Thanks for the reply.  I should know the right terminology for video, etc.  Can't get there from NGM either.  We were getting a message that said we had to  download the newer Real Player version or going to PP was not accepted.  Unfortunately the new version(11.0.2) doesn't get us there either.  And they said no email or phone help. 

We're really disappointed, especially as we are booking 3 days there next year.  It's great to watch the pond and enjoy any activity there. 

 I am still using the RP 10.5 version, and I had to try 4 times today to get the pond to play. Have you tried starting from the NG main page and then going to RP from there? Sometimes that works. If it doesn't, just keep trying and hopefully it will connect.

BTW, PP is not video. It is live feed.

Good luck. Post here again if still having problems. Hopefully someone can get you some help.

I don't know how to use forums but maybe someone will see this and can help.  We can no longer view the Pete's Pond video.  We have been seeing this for a long time but got a message that we had to install a new version of Real Player.  So we did that!  Still nothing?  Has anyone else had this problem?

Wish I was more technically inclined.

alenek99 

 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!