System Issues (Part III)

Reminds me of a line in an old song by the band, "Chicago"... "Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?" LOL
Guess that makes me old...

Edited to change "anyone" to "anybody"...my old memory ain't so good anymore, lol

This message was edited May 13, 2010 7:19 PM

We are not old yet, KyWoods, we are just well informed!

Here is what I get on every forum page. I am running IE8.

(1) The thing where 'skip to new' takes me past the new posts and all the way to the reply box at the bottom just happened (9:51PM EDT by my system clock) with this thread. Thread watcher said there were new, unread posts. There were, in fact, many new posts, but 'skip to new' took me past all of them to the reply box. An interesting thing I noticed is that when I looked up at the URL it was: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1086002/#new

Doesn't '#new' essentially mean 'new post'?

Anyhow, I had unread posts. I clicked 'skip to new'. It skipped past all of the new posts to the reply box at the bottom.

(2) A few minutes ago when I picked up my laptop and clicked on the Home tab to update the screen, even after the browser stopped 'updating', I had no banner and the tabs were all "x's" like in gardenpom's pic above. The time was some time this afternoon. It looked like the page didn't actually update. (I'm running Firefox on a MacBook Pro - Intel Mac) I clicked the Home tab to try to update it again. This time when the 'updating' finally ended, the banner was filled in (and the time was back to the incorrect but consistent EST)

(3) I'm going to ignore time as you suggested until they get it fixed. Earlier when time had me so frustrated, I quickly realized I needed a timeout and a nap.

What happened to the list of forums on the home page? Since this afternoon all I see is my watched threads & a "Test" forum I saved. From there down the page is blank.

Hmmm, all I ever see below my watched threads is PlantFiles posts, but that's okay, I'm adding some new plants to my 'wanted' list...or maybe that's not okay, lol.

I was anxious to see what happens with the PlantFile photos this morning after the fix. I released two, and it looks like they are now 7 hours into the future, rather than 8.

Here is something new I just noticed this morning. (again, I'm using Firefox)

Browser tabs for DG pages (in Firefox, at least) normally display a small pink/red flower (along with a few identifying words). Starting this morning my browser tabs for DG pages no longer have the flower on them. They all have a blank page icon instead. I have a few DG pages still open from yesterday. The tabs for these older DG pages are the only exception. They have the flower.

That's odd - I'm using FF as well, and the pink flowers are still showing up in my browser window. (I completely shut down my computer last night when we went down for maintenance.)

I know you may have already tried this but can you try clearing your browser's history and see if that restores things?

Firefox user here and I have the pink flowers in my browser window
for all tabs.

Ok, it's fixed. Looks like that was a false alarm, something on my side. Sorry.

I tried clearing browser cache and browsing and download history w/o success. Then I restarted the computer. The latter resolved the problem.

Although I am not absolutely certain, I believe I lost the flower icons (new tabs/pages only) when DG came back up this morning after going down for maintenance. Prior to rebooting the computer just now, I had not otherwise done so for several days.

Anyhow, problem solved. False alarm. My bad.

O.K.
Re: The message board disappearing on my home page.
I tried removing the "Test" forum I had saved since it was the only change I made & the message board on the home page came back. So, apparently if you save forums it gets rid of everything else on the page, with the exception of your watched threads that have new posts. Wierd.

That's a shame. I like the idea of saving forums so I don't have to search for them all the time, but I have found all sorts of great information on the message board that I wouldn't have even thought to look for.

Terry, I'm having the same issue as yesterday but again only on the SW Forum. I'm beginning to believe it has something to do with this work computer and IE6. Last night and this morning it was fine at home with IE7. Soon as I log onto DG on this computer the same issue as yesterday...

No biggie to me as long as I can still read and post;o)

My time is still not correct.

nutsaboutnature: That's actually what the "favorite forums" feature is designed for - most of us only have a handful of forums we really keep up with . The favorites lets you tailor your home page to just those.

You'll also see the "most recent posts" below that, so - when we get the PF photos time stamp fixed - that will let you see at a glance what's going on in all the forums, even if they aren't forums you watch all the time.

It's actually a really nice set up - Dave did a great job designing it many years ago. I don't recommend to anyone that they keep ALL the forums on their list of favorites, although they can. It's just a lot to wade through.

localkelly: I think you've probably pinpointed that problem. I know we have had optimization issues with I.E. in the past and with people running numerous versions of the browser, it's very difficult to optimize for them all.

mcash70: have you checked your preferences to see what time zone you're set for? If you need assistance, please let us know. (I also started a thread this morning to help people do that since my time was wrong: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1096993/ )

nutsaboutnature,

You are referring to the Watched Forums List. If you don't choose to 'watch' any specific forums, it shows the entire list of forums. If you go through the list and choose those that are of particular interest to you, it will display those only.

However, you can always access the entire forum list again at any time by selecting the "Communities" Tab (Just under the banner) and "Discussion Forums" from that page. So the full list of all Forums is always just 2 clicks away.

As for finding new information in places you wouldn't think to look, I've found that the 'latest posts' list (below Watched Forums) is great for that, since it displays the threads from all forums regardless. Recently, there have been some problems with it 'misbehaving', but when this feature works correctly, it can be a great asset for finding those interesting bits of information in unexpected places.

oops, Terry, we cross-posted; hence the reason I seem to be restating things you already said.

great minds think alike, or something like that ;o)

Terry wrote locakelly: I think you've probably pinpointed that problem. I know we have had optimization issues with I.E. in the past and with people running numerous versions of the browser, it's very difficult to optimize for them all.

That's what I figured, and it's certainly no big deal to me... I think all things considered, with all the changes happening, the problems the site is having are pretty minor and ones I can deal with for now;o)

Terry, my thoughts exactly!

Thanks Terry.
There's so much info on DG that even after a year I'm still exploring, learning & being amazed. There is so much about this site that I still need to learn.

You're probably right about keeping the whole list & I'm sure I'll eventually come to that conclusion. I love that you guys care enough to work on the site & have threads like this one to answer questions - very very rare!

By the way, I, too think the posts are now showing correct times. I'll know for sure as soon as I send this post. I was starting to think we were all sleepwalking in the middle of the night & heading to our computers to log into DG!!

Edited starts Below:

Oops! I'm an hour off (shows an hour early). I'll check my preferences to see what it shows.

DreamOfSpring.
Thanks for your input & info. I missed your post when I jumped to the bottom of the page.

By the way, Terry & DreamOfSpring, how do you guys make the letters bold? I didn't think that was something I could do on DG. Or does it have something to do with the programs you're using?

Thanks!!

This message was edited May 14, 2010 12:22 PM

I've talked to the tech guys about problems with various browsers (most notably AOL); at some point we may come out with a list of supported browsers, just to help manage everyone's expectations.

Just changed my time to Central Daylight. This post should read approximately 1:29 PM.



Edited to say, "YES"!!!!!

This message was edited May 14, 2010 1:33 PM

Anybody else still having problems like this?

I really hate to jinx the site but it is running alot faster now. Very smooth too. Now if it would just stay this way. :~)

I am, Gardenpom. No banner graphics for the past two days or buttons.

If you are experiencing that problem, are you using an I.E. browser? If so, which one?

I'm using IE8 too. Your tech guys don't test out the site on various popular browsers? I thought that was Web Pages 101.

Thanks, Pelletory.

If memory serves, I.E. 8 was used to test; I.E. 6 and 7 have given us some problems.

It's my understanding that 6 is pretty unstable, not to mention gray haired and arthritic, and anyone using it should at least upgrade to 7. Do they know why all of a sudden the graphics disappeared? I never had any problems with that before.

One of many articles on why you should upgrade from IE 6.
http://mashable.com/2010/01/18/5-more-reasons-why-ie6-must-die/

My time is off by 1 hour. My real time (EDT) is 3:12 pm and DG says it's 2:12 pm.

I went in and checked my time setting. It was set wrong, and I changed it, and it is fixed now. Just curious, but how did it get changed? I didn't do it.

Susan,

The same thing happened to me. I noticed that it was off by an hour a few days ago. My time had been correct for years now. Then suddenly it was wrong. Like you, when I checked my settings, it was wrong there. I finally just went and changed it back to the correct setting. It has been fine since I fixed it - so far at least.

I see a new classified ad has been posted, but when I go to the forum I can't see it. Am I missing something?