Here is an update on my viewing issues: I still can't access the "Let's Chat" thread, unless, and that's a key here, unless I am signed out. Then for some reason the most recent posts start on page one. I've realized the higher the page number the harder it is to access. Am I the only one with this problem?

 I'm having the same problem as many - RP plays the "lion" intro and the Mexico ad - then says connection was refused.  This is worse after 5:00 p.m. CDT.

I keep getting this error message today when I try to refresh...

Sorry, there was a problem with your last request!

Either the site is offline or an unhandled error occurred. We apologize and have logged the error. Please try your request again or if you know who your site administrator is let them know too.

It does not matter which tread I am on... it does it on all of them.

KimJ:

 The "Let's Chat" thread will not load for me at all. I continue to receive the following message:

Sorry, there was a problem with your last request!

Either the site is offline or an unhandled error occurred. We apologize and have logged the error. Please try your request again or if you know who your site administrator is let them know too.

 

The other threads will load and there does seem to be some improvement in the speed. Thank you for your continued work to resolve this issue.

 I get this message all the time on the Chat Thread, the others I read are much better now. I shall be away until Sat 9th so perhaps these problems will be sorted by then - fingers crossed!!! 

Mary

KimJ:

Sorry, there was a problem with your last request!

Either the site is offline or an unhandled error occurred. We apologize and have logged the error. Please try your request again or if you know who your site administrator is let them know too.

I've received a couple of the above also when trying to open threads, and I saw the following interesting item on the "Who's Online" page:

 The "Let's Chat" thread will not load for me at all. I continue to receive the following message:

Sorry, there was a problem with your last request!

Either the site is offline or an unhandled error occurred. We apologize and have logged the error. Please try your request again or if you know who your site administrator is let them know too.

The other threads will load and there does seem to be some improvement in the speed. Thank you for your continued work to resolve this issue.

The threads are opening and refreshing very slowly for me today. I have done all my daily, usual maintenance on my computer, so I don't think it is my machine. Also, when trying to do a reply, it takes a long time for the box to come up and be ready for me to type in it. If I want to do a quote, I usually have to hit the quote button three or four times for that to work. Thanks.

 Community,

We made significant performance enhancements yesterday, following input from the software manufacturer. Please report back to us on this thread your experience over the next couple days. If things are running well, we can then shift to a couple other issues that have been raised on this thread.

Thanks for your patience.

Webmaster.

Since two days I have that problem too. It has something to do with the ads. It started with the Mexico ad. This morning there was no problem but I didn't get the commercial. I turned my PC off for some hours and when I turned my PC on I goto the NGM clip, no ad and RP stopped and didn't load the PP cam. I cleared my RP temp file and the History but the problem wasn't gone this time. I will keep on trying and see what will happen. It's awful.

RP was giving me a hard time this morning. In FireFox, my default browser, both sites don't get past the pre-roll with the Lion. After that nothing happens.
So I reluctantly used IE7, one url worked, the other url made the browser freeze and I had to restart it.
Now PP is playing in the stand-alone player. After three times trying and getting an error message from RP.
RP is doing okay for days in a row and then all of a sudden it's errors all the time . . . Freezing browsers, some even have to do a system reboot!?
Must be a RP problem or of the site or server; it is highly unlikely that so many people, with different systems, configurations and browsers, all have the same problem at their end.
When the signal from Africa doesn't come through (no power there), the re-run is started, so that is not the case when the problems described above occur.

The new Sightings and Sounds topic is slowing down tremendously, now that we are close to  50 pages there.
The "Let's chat" topic does not open at all. The "Sorry . . . ." error-message appears every time I try to read the last message posted there.

Wonder how much more aggravation and irritation the members have to endure before it gets better.

TIP: Start a completely new forum, based on phpBB and MySql.

maryknitwit:

 When conecting to the NG page for the live stream, I get the lions and a few bars of music, sometimes played over and over, but then I get the error reported message and it closes down. Cannot get the Pond at all.

Mary

This has been happening for me also, and for the past day or so, the RP error message freezes my browser causing me to have to shut it down.  And may I add that posting here is hard work as slow as this forum is!

 When conecting to the NG page for the live stream, I get the lions and a few bars of music, sometimes played over and over, but then I get the error reported message and it closes down. Cannot get the Pond at all.

Mary

Many of us are losing the Pond over and over today while using RP. Frequently when it is restarted, it skips the commercials completely and goes to live feed for a varying length of time before it stops again. Sometimes it is a few seconds, sometimes for an hour. This last time, I looked at the clip info area while it was playing the Pond feed at that time. It showed the feed as being 0 frames per second. I don't understand how that can happen. Maybe this will help id the problem. Here is a screen shot of it showing that while the Pond is playing the live feed.

MeliaTech:

 Jayell,

Thanks for your insight. We're going to try to limit the number of database calls by reducing the number of posts per page. Let's see if this will improve performance. Furthermore, we are simultaneously researching a couple other promising possibilities.

One thing that I think would probably help would be to fix the problem with the browser's BACK button, which is refreshing instead of going back to the browser's cached copy as it is supposed to do.  Before this revision of the software, the BACK button went back instead of refreshing.

Further update (7-23): Changing the # of posts/threads per page was only moderately effective, and the system continues to have issues this morning. We will report back with any updates on our efforts from today.

I haven't noticed much of a difference with loading shorter pages,  In a way longer pages are better, as then one doesn't need to load as often!

We were just told on another thread that NG does not want us to create links that open on a forum page - they should open in a new window.  In this case, can you please take out the choices offered here:

and make all links open in a new window?

mbenefiel:

 

Hi Everyone,

 

Re: Sharing your Sightings and Animal Sounds

 

A reminder to everyone posting videos and photos (i.e.,YouTube, Tinypic) that open in a new window and stay within the forums is welcomed and adds to the viewing experience.  In other words, refrain from posting links that take viewers away from the forums to an external site.

 

Thanks to all participants who contribute to make the forums an enjoyable place for newcomers and veteran posters.

 

Enjoy,

Mary

 

This can easily be solved by adjusting the settings of the forum. Has to be done in the root of the forum software.

On my forum ALL links open automatically in a new window or tab. That is built-in in the forum.

Not everybody is able to do this themselves, not everybody is aware of the possibilities of this forum.

Beneath I have tried to explain how it can be done by members, when writing a message. One remark: The option to "dress up" a link with a title does NOT work.
And that's a shame, now you get very long links sometimes.

#1 Copy the url (address) of the webpage you want to link to
#2 Paste that in your message
#3 Select that (highlight)
#4 Above the message field you will now see the icon of a chainlink (by selecting text it gets activated)
#5 In the field "Link url" paste the url you want to link to
#6 In the field "Target" choose "" Open link in a new window" from the drop-down menu
#7 Click on "Insert" at the bottom left of the little window.

That should do it

 I have the automatic email enabled on The Traveling Stick thread, but it has not forwarded any for the last few days.  What changed?

 I have found the Forums behaving much better the past two days.  Except the Lets Chat and I usually get the Sorry message several times before it finally connects, especially when refreshing.

Mary

 The fourm is very slow for me this afternoon when I do a "Refresh" and I just got the usual error message:

Sorry, there was a problem with your last request!

Either the site is offline or an unhandled error occurred. We apologize and have logged the error. Please try your request again or if you know who your site administrator is let them know too.

 Thank you for keeping us informed on the work. The forum has been behaving better since yesterday!

 We will request that the NG staff address the stuck threads. Thanks for pointing this out to us.

While our change has helped some, there's still more to be done. The system should perform much better than it currently is.

Webmaster.

 I too have to agree that there are just too many "Sticky" threads.  I believe that the slowness of the forum has more to do with threads that just want to ask a question or because a lot of people did/do not know to just use the reply button. 

The amount of threads on the page now is to low IMO, and it just adds to the number or pages now.  The threads that are not in use anymore, or have not been posted to in 3 months or more, should be archived on an "Archive Forum" that could also included outdated threads for the other forums as well, et al, the Polar Bears, Grizzlies, Seals, Cranes, etc.  If you are looking for something, at least you may have a point in which to start looking.

I also feel that since the format has changed, when you post, now the system automaticly adds more hard returns in the text, therefore taking more space especially when some one uses the quotes in the posts.

For what they are worth those are my thoughts and feelings, and I do thank everyone for the hard and dedicated work that they are taking with the forums.  I do like the new look.

Thank you
Betty

Yes, I am wondering about this too.  There are several threads that are ongoing conversations among the Pondies and are frequently updated, such as The Traveling Stick.  I went to find it and did, on Page 2.  But I did notice that it no longer would fit on the front page, no matter how many posts are current in it, because there are quite a few threads that have been "stuck" although they haven't been posted in or viewed since March or February., or even earlier  As LAP points out, these threads are not currently relevant....if they could be "unstuck" to make room for some of the current conversations, it would be really helpful.  And then, of course, if there were current news or a new post in the unstuck thread it could move up, just like the other threads we post in on a regular basis.

Thanks for all you are doing.  The forums are moving much better this morning, and I haven't gotten The Message once yet.