THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE AS THE WEBSITE IS BEING WORKED ON

[Peter GreeneParticipant @petergreene36336]

Hmm … I thought it was quite a lot faster in the last day or two. And I stay logged in.

[File HandleParticipant @filehandle]

Agree peter, I don’t think that speed has been an issue for a while. I do wonder if, because it initially was, that any Internet speed issue gets blamed on the site. I just opened 4 sites, this was the first to respond and allowed me to write this before the others became functional.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I don’t see much improvement. There are a couple of topics I have been using from the start as a gauge as to how long they take to open. Still running at 11 seconds rather than less than 1 I would have hoped for and is what similar topics on other forums open in.

And don’t get me started on the moderation side which can take upto 10mins to do something that was 20seconds on the old forum.

[David-Clark 1Participant @david-clark1]

I only use an ipad now. Logs in reasonably quickly. Just the 20 seconds to post in forum that is a nuisance.

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

Dave earlier this evening I attempted to reply to your post only to be shut out with a error 403,  I frankly be bothered to rewrite it so let it there. I’ve just tried to log on with my Linux laptop no good so thought I’d try my Samsung tablet and only for the second time since the new forum launch have I been able to log on and leave a post .So I think it’s not members routers or PC’s but that this current forum setup/software is fundamentally flawed leaving one to wonder if it will ever get sorted

H

 

[David-Clark 1Participant @david-clark1]

Hi Ianb

I don’t know if I am the Dave in question but I don’t work for the model-engineer.co.uk website and have not done so for over 10 years.

I have a 500mb wireless connection and the site was slow. It is now 4 times faster at about 5 seconds per forum post.

 

 

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

Hi David-Clake1 no your not the Dave we were referring to my comments relate to this post #694990

(hope the link is correct)

H

[David-Clark 1Participant @david-clark1]

Thanks for clarifying that Harry.

[Peter GreeneParticipant @petergreene36336]

Irregardless (ouch!) of to-the-second timings the site load time, for me, is now subjectively typical of other websites I use and faster than some. Thanks to all who have worked to improve it.

I stay logged in and my bookmark takes me to the <Latest Activity> page.

 

[Ian B.]

On Ian B. Said:

…

However it is a fallacious assumption to state that the fault lies here with me and not with the software or administration of the forum. …

Secondly routers. We had severe problems with “OpenReach” on upgrading to full fibre. Far less reliable than the old copper wired system. Hence the whole matter was escalated via several echelons of BT and OR technical structure until it boiled down to a faulty router. They made darned sure that the equipment that we now run on is more than acceptable quality and our connections are monitored by the service provider on our behalf. They do not like the legal position and threat of having the finances cut off for bad appalling service.

I think that the defensive attitude and assumption that I was stating that I thought that the issue with Windows 11 and Linux were permanent was somewhat presumptuous and unfounded.

As a long time subscriber to ME I did not even receive the courtesy of a one line response acknowledging my very courteous response to Stephen’s e-mail when it was impossible to get on at all.

I perhaps have come to remember why I stayed away all this time.

Regards

Ian

Well I’m afraid it’s unlikely that Ian’s bad experiences with an unacknowledged email, a different BT router, and server problems on another website are relevant to the problem in hand.

As I understand it, the actual issue is that Ian owns 3 machines, two of which can’t login to this site.  Plus Harry can’t login with Linux.  Something is wrong, but, but where?  I suggest the goal is to find out what the problem is and fix it, not to assume anything, including ‘it must be the forum’!

The evidence is:

• True the forum is faulty, and was much worse earlier.   Bad behaviour did extend to logins, but the faults didn’t pick on individuals or operating systems – everybody suffered.  In that sense Ian and Harry’s fault appears to be atypical.   (I hope! It’s possible large numbers of members have failed to login, been unable to report the issue, and just walked away.)
• Harry gets 403 authentication errors, which may be server end, or cookie related.  Not identical to Ian’s issue.
• Ian and Harry’s accounts are both working,  because they can login with tablets, so the forum knows who they are, suggesting network or client are misbehaving.   Laptops and workstations get network addresses from the router, whilst the tablet might not.
• We know that the internet works by connecting client computers to server computers over a network, with authentication, error correction, flow control, encryption, and other wonders.  Client, server, and network all have to be correct and they can and do go wrong.

I had no intention of defending the forum in my post. It’s in a ropey condition at the moment.  In other posts I’ve been open and honest about defects, of which there are many.  At one point the forum was unstable, that is functions were failing in mid-flight, which might leave a mess behind, but I think is unlikely to cause the behaviour described.

I suggested a simple operation that would eliminate a common problem where two or more clients on a home network cannot connect to the same website, but others work properly.   The router is a network component that provides the home network and a gateway to the internet, including address resolution and other services.  Highly reliable but not perfect, and a temporary router malfunction can cause Ian’s symptoms.

So, with the fault as described, rather than assuming the forum is faulty, I suggest it’s worth making sure all is well at the client end.  Turning the router on and off forces it to reset everything from scratch, thus eliminating corrupt cache and other problems.  Not difficult to do.   If that doesn’t fix the problem, the next step is to delete cookies, which is several notches more troublesome.  Cookies are stored on the client and referenced by the server; they can cause login problems if corrupted.  It happens.

These reason I suspect a client issue in this case is because I can login with an Apple, 2 different Windows machines, and 3 different Linux machines.  Plus, my mum’s Android tablet, when I visit her.

I don’t believe my reasoning is unfounded, but no-one is required to take my advice.  However, if I’m right it’s a client end problem, no amount of complaining about the forum will fix it.   No harm done by resetting the router if I’m wrong and, if so, we can think again.

Dave

 

 

[Peter Greene]

On Peter Greene Said:

Irregardless (ouch!) of to-the-second timings the site load time, for me, is now subjectively typical of other websites I use and faster than some. Thanks to all who have worked to improve it.

I stay logged in and my bookmark takes me to the <Latest Activity> page.

 

I’m still finding the “Forums” part of the site a little faster when logged out, but nothing like the difference previously, so much improved overall; many thanks.
I’ve only found one link to the “Latest Activities” list, as opposed to the “Latest Replies” one which displays below every forum page, and has the blue shortcut/page-down button.
For those who’ve not found it yet, it’s the “View Full Reply” hyperlink at the end of the Latest Replies list;

and takes you here;

Bill

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

I don’t believe my reasoning is unfounded, but no-one is required to take my advice.  However, if I’m right it’s a client end problem, no amount of complaining about the forum will fix it.   No harm done by resetting the router if I’m wrong and, if so, we can think again.

Dave

 

 

I suspect you’re right, which is one reason I’ve previously suggested installing a completely different browser to see if that cures it, should the router re-start not make any difference.
The only time I had log-in problems, and they were repeatable, clearing the relevant browser’s cookies, for this site only, cured them.
It’s some time ago now; I found one browser developed log-in problems, but a different one on the same PC was fine.
That may have been caused by something dodgy at the server end, now cured with a software update, but the old cookie remains.

Bill

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

Bill I get my problems both on Firefox, Brave and Samsung browsers they all give me the same results

H

[peak4]

On peak4 Said:

I’ve only found one link to the “Latest Activities” list, as opposed to the “Latest Replies” one which displays below every forum page, and has the blue shortcut/page-down button.

The bookmark link I use is: https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/activity-user/

I’ve used this pretty much since this site went up. (I used a similar link to latest posts as my entry point on the old site).

[Harry Wilkes]

On Harry Wilkes Said:

Bill I get my problems both on Firefox, Brave and Samsung browsers they all give me the same results

H

I had the problem with Opera, Firefox and I think Chrome, all of which had been used to access the new version this site previously; albeit some time before, so the problem may have been cured on the site subsequently, but dodgy cookies remained in by browser(s). Restarting my router didn’t help.
I then tried a browser I’d never used on the new site and it worked fine; rightly or wrongly, I wondered if the site had written something to Opera, Chrome etc, that was causing the repeatable issue.
I cleared this sites cookies from those browsers, and never had the problem again.
This was some time ago to be fair.

Bill

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

As a visitor from the Model Boats site I have been having a general browse if this site using Firefox on my Windows 11 Pc

Things seem to be a lot better than on previous visits. The site is still a tad slow compared with Model Boats but not unbearably so and things seem to work well enough for my browsing experience. Could be better but not a disaster and now improving.

Yes things could have been managed better but despite the mistakes there were reasons why Mortons persevered with WordPress. These have been discussed at length over and over again so repeating them is a bit irrelevant now.

Continuing with the old MTM platform was not an option for the reasons presviously posted.

I would have liked to have seen a different solution but the present one is continuing to improve and it is the only game in town at the moment. Hopefully members won’t get too hung up on that and just flounce off.

 

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

Nothing to see here then.  Probably a month since I last logged in to the new site.  Looks better, seems to work a bit better but oh so quiet?  It’s nearly 14.00 now on Sunday and looks like there has only been three new posts today?  Looks like patience has been tried to the limit!

Maybe I will check back next year.

Paul.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I was just about to post something similar Paul

Totally dead, I looked in at 7.00, 10.00 and again at 1.30 and as you say three topics with a small amount of activity since yesterday. I would have expected more particularly given the temperatures have dropped so many members won’t be venturing out to the workshop but they usually spend their time in the tea room.

If something is not put right soon then I think Mortons will have wasted all this time and money trying to polish a turd that they will then be stuck with as people go elsewhere. I was looking at some Invision Community forum set-up tutorials and it seems to be childs play to set them up to look half decent. Yet we have poor layout and unfriendly navigation which is not being helped by the snails pace of the software or whatever is smothering it. No wonder members are looking elsewhere and other site urls being activated and registered!

Looking at MEM which usually has 10-20% of the activity here there have been at least 10 active topics in a similar time scale, similar with HMEM and the higher proporting of American members have only just got out of bed.

[David-Clark 1Participant @david-clark1]

Hi JasonB

The forum is dead.
All it needs at the moment is for someone to add the navigation to the home page. Should not be rocket science.

Putting the forum posts and classifieds on the home page should be a simple widget job. I think all the advert problems will be solved. Businesses will withdraw their adverts quicker than a twitter (X) advertisor.

[David-Clark 1Participant @david-clark1]

Hi Ian

I have built many WordPress sites and  setting up widgets in the right-hand sidebar was simple if you are using the right theme.

The editors should be looking for new contributors and articles, not waiting for what arrives. That is what I did. Which is why we had several long series in Model Engineers’ Workshop. The CNC cutter grinder springs to mind as does the Stepper head? By Peter Jackson? I might be wrong on names but I expect the reader(s) know who I mean.

The reprints of articles are ok, I started this off, but I always edited them and the illustrations were usually redrawn. Not just scanned and copied straight into the magazine. This option was done so I could increase payments to contributors.

it does not take long to edit Model Engineer or Model Engineers’ Workshop. I started about 2003 and wanted to do it part time. Management said they wanted full time so I agreed. I did my first two issues in two weeks and then did what I wanted for the next 6 weeks.

The same thing happened with Model Engineer. Apart from Club News and Club Diary, I did all the editing myself. Yes, I had an editorial assistant who did the two previously mentioned sections because they were of little interest regarding editing but management insisted I get an assistant editor so I did but I still edited everything else myself.

When I took over Model Engineer, the net profit was about £150,000. When I left it was £550,000 net profit and management still moaned that it cost about £50,000 to stage the Model Engineer Exhibition. This equated to about £1,000 a week. Which as far as I was concerned was good value for money.

I have noticed advertising is almost non existent in the two magazines recently. Although the page count is still 60. It is actually cheaper to print 60 pages rather than the 54? Page version because of the type of printing press used. However, I did check the machine tool adverts in Model Engineer, the only one was Machine Mart on the back cover.

The major advertisers need to be encouraged back into the magazine. You will probably never get full page adverts back in but perhaps a directory of Model Engineering Tool Suppliers might be a start.

Someone needs to start thinking outside the box.

The editors need to get their finger out and start getting better content. There is no excuse for lack of content now we have the internet. I would be scouring the internet and talking to people who are writing and posting about their projects online. Yes, they may have posted these projects but very few people will have seen them all.

One person that springs to mind is Jorg Feldman. He does superb work that would probably win many a gold medal at a model engineer exhibition if they were entered.

The editors need to run decent subscription offers to get new subscribers, a good free gift could easily encourage new subscribers, I ran one offer that got well over 200 new subscribers who signed up for 2 years to get the offer.

But without the forum and website working, there most likely not be any magazines to run them in.

And as for club news, the only bit of interest is the very last paragraph to see if it can get any worse.

And Finally, what do you call a slow forum? Dead!

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

Tried to respond to Colin Bishop’s post saying that after checking out model boats I would not describe this forum a tad slow compared with Model Boats I’d say it dead slow ! That said when I tried to leave my comments got the dreaded 403 error and only just been able to get back on so if I cannot leave what I have written and get another 403 error then I’m afraid I shall give up trying

H

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

This could turn-out to be one of the more interesting Threads Topics on the forum.

MichaelG.

.

Ref.for the observers:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/individual-rights/right-to-erasure/#ib6

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Jason and SOD don’t own the database, so do they have any obligation to remove anyone from it? In any case the only information held about an individual is their email, so it shouldn’t be terribly difficult.

I must admit I’m getting a bit tired of the fusilade of flying dummies.

[Peter GreeneParticipant @petergreene36336]

Be careful what you say Duncan. It could get you “reported” so that your message disappears. Ask me how I know.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Jason and Dave no longer have the ability to delete anyone.

EDIT, Actually Dave never had the level of access to be able to delete an member

[Author]

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