New Layout (bugs)

[serfty]

I cannot see that this has been mentioned previously but I find that 'often' though not always that pages are very slow to open. I have not been able to find any pattern to this and it happens in both Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Any thoughts anyone :?:

This slowness I have experienced in the last day or so.

I would say this is recent; I had been thinking about bringing it to Admin's attention.

 

[straitman]

This slowness I have experienced in the last day or so.

I would say this is recent; I had been thinking about bringing it to Admin's attention.

Thanks serfty.

 

[admin]

Have seen this for a while now, but it doesn't seem to have been documented as a bug.

It's to do with articles, and specifically clicking on the link when they appear in the new post results. The link provided to the item in new post results (eg http://www.frequentflyer.com.au/com...ppropriate-uniformed-airline-staff-24312.html) differs from that provided if browsing via the news & views link (The Australian Frequent Flyer Online Community - Is it appropriate for uniformed airline staff to travel in Business Class?).

However, when you click on the link from new posts you received the following error message:



Just a slight frustration I thought might be worth mentioning.

We are aware of this problem. Its actually a bug (or as vBulletin claim, a "feature"). You can read all about it at
CMS Non-Admins cannot see ARTICLES in the VBCMS_COMMENTS - worked before 4.0.4.

We were hoping it would be actioned in the latest vBulletin release (4.05) which we installed on Monday. Unfortunately it wasn't. We have tried to minimise the impact by hiding the "Published Articles" forum. This forum is not required anyway, as you can view the articles via the CMS components on the main page. Hoping for a fix soon.

I cannot see that this has been mentioned previously but I find that 'often' though not always that pages are very slow to open. I have not been able to find any pattern to this and it happens in both Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Any thoughts anyone

I haven't come accross this problem. The server is operating normally. (There were a few issues on Monday, shortly after the upgrade. But that should have settled.) Will continue to monitor.

 

[anat0l]

My searching hasn't turned up anything, but I might have missed it....

Is there a mobile version of the AFF login page?

I've tried key pages and appended ?styleid=24 to the end of them, however they only go "mobile" if I'm already logged in (since I'm an AFF Gold member) or if it's just after I log out of them. If I try to use

http://www.frequentflyer.com.au/community/login.php?styleid=24

whilst I'm logged out (i.e. like a regular user), that doesn't work.

I notice that if you aren't logged in, ?styleid=24 simply returns the page in non-mobile (PC) mode.

I know that mobile mode is being protected from non-premium subscribers, however I would really appreciate if just one page - a login page - was made available in mobile form as well.

 

[samh004]

Had some troubles posting to the August 2010 meetings thread earlier on Safari. I tried logging out and refreshing the page but the "preview post" and "submit reply" buttons just wouldn’t work for me. Eventually loaded Chrome and it worked fine, so has something changed on AFF that would affect only Safari?

Even this post I have had to publish with Chrome, as I simply can’t submit!

Can anyone else confirm problems?

 

[Flashback]

When you do a search, e.g. type in 'election' it lists the results, but then when you go to click on any of them it comes up saying page not found. One of my 'update to thread X' e-mails did that this morning too.

Am assuming some changes have been made with how URLs are handled/presented?

 

[admin]

Yep, we had a URL problem earlier today.

Short answer is that the problem has been indetified and all should be corrected in a few days

Long answer for those who are technically minded (and I know thats quite a few!):
We use vbSEO to reformat our URLs into more Search Engine friendly URLs. This morning I noticed that the URLs were incorrectly formatted. I'm really not sure what caused the problem - I know for a fact that thinks were fine on Saturday and (as far as I know) there were no system or configuration changes over the week-end. The problem was corrected about 3 hours ago - the URLs are now the same as they were before.

But during the period when the URLs were incorrectly formated, Googfle must have indexed the site and now have the incorect URLs in its index. This is annoying but should self-correct with the next Google index. Please let me know if the problem persists in a few days.

Now to figure out what caused the problem in the first place :evil:

When you do a search, e.g. type in 'election' it lists the results, but then when you go to click on any of them it comes up saying page not found. One of my 'update to thread X' e-mails did that this morning too.

Am assuming some changes have been made with how URLs are handled/presented?

 

[Flashback]

Thanks for the update admin:!:

I'm really not sure what caused the problem - I know for a fact that thinks were fine on Saturday and (as far as I know) there were no system or configuration changes over the week-end.

Don't you just love it when that happens, I see it all the time. :shock:

 

[admin]

For those that are interested:

We have discovered the source of the problem. There was a security hole in the vbseo software allowing a hacker to modify the configuation settings. This has probably effected most vb/vbseo forums - thousands of websites. You can read all about it at
config.xml settings changed randomly - security issue? - vBulletin SEO Forums

Yesterday we identified the problem, restored the old settings and notified vbseo of the problem. Being in Australia we must have been one of the first to report the problem. Late last night vbseo released a security update, which we installed.

As far as we can tell the site is now secure again. The URLs have been stable for about 18 hours, sever response is back to normal (some had reported slow response over the last few days), and the Google index has (largely) corrected itself.

Fortunately, we got onto the problem pretty quickly and no lasting damage was done. The security hole allowed for the change of one config file only. No other information was compromised.

Our server system administrator has assured me that the server itself is fully secure.

But this is a reminder that there are some nasty people out there. We cannot be too careful and will continue to take security very, very seriously.

Yep, we had a URL problem earlier today.

Short answer is that the problem has been indetified and all should be corrected in a few days

Long answer for those who are technically minded (and I know thats quite a few!):
We use vbSEO to reformat our URLs into more Search Engine friendly URLs. This morning I noticed that the URLs were incorrectly formatted. I'm really not sure what caused the problem - I know for a fact that thinks were fine on Saturday and (as far as I know) there were no system or configuration changes over the week-end. The problem was corrected about 3 hours ago - the URLs are now the same as they were before.

But during the period when the URLs were incorrectly formated, Googfle must have indexed the site and now have the incorect URLs in its index. This is annoying but should self-correct with the next Google index. Please let me know if the problem persists in a few days.

Now to figure out what caused the problem in the first place :evil:

 

[JeniSkunk]

Feature request:
When a user has sorted their subscribed threads into folders, could a folder which has subscribed thread with new/unread posts, be highlighted?

Jenifur Charne

 

[samh004]

Seeing as I opened the thread (from new posts), can I request BBCode "strike" / "s" be added too

 

[Danger]

It's probably not due to the new layout but I've noticed a lot of doubling up of a word in some posts. It's hard to describe but it seems that the last word of the first line of a post is automatically repeated on the second line. For example, my post 301 in the platinum anytime thread did read ". . . sunny Perth Saturday afternoon to use . . ." "Afternoon" was the last word of the first line and somehow managed to double up and become the first word of the second. When I clicked to edit it confirmed that I'd only typed it once. I've noticed a number of other posts with the same issue.

 

[docjames]

It's probably not due to the new layout but I've noticed a lot of doubling up of a word in some posts. It's hard to describe but it seems that the last word of the first line of a post is automatically repeated on the second line. For example, my post 301 in the platinum anytime thread did read ". . . sunny Perth Saturday afternoon to use . . ." "Afternoon" was the last word of the first line and somehow managed to double up and become the first word of the second. When I clicked to edit it confirmed that I'd only typed it once. I've noticed a number of other posts with the same issue.

+ 1 been seeing this one intermittantly too.

On IE.

 

[admin]

Hmmm... This is an odd one! I haven't come across it before.

Could you please PM me details of the specific post and I will investigate. Thanks

It's probably not due to the new layout but I've noticed a lot of doubling up of a word in some posts. It's hard to describe but it seems that the last word of the first line of a post is automatically repeated on the second line. For example, my post 301 in the platinum anytime thread did read ". . . sunny Perth Saturday afternoon to use . . ." "Afternoon" was the last word of the first line and somehow managed to double up and become the first word of the second. When I clicked to edit it confirmed that I'd only typed it once. I've noticed a number of other posts with the same issue.

 

[Hvr]

So how many posts can you read when not logged in, before you are barred from reading any more? I know you can delete all the cookies and start reading again but it is annoying when I want to read but have nothing useful to contribute.

Basically I am stopped from reading AFF until I either log in or clear cookies (properly known as pollutants on my computer).

 

[samh004]

This isn’t a site layout thing, but I noticed the AFF Twitter account must have accidentally fallen victim to spam tonight. Perhaps admin would like to check it’s all safe?

Twitter:

I lost 10lbs using acai! You must try it! RT http://to.ly/8WVf

 

[oz_mark]

Must be pushing the threads straight out to Twitter, spam and all!

 

[samh004]

Must be pushing the threads straight out to Twitter, spam and all!

I did think it was a thread, but it didn’t link to AFF, nor did it come with the usual hashtags, so I figured it was just the Twitter account being compromised, not something on AFF.

 

[anat0l]

Whilst we are on the subject of Twitter, this may have been brought up before, but can we stop auto-hashtagging the AFF tweets with #qantas and #virginblue?

Not every new thread deserves those hashtags; their inclusion (especially as a cursory move) is misleading and insidious.

Now if you could "smart tag" new topics, that would be very welcome, e.g. for a new topic in QFF or DJ forums, #qantas or #virginblue is fine. You could also have #tripreport, #playground, #news, #discussion, #question etc. I would limit the auto-tag to one tag only that pertains to the forum it is posted in.

I should probably say now that I am very grateful of the RSS feature that allows the OP of each thread to be read. If only you can RSS whole threads so you can read all the posts. (Snaptu for mobiles (in my case, my Nokia which runs Symbian) allows RSS-able web pages to be viewed in its application without having to open up the web browser, thus using less memory).

 

[oz_mark]

I did think it was a thread, but it didn’t link to AFF, nor did it come with the usual hashtags, so I figured it was just the Twitter account being compromised, not something on AFF.

You may be right. The backend database of Gawker was published over the weekend, exposing information of users of Gawker, Gizmodo, Jezebel, Lifehacker, io9, Jalopnik, Kotaku, Deadspin and Fleshbot. Subsequent to this, that information was used to launch a spam attack on Twitter (Gawker Hack Spreads to Twitter - PCWorld).

Don't know if that is what happened here though.