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forum > General chat > What's going on?

What's going on?

1. micromoth5 November 2010, 21:24 GMT +01:00

Something odd has been happening in the ether over the last couple of days. I've had great trouble connecting to the internet even though there's nothing wrong with my broadband connection or router. I've also tried two different browsers (Firefox and Opera) but both were equally slow. Website pages were loading really slowly, especially Hotmail, so I assumed someone was mounting a huge DOS attack against Redmund Land. Now tonight I'm finally able to connect again with RGB Stock (but not Hotmail - it's still terribly slow) but I see that a number of people's avatars (including mine) have disappeared, along with Abyla's great shot from the Home page. Anyone know what's causing all this?

2. certifiable5 November 2010, 21:26 GMT +01:00

Everything is perfectly fine here, including your avatar and the homepage shots ;)
So I'm just guessing it's your computer, have you tried a virus of malware scan lately?

3. micromoth5 November 2010, 21:35 GMT +01:00

Yes, I've run two different malware scans today - McAfee and A Squared - and there are no problems at all. I've also run Win Optimizer 6 to optimize internet settings and get rid of junk. I've also reset my router settings to the Windows 7 defaults. RGB Stock works fine, but with the missing things I've mentioned above. Gmail works fine. But Hotmail is completely unresponsive. I'm baffled.

4. certifiable5 November 2010, 21:56 GMT +01:00

Well I know a core router died today in Holland, but I highly doubt you would notice anything...

I also doubt that it has anything to do with the websites, pictures not loading would mean that they are not on the server anymore and since I can see them, that's just not an option...

I agree: this situation is weird! maybe a weird suggestion, but it might show something: if you're a bit handy, open a DOS-box/Command-box and type ping hotmail.com and ping gmail.com if the numbers returning are massively different, it would suggest that there is something wrong with either the connection or the sites them self... if they are pretty much the same, the problem would be in the browsers/computer... (not a 100% sure if it would really work though)

5. fishmonk5 November 2010, 21:58 GMT +01:00

I have noticed a difficulty in connecting with a number of sites. Also very slow connection to a number of sites. Yesterday & today. No problems with images loading.
Am on an iMac with Leopard / Safari. Usually fairly spritely...

6. certifiable5 November 2010, 22:27 GMT +01:00

Well you're both from the UK, maybe its a UK based problem?

7. xymonau5 November 2010, 22:52 GMT +01:00

It's in Australia, too. Terribly slow loading. Can't edit anything until the second or third try, if at all. Perhaps one of the links to our areas is not working. I can get some sites quite well - most, in fact, but not RGB. However, there are little windows of reasonable functioning.

I'm using Chrome. Haven't tried hotmail. I'll look later.

8. crisderaud5 November 2010, 23:59 GMT +01:00

Earlier today (Friday) I could not connect to Bing search with Firefox from here in California. So I tried Chrome and no dice there either. So I finally tried MSN Explorer and no connection there.

I thought it odd, but just continued on with Google instead. Bing comes up now though..

I think the MS base camp had a hiccup.

9. micromoth6 November 2010, 5:50 GMT +01:00

I'm still having difficulties early on Saturday morning (GMT). RGB Stock works fine - including uploading images - except for the missing homepage image by Abyla and the lack of some members' personal avatars, including my own. Gmail works fine. But Hotmail - sheesh! After some trying, I can get the list of emails in my In Folder, but nothing will open or delete or move. As Cris has said, this looks very much like a MS base problem.

10. micromoth6 November 2010, 5:56 GMT +01:00

@4 I've just tried pinging Hotmail and Gmail as you suggested. Gmail responds immediately, but Hotmail times out every single time.

11. certifiable6 November 2010, 9:59 GMT +01:00

hmm weird, it's indeed possible the MS camp has a problem, but why would images on RGB stop loading?

12. Gramps6 November 2010, 10:08 GMT +01:00

Using IE8, deepest somerset. No connection problems to any of the above at all.

13. micromoth6 November 2010, 11:04 GMT +01:00

I've switched to IE8 and it works! So it seems to be a Firefox / Opera problem. But one suspects that a change instigated by the MS mothership was the source of the problem, because both these browsers worked fine until just a couple of days ago...

14. lennie6 November 2010, 13:44 GMT +01:00

@10 hotmail never returns pings. Nothing from the 'ms camp' does.

When you want to ping rgbstock, you should use this ping-command:

Windows:
ping -n 20 -f -l 1200 www.rgbstock.com

Linux/BSD:
ping -n -s 1200 -c 20 www.rgbstock.com

Mac:
ping -c 20 -D -n -s 1200 www.rgbstock.com

And look for the average at the end and the loss, hopefully: 0%

On Linux/BSD (mac?) you also have a 'standard deviation' (std-dev) or 'mean
deviation' (mdev).

The lower the numbers the better (average/loss/deviation).

My current average is about 10ms to 11ms (miliseconds), but I'm pretty close to the source. :-)

And testing on wifi is a BAD idea, it usually is very unreliable.

15. lennie14 November 2010, 15:24 GMT +01:00

OK, I made our pingdom-account public:

http://www.pingdom.com/reports/gsjfq795uue8/check_overview/?name=rgbstock

This might give you an idea about our performance/downtime. They monitor our site from 25 different points on the internet.

If you bookmark it, you can still look there, even when the site is down.

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