for the welcome and the quick reply! :)

Ramon

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Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by BMAONE23 » Sat Mar 28, 2009 3:46 pm

Webdoctorgeorge 900+ spam posts and still posting

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Current Spamming by Webdoctorgeorge

Post by BMAONE23 » Sat Mar 28, 2009 3:57 pm

Do not post to the Cafe or Submit Pictures boards until after Webdoctorgeorge has been banned. He currently has 8+ pages of consecutive posts ind is adding posts at a rate of 2 per minute to both boards. If ALL of his posts remain consecutive, It might be easier for the MODS to remove them. BAN THE SPAM, BAN WEBDOCTORGEORGE

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Chris Peterson
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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by Chris Peterson » Sat Mar 28, 2009 4:12 pm

BMAONE23 wrote:Webdoctorgeorge 900+ spam posts and still posting
IIRC, there's a phpBB feature (or maybe a plugin) that limits the posting rate for a given user or IP. Just what's needed to stop this kind of robot spamming (or rather, to slow it down so it's less of a nuisance until a moderator can ban the account).
Chris

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Re: Current Spamming by Webdoctorgeorge

Post by BMAONE23 » Sat Mar 28, 2009 4:29 pm

Well, He's up to 970 now

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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by BMAONE23 » Sat Mar 28, 2009 4:31 pm

up to 970 now

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webdoctorgeorge

Post by bystander » Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:13 pm

82.193.97.107

Nereid

You might want to report this one. Took me an hour to clean up.

abuse@ip.net.ua

stargazer
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Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by stargazer » Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:28 am

No more pictures

Since I downloaded the "Ultraviolet Andromeda" on September 17th I don't see a picture of APOD anymore. The text appears fine, just the picture is missing.
Can someone help?

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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by geckzilla » Mon Sep 21, 2009 12:19 pm

You don't have any kind of ad blocker add-on installed on your browser do you? Maybe you accidentally blocked it.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by robotwisdom » Mon Oct 12, 2009 11:41 pm

The 'reset' button on the site-registration form is dangerously ambiguous-- I expected it to give me a more readable captcha. (I've never seen a submission form with that sort of reset before.) Some clarification of how to get a better captcha is needed.

'Save' vs 'Submit' is also unexpected. You might place 'Save' last since it's the unexpected one, or call it 'Save for later'.

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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by bystander » Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:14 am

robotwisdom wrote:The 'reset' button on the site-registration form is dangerously ambiguous-- I expected it to give me a more readable captcha. (I've never seen a submission form with that sort of reset before.) Some clarification of how to get a better captcha is needed.

'Save' vs 'Submit' is also unexpected. You might place 'Save' last since it's the unexpected one, or call it 'Save for later'.
I don't see what is dangerous about the 'reset', ambiguous, probably. 'Save' seems intuitive to me. But all of that is phpBB code, and not the intellectual property of the Asterisk*. Perhaps you could redirect your concerns to them.

BTW: Welcome to the Asterisk*

Sandra Land
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APOD pic as automatically changing background?

Post by Sandra Land » Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:57 am

A while ago I used http://nightskylive.net/software/apod/ to install (I thought) the APOD pic as automatically changing background. It worked to some extent - every few days I'd get a new pic. But now it seems stuck on picture of the moon shining through the clouds. I reinstalled, but the picture seems permanent. Is there a problem with the site?

Sandra Land
UKZN

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Re: APOD pic as automatically changing background?

Post by bystander » Tue Oct 27, 2009 12:58 pm

Sandra Land wrote:A while ago I used http://nightskylive.net/software/apod/ to install (I thought) the APOD pic as automatically changing background. It worked to some extent - every few days I'd get a new pic. But now it seems stuck on picture of the moon shining through the clouds. I reinstalled, but the picture seems permanent. Is there a problem with the site?
Although, this site is not officially associated with APOD, APOD seems to be working fine. You might try different software. I can't make any recommendations, (I haven't tried it), but google sites has an apod wallpaper widget. You can probably find others using a web search.

http://sites.google.com/site/apodwallpaper/

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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by makc » Fri Oct 30, 2009 6:37 am

and threre are also few links here

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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by Chris Peterson » Mon Dec 28, 2009 4:52 am

The board seems to have become quite flaky. I'm not receiving notifications for marked topics, and I get randomly logged out just going between messages. When I check my subscribed topics, they're all listed (with the option to stop watching), but it also says there are none subscribed- right above the list of subscriptions.
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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by geckzilla » Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:47 pm

How long has this been happening? Have you tried deleting the board cookies yet? There's a link in the footer for deleting them. It's weird that you would have a cookie problem since nothing has been changed in the board settings. Maybe it's just a fluke or maybe it's something else. Let me know if deleting the cookies fixes anything.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Chris Peterson
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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by Chris Peterson » Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:15 pm

geckzilla wrote:How long has this been happening? Have you tried deleting the board cookies yet? There's a link in the footer for deleting them. It's weird that you would have a cookie problem since nothing has been changed in the board settings. Maybe it's just a fluke or maybe it's something else. Let me know if deleting the cookies fixes anything.
Yes, I deleted the cookies and reset them. It's been happening for a few days only. I did get a burst of topic notifications this morning, including those for some posts made yesterday. Looking at the headers, they seem to have been hung in the mtu.edu servers for a while, so that problem may have nothing to do with the board.
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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by geckzilla » Mon Dec 28, 2009 3:31 pm

Alright, I understand now what you meant. Emails getting held up are indeed something that most likely has nothing to do with the board. And your subscriptions listing probably says "You are not subscribed to any forums" and then lists the topics underneath, which is probably correct since you are subscribed to topics and not any forums. Easily overlooked distinction and confusing in the way it's displayed but now that you know it shouldn't be a problem.

Getting logged out randomly is something that should be looked into further. You didn't install any addons to Firefox recently did you? The only other thing I can think of is maybe some kind of malware, though that seems unlikely... It might also have something to do with the board or it could have something to do with MTU, though I don't know what exactly. I'm not familiar with what kind of problems can be caused by, say, someone changing your firewall. Hopefully it stops on its own. I know random logouts are extremely frustrating.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Chris Peterson
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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Dec 30, 2009 3:49 pm

geckzilla wrote:Getting logged out randomly is something that should be looked into further. You didn't install any addons to Firefox recently did you? The only other thing I can think of is maybe some kind of malware, though that seems unlikely... It might also have something to do with the board or it could have something to do with MTU, though I don't know what exactly. I'm not familiar with what kind of problems can be caused by, say, someone changing your firewall. Hopefully it stops on its own. I know random logouts are extremely frustrating.
And still a problem. I just found myself logged out in the middle of composing a message. I was logged in and allowed to write a response, but when I submitted it I needed to log in again. Very annoying, very odd. I haven't made any changes on my system lately that should matter (and the problem shows up on two computers). No browser updates, no add-on updates or additions, no changes to my firewall. I don't have any malware issues. Also, I'm not seeing this on a couple of other phpBB sites I frequent.
Chris

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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by bystander » Wed Dec 30, 2009 3:54 pm

Ah ha, I told you he would catch on to that If Chris Peterson line you put into the code. :twisted: Seriously, though, I haven't noticed it and I often stay connected for long periods even when I'm not active. I've had it happen at BAUT, but that's not phpBB.

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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by geckzilla » Wed Dec 30, 2009 4:42 pm

Hah, yeah, you'd think since this is only affecting him that I really did do that. That'd definitely be a much easier explanation.

Chris, I noticed you are 0.0.1 version behind my own version of Firefox. Try hitting Help > Check for Updates... and let's eliminate that variable, though I doubt it has anything to do with it. And have you tried doing Tools > Clear Recent History with Cookies and Active Logins selected with time range set to Everything? I also hate to ask this since it's like a 15 year old catch-all for computer glitches for dummies, but when was the last time you rebooted? It doesn't make sense that that would fix it either, but with Windows, sometimes I am surprised.

This is completely baffling, especially with no one else being able to reproduce the problem. If we can reproduce it, we can fix it. Otherwise we're just shooting in the dark.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Chris Peterson
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Re: Bugs? Problems? Report them here!

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Dec 30, 2009 5:06 pm

geckzilla wrote:Chris, I noticed you are 0.0.1 version behind my own version of Firefox. Try hitting Help > Check for Updates... and let's eliminate that variable, though I doubt it has anything to do with it.
I'm using 3.5.6, and have been for at least a few days (I seem to recall the last update wasn't long ago). That appears to be the latest. Are the logs showing that I'm using something different?
And have you tried doing Tools > Clear Recent History with Cookies and Active Logins selected with time range set to Everything? I also hate to ask this since it's like a 15 year old catch-all for computer glitches for dummies, but when was the last time you rebooted?
I use a cookie handling tool (which hasn't changed for a long time). It protects cookies that I don't want to delete, and I fairly regularly clear out the unprotected cookies. That includes the ones for this forum, and after that I do have to log in again. But that's quite different from the random logouts I'm encountering. I have tried clearing out cookies, history, and the cache. I'm pretty sure that I've rebooted since the problem started. But the thing is, I've seen this on two machines- one with XP, the other with W7, so I don't think it's anything to do with my computers. One thing I'll try testing is if Wildblue (my ISP) is creating problems. They utilize a server-side proxy to reduce latency issues (a problem with satellite connections), and I have no control over any changes that they might make. I can stop using it for a while, however, and see if it makes this particular problem disappear.
This is completely baffling, especially with no one else being able to reproduce the problem. If we can reproduce it, we can fix it. Otherwise we're just shooting in the dark.
Yeah, problems like this are hard. Sooner or later I expect it will simply fix itself, or we'll suddenly realize what variable has changed. In the meantime, it's just an annoyance, not a major hardship. Firefox does a good job remembering my login info, so it's normally just an extra click when the problem occurs.
Chris

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