Can't post for two day now, Safari broken.

Wood · Joined: 30 Oct 2004 Posts: 21

I've been trying to post an entry for two days now and ecto keeps timing out. On time-out, ecto's console log returns:

"The system is down for maintenance. Please try back later. Message ID 3546-BW2-2-6"

I get the same thing from the web interface. Two days is a bit much. What's wrong and when will it be fixed?

john · Site Admin Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434

This is the first we have heard of anyone receiving this error in the past two days, and I tried to duplicate it just now with ecto and the web interface and could not. Are you still receiving it? If so, please send us a support request when it happens with the exact error message and we'll try and see if we can isolate why you might be receiving this error.

In the future, please do not hesitate to send us a support request for this issue immediately.

Just FYI, Safari not actually a supported browser for publishing, though your readers will have no problem viewing your blog with it. This article has suggestions for posting on the Mac platform.

Wood · Joined: 30 Oct 2004 Posts: 21

I just tried again for the first time since about four hours ago and it worked without any problems. For the last two days though ecto would time out and say that it couldn't parse the server's response. When checking the console log the message returned was exactly what I pasted in my previous message.

I understand Safari is not supported but I have used it in the past when I haven't had to do much more than enter a couple of lines and it has always worked fine. I just don't use rich text. In this instance though, the error message was exactly the same as I previously related.

tigersi · Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 174

It's 9:34 EDT and I've had problems for 10 minutes trying to post. Got this error message.

The system is down for maintenance. Please try back later. Message ID 3546-BW1-1-2

Had failure with BlogJet and also trying to post directly into BlogHarbor admin.
_________________
Thanks!
Kathy (aka, Roaring Tiger)
http://bigcatchronicles.blogharbor.com

john · Site Admin Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434

I just tried now and did not have any problem. Are you still experiencing this?

FYI, when you have a problem like this, please send us a support request rather than posting in the forum. The forum is great for "How do I..." or "Here's a great tip for..." type of stuff, but if you are experiencing an issue with the system or have an issue which may be time-sensitive, we suggest that you use this page to contact us directly.

HarryM · Joined: 03 Apr 2005 Posts: 10

FWIW, I've found renewing the DHCP lease often clears up my connection problems. From that, I've concluded that my occasional difficulties are partially ISP-related.

When I recieve that error message posting with Safari, an unsatisfying but effective work around is to use the back button all the way to the article, open a new window (or tab) and post a one word article. That seems to force the previous one through. It's not 100%, but it works more often than not.

HarryM · Joined: 03 Apr 2005 Posts: 10

John, when we have problems posting, would it be helpful at all to ping the Blogharbor server and send you the report? And, are there any other tests we could run from DNS Stuff that would help you troubleshoot?

john · Site Admin Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434

FWIW, I've found renewing the DHCP lease often clears up my connection problems. From that, I've concluded that my occasional difficulties are partially ISP-related.

That's interesting to hear... We'll do some investigations as to what renewing your lease may have effected.

When I recieve that error message posting with Safari, an unsatisfying but effective work around is to use the back button all the way to the article, open a new window (or tab) and post a one word article. That seems to force the previous one through. It's not 100%, but it works more often than not.

I wonder if your post was already there, I can't see how a subsequent post could "force" a previous one to go through... Sometimes our system returns a rather incorrect and misleading "Server is down for maintenance" message when it's actually just temporarily unable to process a request (we're not really down for maintenance per se); the post you made may have gone through despite the error message you received.

HarryM · Joined: 03 Apr 2005 Posts: 10

john · Site Admin Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 3434

John, when we have problems posting, would it be helpful at all to ping the Blogharbor server and send you the report?

An actual ping wouldn't be very revealing, a ping would simply tell you is a packet got to its destination... Even if it did not make it to its destination, you wouldn't really learn why it did not...

If you have problems posting, you will almost always receive an error message containing an error code from our system. The thing that would help the most would be to send us a support request containing that error message and let us know exactly what time you received this error.

And, are there any other tests we could run from DNS Stuff that would help you troubleshoot?

DNSStuff is a very useful site! But I think in most cases where you are having troubles posting, it is not going to provide much useful information...

Quite honestly, the cause of most posting errors is on our side, not on yours. By letting us know what errors you received and exactly when you received them, we can correlate this information with what else was happening on the system at that time. That will help us see if the problem was caused by some element of our network malfunctioning, a part of the software that was not behaving, an abusive spammer attacking the system at that time, or some other issue.

As you note, sometimes (and more often than most people would expect) there is simply some point along the line between our network and your computer that is not working properly. You can test this by doing what's called a traceroute; a traceroute will trace the path between your computer and our server.

You can do a traceroute on Windows by opening up a command prompt and typing:

HarryM · Joined: 03 Apr 2005 Posts: 10

John, many thanks. The increasing utility of the service here over the time I've subscribed makes me eager to help in whatever way I can.

Wood · Joined: 30 Oct 2004 Posts: 21

I been having better overall success lately with posting but what I still see occasionally is this: I'll post with ecto and, after a few moments I'll get a message in ecto to check the console log. In the console log is the message I referenced above. If I go into the Post Manager in the Dashboard, my post is actually there, as a draft without any text in the body. If I attempt to post again with ecto, 9 times out of 10 it will work right away with no error message but it succeeds by creating a brand new duplicate post (with body text and everything) and leaves the original as a draft. Sometimes it will fail and I will get multiple duplicate drafts, but this doesn't happen often.

That's what I'm seeing. Don't really know if that helps or not but please get in touch with me if you need more information. Sorry for being so curt previously.