Site Maintenance, Software Upgrades, Downtime, Glitches etc

[Lumutqueen]

Originally Posted by roseroyal

Cache? What is this?

You want to find the 'options' area of your internet browser then find a 'clear browsing data' button or something similar. Your computer is having trouble.

[Janet H]

We are going to be doing some server upgrades late Tuesday night and into early Wednesday morning Feb 21 - 22.

During this time (roughly 12 AM - 5 AM EST | GMT-5 ) the forum will be offline.

Thanks for your patience and understanding during this outage. It has been scheduled in the wee small hours to have as low an impact as possible and when we return you should see increased speed and stability.

[Janet H]

Just a reminder.... :)

[Baroness of Books]

thank you......

[XeniaCasaraghi]

Thanx for bumping this Baroness, because I wouldn't have known.

[Baroness of Books]

You're welcome; wouldn't it be awful if we had one of those sleepless nights and we were looking forward to getting on the forums and it came as a shocker that we couldn't?

[Janet H]

We will still be on Facebook The Royal Forums | Facebook

:)

[Baroness of Books]

Ah, thank you again, always nice to know there's an alternate route to the RF!

[Tyger]

Post #165 from Tyger (me) on Princess Charlene's Fashion and Style Part 4: April 2012 -

HEY MODS - PEOPLE - ANYBODY HAVING THIS PROBLEM?

I have begun to get a pop-up advert on this thread and certain other threads (not all threads). It shows up at the top and comes down vertically in a narrow band on top of the posts. It seems to actually freeze the top part of the page - because I can't get the cursor to move to another page - where the advert is seems to freeze the page - but if I go down to the bottom of the page the cursor is live and I can go forward.

Just now I tried to respond to a post and this advert appeared in the reply area - but not as an advert - but as a white blankness in the shape of the advert - and the reply box would not take any text - I could not type.

This advert is clearly impeding. (I was able to post because I went down the page out of proximity of the advert). Anyone have any ideas? Its happening on this thread for sure but not others.

LATER: If someone could explain to me how to take a 'screen-shot' I could do so to show. Its not just one kind of advert. This morning it was for Wells Fargo Bank. Other days it is for other things - in the exact same area and it definitely freezes the frame where it sits.

Post #167 from Daria -

I've had the same issue as well. Hopefully someone that manages this site can do something about it. Refreshing the page helps too, but it may take more than one attempt.

Post #168 from Tyger -

Thank you, Daria, for the advice - I'll try that. It really does seem to be a virus or something that has glommed onto certain threads - invaded TRF. Very odd. What did it hitch-hike on to get in here? I hate to think what stuff one would find attaching itself to one's computer if one accidentally clicked on it.

Avoid said advert like the plague is my advice.

Post #169 from Baroness of Books -

It's been happening to me as well, and refreshing the page seems to eliminate it.

Post #170 from Tyger (me) -

Just had it happen on the Main Page (or Front Page) as I came on TRF. Hitting 'Refresh' does get rid of it. Where would I tell the mods about it - since no one is alighting here to say anything?

Post #171 from Daria -

I think there's a thread in the Community Forums that is specifically for technical glitches. I'm not sure of the name of it, but I do remember seeing it pop up at various times.

Hence I am posting here to let the mods know about this odd glitch. Its far more than an annoying advert - when the advert is showing it actually impedes scrolling and when it shows on the posting composition screen one cannot type. It seems to be a serious invasive bug of some kind. Somebody would be tempted to click on the advert in an attempt to get rid of it - and thus tumble down that rabbit hole - who knows what virus or bug the website that is hosting that thing would then infect one's computer with?

[Tyger]

One more element is operating: there will be a flash of the white space where the advert would show up when one comes on the Main Page, but the advert doesn't actually show up. However, the top part of the Main Page is frozen - the cursor is not live, it stays an arrow rather that reading a live link. If one scrolls down half the page or more - outside the influence of the advert area, I guess - the cursor goes live.

Refreshing or reloading the page does work, though sometimes the refresh/reload has to happen two or more times. There is definitely something amiss that has glommed onto the site.

[roseroyal]

When I try to look at the Royal Life and Lifestyle thread, the screen changes back to how it was at 9:30 PM last night, and I cannot look at any new info. I have something I want to post in this section. Please help. All other sections that I have tried so far seem to be fine.

Fine now.....

Spoke too soon..... not working again!

@ mods- It seems to be just the Royal Life and Lifestyle list page that is not working- individual threads ex. Royals with People and Children work fine.

[roseroyal]

Now when I look at my profile, the time changes back to 9:46 PM last night. All other pages work!

[Warren]

Try logging out, clearing the cache, then logging back in again.

When someone accesses a website regularly, certain pages or parts of pages are stored by their computer on the hard drive for easy and quick retrieval. Rather than transmitting that same data across the internet every time the person logs in or accesses that site, the computer already has some of it on hand in the memory. This process is designed to speed up browsing.

All well and good. However, sometimes a page gets "stuck" in the cache where, for whatever reason, it is not updated. This is when you need to clear the cache. When you log back in after clearing it, the website's data will be downloaded anew and your cache will contain the most recent version.

roseroyal, you are using IE so here are the simple steps:

Clearing the Cache in Internet Explorer

> click on Tools;
> from the dropdown box, click on 'Internet Options' [thumbnail 1]

> In 'Internet Options', click the 'General' tab
> Under the 'Browsing history' heading, click Delete [thumbnail 2]
note: clicking on Delete here doesn't delete anything, it opens a new window...

> Within 'Delete Browsing History', click the 'Temporary Internet files' box so that it is ticked, then click Delete [thumbnail 3]

That's it, the cache is now cleared.

[roseroyal]

Thanks Warren!