Why Can't I Post?

[Chuck Most]

  On 9/3/2018 at 4:08 PM, Nacho Z said:

Yup, really weird. I was able to post everything today. I did get the 404 error on my first attempt, so I started a new reply to my build post. It took. I added one picture and it took. I edited again and that also posted.  So now I have posted my entire original post that refused to post yesterday. I have no idea what went wrong yesterday but it all appears to be remedied.

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Same here. I just posted twice in the light commercial Under Glass section, including the post that was giving my trouble, and all was fine. 

[Casey]

Just got initiated into the 404 error club, trying to post a copied text reply:

 

[Rob Hall]

  On 9/5/2018 at 3:01 PM, Casey said:

Just got initiated into the 404 error club, trying to post a copied text reply:

 

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That seemed to work for me..go figure.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Rob Hall

[Casey]

Michael's earlier post mentioning he copied text from a notepad, then posted it here got me wondering, as I copied the pre-formatted text from another website, and tried to paste it here, to no avail.

Now, in the same topic I tried to post in earlier, I was successful, but I re-typed the entire quote this time. I suspect there might be an issue whereby pre-formatted text is not agreeing with something on the forum.

*edit* Just tried copying and pasting the in-bold "UPDATE' from this page: http://culttvman.com/main/breaking-news-atlantis-buys-revell-toolings/

here in this post, and got the same 404 error.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Casey

[Casey]

Here are the guts of the section I tried to copy and paste:

[mikemodeler]

There is a message saying more board maintenance needs to be done, I suspect that could be a part of the problem, but I am no I.T. whiz !

[JollySipper]

You guys that often get errors.......... Do you access the forum thru the Model Cars site?  or do you google the forum itself, and link to it thru the browser?

I always reach the forums directly from my search results and not thru the magazine's site itself, and never have any problems..................

Just a thought...... 

[Nacho Z]

  On 9/7/2018 at 10:48 PM, JollySipper said:

You guys that often get errors.......... Do you access the forum thru the Model Cars site?  or do you google the forum itself, and link to it thru the browser?

I always reach the forums directly from my search results and not thru the magazine's site itself, and never have any problems..................

Just a thought...... 

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I have the forum saved on my laptop and cell phone.  I stay logged in.  Other than the hiccup the other day, I have not had a problem before or since.  Really strange.

[Janne Herajärvi]

I have tried to update my current build in light commercial workbench section and this error will hit with every try... uh its not even first time.. 

[Dave Ambrose]

I ran into the same problem yesterday. I wonder if it's related to copying and pasting content? I'll have to test that. The URL was fine. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

  On 10/18/2018 at 6:03 PM, Dave Ambrose said:

I ran into the same problem yesterday. I wonder if it's related to copying and pasting content? I'll have to test that. The URL was fine. 

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There's no question that something in the specific content of a post triggers the 404 message, but the trigger does not APPEAR to be consistent. I've had 404s from long typed posts, with no copy-paste.

Sometimes. I've been able to shorten the post, and it will post.

I got a 404 a few weeks back when I PMed a one-short-paragraph answer to the car-quiz question. Several hours later, it went through AFTER I shortened it to one sentence.

Other times, I've had to write the response in Word, and copy-paste it here.

This morning, I got a 404 when I tried to post a response in the "promo stripper" thread that included links to tech data sheets on acetate plastics and solvents.

I copy-pasted THAT to Word, edited it down to the essentials, removed the links, and copy-pasted it back here...which worked.

Again, there seems to be some mystery combination of characters in a posted response that confuses the software and triggers 404.

One approach to defining the problem might be to ask folks to save the offending posts to Word, and send them in via e-mail. Your IT people could look for something they all have in common that's just not apparent to random users.

ALSO NOTE: Occasionally, I have been knocked out of the site entirely after a couple of 404 events, and have been unable to connect again for as much as a couple of houres. During these interludes, I checked, and the site showed as "up" to everyone else.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[Dave Ambrose]

  On 10/24/2018 at 4:56 PM, Ace-Garageguy said:

There's no question that something in the specific content of a post triggers the 404 message, but the trigger does not APPEAR to be consistent. I've had 404s from long typed posts, with no copy-paste.

Sometimes. I've been able to shorten the post, and it will post.

I got a 404 a few weeks back when I PMed a one-short-paragraph answer to the car-quiz question. Several hours later, it went through AFTER I shortened it to one sentence.

Other times, I've had to write the response in Word, and copy-paste it here.

This morning, I got a 404 when I tried to post a response in the "promo stripper" thread that included links to tech data sheets on acetate plastics and solvents.

I copy-pasted THAT to Word, edited it down to the essentials, removed the links, and copy-pasted it back here...which worked.

Again, there seems to be some mystery combination of characters in a posted response that confuses the software and triggers 404.

One approach to defining the problem might be to ask folks to save the offending posts to Word, and send them in via e-mail. Your IT people could look for something they all have in common that's just not apparent to random users.

ALSO NOTE: Occasionally, I have been knocked out of the site entirely after a couple of 404 events, and have been unable to connect again for as much as a couple of houres. During these interludes, I checked, and the site showed as "up" to everyone else.

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Thanks, Bill. This is very useful information. 

I'm surprised that pasting from Word works as well as it seems to. Unless something has changed, Microsoft Word adds all kinds of formatting information to text that's copy/pasted from Word into anything else. There's actually a special paste button to accomplish that cleanly. I don't have it enabled, but maybe I should add it to the desktop editor?

But, finding an editor that will preserve the formatting information would be useful. I could then make a public Dropbox folder to give people a place to save the information. I will look into that. 

Getting knocked out of the site completely is a new one to me, but as they say on Laugh In, veeery interesting.....That suggests a new line of inquiry. What exactly do you mean with you say knocked out. Do you get an error message of any kind?

As for my IT people, I am my IT people. I haven't been diagnosed with either schizophrenia, or multiple personality disorder, so it's just me. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

  On 10/24/2018 at 6:32 PM, Dave Ambrose said:

Getting knocked out of the site completely is a new one to me, but as they say on Laugh In, veeery interesting.....That suggests a new line of inquiry. What exactly do you mean with you say knocked out. Do you get an error message of any kind?

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Every now and then, I'll get the 404, go back and edit the post to a shorter form, and try again. Still 404, but THEN sometimes if I try to go back to the page to re-edit, I'll just get the swirly "loading" thingy, and then the site goes away, leaving a "connection timed out" message in the browser window.

Neither reloading nor going to a new window, I can't access the site for as much as a couple of hours, always getting the "site took too long to respond" message.

But checking the site on one of the "is thus-n-such site down?" services shows it's up for everybody else.

Now the really weird part...sometimes after I can get in again, the previously-saved-but-404ed (by the site software) post will post normally.

If you need to know my OS, browser, and any other particulars, I'll PM the info.

Ghosts.

[Dave Ambrose]

  On 10/24/2018 at 7:23 PM, Ace-Garageguy said:

Every now and then, I'll get the 404, go back and edit the post to a shorter form, and try again. Still 404, but THEN sometimes if I try to go back to the page to re-edit, I'll just get the swirly "loading" thingy, and then the site goes away, leaving a "connection timed out" message in the browser window.

Neither reloading nor going to a new window, I can't access the site for as much as a couple of hours, always getting the "site took too long to respond" message..

If you need to know my OS, browser, and any other particulars, I'll PM the info.

Ghosts.

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It's a timeout, and not something like an error 500?

Have you tried clearing your browser cache? If not, please try that. 

PM me your system info; browser, OS, internet provider. and if you're using anything like a VPN.

Thanks,
Dave Ambrose

[Ace-Garageguy]

  On 10/24/2018 at 8:15 PM, Dave Ambrose said:

It's a timeout, and not something like an error 500?

Have you tried clearing your browser cache? If not, please try that. 

PM me your system info; browser, OS, internet provider. and if you're using anything like a VPN.

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Definitely a timeout, not 500.

I always keep the cache cleaned out. EDIT: In the past, I've specifically cleared the cache when I got timed-out. No effect.

PMing requested info.

EDIT: I just tried to send 6 short lines of text via PM, got the 404, approx. 4:39 PM, EDT.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[Nacho Z]

  On 9/2/2018 at 5:17 PM, Nacho Z said:

I'm not too computer savvy. I deleted browsing history and cookies. Funny thing is, I cannot load the forum after this happens. Even weirder is it happened on my Windows computer and my android phone!?!?  I had to wait about an hour before I could get back on the forum. 

After I made the posts in this forum, I went back to the "on the workbench" forum and tried to post text and one picture and got the 404 error. It should be noted that today is the first time I've had problems posting.

Thanks to anyone for any help provided!

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The whole "I can't get back on the forum" thing has happened to me several times.  I found that if I try to re-post more than three times after getting the 404, that is when I get the never ending loading circle thingy.  I cannot get on the site on my phone nor my laptop.

[Dave Ambrose]

  On 10/24/2018 at 9:04 PM, Nacho Z said:

The whole "I can't get back on the forum" thing has happened to me several times.  I found that if I try to re-post more than three times after getting the 404, that is when I get the never ending loading circle thingy.  I cannot get on the site on my phone nor my laptop.

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This trips my significance alarm. Thanks for the info. I definitely have a new line of inquiry.