Something wrong with the portal

[Don Houston]

When I use to come to this site, I was able to see who was online, and the last several new posts.  with in the last few hours I noticed that now all I can see is the count down graphic to the end of the myan calendar.  Is this something that others are also having issues with?

[clistensprechen]

Well, because this is a free hosted site I see ads, but that's about it.

I took some of that info off of the portal because of the spammer problem (phishing). You can still view that information on the Forum Index page.

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I just clicked on Who's Online and found a dandy example of what I'm talking about:

Guest (66.249.71.180)    12:36:49 AM    Posting in Politifact's Strange Ruling.

That IP is Google, and Google can't post.  What's happening here is that Google is being used to see the Last Post statistic which displays the last thread posted in and using that thread data, a hacker is using Google to attempt to post.

In the past, hackers have used data from "latest member" to hack into that account to gain access (or to collect data) as well as used admin accounts (always Member 1) to change passwords.  Attempts of this nature are ongoing on this site and taking that info off the portal makes things harder for 'em to hack into the system.

[Don Houston]

please see pic for more details



I do not see who is online, I can not see any new threads I don't see a whole lot of anything

[clistensprechen]

That's what I see too, and that's because I added the mayan calendar and removed the member stats including the new threads thingie because of spammer attacks, as I said.

The ads are generated by the host of this site. As long as we're on a free ride, he ads are forced on us, alas.

[clistensprechen]

Heh. I just checked Won's Online and see you checking Who's Online too.

Pay attention to the Guest whose IP begins with 66. No doubt you've noticed, as I have, that he's now viewing the thread last posted in---THIS one.  It's been my observation that Google is either viewing or posting in the last thread posted in, so that tells me it's a hacker.

Hello Google! I see you too! I know you're reading this! You're not fooling anybody.

[clistensprechen]

Okay---Who's Online is just below the Politico RSS feed on the left column.
Recent Posts are on the left just above the Politico RSS feed.

[Don Houston]

Ah ok.  But as a normal member I do not see IP's

[clistensprechen]

Oh yeah, that's right.

I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.

Guest (66.249.71.180)    02:16:00 AM    Posting in Something wrong with the portal.

[Don Houston]

Yea I don't deny your word, just thought I would let you know that I do not see IP's

[clistensprechen]

Of course. Thanks for the reminder.

These days I'm chasing a number of rabbits in an equal number of different directions and I lose track, sometimes.

[Don Houston]

Ahh yes, the joys of running a forum.  Gotta love those pesky bots

[donni]

why does this site take so long to open a new page. i almost lose interest every time. it is frustrating. i lose train of thought waiting. at least 2 mins. every time i move. sucks. and it doesn't always open up on the page i logged in at-it throws me out to the home page and i have to start all over again waiting for pages to open. it also takes forever to have my posts posted. sucks sucks sucks. i may lose interest altogether at this rate soon. there isn't enough time in a day for this.

[Ted S]

Hi Donni,

I have a theory, but it's only a theory.  I think the slowness creeps in when the site is being used lightly. Some web servers can shift resources around depending on how much traffic is at a particular site.  The company that hosts this site probably hosts many other sites and can divert server resources away from this site and toward the busier sites if this site is not being used much.

Like you, I have seen pages here load really slowly at times and it seems like that happens when there is nobody else here.  Other times it seems pretty quick and that is when there are four or five of us all actively posting.

Again, this is just my guess.  Clara is in a better position to know what the real cause is.

[clistensprechen]

why does this site take so long to open a new page. i almost lose interest every time. it is frustrating. i lose train of thought waiting. at least 2 mins. every time i move. sucks. and it doesn't always open up on the page i logged in at-it throws me out to the home page and i have to start all over again waiting for pages to open. it also takes forever to have my posts posted. sucks sucks sucks. i may lose interest altogether at this rate soon. there isn't enough time in a day for this.

This is one of the joys of putting a board up on a free host. Among other folk running boards, it's also a problem with budget hosts even when you do pay for hosting.  When SMFNew first established itself, it was bragging about how quickly stuff loaded but since it has attracted more paying forums on it, the ones that don't pay have taken the hindmost here.

We could move the board again, I suppose, but for-free anywhere else just won't improve performance, I'm afraid.  While premium price was paid to GoDaddy for a budget account (ha! some budget!) similar problems were encountered although it did load faster than this place.

As long as this site is free-hosted, I have no say over the servers whatsoever, nor do I have control over the database. I have recently done an optimization via this Admin panel and I can do one again, and do that frequently, but I doubt that'll improve performance much.  I know it's a pain, but we're getting what we paid for, basically.

However, I do have a portal widget that does slow down the loading of the portal, and that's IM Translator. I put that in because of the Russians that have registered here. gri has a fairly good command of English, but the other Russian still hadn't posted even with the translator in place, and so I just deleted that account.  I'll go ahead and delete the IM Translator for now, but if any of gri's friends come over, I'd like to put it back in.  I would suggest that you save a link directly to the forum to bypass the portal when I do that, though, for your convenience.

http://www.hypercrites.smfnew.com/index.php?action=forum

[Ted S]

The board is fast this morning and there is lots of posting going on. I think this is further evidence that my theory is correct.