Hi guys,

I hope everyone is doing well.

A few of you have reported that you are experiencing issues logging into the forums and we want to let you know that we are currently looking into this on the back-end of our system. If you have encountered this issue yourself, it would be helpful if you could let me know the following:

1. How long have you been experiencing login issues?
2. What exactly happens when you attempt to login?
3. How often does this happen to you?
4. Your computer’s operating system (e.g. Windows XP, Mac OS X 10.5, etc.).
5. Your internet browser and version (e.g. Internet Explorer - version 7.0.5, Firefox - version 3.0.10, etc.). You can find this by clicking on the “Help” tab at the top of your browser, and then select from the drop-down menu that appears: “About Internet Explorer/Firefox.”

Any information you can provide would be much appreciated & will help us diagnose & fix the issue more quickly. Thanks heaps for your help guys!

Cheers,
Kate

I have had a slew of problems with the forums, with ca.contiki.com, and with the contipedia. I never said anything because it's only on 1 computer that it doesn't work. I can browse the forums ok, as long as I don't log in to post. I get around this issue by using my laptop.

1. I've had the problem for almost 2 months.
2. Both websites mentioned above as well as the login page just load forever, nothing comes up except for the page title in the title bar. If using IE8, it "occasionally" loads after 5-10 mins.
3. Everytime.
4. For troubleshooting, I've tried several operating systems. Windows XP Pro 32-bit, Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit, Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit, Windows 7 Release Candidate 64-bit, all with latest updates.
5. Tried with both IE and Firefox. I have tried IE7 in the past, same result as with IE8, but I no longer have it to provide detailed version information. Firefox is Version 3.0.10 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729). IE8 is 8.0.7100.

I don't know if this will prove helpful to you, but all websites used to work fine. I updated to the latest Java (JRE6 update 13) and that's when the problems started. My Laptop had the same issues initially, but I solved them by downgrading to JRE6 update 12). However, downgrading to JRE6 update 12 did not resolve the issues on my desktop.

I did a complete reformat of the desktop, reinstalled Windows Vista Ultimate and without flash or java installed, the page still did not load. I tested on another machine that the website still loads without flash and java, the browser just complains about not having flash. I then reformatted and installed Windows 7 with no change. I installed JRE6 update 12, no change. I installed JRE6 update 13, no change.

So while I initially thought I had isolated the problem to Java, I'm not sure that remains the issue. I can tell you that if I upgrade my laptop back to JRE6 update 13, it fails to load again. However, on someone else's computer with JRE6 udpate 13 it loads just fine.

When troubleshooting with both the laptop and the desktop, I used a fresh Firefox profile so no addons were running. Both computer use Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009, even with it disabled there is no change however. Neither computer has a firewall beyond the default Windows Firewall.

Anyways, I figured I had tried everything and I just decided to only access the website from the computers at work, or from my laptop. I had assumed it was just something specific to this computer (network card drivers or something? I dunno, seems unlikely).

Hi all,

Thank you for your patience as we investigated the cause of this bug. The login issue should be resolved now, but please let me know if you continue to experience issues.

Darren – Thanks for the info. Do you experience the page loading issue with sites other than ca.Contiki.com? I will forward this FYI on to our developer, but feel free to send me a private message about this.

Is anyone else in Canada experiencing the issues Darren mentioned?

Cheers,
Kate

I am able to login. But when I post, it doesnt use my handle. It supplies a generic explorer handle. I am not sure why.

Edit: I see that it didnt do it this time.

Also the transition from the contiki site to the forum is not seamless. It's like they they are two different sites cobbled together very shoddily.

I am having problems accessing the forums. Whenever I try to get straight to the forum using the 'community' icon on the home page, I get a '500 Error'. The message on the page says 'We're sorry, something went wrong'.
I seem to be able to bypass this however, by going through Contikipedia....
I am using Windows Vista with IE 7.0.6 and it's only been happening the past couple of days

I also seem to be getting the same message when I try to access the Reefs and Rainforests Reverse tour (I had saved it in my list of tours). I don't see it anymore on the list of Australia tours and I'm wondering why. I already paid for it and would be crushed if it got cancelled.

Hi guys,

Thanks for bringing these issues up. In regards to the "forums" link on the homepage not redirecting properly and the Reefs & Rainforests tour not displaying, we are looking at this now and I will let you know once they have been restored.

Regarding NYC Dood's handle not posting, has this happened to anyone else out there?

Cheers,
Kate

Update: the forums link on the homepage should be working again. We're still looking into the tour page.

Update 2: Reefs and Rainforests (Reverse) should be back up: http://contiki.com/tours/68-re...d-rainforests-revers http://contiki.com/tours/68-re...-rainforests-reverse. Let me know if you experience any further issues viewing this page. Cheers!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kate at Contiki,

the forum works now, so thanks!

but the links for the reverse still don't work and give the same 500 error...

personally, as long as the tour isn't cancelled, i'm happy. but, the problem does still exist....

Problem persists for me. Also, I got a new Netbook. Windows XP Home. It has the same problem. Both ca.contiki.com and trying to log in just load forever. No timeout, and the page doesn't load even if left for a few hours. Tried an older version of Java on the netbook as well, didn't fix it on the netbook.

Hi melangie, you must be viewing the site from within Canada. It looks like there was a bug in displaying this tour page on the CA site, but it should be working now. Let me know if you experience any further issues.

Darren - our developer is still investigating this odd issue. Thanks for your patience!

Cheers guys,
Kate

Hi Darren,

I just heard back from one of our tech guys. First off, we’re very impressed with your trouble-shootings methods, technical knowledge and persistence. You covered nearly everything he would have recommended. Here are a few things to look at and some questions that can help us diagnose the issue you are describing.

We are not able to replicate the issue you described, nor have we had any reports of other users in Canada with the same issue. As you’ve described, it seems to be isolated to the one computer, but has now manifested on a new Netbook.
1) Is there a difference/similarity in how these devices connect to your home network? (wired/wireless)
2) Does your router filter traffic differently between internal IPs or Mac addresses?

3) What do you see when viewing the source of the page? Is there a partial load which stalls at a certain point, but is not complete enough to render? Or is there just no content downloaded at all?

The website does use a CDN to distribute the content for our worldwide audience, so the CSS and JS files may be caching on a domain other than ca.contiki.com. This You didn’t mention that the NoScript extension for FireFox was blocking anything.
4) Would any of your settings prohibit external site content from loading?

Although our website does not use Java to run any applets, it does seem to be the catalyst for the issue in one of your tests. Java 6 update 14 is now available, so you may wish to try that. (It may fix the error introduced by update 13.)
5) Does this update resolve the issue?
6) There is also a Java test you can run here: http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml Does the test flag any issues?

If you’re interested in running further diagnostics, please try installing Microsoft’s Fiddler (HTTP debugging proxy) so you can watch the packet requests and responses: http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/
7) Is traffic coming and going as expected, or can it be isolated as an issue with one side failing?
8) Are any other websites affected similarly?
9) Does the Australian version of the website work: http://contiki.com.au

Can you send us the following information:
10) What is your public IP address? http://whatismyip.com/
11) Open the run command (Win+r) and paste the following: cmd /k tracert contiki.com

It's really not a big concern to me. I can use the computers at work, and I work A LOT. I just thought if it was a common problem my troubleshooting may have helped solve it. I know that no one else I know of has this problem because I've had several of them try it. If I get a chance, I can do additional troubleshooting if you or the tech team would like. I don't mind. I'm always toying with my computers. But I wouldn't be upset if you guys didn't want to invest anymore time on the only 2 computers having an issue.

Hi Darren,

Thanks for getting back to me. I'm glad to hear that you're at least able to access the site from work. Unless it's a troubling concern, don't worry about doing anymore additional troubleshooting from your end. We were just trying to help you resolve this bizarre issue with your home systems.

Cheers,
Kate