Unable to log-in to Forums

QDP2012 · Nov 15, 2014

Good morning Mod's/Admin's,

From approx 23:30 ET last night (Friday) to approx 09:00 ET this morning (when the whole RR site went off-line), I could not log-in to the Forums (but could log-in to the Wiki and DB).

During this time,
- attempts to log-in would be acknowledged as successful, with the "thank you for logging in QDP2012" screen, but the auto-refreshed screen from which I logged-in would still not show me as really logged in.
- repeated attempts to view "Today's Posts" kept producing the same set of results which showed the latest post as being 23:45 last night, and would not show newer results.
- Immediately prior to this time-window I had been successfully logging into the Forums. No configuration changes happened on this end.
But, now, "Today's Posts" seems to show that other users were logging-in and posting to the Forums all night/morning long, instead of showing no activity between the above times.
If I recall correctly, this same behavior happened in a similar time-window on Nov 1 and possibly Nov 8, also.
Why could some users log-in and post and others could not?
Is this problem related to Mr. Blanton's statement regarding the BCFY servers?
If Forums and Wiki still share a server (as mentioned in older threads), why/how would a BCFY-problem interrupt Forum-logins and not Wiki-logins?
Will the BCFY fix/server-upgrade also resolve this?

Thanks,

nanZor · Nov 15, 2014

I've had this happen to me too from time to time.

It drove me nuts thinking it was a javascript issue or something else making me go crazy changing my browser settings to see if the problem is on my end. I just have to wait it out.

QDP2012 · Nov 15, 2014

hertzian said:
I've had this happen to me too from time to time.

It drove me nuts thinking it was a javascript issue or something else making me go crazy changing my browser settings to see if the problem is on my end. I just have to wait it out.

I understand; got the same "I can't fix it from here" issue on this end.

It seems interesting though that this problem occurs at the same time the BCFY issues happen, and is "all good" when someone reboots/repairs the BCFY-problem-server. It seems to be more frequent and more regular in the last few weeks. If it happened before Nov 1, it wasn't frequent or regular enough for me to care.

jim202 · Nov 15, 2014

QDP2012 said:
I understand; got the same "I can't fix it from here" issue on this end.

It seems interesting though that this problem occurs at the same time the BCFY issues happen, and is "all good" when someone reboots/repairs the BCFY-problem-server. It seems to be more frequent and more regular in the last few weeks. If it happened before Nov 1, it wasn't frequent or regular enough for me to care.

Did you ever think that there might just be an issue with your Internet service provider? I have found that Charter Cable has been doing a number recently on Yahoo related web connections. Go to some of the other web sites and they load in just a couple of seconds. To prove this, I pulled out my Verizon hot spot WIFI and could get a snap quick connection to Yahoo.

This RR site has been working fine for me all day.

W8RMH · Nov 15, 2014

RR and Broadcastify was down during those times.

QDP2012 · Nov 15, 2014

jim202 said:
Did you ever think that there might just be an issue with your Internet service provider? I have found that Charter Cable has been doing a number recently on Yahoo related web connections. Go to some of the other web sites and they load in just a couple of seconds. To prove this, I pulled out my Verizon hot spot WIFI and could get a snap quick connection to Yahoo.

This RR site has been working fine for me all day.

In one of the earlier episodes, I think I did try an alternate connection/ISP with no improvement. Last night, I didn't bother to try that, because it was the only site that had problems. When/If it happens again, I'll try to test with an alternate ISP just to make sure it's not my primary connection.

QDP2012 · Nov 15, 2014

W8RMH said:
RR and Broadcastify was down during those times.

They were down near the end of those 8-10 hour time-windows, but just like this episode, the previous episodes seemed to allow some users to log-in to the forums, and post messages. And why a reboot of the BCFY server would resolve a Forums-issue is interesting. Well, that's not exactly right. In each of the previous events, the entire RR site was eventually taken offline and restarted, so that probably was what resolved the Forums-login problem, and not simply restarting the BCFY servers. It seems like weird behavior, and very coincidental that the Forums-problem happens around the time the BCFY problem happens. Maybe the Forums issue is a result of a cascading failure in the server-farm, or something. I don't know. It would be interesting to find out what the diagnoses and solutions are.

DaveNF2G · Nov 16, 2014

Yahoo servers work poorly for me 24/7. My ISP is Time Warner.

QDP2012 · Nov 16, 2014

In this situation, Yahoo is not serving as ISP, and seems not to be a factor upstream beyond the local ISP (though I will check again to confirm if/when the problem recurs). Due to security-concerns Yahoo has been generally avoided since the late 1990's.

CapStar362 · Nov 16, 2014

database errors ( the databases controlling the user accounts and forums themselves ) can very well do this. database corruption is more likely the culprit. a roll back of the last verified database incremental backup will solve it, some posts may be lost.

login authentication is not Java based. its vBulletin based, i would have to see what engine is being used. usually PHP 5 is used for login authentication. unless a custom script is being used.

corruption does not drop the entire database, unless it corrupts the root of the database. it may in fact only affect certain groups or even down to certain individuals.

now if the entire server is dropped, then yes, that is strange some people are on, and some are refused. are there redundant backup databases on individual servers serving as cloud backups?

also, could those users be on mobile forum apps? some of those apps use cloud based backup images, but again... if the server is physically offline, it should be rejecting ALL logins from the web. and if physically powered down....... well...... i don't know how you login to a non-powered device.

ShawnInPaso · Nov 16, 2014

The same thing, same time, that QDP describes occurred here too. And no, it was not my internet connection or ISP. I figured the RR servers had some connectivity issue so I just went on my way.

SCPD · Nov 18, 2014

F5

Not sure if it's related to your problems, but I have a log in problem here.
I can log in, it say's log in successful, and then gives me the log in screen again.
All I have to do is hit F5, and I'm back logged in for good.
Happens every time here.

QDP2012 · Nov 18, 2014

Wyandotte said:
Not sure if it's related to your problems, but I have a log in problem here.
I can log in, it say's log in successful, and then gives me the log in screen again.
All I have to do is hit F5, and I'm back logged in for good.
Happens every time here.

I think that is a separate issue, but I'll try to remember to test it if/when the problem recurs.

Thanks,

QDP2012 · Nov 21, 2014

The Forums-only log-in problem just happened again, after recently using the Forums. Repeated attempts to log-in using the primary ISP, each produced "Thank you for logging in QDP2012", and yet would not log-in. Only after successfully logging-in and -out with a different ISP could I log-in normally with the primary ISP.

I wonder if it is possible to log-out, and log-in again too quickly after logging-out, such that the status on the server-end and the status on the user-end become disassociated, and confuse one another, giving the appearance on the user-end of being logged-out while the server considers the user logged-in?

Weird. Will keep monitoring and testing.

jim202 · Nov 21, 2014

You can try using something like MSN as your home location and then use your bookmarks or favorites to get to RR.

I tried it and it sure worked better with Charter Cable. Guess they changed something about 2 weeks ago and messed up the functioning system they use to have. Charter must have had a new person that knows everything changing how their routers are programmed.

Good going Charter. Make us pay more and get less service and more aggravation in the process.

QDP2012 · Nov 21, 2014

jim202 said:
You can try using something like MSN as your home location and then use your bookmarks or favorites to get to RR.

The above steps were done using the same links from a static internal webpage, just with different ISPs. No procedural steps were changed except which ISP was used for the connection.

jim202 said:
...Good going Charter. Make us pay more and get less service and more aggravation in the process.

Other service-providers also seem to be charging more for less product/service. But, that does not seem to be the case with the ISPs involved on this end at this time.

Thanks,

forums manager · Nov 22, 2014

QDP2012 said:
I wonder if it is possible to log-out, and log-in again too quickly after logging-out, such that the status on the server-end and the status on the user-end become disassociated, and confuse one another, giving the appearance on the user-end of being logged-out while the server considers the user logged-in?

I think it's possible when the site is slightly under-load. I don't think there's a lot that can be done at the moment but I would have to defer to Lindsay.

Changing your IP can disassociate yourself with how the forum tracks you sometimes. Sometimes changing your IP will log you out requiring you to log back in, or screw-up the board cookie. Whether that's an issue here or not I'm not sure but FWIW.

QDP2012 · Nov 22, 2014

Forums Manager said:
I think it's possible when the site is slightly under-load. I don't think there's a lot that can be done at the moment but I would have to defer to Lindsay.

Changing your IP can disassociate yourself with how the forum tracks you sometimes. Sometimes changing your IP will log you out requiring you to log back in, or screw-up the board cookie. Whether that's an issue here or not I'm not sure but FWIW.

Thank you sir for the clarification. It answers some other questions, too. And, Thank you to the whole RR team for keeping things running smoothly.

QDP2012 · Jan 24, 2015

Again...

This same behavior just started happening again.

I'm logged in, and have been for a while without a problem.
Just in the last few minutes, with a page-previiew or page-refresh, it shows me logged-out.
After refreshing the page several times, it finally shows me logged-in.
After additional page-refreshes or page-previews, this cycle repeats randomly.

Is there a server going bad or getting overloaded?

Thanks for checking.

RADIOGUY2002 · Jan 24, 2015

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