Glitches
From WikiLemon
The forum suffers from server glitches fairly frequently. This page will document common glitches, and incidents of particular significance.
Contents |
Glitches
Double logins/posts
Sometimes, a user’s name will appear twice in the “logged in users” list. When this happens, all of that user’s posts are duplicated. When the double log-in glitch disappears, all of the duplicate posts also vanish, leaving only the original posts. Variants of this glitch include triple, quadruple, and even quintuple log-ins. In one instance, a quintuple and a double log-in appeared at the same time. On 2/17/2008, two doubles, a triple, and a quintuple log-in appeared simultaneuosly.
Disappearing posts
This glitch causes the last few posts in a topic to vanish, only visible by hitting the “post reply” button. This glitch is caused by the double log-in post, because all of the double posts fill up the topic. Instead of getting larger, though, the last posts on the last page simply vanish until the glitch is sorted out.
Occasionally, posts will simply disappear completely for no reason mere moments after posting. No-one is sure why this happens, and there is no way to retrieve the post.
Empty last page
Due to the installation of a new forum mod which allows forum mods to read deleted posts, sometimes the last page of a topic will be inexplicably blank, because any deleted posts within the topic are now archived and still in memory. Deleted posts can still be seen in the thread review, so if you wish to delete a post you must make sure to edit it blank first.
Avatar upload problem
Does not allow the uploading of files to the server, so it is impossible to add or change avatars. This was fixed by Neil on 12/12/2007, much to the delight (and in some cases dismay) of everyone.
Incidents
Pastworld
Pastworld was to an enigmatic split in the forum discovered by Tyrante and D4nce4m01 on 2006-05-07. It was theorized that it is due to some bug occurring in database replication, although some of those trapped in it claimed it was divine intervention to take people’s minds off of the recent forum drama. There seemed to be one-way “portals” to Pastworld, and only in certain circumstances could people return to the “present.” Pastworld was about two hours behind schedule. Threads created in one copy of the forum do not appear in the other. Users such as D4nce4m01 have taken to creating messages in topic titles out of sheer boredom.
On 2006-05-08, the Luminiferous Æther Bunny discovered the true explanation for the Pastworld incident: that the forum had moved to a different server (and thus a new IP address), but that some people’s browsers were still accessing the old one because of DNS caching. Ironically, “pastworld” was the new server.
After this explanation was discovered, the terminology shifted to “Newworld” (or “Neworld”) for the new server, and “Oldworld” for the old server. A means of intentionally accessing Oldworld was also discovered; it could still be accessed by its IP address. Some people started using this for the same sort of “art” they originally did on Pastworld/Newworld.
The Great Glitching
The great glitching was a bizarre event that occured on the forum, similar to Pastworld in that it was caused by an unannounced server switch. Although it officially started on October 10, some symptoms were visible several days in advance.
Although most people observed similar effects, including disappearing posts and the common double-post glitch, some people observed different effects on their foruming experience. Examples of this included Faerykore, who get an error saying that she needed to wait 0 seconds before she could post, and BeatlesLover, whose posts didn’t seem to count as actually existing, despite the fact that they were visible. His posts didn’t bump topics or change the “last post” listing on the subforums.
It appeared to end within a few hours.
Glitch³
On December 8th 2007, Neil announced that the forums were going under yet another server switch. This switch caused many errors
- “Too many connections” errors when members submitted/edited/deleted a post
- Search errors when members replied or posted a new thread; refreshing the page merely caused the search error again, only the post/thread had been reentered (creating doubled posts less than 60 seconds apart). Simply ignoring this glitch is the only way to post properly.
- For some users, post edits would not function at all.
- The front-page newest posts (in the section) are outdated.
- Inability to use the search function.
- In an event similar to Pastworld, forum post links with the www. or without may produce links to completely different posts
- Several users (including BeatlesLover, Cyber95, Clitsac and psyne) became trapped in a totally empty forum reminiscent of Pastworld.
Also, after the forum move, people were having trouble with the new host due to an error with the hosts file, as well as trouble receiving registration e-mails to join. The latter problem has been fixed by Neil, and the former problem can be rectified by following these steps 