Posting Problem

Johnboy1951

I continue to have posting problems since earlier in the year, although they are not as severe as previously.
I find on some sections that there is a small limit to the amount of text I can write in a single post, and have at times resorted to breaking my post up into several posts.
This is an ongoing situation.

Yesterday I tried to post in the 'talk to eir' forum and failed to get anything posted.
I tried again today and failed.
I even tried to send a PM to one of their representatives and that too failed.

Is there any backend setting on my account that I am unaware of that might be affecting my posting?

I would really like to get this sorted properly.

Thank you.

Johnboy1951

I have since succeeded in posting to the eir forum section, so maybe eir were overrun when I was trying previously.

Johnboy1951

Today

I failed to reply to an eir representative ..... my reply just timed out.

Later I replied without quoting previous post and it went through.

It seems that the quoted text was too much for whatever setting seems to be on my account.

Johnboy1951

On a different browser today and have had posting failure on multiple threads.

Any feedback for me?

Shield

Hi there.

This is a tricky one. There's definitely no setting or restriction in place on your account that would cause this, so we can rule that out.

You seem to have had success without quoting, and then didn't, so that's either a clue, or anecdotal evidence.

The fact that you are using a different browser helps us rule that out as a possible source of the problem, so continuing to zoom out, we're left with either your internet connection, your network card, or your device itself.

Is there any way you can try your own account on a different device (which will have its own network card), while using a different internet connection?

I'm leaning toward the 'quoted text' thing being a red herring, and I'd feel much more comfortable troubleshooting this with you once we've ruled out the above. It just wouldn't make any sense whatsoever to have the setting that you seem to think exists, and even if there was, it wouldn't just be applied to your individual account. It would be applied to your user group (Registered Users), and others would be reporting similar issues.

Let's take a methodical approach and rule things out one at a time, and we'll take it from there.

-Shield.

Johnboy1951

Failed several times to respond .... trying again
EDIT I am using Linux OS and will try on a different PC asap.

Taltos

I can see you are using the enhanced editor.
could you try changing it back to Standard and seeing if that makes a difference?

Johnboy1951

Tried several times to change setting with no luck so far

Johnboy1951

Tried a different PC and failed to edit profile.

Taltos

OK I've updated your editor to standard - did that help at all?
Not sure if you'll have to clear your cache before testing though

Johnboy1951

Dunno if last message went through, but your edit made no difference unfortunately.

Johnboy1951

Wondering - is there a means of using a temporary account to see if I can successfully post using that?

Johnboy1951

did any of my posts get through? no improvement in posting.

Johnboy1951

I have been unable to post anywhere until today, so hopefully this goes through.
I cannot ties down what is happening, but am presently looking at DNS servers to see if there is something amiss there.

Johnboy1951

Taltos wrote: »

OK I've updated your editor to standard - did that help at all?
Not sure if you'll have to clear your cache before testing though

It seems that everything is working OK this afternoon without any alterations made by me.

Has some change been made on the boards.ie end that might account for this?

Thanks.

Johnboy1951

I am able to successfully post since my last post here.
I have no idea what has changed.

Taltos

Only change from our end was I updated your editor back to the one I use from the advanced one.
Beyond that maybe something on your end??

Johnboy1951

Taltos wrote: »

Only change from our end was I updated your editor back to the one I use from the advanced one.
Beyond that maybe something on your end??

Nothing at all here.
Same hardware; same software and operating system.

I had intended to look to DNS to see if there was some problem there causing a time-out or something when posting, but not when reading, but I never got around to it before it came right.

There was no immediate reaction from your change of editor type.
It was a considerable time afterwards that things improved.

I have no explanation at all ..... this has been happening since Jan to a greater or lesser degree.
For the past day and a half it has been perfect.

Very very weird!

Johnboy1951

I have noticed again today that I am unable to fully quote another post and respond.
I succeeded in posting by snipping content of quoted post and limiting my response.
The situation appears to be deteriorating again .... but I cannot be sure

Johnboy1951

This problem has not gone away.

It appears that I am limited to a particular number of words or lines in my posts, or some such limitation which prevents me from quoting fully and in some cases having to split my intended post into multiple posts.

It seems the only way out of this is to delete my account and create a new one if no one can come up with an answer.

Johnboy1951

I noticed my last post has not 'cleared' .

Here is an example of what I had to do to post a relatively short response to a post today ..... break it in two parts!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=100577096&postcount=2

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=100577099&postcount=3


Is there anyone presently looking at this issue?

Do you have some suggestion how to get rid of this limitation on my account?

Do I really have to delete the account and start again with a new account?

I do need answers at this stage, as it is becoming extremely frustrating trying to post on some threads.

Johnboy1951

It seems that for some reason my router objected to how boards handled connections.
I came across a reference to 'too many referrals' or something like that, which was what apparently caused the posting problem.

I moved my PC to a different router and have been able to post normally since.

I am unsure if the router is at fault or if its security settings were too tight for some mis-behaviour with the boards connection.
No other sites or forums were affected.

Spear

As a matter of general info, a request for any HTTP object carries a Referer header. (Referer is deliberately spelt wrong, as the original technical suggestion document had a typo). The referer is just a field with the address of the page that linked to the object.

Any request would only have one of these headers, so I can only guess the router security was maybe looking at overall volume of requests containing these. If so then it's set with too high a level of sensitivity, as there's nothing particularly special about the boards.ie design/object count.

Johnboy1951

Spear wrote: »

As a matter of general info, a request for any HTTP object carries a Referer header. (Referer is deliberately spelt wrong, as the original technical suggestion document had a typo). The referer is just a field with the address of the page that linked to the object.

Any request would only have one of these headers, so I can only guess the router security was maybe looking at overall volume of requests containing these. If so then it's set with too high a level of sensitivity, as there's nothing particularly special about the boards.ie design/object count.

Thanks ...... but it is strange this only began at the beginning of the year after there were problems with the Boards site.
The router settings had not been changed for years, so either something went wrong with the router that affected Boards only or something changed with the boards connection that did not pass the old router settings.
No other forum or sites were affected that I was aware of.

Anyway, whatever the cause, all is ok now routing via a different router.

Thanks.

Spear

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Thanks ...... but it is strange this only began at the beginning of the year after there were problems with the Boards site.
The router settings had not been changed for years, so either something went wrong with the router that affected Boards only or something changed with the boards connection that did not pass the old router settings.
No other forum or sites were affected that I was aware of.

Anyway, whatever the cause, all is ok now routing via a different router.

Thanks.

It could very likely be the addition of the Cloudflare DDoS layer then. There hasn't been any other reports of it though.

Johnboy1951

Spear wrote: »

It could very likely be the addition of the Cloudflare DDoS layer then. There hasn't been any other reports of it though.

No problem ...... this can be closed now as far as I am concerned.

Johnboy1951

Well now ....... using Opera browser this morning it cannot connect with boards, telling me

www.boards.ie redirected you too many times

When I tried Chrome I got an OpenDNS message

This domain is blocked due to a phishing threat.
www.boards.ie
Phishing is a fraudulent attempt to get you to provide personal information under false pretenses.

I am using PaleMoon browser to post this.

Is there any explanation for this behaviour?
It seems suspiciously similar to my problem with the other router ......

Spear

OpenDNS have wrongly blocked the site. there's a thread on it in Feedback.

Johnboy1951

Spear wrote: »

OpenDNS have wrongly blocked the site. there's a thread on it in Feedback.

Thanks, able to access again today.

I could not view anything yesterday as PaleMoon also picked up the OpenDNS update I guess.