unable to load daves garden

I would like to know if anyone else is having problems loading and logging onto Daves Garden, ever since IB took over I can maybe at the most bring up daves garden once or twice a week. It would be different if this was a site that you don't pay for but I for one don't like having to pay and then not being able to get full use of the site. Maybe Adminstration can have a answer but I dought it.

Patrick

My ability to log on to Dave's Garden using Internet Explorer vanished. I downloaded Mozilla Firefox and have no problems logging on. I don't like going that route and prefer IE. Dave's is listed as 'allow' in all of the proper places but when I try to log on I get a message that says that I have a problem with my browser. I have had two computer gurus here to analyze the problem and none has been found. Because of this hassle I probably won't renew my subscription to Dave's Garden after almost seven years.

That's great Rocco!
I use FF and have no problems.
I'm visiting Tulsa next month for the first time. 7/8-12. I hear it's humid. Raining. Anything I should be checking out re gardening, arboretums, that sort of thing?
Thank, Susie

This message was edited Jun 3, 2010 8:32 PM

I haven't had any trouble--I typically use Safari browser on my home computer (sometimes Firefox) and have IE7 on my work computer which I also use fairly frequently and no trouble there either.

If you are having problems logging in, can you capture a screen print of the screen when it won't let you login, and send it to us?

Hi Terry,

I can't capture a screen if it never gets to that point it just times out, this week I wasn't able to bring it up on sunday night or tuesday night. It's getting to the point where I don't even want to bother with it any more so I just go to other garden sites.

In my four years of membership I’ve never had a problem
logging on to DG, either with IE which I no longer use nor
with Firefox which I love.

Rocco - Were your "two computer gurus" able to log on to
DG from their own computers? A professional would
certainly try that before telling you that the problem isn't
on your end. Do you have dial-up, cable, wireless?

It only happened to me once so far, thank goodness, but I have had the experience of being unable to bring up Dave's Garden. It happened to me on May 24 at which time I was unable to reach DG for a period of 3hrs as I reported here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=7824571

I use Firefox and have high speed access. I'm a software engineer with over 15+ yrs experience in the field. The problem Patrick has reported is a very real one. I know because it has happened to me. It's not an issue of which browser one is using, of access speed, or of user error. Thankfully, it seems to be a fairly rare problem, but it does exist.

I've come forward again, not to be difficult, but because I hate to see this issue continue to be ignored just because it isn't happening to large numbers of people - or at least large numbers of people don't seem to be reporting it. The day this happened to me, I had a good internet connection. I was able to access any number of other sites with no problems but Dave's Garden timed out repeatedly every time I tried to access it during the 3 hour period.

IE with nary a log on problem here since day one. Occasionally logged out but can log back on with no issues.

No problems here and we use IE.

Please know your reports are not going ignored - the tech guys are running some additional system analysis to try to pinpoint problems. (They would like for you to be able to login without a snag, too ;o)

But when we only have some individual, isolated reports, it's possible the cause may lie in browser settings, a balky firewall, or something cached that is causing the site to not load properly. We take these reports seriously, but it's not possible or practical for us to troubleshoot a member's personal computer settings.

As an engineer, the ability to communicate well with other humans isn't my strong suit. I didn't mean to indicate that you were ignoring me (or any of us) intentionally. I just realize how bad it looks (for the individual) when a problem seems to be happening only to the one or two isolated individuals. Under such conditions it's only natural to suspect that the individual has made an error of some kind and that it isn't a real problem. As a developer, I've been called out to investigate more than a few such cases of user error myself, so I know.

As I mentioned, I'm a software engineer. I mention this because I also know that you frequently deal with people who, by their own admission, barely know how to access the site. I know how to use the computer and how to access the internet. I know how to troubleshoot and diagnose connection problems. I can and do make mistakes, of course, but I know that I didn't make a mistake on that day when I was unable to access the site.

As I mentioned, I checked (that day) that I had a good internet connection and that I was able to access other web sites. I know there was no problem with my browser settings or anything of that sort because I was using the exact same browser window to access the site before the problem began and after the problem was finally over. By that I mean that I had a browser window open and logged on to DG. I had been using that same browser window all day (and for several days prior) to access DG. I had not navigated away from the site. I would go and do other things and then refresh the screen upon my return. I had not changed anything at all when I came back and tried to refresh the screen once more only to have it timeout repeatedly. Three hours later when I was finally able to get on the site again, it was by once again refreshing that same browser window. Given these facts I don't see any way that the problem could have been due to a problem with browser settings or anything of that sort. (Although I truly do understand how tempting it is to think this would be the case since no one else seemed to be having the same problem at that time.)

I do understand how difficult it is to try to troubleshoot a problem of this sort. I just want to be sure that it isn't overlooked. And, again, in no way am I implying that you are anything but helpful (as you have always, always been). If I come across that way please consider that I'm the kind of person they keep in the basement chained to the computer, the kind who, regrettably, communicates better with machines than with people. What I'm trying to say just doesn't always come across the way I think it will.

We really do appreciate the reports - not taken as complaints at all ;o)

Probably the best thing to do for these issues is to use the "contact us" link : http://davesgarden.com/helpdesk/dg/

From there we can work one-on-one with you and/or assign it to a tech person who may be able to pinpoint more specific questions for you, and diagnose the problem with your assistance and input.

One thing that is also helpful to us to identify individual performance issues is if you can run a trace route and copy the results here.

A trace route gives you a report of all the hops that are taking place from your computer to our servers and let's us know where things might be failing.

To do this, here are some instructions:

Running a Traceroute on Windows XP:

1) Go to Start (start button on the lower left of the desktop)

2) Choose 'Run'

3) Type: "cmd" (no quotes)

4) This should bring up a DOS prompt. Once there, type: "tracert domain.com" (without quotes - change 'domain' to 'davesgarden.com')

This should result in a series of hops from your computer to the server you are tracing to.

And I didn't intend to imply that an occasional glitch for a few
people isn't a reality. I apologize if anyone interpreted it that way.
My DH is a techie guru and I'm used to just knocking on the wall
and saying "Honey, can you fix this?". ;-)