Recent forum/website problems

[domparkes]

Many will be aware that the forum has been playing up of late. I have contacted the web host's support team, but they have not been very helpful. (yay...)

I have done a bit of maintenance tonight, backed up the forum database and installed the latest stable version of SimpleMachines forum software (the TapaTalk plugin was up to date - Andy did you update this fairly recently? I don't recall doing it myself...)

I have also double-checked file/folder permissions on the forum files, previously (quite a while ago) I noticed that these had changed (web host's automated backup/restore procedures??) which I think had been causing the forum errors at that time (the errors stopped when I changed the permissions to what they should have been).

I did try a supposed fix/hack to the .htaccess file, but this just messed everything up so I reversed it.

Any website will fall over from time to time, but obviously I'm hoping that we may now see a period of stability. However, if people are experiencing on-going problems (other than the occasional glitch) then please let me know and I will have to see what I can do - maybe rebuild/re-install everything from scratch (yay again...)

Cheers
Dom

[domparkes]

Update:

Nope, it's still buggering around...

I've got back to Support to give them a bit of a roasting. Fault seems intermediate - sometimes all works fine, sometimes I can get onto the website but the forum just gives me loads of 403 errors, other times it just sits there and sulks whatever page I try to load - blank page for ages then a time-out error.

Arrrrgggh!!

[Pilau]

Nice one Dom, appreciated, ironing out problems like  this can be very tricky and time consuming. You may be right about a rebuild. I vaguely recall a Tapatalk update, but I wouldn't have said it was recent, certainly not in software update terms! But I wonder if it could be the cause of the problems?

[domparkes]

Well it looks like Tapatalk is up to date anyway.

I have no reason to suspect that's what's causing the problem, I think it's a more fundamental problem with the server that the host needs to address

[domparkes]

I had another moan at support, and they changed their tune a bit and said that in fact there had been an inappropriate security setting on the server that was causing the forum and website to fall over periodically. They claim they've now sorted this. It does seem to have been more robust since then - any recent problems anyone?

[Jon]

It does seem to have been more robust since then - any recent problems anyone?

IT problems, or just in general?

[Pilau]

It does seem to have been more robust since then - any recent problems anyone?

IT problems, or just in general?

Yeah I reckon it's been up for longer 

[domparkes]

IT problems, or just in general?

Go on Jon, climb onto the couch over there, lie back, and tell be about what's troubling you...