I arrive in my internet explorer taxi; it says “All Welcome” on the OLO invite I am clutching nervously.

I attempt pushing the bell and wait, I push twice more and wipe my feet a few times before the door is finally opened.

It is a tidy house. There are cartoons behind glass in frames on the wall, good lighting and ambience. There is a prayer mat on the floor in one corner, on the wall above is a painting of Krishna with some rosary beads hanging off the corner of the frame. Each time I pass a window it opens and this startles me.

Some well dressed guests have already arrived and are carrying on polite conversations with the odd stutter and an occasional raised eyebrow. One glances up and gets a nod from the host before continuing to talk.

Outside the windows are colourful adverts, the guests are politely ignoring this.

I open my mouth and quickly close it again at a frown from our host. I wait for his nod and have suddenly used up my words for the next two hours with my outburst.

I am told to go down the hall, first door on the right. I find my way and discover a message taped to the seat saying “server error”. I stand there horrified, I am busting with nowhere to put it.

I can hear the rise and fall of a whispered conversation in the hallway;

“ Ginx how dare you accuse me in my own home”

“I am on to you Graham, you force your guests to wee in the garden or leave if they have no patience with the door bell that you deny is broken!”

“Ginx if you keep this up I will have to ask you to leave”

“I’m going anyway Graham and I am taking the balloons from the mailbox! And that damn High Court Justice was taking a leak on it when I arrived!”

I am scared now and desperate to get back to my ancient cottage, I know my flush works.

Only just noticed this thread.

"Below the fold" on my machine, you see.

I reckon I get an average of one Server Error per post.

Sometimes I get three in a row. Sometimes I get three uninterrupted posts in a row.

Since I only have to hit the back button and re-enter (my dribblings are still there where I left them) I see it as a mild inconvenience, probably caused by a configuration issue on the OLO server. NBD.

But just in case Graham thinks it is a problam that has gone away, it hasn't.

Two today. So far.

If it helps your techies, my browser is Firefox 3.0.10, with Ubuntu 9.04 purring away underneath.

I guess I should add my name to the list of those who get the "Server error" message regularly. My experience is very similar to that of Pericles, except that I'm using IE v.7, running on Windows Vista.

The 'crying out loud' thing Jewels, is because I posted twice, which happened a coupla days previously as well!

The post would not go up, I clicked again;-(NO post acknowledgment message),-I clicked again. There they were:- the TWO of them.
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"Ginx: "Oh for crying out loud!!"

This is a fine example of the sort of thing the post limit tends to filter out." (rs).
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I've got to say it: please explain?. I will say as little or as much as I want. Are you really saying that the system will even assess how MANY words are in a post? God! it's a mine field!
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Ginx: "Given that it will take time to get another technical thread approved"

They seem to get approved about twice a day, which probably matches the frequency people scan the site. This doesn't sound like a long time to me, and more to the point I have always been pleasantly surprised at how quickly my new general discussions have been approved. If only our Telco's could respond that quickly to an email.
Posted by rstuart, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 9:25:17 AM
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Please note: I posted in the early hours of the morning. I am not concerned at the possible sudden departure of a poster, but what CAUSED her to withdraw. That enrages me, having visited a thread that has directly contributed to that. I was and still am looking forward to joining that thread..

It was gone 2am. I knew that if I were to start a new thread with my question, it must of course be accepted/denied the next day. However, if I put the question on THIS thread, I would very likely get my response this am. And I did.

I trust that clears that up?
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Poirot: Thank-you.

Jewels: you're a cheeky sod!

And Graham; Please DO loosen it up. With the problems occurring- to get the 'you can't post message' is the last straw! (I should add that yesterday I got a server error trying to log on, and a couple days previously).

This is still happening.

The ratio of error messages to successful posts is, if anything, starting to increase.

It occurs to me that if the second part of the message is accurate...

"The fault has been reported to staff"

...then the webmaster already is aware of the extent of the problem.

But I suspect this is not the case, it's just a pacifier to provide reassurance to the punter that hey, we're really working on this.

I wonder also if the fault number is equally meaningless?

I know it's difficult, guys. But the present situation is damaging the trust between you and your public.

I would not like the cessation of feedback here to give the impression that there are no further problems.

The site is 'slow', and server error messages are still a daily occurrence.