[Sticky] The New Forum

I never really had a problem with the forum performance, although I did get the 502 errors, I can't remember ever having the persistent logging out issues that many people seem to suffer with, I was happy with the functionality we had once I'd got the hang of posting pictures. I think what's interesting is that all of the things that have been done over the past couple of years to improve performance have had either no effect or have made things worse and to my mind the aesthetics are worse. Currently I'm seeing a consistent 10s to open the /recent page, and about 4s to open a thread - which isn't catastrophic, but is definitely slower than a couple of years ago. Given the amount of work and money that's been invested, I just think that this is really unfortunate and it must be tough on the team. I'd like to say thanks to them for all their efforts, and wish them luck for future developments.

<edit> and 5s to save the edit and redisplay the page - again, not catastrophic </edit>

Just here to aknowledge the slowness. 

Currently investigating with Wordpress VIP engineers. There is a huge amount of activity in a lot of very old threads right now. Our suspicion is that we are currently being mined by bots. My hunch is AI learning bots. We are looking at options to block this. This is sending our server response times through the roof.

Update: The scraping is very well distributed so there's isn't a single or even a group of IPs we can simply block. In short it's working like DDOS attack - albeit one that isn't designed to take the site down completely. we pay for a high level of support so we are waiting for a response from VIP engineers.

Posted by: Mark

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Just here to aknowledge the slowness. 

Currently investigating with Wordpress VIP engineers. There is a huge amount of activity in a lot of very old threads right now. Our suspicion is that we are currently being mined by bots. My hunch is AI learning bots. We are looking at options to block this. This is sending our server response times through the roof.

Had this recently on my forum which is PHPBB based and we were getting 100,000 hits an hour from Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam, i ended up with Cloudflare and blocking the specific countries with all the attacks. Cloudflare wasn't too bad to setup and configure. My Provider ended up shutting down our server/service temporarily until i got that sorted as it was being absolutely hammered. The whole of the PHPBB community were affected by it.

To try and help with the logging out problem, only happens with Android and Edge. Android and Chrome ok (which is a little bit odd), ok on several Windows PC and Edge.

Just blocking Singapore while looking for a long term soloution with VIP engineers.

Posted by: Viktor Balzac

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Its not my wi-fi, I test it regularly, and every other website works fine, including other forums, or is it fori

I wasn't suggesting that it was your Wi-Fi at fault, I was saying that your Wi-Fi performance and your Internet connection speed are unrelated metrics.  Your end-to-end connection is only as fast as the slowest point, you could have a 100Gbps FTTP connection and performance would still be garbage if your client device was connected to the router with two tin cans and a bit of wet string.

Posted by: Mark

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Just blocking Singapore while looking for a long term soloution with VIP engineers.

Out of interest, what do (legitimate) overseas stats look like?

In a previous role I worked for a company who dealt almost exclusively with the UK.  We had a couple of outliers, and we had a remote worker in Canada and people who occasionally went on holiday and took their laptop with them.  When we had hailstorms of traffic it was always from countries which had no reason to be connecting to us at all.  I was pushing for geo-blocking at a website & firewall level and then whitelisting the few who did actually need to connect, but it fell on deaf ears.

Is this any use?  Seems to block AI bots a la robots.txt whilst allowing spiders you actually want such as Google.

Posted by: matt_outandabout

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[url= https://i.ibb.co/FbGQHnpF/Screenshot-2025-07-01-164743.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.ibb.co/FbGQHnpF/Screenshot-2025-07-01-164743.jp g"/> [/img][/url]

Was just about the report the same absolute mess that seems to have started in the last week or so...

That’s my mistake. It started yesterday evening. I will clean it up shortly. 

Posted by: Cougar

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Posted by: Viktor Balzac

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Its not my wi-fi, I test it regularly, and every other website works fine, including other forums, or is it fori

"Forums" is correct.

I wasn't suggesting that it was your Wi-Fi at fault, I was saying that your Wi-Fi performance and your Internet connection speed are unrelated metrics.  Your end-to-end connection is only as fast as the slowest point, you could have a 100Gbps FTTP connection and performance would still be garbage if your client device was connected to the router with two tin cans and a bit of wet string.

I know it's forums, that was a joke. I also know how to check my wi-fi performance, that's why I know the issue isn't my wifi, my office wifi or my 5g connection.

That’s my mistake. It started yesterday evening. I will clean it up shortly. 

Any news on the logging out issue on Android @Mark? It seems to be around 10 mins, 15 max from the last click, scroll or page refresh before it logs you out. Or instantly if you navigate away from STW.

Edit to say, Please ignore this 'til tomorrow or whenever during working hours. That's normal working hours, not yours!

Posted by: Viktor Balzac

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I know it's forums, that was a joke.

Isn't the plural "Fora" forum being a latin word?

Posted by: tjagain

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Isn't the plural "Fora" forum being a latin word?

The Latin word forum means a public meeting place like a town square.  The English word taken from the Latin means any medium for an exchange of views.  Fora would be correct for the former, forums for the latter.

In any case, I ran it through Ngram covering a couple of hundred years (it only has data up to 2022). "Forums" is what's in common usage by a long way, whether it's correct or not:

(If you care to use Ngram to look at American English, usage of "forums" sizeably overtook "fora" much earlier, like 1910.  So one could argue perhaps that it's a creeping Americanism...)

It doesnt matter if its the common usage or an americanism - its just wrong! 🙄 🤣 
I bet you think the singular of dice is dice as well

Posted by: tjagain

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I bet you think the singular of dice is dice as well

I'm a gamer, give me some credit.

Posted by: blokeuptheroad

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That’s my mistake. It started yesterday evening. I will clean it up shortly. 

Any news on the logging out issue on Android @Mark? It seems to be around 10 mins, 15 max from the last click, scroll or page refresh before it logs you out. Or instantly if you navigate away from STW.

Edit to say, Please ignore this 'til tomorrow or whenever during working hours. That's normal working hours, not yours!

Anyway back on topic. Is there a fix planned for this or is it the new normal?

Seriously mate, what sort of response do you expect from that sort of question?  "Yeah, we broke it intentionally just to irritate you, suck it up"?

The forum is in a state of flux at the moment. Things change daily.  Any issues reported will be logged into their tracking system, prioritised and picked up by / assigned to the 1.5 developers they employ in due course.  Back when I had visibility of this stuff, the dev "to do" list wasn't the next couple of days, it was months, and things constantly shift around as more important problems suddenly appear which need to be dealt with urgently.  And that was before a major upgrade had just taken place.  If STW's development roadmap isn't well into 2026 by now I would be surprised.

Mark said a few posts back that they're essentially under a DDoS attack, potentially from A.I. bots scraping the site, and  they are working with their expensive VIP support service to get to the bottom of this and mitigate it.  Would you rather he dropped everything and focused instead on investigating why a couple of people are getting logged out of their phones occasionally (which may well have the same root cause) and then spend half an hour on the forum patting you on the head going "there there, we're sure it'll be fine" rather than actually working on fixing problems?

Yes, it's a bit lumpy at the moment.  Truth be told, it's been a bit lumpy for years.  Yes, communication could be better and that's hardly news either.  But you cannot deny that change is happening and mostly for the better.  Two steps forward and one step back is still a net step forward.

Patience, Glasshopper.

Sorry I thought this thread was for posting issues with site.

Posted by: Cougar

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Yes, communication could be better

Yes it could, doesn't take much to post up what where they are with things. 

Posted by: Cougar

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But you cannot deny that change is happening and mostly for the better.

Is it for the better? I've not noticed anything better the site is unreadable on mobile constantly playing whack an ad to close them down. Its not just a couple of people tho is it. The current beige font in dark mode makes it almost unreadable for me. 

Currently pondering my membership, giving I'm currently seeing the ads when I'm paying to not see them and its a struggle to remove. looks like I'll just go full adblocker then and save some money

Posted by: bruneep

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Sorry I thought this thread was for posting issues with site.

Yes it is, but you're mostly repeating what's already been said.

Posted by: bruneep

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Yes it could, doesn't take much to post up what where they are with things. 

It takes time away from fixing things and again is mostly repeating what's already been said.

Posted by: bruneep

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Is it for the better? I've not noticed anything better the site is unreadable on mobile constantly playing whack an ad to close them down. Its not just a couple of people tho is it. The current beige font in dark mode makes it almost unreadable for me. 

Is it for the worse?  As a random example, the editor's the best it's been in years, you can copy and paste images directly into it (as a full member) and you don't get spurious HTML markup if you look at it wrong.  The long-standing white-text-on-white-background issue on modal dialogue boxes such as 'insert link' has been fixed and now it (FINALLY!) defaults to opening new sites in a new tab.

I haven't been logged out in months.  I haven't seen an advert in months.  Your "whack-an-ad" complaint has already been responded to on this very page by Mark who admitted he'd made a mistake and said he was fixing it, there's little impetus for them to "post up what where they are with things" if you're not going to read it.  The font in dark mode for me is perfectly fine.

Granted, I rarely use the mobile site and I don't have any iDevices so your experiences may be different from mine because of this, I have no idea.

Posted by: bruneep

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looks like I'll just go full adblocker then and save some money

I see little moral compunction in ad-blocking a site on which my membership means I shouldn't be served ads.  

Dark mode text example:

(Handily posted into the editor via Windows copy & paste)

dark mode is unreadable for me.  Thats more a preference thing than anything else I guess or maybe browser related?  Just not enough contrast

I do have brightness and contrast turned down on my monitor tho so light mode is fine

Does native text look different from my C&P above?  

Posted by: Cougar

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Does native text look different from my C&P above?  

You C&P makes the characters look slightly less sharp, but the colours are accurate enough.

FWIW, I use dark mode all the time and it's OK for me (phone or PC screen). 

Well, an image of text is always going to be slightly off.  I meant in terms of contrast.  Bruneep was suggesting that the choice of font colour rendered the forum unreadable, I wondered whether we were seeing the same view.

Posted by: Cougar

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Does native text look different from my C&P above?  

Yes - you have more contrast than I saw I think.  Its larger as well

Posted by: tjagain

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I do have brightness and contrast turned down on my monitor tho so light mode is fine

Not surprising it's unreadable then 😂!

The image is a reasonable representation of what I see on android. My phone is set on auto brightness and is perfectly readable. The colour is perhaps a little duller than some dark modes but not that dissimilar to the phones keyboard.

The logout issue. How are your phones doing for available resources? Sounds like the sort of behaviour you see when memory is short and the browser has to dump tabs when they are inactive (along with their cookies). Any cookie blockers or anti add plugins installed?

Again android here and rarely logged out (weeks/months between).

Posted by: nixie

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The logout issue. How are your phones doing for available resources? Sounds like the sort of behaviour you see when memory is short and the browser has to dump tabs when they are inactive (along with their cookies). Any cookie blockers or anti add plugins installed?

Again android here and rarely logged out (weeks/months between).

No idea how to check available resources, other than basic memory. 49 GB used out of 128GB available apparently. I don't make heavy demands on my phone. I don't play games or run loads of apps concurrently, I close browser tabs I'm not using. The phone doesn't "dump tabs" they are still there, just logged out and only on STW. No cookie or add blocker plugins. 

That sounds like storage rather than RAM.

Dump tabs is a bad choice of words. Dump memory associated with a tab would be better. It's a common strategy, release the resources associated with a tab but leave it there to be reloaded if the user comes back. TBH cookies are one of the things that should be kept to allow that resumption.

If 'the log out issue' is the having to log back in at each session issue then for me, it's over multiple devices (albeit all Android) and (afaik) nothing has been changed at my end. This started happening every time just after the latest changes so about a week ago?

Everyone knows there's a long list of stuff to do and people are working hard to do it. It'd just be 'nice' if we could avoid breaking the stuff that actually works during each update...

@boblo do you have your username and password remembered by the browser? One thing I have noticed on mine when I am logged out is that the remember me check box on the login form is not ticked. So if your browser is auto populating credentials (like mine will) and you just hit login then it won't remember you across sessions as you didn't ask it too. It's a reflex just to hit login without really looking at the form.

why a couple of people are getting logged out of their phones occasionally

It's neither a couple of us, nor is it occasional. I have to log in every single time I visit the forum, even if it's only minutes since my last. I accept it may not be what you intended, but comments like that come across as a little sneering. I read "it's not happening to me so STFU" between the lines.

I now effectively can't browse the site on my phone, which was my preferred method. This happed after a recent site update. As I'm paying for a service I can't properly access, I think asking when it might be resolved is reasonable. 

Posted by: nixie

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@boblo do you have your username and password remembered by the browser? One thing I have noticed on mine when I am logged out is that the remember me check box on the login form is not ticked. So if your browser is auto populating credentials (like mine will) and you just hit login then it won't remember you across sessions as you didn't ask it too. It's a reflex just to hit login without really looking at the form.

That's one of the oddities. Yes to the browser question. I also check the 'remember me' box each time I have to log in. From there, you'd expect your details to be persistent and be served up each time you go back to the log in page. Not so, always full of nulls. Then each time I close the browser session and then return later via 'singletrackworld.com/forum/recent', I need to log in again and manually populate the page.

I've always accessed the forum via that URL and always been served up the most recent unread post first in bold. Those not in bold are read (or served during a previous visit). This behaviour changed about a week ago with zero intervention from me.

@boblo Exactly my experience and also since about a week ago.

Posted by: boblo

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I've always accessed the forum via that URL and always been served up the most recent unread post first in bold.

Don’t know if it would make any difference, maybe delete that shortcut and use a new one. It may force your browser to save a new cookie. 

@drac Now tried that ta, dint work.

Deleted shortcut and search history. New search via Google: singletrack forum, latest posts and then still need to log in manually then select forum/latest.

There are two landing pages - one that takes you to just a list of forums and one that takes you to the overview page

I was having the same issue with getting to the page that was just a list of the forums because thats where my bookmark took me.  I changed my bookmark to this page.  I am not getting logged out tho

https://singletrackmag.com/forum/recent

Posted by: tjagain

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There are two landing pages - one that takes you to just a list of forums and one that takes you to the overview page

I was having the same issue with getting to the page that was just a list of the forums because thats where my bookmark took me.  I changed my bookmark to this page.  I am not getting logged out tho

https://singletrackmag.com/forum/recent

 

That's the one I use TJ, I still get logged out every time.

Posted by: blokeuptheroad

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Posted by: tjagain

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There are two landing pages - one that takes you to just a list of forums and one that takes you to the overview page

I was having the same issue with getting to the page that was just a list of the forums because thats where my bookmark took me.  I changed my bookmark to this page.  I am not getting logged out tho

https://singletrackmag.com/forum/recent

 

That's the one I use TJ, I still get logged out every time.

 

Moi aussi...

Posted by: blokeuptheroad

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It's neither a couple of us, nor is it occasional. I have to log in every single time I visit the forum, even if it's only minutes since my last. I accept it may not be what you intended, but comments like that come across as a little sneering. I read "it's not happening to me so STFU" between the lines.

You can infer what you like, but that's not what I was saying.

The point was, it's happening to some people but not others.  For some people it's problematic one one device but not another.  So even if the root cause is something which has changed on the site, there has to be something different at the client end between those who are affected and those who aren't otherwise it would be affecting everyone.

The developers don't have access to your devices, so unless they can replicate the issue the chances of them being able to fix it are slim.  Which browser are you using?  Is it up to date?  What device?  What OS?  Dark or light theme?  Do you have any browser extensions installed?  Have you tried it in incognito mode?  Do you have "remember me" ticked (and have you tried it without ticking that box?)  What's your workflow look like, do you usually close tabs or leave them open?  Do you use one tab or multiple ones? How often to you restart the browser completely?  How often do you reboot your device?  Answers to questions like these will probably be more instrumental in getting the issue resolved than "it doesn't work 100% after a complete overhaul so I'm cancelling my subscription."

Answers to questions like these will probably be more instrumental in getting the issue resolved than "it doesn't work 100% after a complete overhaul so I'm cancelling my subscription.

Who TF has said that?  Certainly not me, nor anyone else currently experiencing this that I can see? I have politely answered most of those questions either in the last couple of pages of this thread (that's what it's for right), or in my email to tech to report it. I am willing to answer others they may have if I get an answer.  Honestly, you come do come across as a little condescending and confrontational towards anyone reporting issues sometimes.  Not to mention a tendency to put words in people mouths. 

Cheers @Boblo sorry to hear it didn’t work. It’s a very odd bug as seems to only certain accounts and not necessarily the same OS, browser or hardware. 

Posted by: blokeuptheroad

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Who TF has said that?  Certainly not me, nor anyone else currently experiencing this that I can see?

Ohhh I think that's aimed at me. 😂

Posted by: bruneep

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Currently pondering my membership, giving I'm currently seeing the ads when I'm paying to not see them and its a struggle to remove. looks like I'll just go full adblocker then and save some money

If it is..aimed at me  he's totally mis quoted me. 😘

Posted by: blokeuptheroad

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Who TF has said that?  Certainly not me, nor anyone else currently experiencing this that I can see?

 

 

Ohhh I think that's aimed at me.

It wasn't specifically aimed at anyone.  But there's been plenty of people both on this thread and over the years who have threatened as much.  Or the other side of the same Othello counter, "well, I would subscribe, but..."

You wouldn't take a car to a garage and go "it doesn't work" with no further information, so why is a forum any different?  I worked in or adjacent to support for years remember, long before Googling for an answer (or even having a connection to the Web at all) was a thing.  The only ways to fix something are a) prior knowledge - ie, I've seen this particular issue before and already know the answer - b) having sufficient understanding of the technologies involved to be able to extrapolate a possible/probable solution, or c) being able to replicate the issue on the bench so that I can start actual troubleshooting.  Beyond that you're into the realms of guesswork and whilst most customers weren't technical - and that's absolutely fine, if they were then they probably wouldn't have needed to call me - some were just wilfully obtuse.

And as I've said countless times now, I get it, I do, it's frustrating.  But you need to grasp the nettle that STW isn't Future Publishing.  It's a small team (is staffing into single figures now?) who are trying their damnedest to provide a service to the community whilst paying a few salaries and keeping the lights on.  I'm sure they'd like nothing better than to be able to hire a permanent PR / Social Media bod whose sole job would be to provide a constant media stream of communication to the current and future userbase but that's just not viable.  I'd do it for free but a) it would probably require me to relocate to Tod because even as a remote Moderator there was still a degree of separation in part by design due to GRC concerns, and b) my direct writing style might not be exactly what either STW or its users would desire in an official capacity. 😁

(Semi-joking aside, I know I can be blunt and for that I can only apologise.  But I have a low patience threshold for nonsense and often forget (or simply can't be bothered) to disclaim or sugar-coat everything I write.  I feel myself channelling my inner Billy Connolly here, "'**** off,' he hinted."  Perhaps mentally apply a smiley to the end of my paragraphs if it helps with inferring tone; I rarely actually mean to be mean, and I don't have the memory to bear grudges except in exceptional circumstances.)

Posted by: Cougar

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The developers don't have access to your devices, [...]  Answers to questions like these [...]

Thank heavens I don't debug code for a living any more, but if I did, I think I'd be looking at the strange phenomenon that the log-out bug affects ALL a user's devices, and that might be more diagnostic than the details of one device.

Or then again, it may not 🙂

Posted by: DrJ

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Thank heavens I don't debug code for a living any more, but if I did, I think I'd be looking at the strange phenomenon that the log-out bug affects ALL a user's devices, and that might be more diagnostic than the details of one device.

No it doesn't, see my post above:

Posted by: richmars

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To try and help with the logging out problem, only happens with Android and Edge. Android and Chrome ok (which is a little bit odd), ok on several Windows PC and Edge.

I have no idea what just changed, but after a morning of 'nope, code says forum is not working' I now have pages which for the first time in weeks display properly, have (lots of) adverts displaying properly in line, it loaded quickly, and perhaps (nervous pause as he goes to hit 'Add Reply', posts as well?

Well, it posted this time. 🤓 

(took 16seconds, but it worked).

Seems better than it has been since December?

Posted by: DrJ

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Thank heavens I don't debug code for a living any more, but if I did, I think I'd be looking at the strange phenomenon that the log-out bug affects ALL a user's devices, and that might be more diagnostic than the details of one device.

 

That being the case whilst other users are wholly unaffected, the common denominator here would not, could not be the server in isolation.  It's a LAN issue, a workflow issue, or a "something you've routinely installed on all your devices or is synchronised between them" issue.  Maybe even an in-flight issue, do you get the same symptoms on a phone when using home Wi-Fi, public Wi-Fi, regular mobile xG data?

NB: that's not saying "it's your fault" but rather, it would suggest that there's a compatibility issue somewhere.  Some component of the website doesn't like some component of your loadout, or vice versa.

Now, has anyone got a hammer?  I've got this jelly I'd like to nail to a wall.

Also, that posted in about 3 seconds.  Seems rebooting Singapore may have helped.

This is why I described it as 'IT witchcraft'... 🫤

Posted by: Cougar

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Also, that posted in about 3 seconds.  Seems rebooting Singapore may have helped.

That'll piss the Singaporeans off if they weren't expecting it... 🙃

Posted by: boblo

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This is why I described it as 'IT witchcraft'... 🫤

I can confidently confirm that hardware repairs quite often require a blood sacrifice.

Posted by: Cougar

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Posted by: boblo

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This is why I described it as 'IT witchcraft'... 🫤

I can confidently confirm that hardware repairs quite often require a blood sacrifice.

 

Can we use Mr D Trump, Washington?

How do I access my account.

Last forum, it was at the top of the page, click and a drop down menu - profile/account/etc

Now there doesnt seem to be any section/link.

So it isn't that i just cant use it to find previous posts and replies, i basically have access to nothing.

Posted by: dyna-ti

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How do I access my account.

 

Last forum, it was at the top of the page, click and a drop down menu - profile/account/etc

 

Now there doesnt seem to be any section/link.

 

So it isn't that i just cant use it to find previous posts and replies, i basically have access to nothing.

Little man icon, top left.

I've been having to log in on every visit for the last few days. Anyone else?

Edit: ok I've read some previous posts and it seems I'm not the only one. Android/chrome. I think it started happening after I cleared the 700mb stw site data from chrome (once). It's now running at 179kb but I'm logged out on each visit.

Oh, and page loads are slower (a second rather than instant) on this site than the rest of the net that I visit, in face they're slower for me than the old forum which I didn't have any issues with

I've been having to log in on every visit for the last few days. Anyone else?

Yes.  You are not allowed to mention it though, unless you provide the following:

• the IMEI of your phone
• a spectrum analysis of your WiFi signal
• the batch number of every chip in your airfryer
• a blood sample from your cat
• a stool sample from your badger

These to be accompanied by a 3000 word analysis of the issue in your own words, identifying the 3 most likely causes in ranked order and your recommendations to resolve them 😉 

Also get this several times a day. Windows and Edge:

Posted by: boblo

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Little man icon, top left.

Thanks for that. I'd the page size increased to 140% and that cut off the header.

Emergency over 🙂

Sign me up for constantly being logged out for the last 48-72 hrs. Worse than it was in the days when people complained about it constantly.

Happening on MacOS, iOS, iPadOS and Windows, so struggling to believe it’s a problem at my end. 

I had the logout problem for about 4 days across last weekend on phone and desktop but since then it's been absolutely fine. Not changed anything, cleared cookies or cache, or restarted my phone or desktop* but it's all back to normal and I haven't needed to repeatedly long myself back in.

*I do have to log in every day on my work pc but that's down to security settings and I don't get logged out again for the rest of the day, even if I switch off and back on again.

Posted by: blokeuptheroad

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Yes.  You are not allowed to mention it though, unless you provide the following:

That all rather depends on whether you're seeking a solution or sympathy.

Posted by: timmys

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Happening on MacOS, iOS, iPadOS and Windows, so struggling to believe it’s a problem at my end. 

So what's the common denominator across all your devices which differs from mine?

Posted by: Cougar

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So what's the common denominator across all your devices which differs from mine?

How can he possibly answer that question? 

That all rather depends on whether you're seeking a solution or sympathy.

It's good then that this thread's gatekeeper has the mind reading skills to divine which it is from a line of text.

Posted by: blokeuptheroad

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It's good then that this thread's gatekeeper has the mind reading skills to divine which it is from a line of text.

I don’t think you’re being offered either one, so it doesn’t really matter 😂

I think that I broke the WW3 thread on p7 https://singletrackmag.com/forum/off-topic/wwiii/paged/7/

I posted a link that the STW text editor took a dislike to, which a) blew the format for subsequent posts and b) stopped me selecting any link on p7 to delete the offending item

I posted it as straight pasted text on one post, which didn't produce a full clickable link but at least it didn't break anything. I tried it again the following day using the "insert/edit link" editor tool and that caused catastrophic damage to thread formatting thereafter.

I can access any links on any page before p7, sorry for breaking the forum 🙂

Posted by: timba

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I think that I broke the WW3 thread on p7 https://singletrackmag.com/forum/off-topic/wwiii/paged/7/

I posted a link that the STW text editor took a dislike to, which a) blew the format for subsequent posts and b) stopped me selecting any link on p7 to delete the offending item

I posted it as straight pasted text on one post, which didn't produce a full clickable link but at least it didn't break anything. I tried it again the following day using the "insert/edit link" editor tool and that caused catastrophic damage to thread formatting thereafter.

I can access any links on any page before p7, sorry for breaking the forum 🙂

If you've really knackered it, you're going to be sent to bed with no supper. Bad boy!

Posted by: Cougar

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So what's the common denominator across all your devices which differs from mine?

Errmm, the only thing that I can think of is my account. As I haven’t changed anything on it, I’m going to stick with my suggestion that it’s not something that can be fixed wt my end. 

Posted by: DrJ

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How can he possibly answer that question? 

Posted by: blokeuptheroad

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It's good then that this thread's gatekeeper has the mind reading skills to divine which it is from a line of text.

I gave a long list of questions and tests off the top of my head earlier on the previous page.  You could try some of those ideas to gather information which may help Tech diagnose the issue, or you can be a smartarse in which case whatever is broken will likely remain broken.

Posted by: timmys

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the only thing that I can think of is my account.

So check with Mark to see if he'll allow you to create a temporary second account for testing purposes.

Try a different browser (on your non-mobile devices, iOS is ostensibly the same browser regardless of what you choose) which isn't linked/synced to anything and doesn't have any plugins installed. 

Turn Wi-Fi off on your phone.

Try it in Incognito mode.

Notice any changes?

So has nobody at STW Towers had an issue with being logged out constantly? Could they create a load of accounts and replicate the problem? That would make it easier to diagnose, I'd imagine. It doesn't help much if bloke fiddles with his phone and finds that turning off WiFi or whatever changes the behaviour - what is anyone supposed to conclude from that?

Posted by: DrJ

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So has nobody at STW Towers had an issue with being logged out constantly?

Today, I have no idea.  Historically, no.

Posted by: DrJ

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It doesn't help much if bloke fiddles with his phone and finds that turning off WiFi or whatever changes the behaviour - what is anyone supposed to conclude from that?

It helps immensely because it rules out tons of potential causes.  Flying blind, Support is an exercise in removing variables.  What was it Sherlock said, "once you've ruled out the impossible..."

If changing networks changes behaviour then that immediately tells us that it's probably a network-related issue, it doesn't like the WAN presentation or there's something weird going on with the local network.  Moreover, it tells us that the client itself is probably fine.  The opposite is true also, if symptoms persist then we can rule out WAN/LAN issues and maybe concentrate on integrations with client configuration instead.

Someone with "Dr" in their account name: A group of people from the same running club come to you independently with sore knees, would you consider the suggestion "run on grass instead of gravel for a couple of weeks" to be bad advice because there's nothing to be concluded from that?

We've seen this movie before.  Something has bust which is affecting some users.  We can work together to try and pin down exactly what that is, or we can have a big old cuddle with a side order of bitchy sarcasm* and all feel better whilst fixing nothing.

(* - which I appreciate is usually my forté)

I turned dark theme off in my android settings yesterday and today I am still logged in. I'm going to turn dark theme back on and come back tomoz. I think the logout issues started happening around when I turned dark mode on last week. Can't possibly be dark theme can it?

Page loads are still frustratingly slow though (1-2secs) meaning I'm using this forum less and less

Posted by: Cougar

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Someone with "Dr" in their account name: A group of people from the same running club come to you independently with sore knees, would you consider the suggestion "run on grass instead of gravel for a couple of weeks" to be bad advice because there's nothing to be concluded from that?

Firstly, my medical education is probably the same as yours - my username was a reference to a hip hop star. It was funny at the time. Or maybe it wasn’t  

Secondly, running on grass will help knee pain, compared to running on tarmac. Regardless of the cause of the pain (yes yes - we can quibble)

Thirdly if a group of runners all suddenly had the same symptoms I’d be looking for common factors - did the council tarmac their favourite trails or whatever tenuous example you want to choose. I wouldn’t be wondering if one had laced their shoes differently while another simultaneously changed their stride length. 

Fourthly, your attempts to help sort the problem are appreciated- even if it doesn’t seem like it. At least it’s a response, which is more than STW Towers seem to be offering. 

Posted by: imnotamused

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Can't possibly be dark theme can it?

I've always used Dark Mode and I'm not affected by the logout/in problem. 

I did wonder if it was linked to the multi-username thing (some have nicknames that don't match their login id) but your experience would seem to rule that out. 

As Cougar says, it's hard to pinpoint the cause of this problem without an intimate knowledge of everyone's configuration. I wonder if the STW server logs are capturing logins though, in which case some trend data might be available and it could even be possible to see who is having to login most regularly.

Posted by: imnotamused

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I turned dark theme off in my android settings yesterday and today I am still logged in. I'm going to turn dark theme back on and come back tomoz. I think the logout issues started happening around when I turned dark mode on last week. Can't possibly be dark theme can it?

Page loads are still frustratingly slow though (1-2secs) meaning I'm using this forum less and less

Well in this case of 1, no. I run in normal (non dark) mode and get logged out every time now.

I take Cougar's point but from a Users perspective, nothing has been changed at the client end (as far as they know), there's been an update at the server/service end and things have gone pear shaped. Leap to your own conclusion. I do recognise, Users that sometimes say 'I've not done anything' have been fiddling about and just don't admit or recall it (or there could be other silent updates they're not aware of)...

People's posts here are sometimes driven by the standard support response of delete everything, reinstall everything, buy a new device, walk from Lands End to John O Groats AND change your pants before (apparently) considering there maybe just be an issue at the service end. Or, we've a massive list of shit we've just created and the thing that we've just imposed that's pissing you off is right at the bottom so tough titty sweet cheeks...

I'd go further, it also appears there's very little testing going on before a release as there's always major issues and flushing these out usually seems to fall to the beta testers (us). Specifically Regression Testing (things that worked before very often don't post upgrade) and the formerly Responsive Design usually isn't anymore.

My impressions but they seem to be borne out by experience. I know STW probably don't have a whole tribe of testers as we do in the big Corporate world but something between what seems to be done now (sling it out and hope) and the big Corporate approach might reduce the post release support burden. Ie maybe spend a bit more time on it pre release than running around with your hair on fire after?

@Cougar if you genuinely believe you can help resolve the phone logout issue by quizzing those of us who are experiencing it, then I'm willing to engage. I would mention that in my case, I didn't just say "it's ****ed, fix it". I tried to list more of the how and when, phone and OS details and what I had done to try to resolve it locally. Quite a few of the things you later suggested. I also did this in an (as yet) unanswered mail to tech to report it.

This all started for a lot of people at the same time around 9 or 10 days ago when a lot of changes were made to the site. As @DrJ says in his analogy above, it would seem to make sense to look at those changes first to fix this. Maybe they are, but on this specific issue there there hasn't even been an acknowledgement, let alone news of a any remedial work.

Trying to decipher why from users, with infinite network, equipment and use combinations seems a bit arse about face to me, but seems that's the only horse in town. If you really think you have a chance to narrow the issue down, I'm prepared to sit in your interrogation chair and have the lights shone on me 😉

We've been here before and I got a bit frustrated over the weekend and directed some of that at you. That was unfair, it's not your fault. Apologies.

I am back to having missing posts.  On the thread about deer collisions it says at the top "Last Post by kayak23 22 minutes ago" but there is no sign of the post.  Its only 4 posts in total on the thread