[answered] Why do I keep getting this message on A2K?

We get suchh messages since .... I can't remember when it started.

Why shouldn't newbies get them as well? :wink:

Seriously: the site is being reconstructed, gets a new outfit etc - and such happens sometimes when the hamsters are working very hard.
(You may find some infos about that in "Announcements", I think.)

It is because you are very, very evil, and the hamsters can sense that.

Re: Why do I keep getting this message on A2K?


It's because, for the time being, this site is being held together with duct tape and chickenwire.

Mostly its because the website has outgrown the software - a new version is in the works, but ain't ready for deployment. It sucks as it is right now, yeah ... but its what we've got. A few tens of thousands fewer members, a database consisting of a million or so fewer posts, hundreds of hits-per-hour fewer on A2K's pages, and there'd be far fewer problems. Development work aimed at eliminating the sources of the sort of errors that plague A2K right now really amounts to exploring new territory, inventing, testing, revising, and a bit of frustrated profanity as the process goes along.

Thank you everyone - I sorta figured it was something like that.

oh and....Setanta:

I get it alot lately. I think one of the hampsters is in love with me.

Those darn sleazy hamsters!

Probably because Mozilla Firefox and able2know are slightly incompatible and either you have become impatient with the whole thing and hit the post button too often or a post is stirring up the masses and many people are reading and responding to it simultaneously.

Nothing to do with Firefox. Timber explained it.

I only get it with firefox and not at all with IE. The annoyances that accompany IE never appear on firefox. Sometimes, I switch back and forth between firefox and IE just to post.

POM- Often, the site is down for only a few minutes at a time. I think that it is a coincidence that apparently you seem to get the message when you are on Firefox. There is no connection.

Agree - it's often down for only seconds.

It can not be a coincidence when it happens continually and consistently and has happened in this same way for more than a year. During the first few months that the public library (principle place of internet use) subscribed to Firefox, I could not access A2k through it at all.

The librarians use the phrase, "not all sites are compatible with all servers," to answer customer problems with access.

The same sequence happens when I am at my friend Gail's house, using her computer. For the first week of school, when only the teachers were in, and there was open access to this forum (it is blocked otherwise), the phb: Critical Error Could not connect to database message appeared only when logged on through Firefox and not when logged on through IE. You can attempt to access a2k through firefox for half an hour sometimes and get the message, then switch to AE and log in. However, AE will be slower.



I recently used my former boyfriend's computer and experienced a different set of snags. I receive notice of postings -- both here at a2k and from another forum I use -- in my inbox. I signed on the answer a post on a2k but had to relog on again for each post. Because of that, I was unable to access the other forum at all.

I use and long have used both Firefox and IE. The inability to get into the site, or getting involuntarily logged off had nothing to do with the browser you are using. I chalk this up to an elaborate and silly paranoia.

The hamsters must really hate POM.

Just for the record, the "Cannot connect to database" message results from a server-side error, and has absolutely nothing to do with whatever browser is used to access the site; it means, quite simply, that the site's own software is not responding.


Also, "logging in" places a cookie on your machine; while there are other possibilities, the overwhelmingly most likely source of log-in issues as described in this discussion will be found to trace to settings on the user's machine, not the server.



Of course, none of that means that paranoids have no real enemies; just 'cuz yer crazy don't mean ain't nobody out to getchya.

No, it may due to having a good memory and knowing that I only get the above described message on Firefox.

The ones I get on IE are whacky. "Object Expected"

Why should you assume that I don't know exactly what is going on and when I get a message?

Because the experience is not universal--i.e., others who use the Firefox browser do not experience the problem as you describe it, and people who use IE experience the same problems, even though they never use Firefox. At all events, see the Big Bird's response above.

CE
I personally don't mind getting the CE or cannot connect to data base. I appreciate that this site even exists (not to imply any of you don't). I just wait patiently because I figure if everything were perfect then none of us would be in here. I know I am new, but still learning.