Feedback Calling all Computer Experts: Grebeman needs our help with SC and Mu43!

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I've been in touch with our good friend Barrie AKA Grebeman who continues to have problems with both Serious Compacts as well as Mu43. I asked him to write exactly what the problems are with as much detail as possible so that we can try to figure out what he can do, as the conventional methods of clearing his cache have not worked.

After reading, please if any of you have computer knowledge that relates - post here in the thread and then I will email Barrie with your suggestions. Many thanks in advance!

This is a plea for help and suggestions from “grebeman”. Following on from the recent problems with both Mu-43 and Serious Compacts where there was no service for some hours due to the sites bandwidth limit being exceeded, I have been unable to log on, or if I have been able to log on I'm logged out again within seconds.

The computer I normally use to access the internet is running a 1.6Ghz Intel Atom processor D510 with 4 Gb of RAM. I use a Puppy Linux operating system, namely Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 with a Linux kernel 2.6.33.2. My browser is Firefox 4.

I use a slightly unconventional method since Puppy Linux is capable of storing an operating system on a bootable DVD to which can be written all the system configurations that you make to personalise ones operating system, additional programs, etc. Then when you boot up the operating system and all its configurations are written to RAM and the system runs from RAM, not from a hard drive. Since I don't save browsing history my browser cache is empty at the start of each session, so advice I have seen issued to others who have signing on problems about clearing the browser cache would seem to be not applicable in my case.

On Mu-43 I find that I can often sign in and have even been able to post the odd picture to my gallery, then I get a screen up that suggests I might have malicious intent and requests that I put in some jumbled text to prove that I am a human being. Unfortunately I can rarely read such text (whether that is due to my astigmatism or not I don't know, that condition is supposedly corrected by the glasses I wear), that lack of ability to read such text extends to other sites that use such security means. My inability to correctly enter the text means I don't know if things would then be normal on Mu-43.

On Serious Compacts again I can sometimes sign in but find that as I try to carry out any action such as posting to a thread I have become logged out and cannot proceed without constantly logging back in. Since that occurs every few seconds the ability to make any progress on the site is severely limited and frustration gets the better of me.

Before the problem referred to above I would stay logged on for some 20 minutes on Mu-43 and about 10 minutes on Serious Compacts, assuming I was not carrying out any actions on the sites. If I was carrying out some actions on the sites then I stayed logged in.

I have also tried to access the sites from computers running Fedora 14 and Windows 2000, both with versions of Firefox as the browser with the same difficulties as outlined above.

All other web sites that I access on a regular basis are behaving normally. Since, when I worked professionally I spent much of my time technical fault finding on complex control systems, my gut feeling is that any fault lies elsewhere than at my end of the chain. However, you might know different, please help. I have tried the oft repeated advice of clearing the browser cache which does not cure the problem in my case, and as stated above I start each session with a clear cache

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Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated.

Barrie
 
Apart from the cache, there are other low-level info stored by the browser (eg cookies), maybe clearing that would help.

But as he says the problem also happens on different computers, but always with Firefox, I'd try a different browser to see if things are any different. Chrome and Opera should both be alternatives different enough from Firefox to see if this isolates the problem.
If this behavior remains, I'd look into the user registration in serious compacts and mu-43 which, if I remember well, are hosted on the same machine. Maybe something in his logins is corrupted on the server. I'd see if a newly created user has the same problems.

Hope this helps.
 
Hmm
Couple of thoughts ...
Wonder if you are ticking the "remember me" box at each login? (If I don't do this, the site logs me out after a while)

So if you aren't , try it and see happens

If you are, then as the problem persists across a number of platforms, as you say, the probability of it being a problem beyond the local PC increases.

Always worth a try with a different browser -- on Windows, the evil IE, in Puppy, SeaMonkey - but as the latter is a fork of Firefox, you might also want to try Opera.

It might be worth (if you haven't done so already) posting a query with your ISP.

A "clutching at straws" idea is reboot your router (if you haven't done so already)

Apart from that ... DNS?
 
On Mu-43 I find that I can often sign in and have even been able to post the odd picture to my gallery, then I get a screen up that suggests I might have malicious intent and requests that I put in some jumbled text to prove that I am a human being.

This is due to a new service we are using for security/performance called CloudFlare. Barrie might want to run a virus/spyware scan on his machines. In the meanwhile, I lowered our security setting to prevent false positives, so hopefully this problem has gone away.

The login issue is probably due to our DNS propagation issue, which has resolved for most people but may take longer for others. The solution for this is to wait it out. There's nothing else I can do.
 
Well, can you tell us who he is at Flickr, because he's not "grebeman" - that grebeman is taking pix of Arizona and Pennsylvania. Barrie seems to have misplaced his Flickr ID!;)
 
Well, can you tell us who he is at Flickr, because he's not "grebeman" - that grebeman is taking pix of Arizona and Pennsylvania. Barrie seems to have misplaced his Flickr ID!;)
oops.
there's going to be a very confused person in AZ and PA then ... I really ought ot have looked at the photostream properly before i mailed !
 
Barrie has received my emails and has written:
Oh dear, Whitehall's done it again, confusing people half way round the globe :).

Paul's previous comment about malware and Linux is perfectly correct, by running from a DVD that I don't save to in the normal course of events then each time I boot up and load from that DVD I should have a squeeky clean system, no cookies, no viruses and whatever.

His comment about the "remember me" box might, however be very relevant.

Thanks for the constant flow of updates BB, others have also had problems obviously and it could be that there are others like me waiting for the situation to resolve itself for them as well.

Barrie
 
malware is fairly unlikely as his main platform is Linux, but you never know

Some info from CloudFlare:

Sometimes there are false positives with the data, but it is most common when the visitor is coming from a shared network like an office, college network or coffee shop. What this means is that although their computer isn't infected, someone else on the same network does have an issue. Your community member should run an anti-virus scan as a precaution. If there is no virus or malware, then they can enter the CAPTCHA to access the forum. The data set will refine over time.
 
I have quit using firefox, because I have more problems with it than Chrome or explorer. This is windows. BUT, I also have a drive that I had up and running with UBUNTU and firefox that did not have the same "handicaps". One thought that I have is that maybe by running on memory without "virtual memory", and no hard drive (do I understand this correctly), loads up the memory with "pages" that have too be dumped. Just a thought.
 
I have quit using firefox, because I have more problems with it than Chrome or explorer. This is windows. BUT, I also have a drive that I had up and running with UBUNTU and firefox that did not have the same "handicaps". One thought that I have is that maybe by running on memory without "virtual memory", and no hard drive (do I understand this correctly), loads up the memory with "pages" that have too be dumped. Just a thought.

snkenai, yes you can run Puppy from a live DVD on a machine with no hard drive. I my case I do have a hard drive that I mount, but that is only for saving files to, the whole operating system and all applications are on the DVD. I'm not sure about your thoughts, I'll have to look on the puppy forum to see if there are any relevant comments. I realise that my way of doing things is rather unusual, but I'm not aware of any problems being highlighted.
I can always configure another DVD with a different browser to see if that helps, Chrome and Opera are certainly available in the Puppy repository, as is Seamonkey which I have used in the past.

Barrie
 
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