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Anyone out there listening
Topic Started: Oct 3 2012, 06:17 PM (1,029 Views)
Moniack
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Question for you folks out there running this outfit.

Is Zetaboards any better supported than InvisionFree, because I am getting totally tee'd off with the support, or lack thereof, you are giving me re intermittent access to my forum 'http://z13.invisionfree.com/The_Matva_Group'. Despite several posts on the subject I am still getting the same problems trying to create and/or edit posts. This has been going on ever since your alleged DoS attack months ago and I have yet to be convinced you are actually doing anything about it. As none of my members have reported issues I can only assume it is an issue affecting me as forum administrator. But you've heard all this before and unlike my access to my forum your lack of a reasonable response/solution has been consistent.

Now please don't anyone tell me I get my forum for free because that won't wash. Apart from the fact you make money through advertising you claim to provide a service, free or otherwise. Unfortunately that service is not being provided. I'm not looking for special treatment, I only want the service I had before, hassle free posting with very occasional downtime. Do you remember these halcyon days?

Now please offer me a solution that doesn't mean I lose all the information placed on your servers since 2005.

Incidentally I am able to create and edit (a couple of times now) posts in this 'support' forum with absolutely no problems at all.

Thank you in advance.

Lewis Maclennan
Edited by Moniack, Oct 3 2012, 07:00 PM.
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Moonface
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Hi. While both services are supported, ZetaBoards is generally easier to support because it's a software that our developer built from scratch, whereas InvisionFree is a modified version of IPB 1.3, and so is much harder to fix, add features to, and whatnot. However, in either case, an issue with board access, including a DDoS attack, is nothing anyone on our support team can actually fix except our developer, who is only one person and therefore has a lot of things to deal with across the service as a whole. I apologise if whatever responses from whoever provided them in I am presuming your support tickets have not been satisfactory, or if whatever action is required from our developer is taking longer than you desire.

In terms of being able to post fine on this board, firstly it is on a different software (ZetaBoards) but more importantly even if it was on InvisionFree, it is on an entirely different server to your board and therefore may not even encounter the same issues as those you are experiencing on S13. Now, you may have been asked this already in any prior support you have been given with this issue, but as I am not aware what support you received exactly, forgive me if I ask you anything that has been asked of you already. Firstly, do you have S13 issues on more than one computer, and/or do you log in from totally different locations (i.e. at home and at school/work) and get issues regardless of your location? Have you tried, if at all possible, accessing your board through a different ISP? Do you get the same issues on S13 as a whole if you visit any other boards on S13, or do you get any issues on any other boards on other InvisionFree servers?
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Moniack
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Greetings again. Apologies for my tardiness in replying but real life keeps getting in the way.

First of all, I am aware that another forum/platforum may not respond similarly to my z13 forum and the reasons why. The point i was making was that the issue was only within my forum and not anywhere else making it less likely that my own systems were the issue.

No ticket was ever raised as this has been an ongoing issue from May/June when you informed us of the DoS attack. At the time this support forum was full of z13 forumers complaining about different issues and if I remember correctly you were no longer issuing tickets on the matter. So this has been an ongoing problem since then.

From my post on the matter in May:= Just thought I'd make mention that Z13 is down again, As before I can access by proxy.

Elsewhere within this particular post your 'Ben' made the comment "I will allow this topic to remain open for now so that affected users can post here if they are having issues." how nicely condescending of him. I appreciate you can get tee'd off when customers/clients are hammering at your door with complaints but as somebody almost famous once said "that's the biz sweetheart".

From another of my posts this time in July:=
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I have for the last wee while been getting intermittent access to my forum. This with IE9 and Chrome. This is a z13 based forum. I frequently have to take several attempts to edit or answer a post. Forum returns a blank screen in ie9. Chrome reports 'No data received. Unable to load the webpage because the server sent no data. Error 324 (net::ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE): The server closed the connection without sending any data.'

my ISP is BT and I'm in the UK, just in case you need the info, again.


Your response to this 'Moonface' was
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"We are aware of issues with a 324 error with Google Chrome for quite some time. I'll pass on this information to our developer to help them look into it.


Bear in mind this was in July so I believe I have been quite patient.

Incidentally I have even had the same issues with my Sony tablet which is Android based.

Typical responses to users all from the same topic/posts

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Any way I can switch my forum's server?

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It isn't possible for you to change your forum server.


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Can I start a new forum & choose which server it is on?"

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No.

Even if you could, there is no guarantee that server won’t have problems in the future. Although z13 is the one acting up right now, a month from now it could be stable and another server could be problematic.

Server problems are a fact of web hosting. Every service has to deal with it. We understand it’s frustrating when it’s the server your board is on. And I assure you that when a particular server or server is down repeatedly, Brandon investigates and tries to prevent future downtime.


Most people know server problems are a fact of life so stating the obvious offers not a lot of help and even less encouragement.

After two pages of posts from various forumers all with pretty much the same problems your 'Stephen' releases this.......

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We've stated it multiple times actually in multiple topics. But I'll do so again to provide as much detail as possible:

The problem with server 13 is stemming from a Distributed Denial of Service attack. For those who do not know what that is, essentially the server is receiving more requests than it can handle. These requests are being maliciously and intentionally sent by an attack using multiple computers. For those of you who need a visual, imagine refreshing a webpage by holding down F4 for a long period of time. Now imagine having every computer in a classroom doing that. Now imagine every computer in a university doing it etc etc. The more computers, the more attackers.

Because of this, a DDOS attack can not be fully stopped. The best example? Google was taken down the day Michael Jackson died because so many people were searching for that term that they successfully sent so many requests that google crashed. Think about that for a few moments.

The servers themselves are brand new. They were bought in December to better fend off attacks such as these. They are doing their job. However, while they can defend against a large amount of attacks, eventually if you keep hammering away, the server will crash. When that happens, we contact Brandon. I also want to explain that policy as well. When a server is down, we contact Brandon. It doesn't matter what hour it is. It doesn't matter how long it has been down. We let him know. Once he's aware, he tells us what he can and he lets us know when it is fixed. We then pass that information back to you so that he can focus on keeping an eye on the server

DDOS attacks are the most common form of attack because they take absolutely no skill. If you google the group Anonymous, you will see it is their favorite tool and they have used it to take down sites like the Motion Picture Association and websites owned by the Federal Government, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With a DDOS attack, no website is truly immune from attack. If you have made someone determined enough, they won't rest until they've knocked the site offline. Now, the important part about a DDOS attack is this: all it can do is knock a site offline. It's not true cracking. So your data is safe and your accounts are secure. This is basically made to inconvenience the victim and upset them.

All we can continue to do is monitor the servers and bring them back online when they go down. We do our best to do this in under an hour. We do not offer server moves because there is no guarantee that this will resolve the problem. Just about every server has been the victim of a DDOS attack at least once in the past. Last fall, it was s4. This past winter it was s11. And now apparently it is s13's turn.


Errmmm..... z13 has been acting up for upwards of five months now, are you still under attack?

Reading other posts on the matter it seems, for a while at least, you believed the issues were suffered primarily by UK Plusnet users. Might I point out (in case you aren't aware) that Plusnet is actually part of BT.

Last week I had occasion to post on an issue (my own forum) that required multiple edits, so I was in and out of the same post several times over a morning with no problems whatsoever. I thought, finally they've fixed it! Imagine my absolute sadness when it was back to the frustratingly normal intermittent access that same afternoon. :'( :'( :'( :-/ :X

What else can I say, the issues are there. None of my users report issues, so it appears to be something that affects administrators or possibly BT/Plusnet users. So what do I do switch to Zetaboards or lose everything posted in the last seven years and move to somewhere else? Not something I really want to do, but I have to admit to running out of patience.

Apologies for the epic but I get carried away :ermm: :ermm:







Edited by Moniack, Oct 19 2012, 07:11 PM.
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Pete B
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I think you may be conflating two issues, server downtime and DoS attacks are not related to the Chrome 324 issue.

When the server goes down to due to a DoS attack or other reasons, you will get a "Problem connecting to server.." error in your browser. The Chrome 324 error occurs when the server is otherwise functioning normally. I myself suffer from it, albeit very rarely.

To confirm, is it purely the Chrome 324 errors that you are getting? Have you considered switching browsers, for example to Firefox? I understand this isn't a solution to the problem, but if it is so bad that you cannot use your board, it would be worth trying another browser.

In terms of resolution for the Chrome issue, Brandon, the developer of ZB/IF is aware of it. I can't speak for Brandon, so I couldn't say why it hasn't been fixed since first appearing.

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So what do I do switch to Zetaboards or lose everything posted in the last seven years and move to somewhere else.


Unfortunately ZetaBoards suffers from the same Chrome error.

Quote:
 
Errmmm..... z13 has been acting up for upwards of five months now, are you still under attack?


A variety of the InvisionFree & ZetaBoards servers have been attacked over the past 5 months, I am afraid to say.
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Moniack
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Quote:
 
I think you may be conflating two issues, server downtime and DoS attacks are not related to the Chrome 324 issue.


I didn't say they were and I think you missed the point.

At what point did I mentioned server downtime? I was referring to multiple instances of intermittent/inconsistent access over a long period of time. ie I create a post when I try to post it I get the message 'Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage' or from Opera 'Connection closed by remote server' can't remember what message the Sony tablet returned. Google Chrome returned the 'Unable to load the webpage because the server sent no data. Error 324 (net::ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE): The server closed the connection without sending any data' message' and I mentioned it in the particular post that brought the quoted response from Moonface. Also why would I think a Chrome message similar to those from IE9 and Opera relates to a different issue. You are certainly the first person from Invisionfree to inform me of this.

I have the same issues when trying to edit posts, I have discovered that I can occasionally get round the problem by copying the edited post to the clipboard and if the page sticks on the update, which it does regularly, I hit refresh and provided none of the above errors occur I will find myself still in the editing page but with the post as it was before editing, I paste the clipboard copy over the post, hit update and it updates, only sometimes though, this rarely works with a new post just an edited one. When the page bins itself it can take at least five minutes before I can access it again on the same or any other system, or even a different browser. The forum also intermittently loses connection sometimes when just browsing through posts or accessing the Admin CP. Incidentally I am the originator of the forum so have full access. Please also be aware that it is the forum I have issues with, my systems and browsers all continue to function perfectly well on other sites and in other forums, before during and after the occasions on which my Invisionfree z13 forum bins itself.

These are primarily the issues, all I think brought to your attention in previous posts, some of which I can't seem to find.
Edited by Moniack, Oct 19 2012, 08:09 PM.
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Pete B
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Sorry, I thought the Chrome 324 error was specific to Chrome only, and there were not similar (and clearly related) issues in other browsers.

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Please also be aware that it is the forum I have issues with, my systems and browsers all continue to function perfectly well on other sites and in other forums, before during and after the occasions on which my Invisionfree z13 forum bins itself.


As other people have reported the same issue across the network, it is likely to be a problem with the servers rather than something specific to your board.
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