Dave Ambrose

We send out a notice to the digital subscribers when that version gets uploaded. I think that might have gotten messed up, and gone out to everyone. Please accept our apologies and hang tight for the physical copy. We gave it to the post office. Hopefully, they'll fill their end of the bargain. If you don't get your physical issue in another couple of weeks, Please let us know via the contact form on the web site, and we'll send out a replacement issue.

Did you clear your browser cache? It sounds like the browser is trying to use outdated files with the new site.

A few people have asked about the cause of our problems. The following explanation is moderately technical, so if you roll your eyes at such things, go check out some new builds in the WIP section. There are two ways to request information from a web server. The normal way, which is denoted with the http:// in the URL, and the secure (encrypted) way, denoted by https:// Behind the scenes, a forum page contains multiple requests for data. There's the core page, then there's the page information, and then it requests some programming code from the server. This code implements a lot of useful things like paging, the post reactions, and various other bits and pieces of behavior. Ever since the board was created, we've delivered the code via the unencrypted channel. At some point in time, Google got it in it's pointed little head that this was a bad thing. So far as I can tell, they didn't make it widely known that they were going to do this. So, they stopped loading this vital code, and didn't tell anyone. That's what caused all the problems. I suspect that if you asked for it, and it was still in your browser cache, the request was satisfied from the cache and everything worked fine. Then people's caches started expiring and the breakdown became widespread. Curing the problem required telling the forum software to access everything via https://. I won't go into the gritty details of that, but I would not have known about it if someone else hadn't shared that little bit of information. So, thanks again for sticking with me through this. Let's go build some cool model cars.

I haven't gotten my canary copy here either. They're were mailed nearly 2 weeks ago. This looks like one of those times when the post office is taking a longer than normal time to deliver them.

Those were the initial indications. As with many things in life, our views change as we get more information.

There are some new features, we're using one of them to fight the spammers. There are some others that we'll likely roll out after the first of the year.

When you say using Bing, do you mean the Microsoft Edge browser?

Should be working in all browsers now. Just remember to clear your browser cache.

Sorry, I should have mentioned this earlier. You will need to clear your browser cache. Some files need to be reloaded at the user's end before things work properly.

Update: I think we have it fixed. I'm having no issues using the forum with Chrome. I tested paging, activity streams, posting, and search. The fix triggered some massive index rebuilds, so searching may take a while. We have 2.5 million posts, so I suspect anything touching that resource will take a long(ish) time. Leave a comment here if you experience anything odd, but it really looks like this problem is fixed. Thank you all for your patience. This was a difficult problem to diagnose and solve. Nota Bene: I'm seeing some delays in saving posts. I suspect this is temporary. but I'll keep an eye on it.

Update: I think we have it fixed. I'm having no issues using the forum with Chrome. I tested paging, activity streams, posting, and search. The fix triggered some massive index rebuilds, so searching may take a while. We have 2.5 million posts, so I suspect anything touching that resource will take a long(ish) time. Leave a comment here if you experience anything odd, but it really looks like this problem is fixed. Thank you all for your patience. This was a difficult problem to diagnose and solve. Nota Bene: I'm seeing some delays in saving posts. I suspect this is temporary. but I'll keep an eye on it.

Quick update: we now think we know what’s going on and how to fix it. In the meantime, if you access the site via http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums it should function. I will be taking the forum offline this evening to implement this better fix.

Drat it. I'm still having some problems with Chrome. On to next step.

I upgraded the forum software this afternoon. I expect this to resolve most, if not all, of the issues we've been having. Please comment here if you encounter anything odd. (besides your fellow forum members ?) We've instituted some new anti-spam measures. We'll start approving new accounts again. If you see any obvious spam posts, please report it as spam. This will activate additional measures to stop the spammers. One of the new measures is automatic post moderation for members with a low number of approved posts. Please don't be alarmed if you encounter this. It should help us a lot in the long run.

Update: I'll be updating the forum software this afternoon. Hopefully, this will go very smoothly, like all the previous updates.

The Firefox browser has been mostly working for me.

Happy Thanksgiving to all celebrating!

Update: Started the groundwork for updating the forum software this afternoon. Part of this step is taking a much longer than expected time, so will plan our next downtime after it finishes.

We also have a contact form on the web page. That gets seen by both Gregg and I. We would love to expand our distribution. We're working on that, and the UK is a high priority.

We can merge the profiles if you'd like. Just let me know.

It has been mailed. When the PO starts to deliver it is another matter.

Brief Update -- Our most promising remedy is to bring the forum software up to the current version. We couldn't do that earlier because of some incompatibilities elsewhere on the server. I fixed those last night. I'll upgrade the forum software as soon as possible. We may go offline at short notice. But, I'll try to provide a heads-up.

Our email addresses are also in the magazine masthead.

Depending on the post office, it can take up to 10 weeks for your first issue to arrive. Your first issue is number 222. That issue has just been mailed.

Your account was locked due to failed logins. It only takes three attempts to get it locked. Try logging in again, and immediately click the forgot password link. This should let you reset your password and log in.