For a number of days now, I have not been able to access the OLO site, sometimes for hours on end. Ok, I do have another life, but it is frustrating when I have wanted to respond to certain issues.

Anyway, I'm finally logged in again and notice that NO comments have been logged in either the Article or General Discussion sites from anyone for at least 6 hours, but mostly 7 hours ... why?

It seems to me there is a technical difficulty, but what? I hope some one from OLO can clarify.

You are not alone in experiencing problems accessing the OLO site, Q&A.

I was unable to connect at around 10:00 PM on Wednesday 3 December. I attempted again around 4:00 AM on Thursday 4 December, but still no luck. Around 4:30 AM I was able to connect to OLO again. Upon connection and selection of display in order of recency of posts, I noticed that the most recent posts across the Forum had all been made 11 to 12 hours previously.

On this basis, I had assumed the problem, whatever it was, had affected all users, as it seems unlikely that nobody at all had attempted to post in that period. The possibility of some sort of denial of service attack on OLO did cross my mind, given the recent spamming of the Forum on Monday 1 December by a now banned former user and notorious cybersquatter, who's abusive posts have now been taken down.

Curiously, when I first attempted to open this thread by clicking on the icon in the index page, I got a message saying there had been a server error, and that this error had been reported. I tried again, this time clicking on the words of the topic title instead, and was able to open it successfully straight away. The icon now appears to work, however.

The problem was not my connection to the internet. At the same time as the OLO site was inaccessible I was able to access other sites and move about within them.

On Thursday 20 November I encountered a glitch in the OLO display preferences, which I reported to OLO by way of the feedback button. I could not combine 'display 20 topics one quarter back' with 'last post' order, which was something I normally had no difficulty doing. OLO was unaware of any problem. Shutting down and restarting my computer seemed to solve the problem. Had there been any intrusion attempt, that would have gotten rid of any residual effects within my Linux system. The system had been up for weeks before that glitch.

I've also had trouble accessing OLO.

I went to get on Wednesday at around 4pm. I was able to, but right through until around 10pm when I gave up completely, whenever I checked in to try, the access was so intolerably slow I couldn't be bothered. Yesterday was okay in the morning and again at night, but there was a long stretch in between when I couldn't get on at all.

This morning I had a 350 word post that I'd spent considerable time on and was about to submit, when out of the blue a 'servor error' message appeared and for no apparent reason I'd completely lost the post. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

So, yes, I definitely think there are some gremlins in the works at the moment.

Me too.
Wednesday Thursday only got in early morning, very early morning.
Are we under attack?
Some of us are no programmers, but some clearly may develop some ideas what went wrong?
Been a very bad year for trouble makers on the net, it would be great if those who know could give a few tips on security.
Spam is back, I left it along at my last server over a year ago, am well protected but getting up to 30 a day, any answers?

Me too,
At one stage it took 8-9 minutes to load per page. I lost interest and went off to other sites. Given that all night mentioned there were severe storms in Brisbane so I told. There could be a myriard of causes from faulty hardware transmission lines etc. I'm sure GrahamY and his trusty invesigators are researching it now.

Me tooo

Hi, sorry, I shouldn't have approved this post until I was in a position to respond, and I've been preoccupied all day.

Yes, we had a server problem yesterday, which was solved. I wasn't aware of the problem until we got some emails.

Please, if you do notice anything awry, let me know as soon as possible. We're not always on the site, so don't necessarily notice. To compound things, our ISP wasn't giving us access to the net for a fair bit yesterday, compounding the problem. the ISP (TPG) appears to be fine at the moment.

Thanks Graham, you just popped up.

I guess this makes the below a bit obsolete.

<Too much me-too-ism going around, obviously a glitch with the OLO server (Forrest, what ya think?)

At first I thought I had somehow upset OLO or a poster - never been banned before and didn't know how they would block me from posting, or even bouncing my url. Bygeesus, I even contacted my ISP and asked them why I couldn't access OLO when I was ok everywhere else. Their response - they haven't banned you have they? Anyway, I think someone from OLO should explain (in simple terms) what happened.

As for the post I was itching to comment on - I guess counting to ten helps, I've moderated my thoughts and now think maybe I should just watch a few other comments before committing my two cents.>

ok ITS BACK
seems to be on a delay of over 10 minutes
seems the trick is to just wait till the page comes up

clearly it is machinations of parties that dont hold that we have the right to speak ,or servers serving band width to their own favoured party[ who was the clever guy that came up with high definition downloading chewing through the bandwidth

anyhow welcome back to the nineties
everything used to work at this speed

guess its time we got used to it again[so much for computers doubling or trippling [or whatever the heck they are claiming the computer industry achieves]seemingly anything but delivery

this enron[esq] charging of downloads is the root cause for these restriction;s [and murdoch with his bandwidth commands upon govt ]

anyhow
be patient[they can us slowdown, but cant stop our posting]
just save before you post it
then get used to it

welcome to the future
this is the govt 'serVICE' we deserve

It appears the problem is not fixed or, if it was, that it is back again. I've been trying all night to get on: - its now 1 am China time and the only way I got on was by initialy starting at ten to midnight and, while working on something else, to keep checking back. Now that I am here the Forum part is working ok but can't get onto OLO Articles segment.

Take Grahams advice and e mail him we rarely see him around on weekends he may not even know I had no problems this morning.

Offline Opinion. For another long session - all of Friday evening!

Yeah, Offline Opinion on Friday started around 8.30pm. Given previous experience, I just did other things. I hope it's not a sign of things to come - internet filtering as is proposed will slow things down bad enough.

See ya'll later.

I'd emailed Graham on Thursday about the problem. He replied early last night saying it had been rectified.

I replied later on, when I had trouble again, that he'd spoken too soon! And he's replied this morning to agree that indeed he had!

So they are onto it.

I guess our frustration just goes to show the extent we're addicted to this little 'virtual world' we've created for ourselves!

Oh the OLO yoyo!

On again, off again. Very frustrating indeed.

It was working, so I wrote a post...and then it was down and I couldn't post it.

Then lo and behold, exactly the same thing happened later on!

Yes Bronwyn, it is a bad sign of addiction when one feels at a such loss when our little cyberworld drops out ( :>/

ps. I'm not implying criticism of OLO. I'm sure Graham is feeling the frustration much moreso than any of us and is striving hard to overcome the problem.

Yes same problem here. It took a few failed attempts and some time taken to access OLO but once in everything was okay.

This phantom OLO glitch has occurred for a number of days now.

I wonder how many regulars emailed Graham or OLO concerning these 'outages' - I didn't at 1st, but then I did on Friday after he asked for them. How many emails did he receive, one would have thought heaps. I do not expect a reply though.

If I was an OLO advertiser (given its wide audience) I would want to know why the problem is so recurrent now, and to be assured how things will be resolved.

I don't think it would be remiss if someone from OLO kept the readers/contributors informed as to what was/is going on, even if they are doing everything they can to rectify what is obviously a frustrating problem.

It is the nature of the beast, no way I or most blame OLO for it.
Today not for the first time page loading was slow and again not the first time on opening up it was a shadow of its normal colors, red and blue in places.
On select all it came good.
I have seen forums much worse one totally destroyed by faults it was an offshoot of the old Australian politics.
It seems to have been reborn and now run by one who posts here.
Another got bombed by viruses and I do not know if it still exists.
I think sending e mails as asked for by Graham Young is the best bet but maybe keep it short as we will never know how many he gets.
better too many than none maybe.
A reminder we can contribute if we can afford it, we all show our commitment to the forum when its down maybe a few dollars could make it better?

Thanks Belly. I do get a few emails, but if everyone thinks everyone else is sending me emails, then it could lead to none at all! I'd rather be swamped.

Changing the system is always on the cards. And if we decide to do that, we might run a fund-raising appeal here. Although the amount of money required would be a little daunting!

OLO seems to have developed a life of its own, and who could deny its success hasn't been through the efforts of Graham and those who work behind the scenes.

I don't think too many readers or contributors fully understand the workings of such a web site, so full credit (and commiserations) to all those involved in maintaining and operating a truly unique forum, despite its hiccups and apparent flaws.

As to funding such onerous and technical operations, I guess there are many avenues to look at, apart from ubiquitous advertising. For example, a nominal annual membership fee for those who wish to post comments, no charge for internet surfers or readers.

Let's hope things can be rectified soon.

The site is currently running an ad.
It costs $140 a year to take up that offer, well worth it from what I hear.
If anyone has an understanding that some live from week to week I do, never ever would I want to harm or not see them here.
It is the charm of this site that we come from every walk of life, and just as in real life any of us can be the one who has the answer.
But, it is never going to be easy, if we can find a way, to see some pay our way?
See I would rather hide any contributions I make, but as silly as it may look if we Got say contributor under our sign in name some would finally not want to be left out.
Those who report they can not contribute could be given that tag too so no one need know
ideas?

Over the last few days, during the time that OLO has been acting up, a totally new phenomenon has emerged – I get tweetie bird and roaring lion noises when opening some threads!!

I know of one other person who is getting the same thing.

My antivirus and spybot programs haven’t objected to it.

It is fully weird. Has anyone else experienced this?

That's a new one on me Ludwig. Can you identify which threads?

I've had problems too. Sometimes the page will load if you wait long enough, sometimes not. It happened so often at the OLO journal I gave up on it a few months ago and now stick with the general forum. Now that's playing up too.

On funding, whether I'd shell out for it would depend on how much and what I was paying for. The partially free access at Crikey seems to work well. Personally, I'd be thinking of charging for access to topics you know from experience are popular/controversial. Is it possible to set up some kind of VIP privilege account? That's not terribly equitable, but hey, what is?

No lions or birds here.

Graham I can’t get anything now. I’ve tried opening article and general threads that I had opened previously and that I hadn’t opened previously. I tried opening threads from the front page and from the discussion index pages.

But earlier, when I opened the new article – ‘Kyoto – a lot of hot air’, off went a bunch of little tweeters followed a by a very agro lion!

I'll let you know immediately the next time it happens.

Oh. I thought the menagerie and birds etc. were part of the problems everyone was experiencing? Yep. I've been gettin 'em for the past few days.

Yesterday there was a window of a couple of hours when I was able to access site but when I tried on and off for the rest of the day and evening it was as impossible as it has been for the past few days. Actually I find the birdsong etc. rather amusing.

And here's me thinking the tweeters were an enhanced OLO add-on! Can't recall the agro lion though.
Will have to keep a closer eye/ear on things out of the ordinary.

Heres a thought.
What if its China?

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article2409865.ece

If they have plans for the USA as stated in the article, why not Australia, and why not any site that produces any anti-China comment?

Christians know China has an outward march in mind (the Kings Of The East) so why not long-term preparations for a sudden 'blanket of silence' or disruption to the net prior to their eventual outward march.
Too far fetched?

Wow Gibo, that's pretty scary stuff.

Certainly worth contemplating.

Graham, I just got a whole gaggle of deranged little birds singing away at me when I posted on the 'Kyoto - a lot of hot air' thread.

Then when I returned from the 'comments added' page to the article thread, more birds had a drunken prattle and the lion roared! Actually it's not a lion. It sounds more like a leopard.
( :>\

I just posted a comment on that ridiculous red pen article and no birds or leopards. Why not? Where's my leopard?

Although if I have to participate in brawls over climate change to get one, you can keep your leopard.

There you go.

I just posted to an article thread (same one Ludwig), returned to the article index page, and wallah ... cute little finch sounds followed by a wild cat (Chainsmoker, I think it's more like an irate cheetah, faster than leopards).

I haven't a clue what's going on but when I first raised the "off-line" issues with my ISP, they asked if I had performed a "tracer route" to OLO. I did not know what this was (although I can guess) or how to do this ... and as Graham said it was server problems, well, I didn't think any more of it.

Maybe it's time to take a Bex and lie down.

Well I have got the bird a lot lately[ you do in my job]
First time I heard it I thought a dreaded virus was about to take over.
I have good protection so it should not be.
But after a few times I noticed it comes as an add opens up.
The one saying do you want to know how much Kev paid for his home, isn't it part of that?
No lions yet

Yes Belly, I came to the same conclusion. I think you can all relax! :) Not a virus.

I heard a pleasant little bird and a mighty rushing wind.

Graham
It's been a few days now. Everything seems to be ok now. Well Done!

Am I mistaken or was it 4 posts per article with a min of 5 per 24 hours...?

I'm currently only able to post 2 posts an article... Is anyone else stuck like this?

or has policy changed?

No change in policy Meredith. It depends on whether you are responding to an article, or to one of our forum posts. We are much more generous with forum posts.

Oh yeh, thanks... I didn't think of that.

Another issue has emerged – I’m getting lots of blank pages with just ‘The Forum’ heading and a big empty grey area under it.

This happens when hitting links in emails that are supposed to take you to a thread. And it happened when I tried to bring up my full list of posts in my user page.

Is anyone else experiencing this sort of thing?

yes been around for a while, some times clicking back and trying again works