Fairyy,

Sorry you are feeling frustrated.

I have experienced some error messages, but not to the extent that you are from the sound of it.

Are you using a dial-up connection, perhaps?

If you are getting "time-outs", you may want to contact Janitor T-Man via e-mail (found at his WC site) to see about a specific issue. Sometimes a "time-out" issue can be resolved by changing the time settings by someone with site coding access. It may simply be that the pages have not been fine tuned for a slower access speed.

Also, you might try deleting your cookies, files, and history - then reconnect and log in. This should set a fresh cookie for the site.

I find this to work in most of the instances I have run into - the other instances seem to be either site maintenance issues or just plain over-taxing of the servers.


For reference - I use cable modem connection speed, Internet Explorer with privacy settings at "medium-high", and go directly to "C:\Documents and Settings\"my account"\Cookies" to manually delete all but one "wincustomize" cookie, and the cookies required to automatically log-on to "MyMSN".

For the most part, this arrangement works very well.

I hope your day goes better.

Are you using a dial-up connection, perhaps? If you are getting "time-outs", you may want to contact Janitor T-Man via e-mail (found at his WC site) to see about a specific issue. Sometimes a "time-out" issue can be resolved by changing the time settings by someone with site coding access. It may simply be that the pages have not been fine tuned for a slower access speed. Also, you might try deleting your cookies, files, and history - then reconnect and log in. This should set a fresh cookie for the site.

~Yes Corky..using dial up...and I delete cookies and exit the site each time I have this problem.
The time outs were the usual..but now im getting "the file contains no data " after fighting to upload a shot..20 minutes . I start over....another 20 minutes..then it might work that time. But it shouldnt take 40 minutes to upload a Screen shot ....im using Mozilla....My IE is set for medium also. The odd part is if im not logged in..the site is faster. That makes no sense.

thanks for answering..

Please give this a read when reporting issues : http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html. We need information to debug issues not regularily seen by us developers. After all, we arent telepathic... yet.

Please include the following information when reporting a site issue:
• Browser Name
• Browser Version
• Operating System (if other than Windows)
• The URL of the page which caused the issue.
• What you did to see the issue. (We will have to reproduce it to kill it)
• Are you doing this on your person page, or on the main wincustomize website (www.wincust...) ?
• Any other information you feel is relevant.
________________________________________

Simply saying 'omgbbq its so slow' isnt going to help us fix any issues we arent aware of. I would also like to know what kind of connection you are seeing these issues on. Feel free to email me about errors youre seeing, but I can gaurantee that without better information from you, there wont be anything we can do for you.

I have been seeing some strangeness myself...I keep getting errors, time outs and it takes forever to upload a Screenshot. I am using cable, always on, Firefox is my browser and using xp. My 'puter is a vaio with 3.4 ghz pentium 4 and 1 gig of ram. It happens whenever I try to get onto the site...and when I try to add comments, or just take a tour of the new stuff. Was thinking it was just me!

No, it happens to me too. I get server errors, sometimes I can't get on. If I browse without being logged in, it too is much faster, like it is for Karen. My stats page is still messed up. Getting some pages to open is like pulling teeth. It took me 3 tries to get to this thread without having a server error. I have a 2.6GHZ pentium 4 with 1 gig ram. I use Firefox and IE on Widows XP home. My connection is cable modem with 5mbps speed. But I must say, Jafo has helped me several times in very fast time. And for that I am very thankful. I have also received alot of help from some of the other members, but they are not in control of this web site. It would be nice if this site could run smoothly on a consistent basis. Someday's it's great. Most it is not. I browse other websites each day to remind me what browsing at high speed is. It is easy to forget if I only browse this one. I do want to say thanks for all the help I have recieved, but the website does not work right more than half the time, and from what I've read, I am not the only one with Home page and browsing problems. I can't imagine trying to navigate this site on dial up.

Karen, you have been missed. Now I know why you haven't been around much. I hope it will get straightened out one of these days.

Ok fellas. I will be removing off topic comments in the 'Site Issues' forum threads which pertain to site errors. There's no reason for off topic discussion here and it does nothing but help to undermine us fixing site issues.

If you wish to discuss issues NOT related to the site functionality or site performance PLEASE choose another appropriate forum, perhaps 'General Discussion'. This is an 'all business, no nonsense' forum people.

Not meaning to be intrusive or anything (my post was removed too) but it is my understanding that this particular part of the board is reserved for site issues, mechanical site issues.  Andrew is here to fix things, so this is a board he refers to frequently to find bugs and understand how he can help.  He can't do anything about what we feel about things.  Those issues would be better voiced on the general board. 

I can understand how frustrating it must be to wade through a lot of social issues to get to the core of what he is here to do something about... the coding for the site. 

• Internet Explorer
• Version 6.0.2800.1106
• WindowsXP Pro.
• Cable Connection
• My Skin page http://apocalypse67.wincustomize.com/MySkins.aspx
When I clik on the tab it takes 1-2 minutes to display and often I need to refresh the page due to an error page.
• When uploading a skin (not too often) but some times I have to make a couple of attempts before the skin is finally uploaded.

Please include the following information when reporting a site issue: • Browser Name • Browser Version • Operating System (if other than Windows) • The URL of the page which caused the issue. • What you did to see the issue. (We will have to reproduce it to kill it) • Are you doing this on your person page, or on the main wincustomize website (www.wincust...) ? • Any other information you feel is relevant.

~I have addressed this issue previously in the General discussion...I figured I'd try " site Issues " To answer your questions ( I answered 1/2 of these in comment #4
Firefox browser - version 1.0
Windows Xp - Home Edition
The URL ...pick one...happens on just about any page..
"What I did to see this issue"...well, I pressed Download, or next page or Submit or.. I think you get the idea. Its not just one action..This will also happen in IE6

~I spend more time exiting the site, deleting cookies and relogging in after viewing one page...while logged in..
Not logged in is faster, but your not rating or commenting on anything.
This isnt a new or isolated incidence..most just moved on or stopped bothering to comment on it.

i get the page timed out or page error on almost every section of the site at various times of the day ..

XP SP2
IE6.0
3.0 meg Cable

it takes up to 3 min to load my personal pages ..

I get pages and previews that won't load, forum boards that are "compressed" for lack of a better description
Ususally have to reload the page two or three times to get it to load correctly

WinXP Pro SP2
Firefox 1.04
Cable connection
WC subscriber (don't know if that makes a difference, but I thought T-man said something a few days ago about having to put subscribers on the secondary server, which caused everyone to see the paid links that don't usually show up to subscribers)

Unfortunately for the last couple of weeks we have been busy with a couple of other projects that have taken our attention away from WinCustomize. We should be completing those projects in the next day our two and will be returning our attention back to WinCustomize to continue to clean up these problems.

We understand the problems are frustrating.  They are frustrating for us to and we are doing our best that we can.  And we thank you for your continued patience.

~Fairy: I'm tired of fighting this site to log in...sometimes I fight to log out.

Do you get errors when experiencing these problems? If so, what are the errors? Do the pages hang?

~Fariy: 40 minutes to upload a screen shot. Error Error Error

What are the errors?  Next time it happens please try and give us some specific information if there is any.

~Fairy: I'm lucky if I can get through one page of screen shots before I get to watch my cursor spin.

If the page is taking abnormally long to load chances are the page request is having a difficult time getting a database connection.  The best thing to do is stop the page and refresh it.  If the problem continues try and contact us so we can kick the servers to try and make them more responsive again.

~Fairy: I thought the new site was supposed to be faster, better, improved ?

In many ways it is better.  But yes, we do still have our share of problems.  Are biggest problem is that our database is over burdened and we are trying to do things that take less stress of the database.  But there are many factors involved and its not an easy thing to do.  Matter of fact it is a double edged sword.  When we do make improvements and make things start working better we end up getting increased traffic due to things working better and in turn the increased traffic causes our systems to work harder and become over burdened again.  We are always a couple steps behind and we are finding it difficult to actually get out in front of the issues and head them off before they become a problem. 

CLWoods: My stats page is still messed up

Please keep in mind that the stat pages are generally only calculated once a day now so they are not always up to date with other stats on the site.  But if you feel there is a problem please send Flying (JR) an email and give him specific examples of what is messed up.  jr@stardock.com  He's your goto man for the stats. 

https://www.wincustomize.com/Forums.aspx?ForumID=266&AID=74748#580251 

There's a bug...this and one or two others do not remember last page viewed...no matter how many times you read it/them....always loads page one.

Thanks T-Man, I'll do that. I appreciate it. Unless the tallying system has been changed, I have not been credited with all my page visits for a couple months now.

~T-man..I do understand this is a big site and im just a pixel on a page. I was frustrated. 90% of the errors are when the page finally loads, its the white and yellow " server error " page. I exit , try again..50% of the time I get connected on 2nd try. Other times I just give up and come back later. My concern was the fact that not being logged in made a difference in moving from page to page. I may be able to d/load a SS...but then hit the comment button and it just sits there or goes to server error page. Its time consuming. I use to enjoy looking at all the SS. But it just takes too long now. The other day...just hitting the download on WB's there was an unusually long hesitation before the d/load box came up. Thats something new.

The last SS I uploaded after waiting a long time...end result was " The file contains no data " This was the same problem I experienced back in December for 3 weeks and I was afraid it had returned. But I hit the upload again...another long wait, this time it went through....but total time was over 30 minutes to upload one screenshot..Im on the East Coast...but 2 weeks ago, buzzh58 had the same problem with uploading his shot and hes in New Zealand. The problem isnt just with Eastern USA Servers. I'll try to be more specific and take SS's of the wierd messages next time. Thanks for addressing this.