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Jayne
26th-May-2004, 12:36 PM
Just in case anyone is wondering why the forum is quiet today, it's because many people can't access it.

J :nice:

TheTramp
26th-May-2004, 12:55 PM
Yeah. I can't get on at all. Been trying all morning, but with no joy so far. I'll keep on trying this afternoon... :tears:

Trampy

Penfold
26th-May-2004, 01:20 PM
Looks like a DNS problem, doing a whois on the domain produces this

Domain Name: CEROCSCOTLAND.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.tucows.com
Name Server: NS19.VOSN.NET
Name Server: NS20.VOSN.NET
Status: REGISTRAR-HOLD
Updated Date: 25-may-2004
Creation Date: 24-may-1999

basically means the domain won't work once it has a status of REGISTRAR-HOLD this usually happens when payment for a domain has not been made by the ISP or the owner of the domain.

Some people will still be able to see the forum and website if their ISP still has cached DNS for the domain cerocscotland.com. You can get the ip address for this site by querying the two name servers above as they are authoritative for the domain.
Adding an entry to the hosts file of your pc like below will bring the site back to life, the location of the hosts file varies in differing OS's

209.151.91.205 www.cerocscotland.com

Jayne
26th-May-2004, 04:48 PM
Well Penfold's post didn't make any sense to me I'm afraid.... so I got my friendly IT support to sort me out. :grin:

It looks like there are still a lot of people who can't access the forum. What's the story in English?

Cheers
J :cheers:

Lynn
26th-May-2004, 05:08 PM
I couldn't get the forum on the computer in work today - we got broadband at work last week and there were a few times this afternoon when things were quiet so it was particularly frustrating!

ChrisA
26th-May-2004, 05:36 PM
Originally posted by Penfold
Adding an entry to the hosts file of your pc like below will bring the site back to life, the location of the hosts file varies in differing OS's

I thought it was all getting sorted out earlier, but apparently not.
For those running Windows 2000 or XP locate the hosts file as follows:

- find your windows installation directory. The most likely default for this will be C:\Windows, or maybe c:\winnt

- below this, find a file called "hosts" (no extension) at the following path:

\system32\drivers\etc

- edit it using notepad, to include the following line (just the text, not the URL tag that the forum includes) at the bottom:

209.151.91.205 www.cerocscotland.com

- save the file and you should then be able to get to the forum.

You'll probably need admin rights to do this, though.

HTH - if anyone's stuck then they won't see this post, so maybe anyone that can see it and knows anyone that's stuck could email the instructions to them.

Chris

PS Ooh... how are the Mac users coping with this problem?? :devil:

ChrisA
26th-May-2004, 05:52 PM
This link also seems to work (but it needs the trailing slash for some reason):

http://209.151.91.205/forum/

Lynn
26th-May-2004, 08:42 PM
Originally posted by ChrisA
This link also seems to work (but it needs the trailing slash for some reason):

http://209.151.91.205/forum/ I thought I would try that link - from the post - and it brought up the forum (in a different style than I use) and said I was not logged in, but showed me in the list as logged in... I know there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this - but it just felt odd - like there were two of me....:devil:

Dreadful Scathe
27th-May-2004, 07:33 AM
no ones here...hello...hellooooooo..pay the bill Franck :)

Divissima
27th-May-2004, 09:05 AM
I thought I was going mad yesterday.

Nothing new there, then :wink:

What's happened/changed so that I couldn't get on. Many thanks to ChrisA for emailing me different links to try out until I got back in. :hug:

Penfold
27th-May-2004, 09:22 AM
Originally posted by ChrisA
PS Ooh... how are the Mac users coping with this problem?? :devil: If it's Mac OSX then edit /etc/hosts either using something like Text Edit or vi from the command line, you need administrator privileges to do this is. If it's an earlier version then I can't remember where you edit this.

Franck
27th-May-2004, 09:26 AM
Originally posted by Divissima
What's happened/changed so that I couldn't get on. Sorry guys (at least those of you that can still read this :sad: ).

Because of a major ****-up :angry: at the company where I registered the domain, they had changed the contact email address to their own, which meant I was unable to receive any notification, or make any amendments to the account. As the domain was due to expire on the 24th May (I didn't realise as the renewal email was sent elsewhere - how 5 years pass quickly :eek: ) the forum (and website) slowly but surely became invisible. :tears:

I have spent the best part of yesterday afternoon (in between organizing my wife's birthday) and this morning, to get them to fix it and renew the domain.
This has now been done (for another 10 years :D ) and normal service should resume within 24 hours.

As I was planning on moving the forum to a new / larger server, I might take the opportunity to do it now anyway, which means the forum will have to be closed for a couple of days while the addresses are propagated.

Franck.

Franck
27th-May-2004, 09:36 AM
Originally posted by Penfold

Originally posted by ChrisA
PS Ooh... how are the Mac users coping with this problem?? :devil: If it's Mac OSX then edit /etc/hosts either using something like Text Edit or vi from the command line, you need administrator privileges to do this is. In fact no need to do any of this, I just entered this url: http://209.151.91.205/forum/ and after logging on again (to create a cookie) I was able to browse normally. I added a bookmark for easy retrieval, but no problems at all...

on a mac, it just works! :wink:

ChrisA
27th-May-2004, 09:38 AM
Originally posted by Franck
In fact no need to do any of this, I just entered this url: http://209.151.91.205/forum/ and after logging on again (to create a cookie) I was able to browse normally. I added a bookmark for easy retrieval, but no problems at all...

on a mac, it just works! :wink: Yeah, Franck, we know... see above. :D

You might like to code the forum link on the CerocScotland home page as a relative link, though... :wink:

... cos then you could even click to the forum from http://209.151.91.205

:D

Divissima
27th-May-2004, 09:40 AM
The Omnipotent Franck wrote:
which means the forum will have to be closed for a couple of days while the addresses are propagatedI didn't understand much of that, except that the Forum might have to close for a while. The rest is white noise to me - it goes "if it's MAC OSX then... blah blah blah". I'm just glad people who understand these things make my life easier :wink:

Thank you for sorting all this out, Franck - and on Mrs Franck's birthday too!

Franck
27th-May-2004, 10:39 AM
Originally posted by ChrisA
You might like to code the forum link on the CerocScotland home page as a relative link, though... :wink:

... cos then you could even click to the forum from http://209.151.91.205 Hey thanks for the suggestion, I have now updated the front page as a relative link... :cheers:

I haven't felt so powerless in a long time... apart from most people losing access to the Forum, all emails sent to me are being bounced back :tears:

I am currently using my .mac address if anyone needs to reach me (as well as PMs), they can email: ceroc@mac.com

Dreadful Scathe
27th-May-2004, 12:00 PM
feel free to use this url and tell people about it

http://ceroc.no-ip.org/forum/

ChrisA
27th-May-2004, 12:01 PM
Originally posted by Franck
As I was planning on moving the forum to a new / larger server, I might take the opportunity to do it now anyway, which means the forum will have to be closed for a couple of days while the addresses are propagated.
If you could find out the IP address of the new server before the migration, you could promulgate it here... and then maybe we wouldn't have to be deprived of our fix while the DNSs were catching up - just while the actual migration took place.

Overnight, doubtless :wink:

Chris

Franck
27th-May-2004, 12:10 PM
Originally posted by ChrisA
If you could find out the IP address of the new server before the migration, you could promulgate it here... and then maybe we wouldn't have to be deprived of our fix while the DNSs were catching up - just while the actual migration took place. ooh definitely, I already have the ip address, but I will have to close the forum for a short while to keep the database file safe during the transfer. Once cerocscotland.com is fixed (hopefully soon) I'll be able to publish the ip address directly too, and reply to email queries...

ChrisA
27th-May-2004, 12:27 PM
Originally posted by Franck
ooh definitely, I already have the ip address, but I will have to close the forum for a short while to keep the database file safe during the transfer.
Sure.

Just out if interest, how big is the database? And what is it?

Franck
27th-May-2004, 12:32 PM
Originally posted by ChrisA
Just out if interest, how big is the database? And what is it? Currently around 200Mb on SQL and the monthly bandwidth usage is about 15Gb and growing... Scary stuff!

ChrisA
27th-May-2004, 12:56 PM
Originally posted by Franck
and the monthly bandwidth usage is about 15Gb and growing... Scary stuff! Time the Tramp started to chip in for the hosting costs, then :D

Minnie M
28th-May-2004, 07:18 AM
Thanks for all the help :hug: shame I couldn't get on the forum to see it :really: :whistle:

Gadget
28th-May-2004, 08:26 AM
three days forumless...:twitch:

Nice that people posted how to gain access to it on the forum where prople who couldn't access it would be able to find it :sick:

During the downtime, I did notice that the "main" Ceroc.com web site dosn't seem to have any links to any of the franchisee's web sites (or none obviously visible).

xSalsa_Angelx
28th-May-2004, 01:00 PM
Originally posted by Gadget
three days forumless...:twitch:

Nice that people posted how to gain access to it on the forum where prople who couldn't access it would be able to find it :sick:

During the downtime, I did notice that the "main" Ceroc.com web site dosn't seem to have any links to any of the franchisee's web sites (or none obviously visible).


Just for all you lot that has withdrawl symps of thsi forum, whe it closes down for a bit log onto the Jive Addiction Forum :D

at least we could all keep in touch then

spindr
28th-May-2004, 01:07 PM
Originally posted by xSalsa_Angelx
Just for all you lot that has withdrawl symps of thsi forum, whe it closes down for a bit log onto the Jive Addiction Forum :D

at least we could all keep in touch then

I think quite a few people went to the www.leroc-in-bristol.co.uk one -- there was even a useful thread how to get back to the CS one :)

SpinDr.

Lynn
28th-May-2004, 01:19 PM
Originally posted by spindr
I think quite a few people went to the www.leroc-in-bristol.co.uk one -- there was even a useful thread how to get back to the CS one :)

SpinDr.
Yup - I popped in for a visit and saw a couple of folk there - but must have been before that thread started.

DavidY
27th-June-2004, 09:56 PM
I've been having trouble accessing the forum this weekend. On Saturday afternoon and most of today, I couldn't get to the forum, either on my home PC or (on Saturday afternoon) from my work PC.

Was something broken?

Thanks,
David

Gareth
27th-June-2004, 10:52 PM
I`m back from exile now.

You are quite right Spindr. LeRoc-in-Bristol is a good site to hang around when you`re out in the cold :D

Lory
28th-June-2004, 12:03 AM
. blah blah blah"
:yeah:

I'm just glad were all back and working again! :hug:

But it's highlighted a serious problem! :blush: I appear to have become addicted to the forum! :rolleyes: How sad is that? :rofl: :rofl:

Peter
28th-June-2004, 12:15 AM
:yeah:

I'm just glad were all back and working again! :hug:

But it's highlighted a serious problem! :blush: I appear to have become addicted to the forum! :rolleyes: How sad is that? :rofl: :rofl:

At least it provided sufficient time for you to come out dancing this evening ... thanks for the lovely dances ...

TheTramp
28th-June-2004, 12:28 AM
It was strange. I was on the forum all weekend. Quite a lot of the time on my own.....

Wonder why I could get on, and none of the rest of you could!! :D

Trampy

DavidY
28th-June-2004, 08:06 AM
Wonder why I could get on, and none of the rest of you could!!
Looks like a DNS problem ~SNIP~
Some people will still be able to see the forum and website if their ISP still has cached DNS for the domain cerocscotland.com.The same sort of thing happened last time - some people could see the forum, some couldn't. From my limited technical understanding, I think Penfold was saying that some ISP's servers will keep the IP address of CerocScotland in a cache somewhere, and can still "see" the forum when there are DNS problems.

Presumably it gets cached if it's an address that's one of their most frequently used. So if you are TheTramp's ISP, the forum probably represents a significant proportion of your total bandwidth :wink: .. so the address stays in a cache, and it keeps working when there are DNS problems.

Annoyingly, I wrote down the IP address from this thread last time there were problems, but it's the old forum's address (before Franck moved it to the new version) so it doesn't work any more. :tears:

Lynn
28th-June-2004, 10:39 AM
The same sort of thing happened last time - some people could see the forum, some couldn't. From my limited technical understanding, I think Penfold was saying that some ISP's servers will keep the IP address of CerocScotland in a cache somewhere, and can still "see" the forum when there are DNS problems. ...Annoyingly, I wrote down the IP address from this thread last time there were problems, but it's the old forum's address (before Franck moved it to the new version) so it doesn't work any more. :tears: I couldn't get on the forum all weekend either - DNS error message about timing out or something - I had no idea why, thought something had maybe gone wrong with my PC. Glad I got back on again today! Would it help to have the new address in case it happens again?

DavidY
28th-June-2004, 01:19 PM
Would it help to have the new address in case it happens again?I think so - maybe someone who understands this stuff can enlighten us? :flower:

Franck
28th-June-2004, 01:37 PM
I think so - maybe someone who understands this stuff can enlighten us? :flower:Well, I certainly don't claim to understand it!
The DNS was shut down for reasons un-known over the week-end. However as I am in the same Telewest area that had the DNS translation cached, I could get on without problem and thought the Forum was quiet (it usually is at the week-end and with so many events taking place...)
Anyway, gave the server a good kicking on Sunday night and everything was fixed.
There shouldn't be any further DNS issues now as I am not moving anything and will leave the DNS NAT translation well alone, but should you want to connect directly, the Forum is hosted on a physical IP address so can be reached directly at any time using http://64.119.177.44/forum/

I appreciate there have been many outages recently and combined with the new version of the software, this has created a lot of disruption / frustration and I apologize to all of you.
When any website reaches the sort of traffice we experience here (150+ individual members visiting every day (and that excludes the guests and spiders) 3 gig of bandwidth every week and something like 80,000 hits (17,000 page views) a day :eek: the level of resources / support needed is much greater!

On the positive side, the new server is now much faster, so should speed up your browsing and I really love the new features.

DavidY
28th-June-2004, 01:52 PM
Thanks, Franck :hug: :flower:

Emma
5th-July-2004, 06:19 PM
Is it only me who can only connect via the direct IP address at the moment? :)

DavidY
6th-July-2004, 12:11 AM
Is it only me who can only connect via the direct IP address at the moment? :)Emma, I was using the forum about 10 mins before your post - about 6:10pm ish this evening. Seemed to be working fine for me with the ordinary address. :confused:

David