Status of Site Fixes as of February 3

I waited a minute, and looked. The previous time was showing a new post at 5:17 local time. At 5:18 local time, it showed the last post as being 5:19.

I have seven forums that are displaying that same issue. The time just keeps moving one minute into the future.

I'm a software engineer. I designed, wrote, and delivered software for the military for more than 15yrs. If I had delivered the kind of bug-riddled software the techs around here deliver, we might not BE a super power anymore or even have a military!

2 very basic things in particular should have been in place to prevent this and prior fiascoes:

(1) TESTING. There should be a test facility set up somewhere to allow the techs to test the software before they push it out to the world. This ginormous mistake should have been seen in pre-delivery testing and never pushed out to the site. Even if my employer/company didn't provide a test facility, I would make my own.

(2) CONFIGURATION Management. The software team should be using a config mgt program which would allow them, in a situation such as this, to quickly reverse the changes and restore the software to the state it was in prior to the fiasco. Most development platforms come with some sort of built in config mgt software, and there are many excellent config mgt programs available for free download on the internet as well, albeit more for some OS's than others.

I have never and would never have delivered software in the shape this system was in on Wed evening. We are all human and make mistakes, but I would have caught errors this glaring in testing and fixed them prior to delivery. In the exceedingly unlikely chance that I somehow did manage to deliver something this messed up, I would have used config mgt to reverse the changes immediately, thus restoring site functionality while I fixed the problems offline. Therefore, I really don't understand how any of this could have happened with an even marginally competent team. The things I detailed above are not advanced techniques; they are basic Software 101.

I agree with this 100%. I spent years working as a sysop for an online video game, and EVERY release was tested, then tested again, and then tested some more, BEFORE it was released. Very few bugs got through, making it very easy to squash them.

This whole fiasco started when they tried to make the entire site mobile-friendly. That was absolutely the wrong approach. They should have just designed a phone specific app, and left the website alone. I wonder who the [expletive] thought trying to cram a cluttered website such as this, onto a phone screen, was a good idea. Now, images viewed on the desktop are all hosed, and the site doesn't work properly on phones OR desktop computers! And, we're going into the third month of it, with absolutely no end in sight.

Well said DOS. DG members were once again beta testers...I can't figure out why admin keeps doing this. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results...

Eggs: A mobile app would be a great idea.

1lisac: Even Beta testers don't typically get software this %$@&#! up. Software is usually tested inside and out as Eggs said above and THEN Beta tested in an effort to tease out any small errors which may have been overlooked, not giant mistakes like this one.

Thanks I missed Eggs post bc the only way I can tell if somebody posted while I was posting is to go back and check. There is no longer an alert.

It has been mentioned so often and is so true that we need a mobile app not try to make the whole site mobile friendly.

I don't know anything abt computers but I know this is ridiculous. I'm on an iPad and desk top it's &$@!% up on both. I wonder how many members have been lost bc this screwup. I'm sure not many vendors care what rating they get on DGWD. Now off to check if anybody posted while I was typing. Stupid

Oh, look! Forum updates are still stuck on an ever-updating time, and showing no new activity. Forums like the Plant ID forum, which has almost constant posts to it. It's an issue that's been around for what? A week and a half, now? Seriously, what's being done to correct this (and the myriad of other issues since this rollout A COUPLE OF MONTHS ago)? Personally, I've seen ZERO progress to correct this.

Eggs, I think it's only some forums now. I know several people have mentioned they're still having problems, but mine stopped after I posted on some of the forums and Coleup and others posted on a bunch of them.

I know it's still a problem because several people have commented on it. But for some reason not everyone is having stuck forums anymore. It could be only on particular forums.

But yes, I agree, there are other issues as well. Hopefully we'll see some progress start to happen soon.

I am going to bring up an issue I would like an admin to please acknowledge. I hate to do this among the current issues, but I do not have the functionality that some are mentioning here.

The thumb tacks, Back to Top, indication of which forums are subscriber only are not visible on my desktop computer. They were for one or two days back in January or February without needing to change my NoScript settings. What happened?

I have tested some scripts that I would not normally, but they do not improve anything. I found a second layer of "blocked objects" that only show when the Dave's garden script is disabled. I temp. allowed those, DG's and google's api one. This allows me to post (which is what I have always needed), but it still does not allow me to see the things highlighted above.

I've gotten pretty good with scrolling up quickly without the Back to Top that I had forgotten it existed until someone recently mentioned they liked having it. I've been going by dates to guess which ones are Stickied, but I have no clue about subscriber only forums. Now is not a big deal as I am currently a subscriber, but unless there is a way to renew without the use of Pay Pal, it will be important for me later on.

Chilly ~ Since (to my knowledge) these aren't issues others have mentioned, have you ever tried changing (temporarily) your "Compatibility View" settings?

The only reason I'm even suggesting this is when we changed from Windows 8 to 8.1, I suddenly couldn't use various functions on eBay. I know you have said you use Linus.

I didn't really even understand what Compatibility View was, but when I went searching through forums on eBay several people mentioned that Windows is becoming less and less compatible with eBay and sometimes adding eBay to Compatibility View can help.

I tried it and it worked for some things, but not everything, so I find myself adding and removing Compatibility View for different functions on eBay (kind of a pain, but doable).

I don't know if Linus even has a Compatibility View, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

If the function works anything like IE, there's a place you can add a website name to Compatibility View and it's easy to remove it. Apparently it isn't a problem with all browsers.

Just a thought?

edited to say: I forgot to mention that on eBay some of the problems I had were with things not showing up, like you mentioned in your post. Because of all the issues with DG right now it's possible they have temporarily become less compatible with some browsers.

This message was edited Mar 14, 2016 10:31 AM

Chilly I have same issue. I can't tell which threads are 'stickied' at top of forums or which forums are 'Subscriber Only' in list of forums. They are not distinguishable in either 'Basic Page Style" or 'No style', the two View alternatives my Firefox browser gives me in my tool bar drop down.

Nuts I have to switch views quite a bit on DG but am fine on most other sites, even ebay. (Old emac 10.4 os and Firefox 3.0) Talk about 'outdated! lol

Eggs I'm sorry, but I still haven't gotten to several of the stuck at the bottom continually updating forums you posted about on this thread. Let me know if Propagation, Cacti, and Beginning Gardener start to work properly for you or if there are others still not working and I'll go look at them, too. I believe Plant ID has more issues than any I can ferret out or put a bandaide on.... Site Help is also a puzzler to me so far.

Seems forums with stickied threads at the topthat were posted to between Dec 1 and Dec 7 can keep entire forum from updating (as well as any threads in that forum0 properly on our 'watching' lists.

BBL Judy

Yes, we use Linux and I have never seen a Compatibility view setting. I scanned through the Firefox preferences and did not see anything that would be a similar function. My husband updated to Firefox 43.0.3, but if my remembers are working, it was some time after the brief time the things I mentioned above worked.

My first thought was we are blocking something, but I still don't get why those features worked for a time. Wait a minute... I just noticed something...

Did they just fix something? I know I did not see that BACK TO TOP earlier, I was scouring the pages for it. Now it is working.

Just to verify I am not going crazy, I went to the main forum page, I still see nothing that indicates the type of forums. AND I still do not see the thumb tacks.

Nuts I appreciate you asking that because I have been assuming for so long that it is something on my end and just tried living with it.

Chilly, there is a notice on the site banner that says a fix is being released today between 1 and 3 pm EST. Here is a link to new thread Alisonrose srarted a short while ago.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1418925/

I saw that, but I put my earlier "bugs" on this thread prior to the banner and I wasn't sure if I should have tried to continue on the new one or here. So many issues are not being responded to directly, and not just my own. I rarely bold anything, but did then just so it would catch someone's eyes. What is best to do here? I really have no idea.

Chilly,

Just to clarify and make sure we are all viewing the same things...on the main forums page, the one at Commities/Discussion Forums, if you scroll down to the list on the bottom portion of the page, you should see a pale green leaf symbol to the right of those forums which are subscriber only. There should also be a sentence below the list, a legend of sorts to indicate that this is the meaning of the leaf symbol. Are you saying that is missing from your screen?

Just a thought, but have you considered trying another browser just to see if that may change anything. For example, if you are currently using FF, maybe try Chrome just to see if you get the same behavior. I'm not implying a problem with any particular browser. I use FF, and it works fine. It's just a troubleshooting measure. If the problem relates to a browser setting, for instance, it's possible the default for that setting may be different on another browser.

Just to make sure we are all looking for the same things and in the same locations, I've attached screen shots below showing the things you can't see on your screen.

Pic 1 shows the bottom portion of the forums list with the leaves to the right of the subscriber only forums and the legend sentence explaining the leaf. This pic also shows the "Back To Top" link on the lower far right. The "Back To Top" is a floating link which stays in approximately that same location on whatever screen I'm on (well, most of them, at least).

Pic 2 shows the Thread List for the Updates Forum with the pin to the left of the top thread in that list.

Thank you for posting the screen shots, DreamofSpring. I appreciate you trying to help me though this. Yes, those are the things I cannot see.

We will not put Chrome on our computer, but I was able to "brush the dust off of" a browser my husband installed a long time ago, and I could see all the differences there. (It took me awhile to find it, I couldn't remember the name.) There is a lot I do not see with what I use now.

Firefox is my preferred browser by far, so I just need to figure out what I am blocking. I looked at the list of blocked items and none look related to the functionality of the site. At least those I am familiar with. Some I cannot tell what their use is. Anything with "ad" or "bot" will remain blocked.

This thread is hung for me. I have opened and read it several times and it continues to show in my unread watched threads. Will see if this post unhangs it.

It did leave my unread threads but not until I made a post in the thread.

Chilly,

If I understand you correctly that you reinstalled the older browser and were able to see all of the missing items with that one, that actually does tell us something. That tells us the difference [between seeing the missing things and not seeing them] is in your browser.

It could be a browser setting, or, and I sure hope this isn't the case, it is possible that that the changes FF made in the latest release may have somehow blocked the method DG is using to display those items. The latter seems unlikely but is possible. FF just made changes to block security holes. I downloaded the latest, but mine won't get loaded until I close and reopen my browser, so it is possible that the items you can't see may disappear from my screen, too, when I relaunch FF. Since the latest release is so new, it's conceivable that you may just be the 1st to apply it and therefore the 1st to see the problem.

I'm too lazy to relaunch everything right this minute but am now curious enough that I will very likely do so later tonight. If so, I will let you know how it goes either way.

Chilly,

My curiosity got the better of me, so I went ahead and closed everything, restarted FF, and waited for the update to be applied. My FF is now up to date, and all of the items we discussed are still visible, so it doesn't appear that the FF update caused the problem. I figured that was a long shot but needed to check for sure.

The available evidence still points to a browser setting on your computer. If you can run both your new and old browsers simultaneously with DG open in each of them, you may be able to find the problem by checking for differences in the settings between the 2 browses.

Terry, it appears views are rolling again. Hopefully there will be no problems. Thanks so much for listening.

I still have forums that are stuck at the bottom...they all have new posts. Some are ones that have bumped so clearly that was a temporary fix. I'm not going to mention the names bc I can bump them myself, but they really just need to be fixed.

thanks for sharing such a beautiful stuff.... Regards (www.microburbs.com.au)

I just reread what I wrote. I should have listed the browser... Konqueror. It was not an older version of Firefox. Other than the brief times I've used it to check non-functioning websites, I stick with Firefox. It has been some time since the last time I used Konqueror.

(As a side note: it would be very handy to have a link back to the post being quoted from, so I could right click and view that on another tab/window and can reply to other comments written. )

DreamofSpring said, "The available evidence still points to a browser setting on your computer. If you can run both your new and old browsers simultaneously with DG open in each of them, you may be able to find the problem by checking for differences in the settings between the 2 browses. "

I agree with you, yet it seems Coleup may have the same or similar issue. ??? I looked for the feature Coleup mentioned on her Firefox, View alternatives and I do not have it. Either it is a case of what operating system we have, or that we use the Classic Theme Restorer. OS should not make a difference, but some sites look completely different based on which you use, even if the most current Firefox is used on the different computers.

Both my husband and I are aggressive with our AdBlocker so it could be that I blocked something I found annoying, but "broke" something else.

Chilly & coleup,

Oh, my, yes, I would dearly love to be able to view the post (to which I'm replying) adjacent to my reply box while typing! Definite thumbs up for that suggestion! When responding to longish posts with multiple concepts, I usually put them side by side (or top and bottom) on my screen in different browsers windows or in different tabs so that I can at least jump back and forth easily.

Getting back to your browser problem, I had somehow missed coleup's comment about that. Tks for point that out. (I wasn't ignoring you, coleup!)

I did a little checking around on your issue last night, since now you have my curiosity up. I found some information which might help you to troubleshoot the problem. I still think it's a browser setting issue. It is interesting that both of you have the problem, though, especially since you are both running FF. I say this because Firefox has some info online about troubleshooting steps for issues where logos and other small items are missing from pages. This furthers my belief that both of you probably have an incorrect browser setting.

Here is a link to the FF support page for this kind of issue in general: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/websites-look-wrong-or-appear-differently

The link above is current & refers to various types of web page anomalies. The next link is archived (so may not be specific to current version) but appears much more specific to your problem, as it refers to pages with missing logos, words, images, etc: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/992760

I would suggest you (1) try the troubleshooting steps given at the above link(s) and, if that doesn't help you resolve the problem, write your own question to the FF support team like the one in the above link. That page even directs you to write a new question. By writing a question for FF/Mozilla, you would get a support person to help you walk through the steps to locate and fix the problem.

Before you write a FF question though, I would strongly suggest you try the troubleshooting steps they provide at the links above. The 1st link covers a wealth of issues, including the Views thing you mentioned. (It tells you which View you should use for troubleshooting this problem, btw.) It also covers other potential causes like addblocking software, firewalls, whether you have javascript enabled and so on. I hope you will at least look through the information (both links).

I hope this helps.

This message was edited Mar 15, 2016 11:58 AM

Thank you so much for the reply and advice, DreamofSpring. I have to get busy with things here at home, so will take the time tomorrow to try and get this fixed! Your instructions were clear for me to understand.

You are most welcome, Chilly!

Good luck with it.

coleup,

Weren't you the one that was getting the strange message about your computer clock? Below is a quote from the FF troubleshooting page above (1st link). This quote from 1 of the troubleshooting steps may relate to that clock related message you were getting and may also be a possible clue to the problem you are having with the missing items:

"Check that your system clock is set correctly

In some instances the loading and verification of secure web content will be time-dependent, so you should check that date, time and timezone are set correctly on your system. "

Yes, thank you Dreams!
lol, with out me doing any thing like clearing cache, etc, nothing other than time passing, I now can see which threads are stickied and which forums are 'subscriber only'. Started with 'stickies' symbol coming back and then much later the symbol for sub only threads reappeared. Don't know how long they were gone but I sure missed them as I went throught lots of possibly stuck thread dorums that weren't updating on watched lists.

Logging in to DG...always an adventure! Not always one I enjoy!

Chilly & coleup,

I hope this additional info doesn't inundate you completely, but I very much suspect that the answer to your problem(s) of the missing items will be found somewhere in this (and the above) info.

(1) This link (below) is not from FF; however, I think it looks like good info on some of the steps the FF site fails to explain fully. This info is, basically, from another website (like DG) where users are having similar problems. This is a TS guide for their users, but if you read around references to their site, I believe this could be very helpful as it explains things step by step.

This may well be your problem. Quote from this site: "If all pop-up windows are blocked, several CTI Navigator Web functions (such as Print ...) may not display" The words "CTI Navigator Web functions" refers to items on their screen, items analogous to the missing items on the DG screens. At the very least, if I were you I would try temporarily adding DG to you list of sites to allow pop-ups just to see if that fixes your problem. Remember, you can always remove DG from the list again either if it doesn't fix the problem, or if you find that you are getting pop-ups at DG once you add it to the list.

http://www.ctimls.com/Support/KB/Error%20Fixes/Fix_Internet_Browser.htm#Pop-Up_Blocker_in_Firefox

(2) You might also want to look at the info, also from the FF support site, on fixing problems that cause images not to show. I say this because the particular items which are missing on your page are probably images of some type. Some of the steps are the same as the other FF links, but there are a few new ones, too. Here is that link:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-problems-images-not-show

(3) Another excellent troubleshooting resource from Mozilla (in particular, see Item 6 Problems with Specific Websites or Features):

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Issues_with_Firefox

Yes, I saw that in the FF links you gave.
My thinking is that if I have changed nothing on my end, and something then changes on DG (but on no other sites) that it is coming from DG, not me.
Since Dec 7 unannounced roll out on DG I started getting the 'check your computer time' on a notice about connexity.net having an expired certificate. Connexity.net is an updated version of shopzilla that loads along with DG along with several other ad/shopping/tracking entities.

Interesting, but that does coincide nicely with some of my more recent theories regarding the larger problems here.

Well, I tried...

Well this latest patch has been helpful.
In my opinion, the next bug to work on would be:

1- Restore the notification that a thread has new traffic since last looked at. This loss drives me crazy, I have pretty much given up looking in the Plant ID forum. I had really been enjoying it before, but now it is just too much trouble to check if someone has posted since I last looked. I had been learning a lot by lurking there. At first I thought it had to do with the blue or green color of the words, but that just seems to be random.

2- Next (if it was up to me) I would add back in the number of views on a thread.

3- Then I would get rid of the suggested old threads at the bottom, they clutter things up. For example, right now it has a thread titled Happy April 1, last post was 4/20/2015. Really?

Good suggestions, Pistil.

I found the problem. I mentioned we are very aggressive with blocking things: cookies (Did you know google cookies can be blocked and the internet doesn't break? LOL), scripts, ads... If we see one that doesn't look familiar and is not first-party such as with davesgarden.com, we tend to block them.

Bootstrap was one of those that I had blocked. I first unblocked it from the AdBlock Plus. This only partially fixed the problem. There were little dashes in front of stickied posts and light colored slashes behind the subscriber only forums. Those slashes looked hardly more than dust on my monitor that I had to go further.

I looked into what Bootstrap is, it sounds like it is merely for how a site looks. I could not find anything that says it tracks.

Today my NoScript had an automatic update, so I thought to fiddle around with this as well. I do not believe I ever looked at the options before. Within the Embedded tab was a bunch of things with check marks. One of those was, Forbid @font-face. I unchecked that, reloaded and there are all the thumb tacks, arrows, clocks, and other stuff.

So it did boil down to the Add ons we have. When I went through the troubleshooting, one of the steps was to Reset Firefox. I was not to that point yet since my husband does all the installing and things of that nature. I am always concerned I would blow something up. My husband has to fix too many of those for work, I don't want to do this to him at home.

Something just dawned on me... this is the only site I had this trouble with. The blocking of @font-face did not have the same effect on other sites that I have used for a long time now.

I really appreciate your help. You spent quite a bit of time with this. I hope Coleup's problem gets fixed. I never had the issue she did with connexity.net.

You are welcome, Chillybean,

I'm glad you found the problem. Thanks very much for posting that info here in case we may need it. As to the fact that blocking font-face didn't cause problems on other sites, I'm guessing those other sites probably aren't using it. There are usually many different ways to accomplish the same thing in software and many different products one can use.

DreamofSpring and Chilly, If I allow connexity.net to set a cookie, my browser notice to check time goes away. I currently still have a connexity cookie blocked.
Posted this on bugs thread: "An out of left field question:

Is it possible that there is a slight time disagreement between DG, Internet Brands, the servers and standard computer time most of us get automatically when we log in?

-Terry mentioned a 'slight delay' between reading a watched thread and that thread dropping off our watched list.
-One poster mentioned that the "magically updating threads' were updating a minute before their computer's time'
-I still get notices re: connexity,net expired certificate to check the accuracy of my computer's time
-this thread has been a problem thread from the gitgo in terms of watching it and it getting stuck repeatedly
-other time quirks???

Hard to be on the same page if we aren't on the same time. If DG under IB is now using connexity.net for encryption, connexity is much more time sensitive than other options."

Thanks for your help.