white page/page loading issue

[Daniel]

For those of you experiencing this, in what situations are you noticing it? Does it happen in certain circumstances only and not others?

I'm trying to fix the issue, but it's proving difficult. Any data you can give me to help narrow down the circumstances will help.

[mammamaia]

didn't have any trouble yesterday, daniel, but today was a major pain...

i kept getting a blank blue page when trying to get back to the forum sections menu page... whether i clicked the 'back to' arrow, or the 'go to' one, or clicked on the 'community' button, it still kept coming out blank and blue, till one of the repeated clicks finally worked...

[Kaymindless]

Well, it only seems to happen to me in the afternoons. But here's the exact error I get:

Database error
The Creative Writing Forums - Writing Workshops, Writing Help, Creative Writing Contests database has encountered a problem.
Please try the following:
Load the page again by clicking the Refresh button in your web browser.
Open the www.writingforums.org home page, then try to open another page.
Click the Back button to try another link.
The www.writingforums.org forum technical staff have been notified of the error, though you may contact them if the problem persists.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

Haven't gotten it for a few days until today.

Honestly, I just let it sit for a few moments and hit refresh and it lets me back in.

[Cogito]

Yesterday, I had the white page problem for the first time. It was literally that - a completely white browser page. I waited for ten minutes, and nothing changed, so I closed the browser. The Quick Reply I was posting never showed up.

No messages, nothing at all from the server. I have had other errors in which it appeared the Autosave was involved, with a popup about navigating away from the page. When that occurred, I was unable to post to that thread at all, or with the same content (on the clipboard) to ANY thread.

I strongly suspect the Autosave is the root cause of most of the problems I have encountered. Can it be switched off? I believe the cure is worse than the disease it was intended to address.

[Daniel]

didn't have any trouble yesterday, daniel, but today was a major pain...

i kept getting a blank blue page when trying to get back to the forum sections menu page... whether i clicked the 'back to' arrow, or the 'go to' one, or clicked on the 'community' button, it still kept coming out blank and blue, till one of the repeated clicks finally worked...

This seems to be a different issue. To me it sounds like it might be on the user-side, but I could be wrong. Anyone else experience this?

Well, it only seems to happen to me in the afternoons. But here's the exact error I get:



Haven't gotten it for a few days until today.

Honestly, I just let it sit for a few moments and hit refresh and it lets me back in.

Is this occasional or frequent? If you refresh it does it go away, or does the site remain inaccessible for a while? I noticed this error yesterday. Basically it happens because the site receives too many connections. I've adjusted server settings to reduce the frequency of this.

Yesterday, I had the white page problem for the first time. It was literally that - a completely white browser page. I waited for ten minutes, and nothing changed, so I closed the browser. The Quick Reply I was posting never showed up.

No messages, nothing at all from the server. I have had other errors in which it appeared the Autosave was involved, with a popup about navigating away from the page. When that occurred, I was unable to post to that thread at all, or with the same content (on the clipboard) to ANY thread.

I strongly suspect the Autosave is the root cause of most of the problems I have encountered. Can it be switched off? I believe the cure is worse than the disease it was intended to address.

That's the problem I'm talking about. I've personally only encountered it when trying to edit posts, but it won't go away, regardless of how or when I try to post. Do you think autosave has something to do with this, or are you talking about other issues? Unfortunately vbulletin support has been less than helpful for this issue.

[Cogito]

I believe Autosave is responsible for the recurring problem I described in the second paragraph. I cannot get rid of the Autosaved content in those situations, and I cannot post while it is still remembered.

As I've only seen the "white page" problem once, I don't have enough observations to theorize. However, I would not be surprised if the root cause were the same.

[Daniel]

Now that I think about it, I've had the other error you described as well. I disabled autosave and that one seems to have disappeared, though the white page error is still occuring.

[Kaymindless]

Is this occasional or frequent? If you refresh it does it go away, or does the site remain inaccessible for a while? I noticed this error yesterday. Basically it happens because the site receives too many connections. I've adjusted server settings to reduce the frequency of this.

It's occasional, like I said, normally in the afternoon (central time) but very rarely at other times. No, it takes a moment or two before refreshing will solve the issue. I think only once or twice did I have to wait longer than 5 minutes before I could access the site again.

[mammamaia]

all's working fine for me today...

[AnonyMouse]

Yesterday, I had the white page problem for the first time. It was literally that - a completely white browser page. I waited for ten minutes, and nothing changed, so I closed the browser. The Quick Reply I was posting never showed up.

No messages, nothing at all from the server. I have had other errors in which it appeared the Autosave was involved, with a popup about navigating away from the page. When that occurred, I was unable to post to that thread at all, or with the same content (on the clipboard) to ANY thread.

I strongly suspect the Autosave is the root cause of most of the problems I have encountered. Can it be switched off? I believe the cure is worse than the disease it was intended to address.

I am currently having this problem while trying to send a PM to another member. I get a white page when I click "preview message" or "submit." The page comes up so fast, I don't think the site is even attempting to load the message -- it just leaps straight to the white page when I click either of those two buttons. No loading bar, no error message. Refreshing it doesn't do a thing.

I tried clearing my cache. I tried closing and reopening the browser. I even tried using a different browser. (I normally use Firefox, so I tried it on IE, but the problem persists.) I even went to a different computer, but the problem remains the same. This is DEFINITELY an issue on the site's side.

It won't let me send a PM to this user, for some reason. I tested it by writing a brief message (I just wrote "testing..." three times) to another user and it at least let me get to the "preview" page. This led me to believe it might be a word count issue, so I went back to the user I'm trying to reach and split my original message (it's about 800 words) into smaller pieces (200 words each) and tried to send it in four smaller PMs. This allowed me to get to the "preview" page at least, but ultimately failed as well (it white-paged when I tried to send them).

Hopefully, I've provided enough details for Daniel to do some detective work on the matter. This is the first time I've had this problem. I sent two PMs to that same user earlier in the day, before this popped up. And my inbox is nowhere near full (65/500), so that can't be the issue.

This started last night. It is now ten hours later and I'm still getting stonewalled by the white page.

Has anyone found a way around this thing? It's ridiculous.

[Tattat44]

I am having the same problem. I try posting a new thread or previewing it, and it puts me on a white page with http://www.writingforums.org/newthre...=postthread&f= in the url bar.

I can reply and view pages just fine.

[Cogito]

Site performance has been crap lately in general. Long page loads, frequent double posts from a single submit click, redirects to non-existing pages.

[live2write]

I have had a problem with pages loading as I am trying to post. It might not be relevant to this thread but similar things are happening.

When I try to post to an existing thread the page will freeze and then a pop up would ask me if i would like to stay on the page or leave. I press stay and the screen loads slow and goes blank. However when trying to reply from quote I end up in a twilight zone of the same pop ups but it would be in a circle. When I press to leave page, the page stays white.

I have been switching between Safari, Firefox and Chrome. FireFox is the slowest and Chrome is working okay. Safari is the browser that ends up loading faster.

I hope this helps. :-)

[Cogito]

This would be a server issue, not a browser issue.

[naturemage]

Apparently the error has to do with a specific sentence in posts, though I'm not sure which. A few months ago, I tried to submit a thread and it had this problem until I deleted a specific sentence. AnonyMouse also had the same issue with sending a PM to me, and tried over and over until he found a sentence that was causing the problem. I'm sure there are others as well, but I don't remember what the sentence was for me.

[Cogito]

I have seen this. I don't think it is because of the sentence itself, but rather an error in the cache that preserves the edit buffer for recovery in case your browser crashes or you inadvertently leave the page.

I saved the text I was trying to post, and walked away for a couple hours - long enough for the cache to expire and be flushed, and was then able to repost. I reported this some time ago to Daniel, but he is not a programmer. All he could do is report it to vBulletin, and search the bug lists for fixes. The last he checked, there was no fix.

Even for an experienced software developer, this is a difficult problem to fix, because of the difficulty in reproducing it in a debug environment. Even worse, changing the build for debugging can cause the problem to go into hiding.

If it is possible to do so, I would recommend turning off the "preserve buffer" function. The defect in the cure is far worse than the annoyance it was meant to prevent, and people STILL manage to lose their long posts due to browser failures. But I don't know if this feature can be turned off in the vBulletin distribution Daniel is using.

It isn't something the individual member can do anything about. If it is an option at all, it is an option on the server.

[Mr.]

Ironic problem, huh? When I hit the button to submit a thread I've prepared, I get back:

"Oops! This link appears to be broken.
Suggestions:
Go to www.*writingforums.*org
Search www.writingforums.org for new thread
Search on Google:"

[Cogito]

Try logging off for a couple hours.

Also, send a PM to Daniel. Let him know the date and time of the occurrence. Hopefully he can use that along with the server logs to find a solution.

[Mr.]

There is no specific time. I'm having identical issues whenever I try to start a thread there.

[psychotick]

Hi,

The title says it all. For some reason the last couple of posts I've made have double posted when I hit the post reply button. I keep getting this box flash up after I hit the button asking me if I want to leave the page -if I click yes it double posts, if I click no, I go nowhere.

Cheers, Greg.