Internet Forum/Settings Issue

[Kelly]

I moderate at another board that uses the exact same software as this one.

For some reason I have lost the buttons for editing, quoting, and starting a new thread. Also, avatars and smilies are not displayed.

No one at that board can figure out why. It must be something in PC settings as it happens no matter whether I am using IE or Firefox. It is not my logon because when I am at work, it is fine. Another person logged in as me from their home and did not have the problem.

I need to be able to do edits and adds when at home. It's very frustrating.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what setting change may have caused this? I use IE and have WinXP. I did not download any new software, but I think there may have been a Windows update at that time. I did typical things already, such as deleting files and cookies.

Thanks,
Kelly

[Kelly]

This is absolutely nutty, but about 10 minutes after posting this, my IE froze on a site and I had to kill the browser through task manager. I then went to that other forum, and there was the edit and post new buttons. This problem has been going on for weeks. I sure hope it doesn't return the next time I reboot.

[Pyrrho]

Are you running ZoneAlarm or another firewall by any chance? I've had to change security settings in ZoneAlarm to allow image display from remote sites.

[Kelly]

Unfortunately, when I came home today, the problem was back. :(

I have McAfee Personal Firewall Plus.

[hcmom]

Kelly, have you trying going to a System Restore point from before the problem started, and seeing if that helps?

[Kelly]

I did several system restores last night, going back further each time with no success. When I shut down for the night, Windows wanted to do an update, which I allowed. I suspect that nothing will have changed when I go home tonight. :(

[hcmom]

... Windows wanted to do an update, which I allowed. I suspect that nothing will have changed when I go home tonight. :(

Or at least, nothing beneficial...

[bruto]

Do you use a hosts file? If so, and if the forum has changed any of its IP addresses, this will happen. You might also want to flush your cache out, if you haven't already.

[Kelly]

Do you use a hosts file? If so, and if the forum has changed any of its IP addresses, this will happen. You might also want to flush your cache out, if you haven't already.

I don't know what a host file is, so I assume I don't use one. I did delete my cookies and cache last night.

And the story gets wackier.......

I get home tonight and the system restore took me back to a time when I had Outlook troubles, so I said to heck with it, and went forward on another restore to last week. Low and behold, if the darn thing isn't back to working again.

It may be interesting to note that I recall when the problem started happening was after the board owner did not sort of an upgrade. He had to get some IT people involved today because it kept going down, and now I am working again!

[bruto]

I don't know what a host file is, so I assume I don't use one. I did delete my cookies and cache last night.

And the story gets wackier.......

I get home tonight and the system restore took me back to a time when I had Outlook troubles, so I said to heck with it, and went forward on another restore to last week. Low and behold, if the darn thing isn't back to working again.

It may be interesting to note that I recall when the problem started happening was after the board owner did not sort of an upgrade. He had to get some IT people involved today because it kept going down, and now I am working again!

Glad it seems to have improved, for whatever reason. Just for information, if you use Windows, there is a text file called "hosts" in your Windows directory, into which you can insert domain names and their IP numbers. When you type a domain name into your browser, it will look there first for the IP number, before going to your ISP's DNS servers. Two things happen because of this. The first is that if, like my ISP, yours sometimes has odd times when DNS requests time out and it can't find any sites, you can avoid the delay by putting your most used domains into the hosts file. The second is that, if you are plagued by linked advertising and the like on certain sites, you can direct the links to the default "loopback" address of your own computer, and they will fail to load and come up blank. There are some internet sources for prepared hosts files that will clobber many of the commonly linked ad hosts. A disadvantage, as I discovered, is that if a domain changes its IP address, your hosts file will not be updated, and will send you to the wrong place. If, as I did, you have stupidly forgotten that you even put the domain in the file, then it can cause some mysterious glitches. All versions of windows come with a sample file called "hosts.sam" that illustrates the format for the entries.

[hcmom]

hehehehehe...Gee Kelly, aren't you glad now that you asked? Isn't everything so much clearer now?


Really, it's always handy to have that kind of info in the brain, even when you don't really understand it. It's usually just enough to trigger a thought when it counts, to be used when needed.

[Kelly]

Glad it seems to have improved, for whatever reason. Just for information, if you use Windows, there is a text file called "hosts" in your Windows directory, into which you can insert domain names and their IP numbers. When you type a domain name into your browser, it will look there first for the IP number, before going to your ISP's DNS servers. Two things happen because of this. The first is that if, like my ISP, yours sometimes has odd times when DNS requests time out and it can't find any sites, you can avoid the delay by putting your most used domains into the hosts file. The second is that, if you are plagued by linked advertising and the like on certain sites, you can direct the links to the default "loopback" address of your own computer, and they will fail to load and come up blank. There are some internet sources for prepared hosts files that will clobber many of the commonly linked ad hosts. A disadvantage, as I discovered, is that if a domain changes its IP address, your hosts file will not be updated, and will send you to the wrong place. If, as I did, you have stupidly forgotten that you even put the domain in the file, then it can cause some mysterious glitches. All versions of windows come with a sample file called "hosts.sam" that illustrates the format for the entries.

I read this a few times, and believe that I understand it.

Would you agree or disagree that the issue had something to do with a Windows (rather than browser) setting that controls imagery displays since the edit, quote, post new, post reply buttons and avatars were missing?

How did the host file scenario correlate, or did it?

At this point, I am not trusting that tomorrow night it won't work! :boggled:

[Kelly]

hehehehehe...Gee Kelly, aren't you glad now that you asked? Isn't everything so much clearer now?


Really, it's always handy to have that kind of info in the brain, even when you don't really understand it. It's usually just enough to trigger a thought when it counts, to be used when needed.


I think this is somewhat similar to the story I told in Gen/Skep about the pregnant woman!

[bruto]

I read this a few times, and believe that I understand it.

Would you agree or disagree that the issue had something to do with a Windows (rather than browser) setting that controls imagery displays since the edit, quote, post new, post reply buttons and avatars were missing?

How did the host file scenario correlate, or did it?

At this point, I am not trusting that tomorrow night it won't work! :boggled:

My case wasn't quite the same as yours, but similar enough to suggest looking at the hosts file. In my case, the forum in question changed servers. I had the old server IP in my hosts file. But the people setting up the forum had intermingled different links in the forum software. Some of the pages, and some of the buttons on the pages, were linked to the IP number itself, and these, when I opened them, worked fine. But some of the pages and some of the buttons were linked to the URL, and when I tried these, my hosts file intercepted them and sent me elswhere, either to an archived page, or when I pushed a button, to a cryptic error message. It took a little while to figure out because of this mixture.

On your problem I don't know enough to be anything but dangerous. But I would have thought if your problem was a setting of your own, that you would have had issues with other sites using similar forum software. If it was unique to the one forum, I'd guess either a cache or cookie problem, or a problem at their end. One other possibility could be a corrupted setting or spyware in your registry, which could explain why it seemed to work after running a restore. Anyway, good luck, and I hope it keeps working.

[Kelly]

On your problem I don't know enough to be anything but dangerous. But I would have thought if your problem was a setting of your own, that you would have had issues with other sites using similar forum software. If it was unique to the one forum, I'd guess either a cache or cookie problem, or a problem at their end. One other possibility could be a corrupted setting or spyware in your registry, which could explain why it seemed to work after running a restore. Anyway, good luck, and I hope it keeps working.

Thanks, Bruto. We'll see how it goes when I get home tonight.

[Kelly]

Yep, just as I suspected. The problem has returned. :(

[hcmom]

I bet I have the solution!!












Don't turn off your computer, ever...
hehehehehe

[bruto]

Well, I'm stumped, and undoubtedly out of my depth, but....

If it's possible to access the site properly from another computer, I might try hovering the mouse over the buttons/links/etc. that you're having a problem with, and see if there is something about the destination that differs from the others. Are they sending you to a different address, or a different type of operation or script (e.g. php, javascript, or whatever)? If you can find some particular thing that the missing parts have in common, it might be possible then to track down what is disabled, or what is blocking them.

[Kelly]

Let's compare:

The post reply button here reads:
http://forums.randi.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=2037125

The one there is:
http://www.truckingboards.com/trucking/upload/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=70111

The edit button here is:
http://forums.randi.org/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=2037749

The edit button there is:
http://www.truckingboards.com/trucking/upload/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=70111

(Same Jelsoft software used for that forum.)

[bruto]

Let's compare:

The post reply button here reads:
http://forums.randi.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=2037125

The one there is:
http://www.truckingboards.com/trucking/upload/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=70111

The edit button here is:
http://forums.randi.org/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=2037749

The edit button there is:
http://www.truckingboards.com/trucking/upload/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=70111

(Same Jelsoft software used for that forum.)

I'm stumped. Of course that's not surprising. I certainly hope someone who knows more about this kind of thing shows up.

So as I understand it, the buttons themselves don't appear on your computer? But what happens if you type in (or copy/paste) the url's you posted here? Do they go anywhere? If they do, then your computer is not blocking the address and the problem must be somewhere in how your computer or browser is handling the script that generates the buttons on the screen. But what that problem might be I have no clue. My knowledge of html and its operation is virtually negative. Buttons are a standard part of html code, but looking at the confusing and dense source code for this page it looks as if the buttons within the boxes, such as the "submit reply" button I'm about to push, use visual basic code. I don't know whether that's a useful clue or not. Good luck.

[Kelly]

I'm stumped. Of course that's not surprising. I certainly hope someone who knows more about this kind of thing shows up.

So as I understand it, the buttons themselves don't appear on your computer? But what happens if you type in (or copy/paste) the url's you posted here? Do they go anywhere? If they do, then your computer is not blocking the address and the problem must be somewhere in how your computer or browser is handling the script that generates the buttons on the screen. But what that problem might be I have no clue. My knowledge of html and its operation is virtually negative. Buttons are a standard part of html code, but looking at the confusing and dense source code for this page it looks as if the buttons within the boxes, such as the "submit reply" button I'm about to push, use visual basic code. I don't know whether that's a useful clue or not. Good luck.

Bruto,

Thank you so much for trying to help me. I'm getting some good things to try from what you say. For example, I didn't even think of the button as possibly being a link.

People are probably going to think I am nuts, but the darn thing is working again tonight. At least, though, if it fails again, I can some back here to my links post, click, and see what happens. Those results would take me a step closer to figuring it out.

Regards,
Kelly

[bruto]

It occurred to me to google the problem, and one page that came up was this one, which describes what looks like a similar problem, and a workaround that might be worth trying:

http://communityserver.org/forums/thread/465561.aspx

Not much useful advice out there for the non-hacker types, but it appears that button problems are not uncommon in forum software.

[Kelly]

It occurred to me to google the problem, and one page that came up was this one, which describes what looks like a similar problem, and a workaround that might be worth trying:

http://communityserver.org/forums/thread/465561.aspx

Not much useful advice out there for the non-hacker types, but it appears that button problems are not uncommon in forum software.

Interesting. So I'm not crazy after all. ;)

Again, I am not trusting that I won't have to deal with a reoccurence of the problem, but at least I'll have a workaround.

Thanks!

[hcmom]

Interesting. So I'm not crazy after all. ;)

Funny, I just re-read this thread, and skimmed the linked info, and I didn't find anything indicating that you aren't crazy, just a bunch of info to let you know that your forum problems aren't unique to you...

:duck:

[Kelly]

So, in episode VI of "As the Button Disappears", the buttons are once again gone when I boot up at home.

I used the links I posted above, and was able get to both an edit page and an add reply page. I went to another thread, and the buttons were still not there, Logging out and back in had no effect, nor did a deletion of files and cookies.