Forum log in/connectivity problems

A few of us have been noticing difficulty/errors when logging in or saving posts, or poor connectivity, for a while now. If you experience an issue, could you help us by noting in this thread:

  • the date, time and time zone you are in
  • what you were trying to do, what happened and what precise error appeared on the screen e .g. “500 Internal Server Error”

This may give us something more to go on, and to see if these are more than the sort of problems the Wiki (on the same domain) sometimes has.

Thanks

Gale

Gale, it’s not just Audacity - yesterday circa 4pm UK time I experienced a couple of these 500ISEs on yahoo.com while trying to log in to yahoo to read my email.

One of the key changes to internet traffic in the UK is the recent launch of the BBC of their iPlayer service (enables you to watch BBC TV programmes on your PC - after thay have been broadcast) This has had a bigger/more rapid uptake than originally thought - and had led to ISPs and broadband suppliers complaining to the BBC about the increased bandwidth usage, and asking the BBC to share network upgrade costs.

WC

It’s a factor for UK users (BBC estimate a 5% impact on UK web traffic?) and the shift to on-demand video must be a factor in the US too. We’re planning to upgrade to the latest phpBB 3.0.1 software soon. Koz seems to have the most problems - I wonder if he finds them confined to audacityteam.org sites? I’ve pasted in his latest report below:

Gale

“Koz: It did it again. Twice. The service went away last night but I didn’t catch the time. This morning, I tried to post a reply at 9:31 am Pacific and two
minutes later, I cancelled the transfer. Now, at 9:36, it succeeded, but the posts are out of sync. I wouldn’t be shocked to find my post up there twice.
It’s clearly getting worse. I notice these things when they take too much time. I timeshare with other tasks (not multi-task) and I need to go do something else.”

No other services are affected AFAIK. Many of these failures happen at work in LA where we have stunning fast and wide connections. While I’m waiting for AudacityForum, I go download some YouTube, check several mail services, and catch up on the New York Times.

At once.

I’m having more and more time to do that lately with the leisurely pace of the forum. Like I said in a much earlier post, I got really good at Copy/Paste just before I post so my discussions don’t go to never-never land. [Server Not Responding] [Connection Timed Out][This connection is taking too long. Continue?][Please try connecting again].

Koz

Twice today.

I tried posting to Recording Techniques at 9:56 am Pacific and at 10:01 am it still hadn’t completed loading, so I gave up.

Then at 2:16 pm Pacific, it died again with:

–The Connection has Timed Out–
–The server at audacityteam.org is taking too long to respond.–

Those are only the ones I caught. The server log should look like the Manhattan phone book.

Koz

Thanks, I’ll review the Apache logs and see what I can find. Being this a DreamHost server they might not be available in the standard places, anyway :stuck_out_tongue:

BTW, I just updated to phpBB 3.0.1 (back from 3.0.0).

Do you want me to continue to post problems? 2:49 pm Pacific…Connection took too long to Respond. Try Again??

I tried again a minute or so later. It succeeded, but I got a double post.

Koz

You get double posts.

Then, it means the request got to the web server and was processed… problem is, I don’t see any of this problems myself, so I can’t see if it is ISP (country, or whatever) dependant.

I’d like to provide vpn+proxy access to some user with heavy forum issues, so we can rule ISP problems out.

This morning at 1:34am Pacific (I’m on Maui, so it’s only 10:30p here) I saw somebody on line I could help. I tried to log in and gave up when it hadn’t connected some 2-1/2 minutes later. This time I’m not calling from LA. I’m calling from MauiNet or Maui Road Runner or whatever service my host has. I didn’t look, but I can if it’s important.

I run FireFox without JavaScript running, if that makes any difference.

Koz

At 10:41pm Pacific, I tried to reply to a question and it was taking longer and longer, so I started a new FireFox tab and went to look at the underwear models in the Sears web site. The little posting twisty thing stopped rotating so I went back to the Audacity tab and it had crashed. No tab, no web site, no screen format, no nothing.

That’s new.

Koz

Anyone else having issues? We need more than a couple of users with connectivity problems to provide any good assessment of the situation.

I got another piece of this. It’s 12:27 am Pacific (but not in here in Hawaii) and I just tried to post a response to a question. The system just started grinding and grinding, so I started another FireFox tab and just on a whim, surfed over to Audacityteam.org.

No problem. Read messages, change forums, navigate, read some more stuff, reload. All snappy and quick.

Meanwhile over on FireFox tab 1, my response posting is still grinding and grinding and grinding. Two minutes later, it finally posted and returned the window to me.

Koz

15:40 UK time crashed out of Audacity as I posted a short reply. Could not then get to the forum site. Other Internet acess seemed fine.

16:15 back in again - previous reply lost (even though I had hit the Submit button to post it).

My ISP is Virgin

WC

I’ve had occasional connectivity problems - usually when I’ve just written a long reply.
I now copy long posts to a .txt file before hitting “Submit”.

I’ll make a note of the time when it next happens, but connectivity has been pretty good for me generally.
[EDIT] Wouldn’t you believe it - I spoke too soon - couldn’t access the site at 11pm UK time.

Sunday 20080504
1220 hrs Pacific

[http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=13]
[500 Internal server Error]

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@audacityteam.org and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the 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.


I had just posted an answer to a question in Mac/1.2.x and was trying to get back to the forum dialog listings.

Koz

We had another “storm” yesterday. All times Los Angeles 20080508.

I had been in and out of the forum all morning and I went to post a message at 1419 and the connection froze. At 1422 “Audacity Has Timed Out.”
At 1426 “No Connection.” 1427 “Connection Timed Out.”

I came back at 1501 and everything seemed to be OK and it held up the rest of the day. All during this storm, I was able to connect to Yahoo Mail, New York TImes, CompuServe POPMail, and Wikipedia, and DIGG. The times are from a local clock and could be as much as a minute off (my PC clock hasn’t been set in months).

Koz

Is the ISP or web host metering and restricting the connections? I’m doing this long enough now that I’m starting to notice a pattern.

It’s not unusual for me to get stuck waiting for a response or waiting for a window or forum section to open. I can wait minutes for some of these connections to succeed…unless I resubmit the request. If I’m in a position to reclick or resubmit the request, many times it goes right through with no delay.

This is an extension of another post of mine in this thread. I had the same thing open in two different tabs. The first request took over two minutes and while I was waiting, the exact same request in the second tab connected immediately.

So requests clearly don’t go into a straight Queue. They go to a segmenting, counter, and priority service. “OK, you’ve had your ten connections for this five minute block, it’s time for somebody else.”

Koz

Buanzo: the site was down all this morning (UK time) - I tried again after watching the Grand Prix and at 3pm I manged to log -on but the site was extremely slow. My other active internet sites were all operating perfectly normally and as fast as usual.

I got three 500ISEs at: 15:14, 15:31, 15:33

At 15:31 I had just clicked to post a reply, I got the ISE - logged on again and fortunately the reply had not been lost.

Seems to have speeded up now - 16:08 UK time.

WC

The behaviour Koz notes is routine for audacityteam.org sites (Wiki editing is the same). If your post or edit hangs, stop, use the Back button and preview/submit again.

Gale

Please, post a new topic with a relevant subject to the correct board for your operating system and version of Audacity. This is nothing to do with Forum issues and even less to do with “connectivity problems”. I’ve moved this to the “Audio Processing” board for want of anything better.

The best documentation we have for Envelope Tool is in the Manual for Audacity 1.3.12 Beta - it’s mostly relevant even if you have Audacity 1.2.5/6. See:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Envelope_Tool

The point of either of the inner control points is that they let you amplify beyond the original volume envelope of the track, making it louder than it was before. So the outer and inner control points both let you reduce the amplification below the original level, but only the inner points let you increase it.



Gale