Forum Access Denied

[hddennis]

For about the last 3 days every time I click on my bookmarked AACA Forum it says "This community not available"  When I  was able to gain access I deleted the old bookmark and used the new one only to have it fail again multiple times. What is going on?

Howard Dennis

[Peter J.Heizmann]

40 minutes ago, hddennis said:

For about the last 3 days every time I click on my bookmarked AACA Forum it says "This community not available"  When I  was able to gain access I deleted the old bookmark and used the new one only to have it fail again multiple times. What is going on?

Howard Dennis

 

Howard,

 

I would post your query in the Forum Software Questions / Instructions forum.  On the menu page scroll down a bit and you will see it.

 

(With the Annual Meeting this weekend you may not hear anything until next week.  Who knows...)

 

Peter J.

[capngrog]

hddennis,

 

I've had the same problem today.  I finally accessed this forum by going through the AACA website, and that worked.  I have the AACA Discussion Forum on my "Favorites", and it has always worked well in the past.  I wonder what sort of "computer excursion" has occurred here.  Technology is great when it does what you want it to do.

 

 Cheers,

Grog

[Ozstatman]

Also asked here.

[gwells]

The first thing I would try is to set a new cookie.

 

Sign out by clicking on the arrow after your name in the upper RH corner and selecting 'Sign Out' at the bottom of the menu that opens.

 

Then sign back in using your user name and password.

[nick8086]

Not sure I got the error also..

 

Peter let us know if the site will be down for an update ...

Edited February 9, 2019 by nick8086 (see edit history)

[Ronnie]

7 hours ago, hddennis said:

For about the last 3 days every time I click on my bookmarked AACA Forum it says "This community not available"  When I  was able to gain access I deleted the old bookmark and used the new one only to have it fail again multiple times. What is going on?

Howard Dennis

 

I had the same problem using my bookmark that I had used for a long time. I couldn't access the forum at all. 

 

My old bookmark was, "http://forums.aaca.org/ "  Changing the bookmark to, "https://forums.aaca.org/ " (https//) solved the problem. Maybe Peter will know what is causing this to happen.

[C Carl]

Sure is nice being back with all my friends again. Really missed you.   -   Carl 

[kgreen]

7 hours ago, gwells said:

The first thing I would try is to set a new cookie.

 

Sign out by clicking on the arrow after your name in the upper RH corner and selecting 'Sign Out' at the bottom of the menu that opens.

 

Then sign back in using your user name and password.

This works!

[gwells]

Glad to hear this, kgreen.

When coming to the AACA forum, whether via a bookmark/favorite or by manually entering the URL in your browser's address field, most computers will automatically log you in without you having to enter your user name and password (assuming you haven't set it not to do this). This behavior is controlled by a 'cookie,' a small file stored on your computer that contains the info needed to complete the log-in.

 

When you click a saved bookmark/favorite, the computer accesses the stored URL of where you want to go, along with the cookie containing your stored log-in info, and uses those pieces of info to get you to the page and to log you in automatically.

Both bookmarks and favorites can get corrupted on occasion and when log-in problems are encountered, my suggestion is first to set a new cookie using the procedure given above. If that doesn't resolve the problem, the next step is to delete the stored bookmark then to go to the page you want to access on a recurring basis and to create a new bookmark/favorite.

This approach won't resolve every such issue, but it will work a significant percentage of the time in my experience.

[Frank DuVal]

So why did so many people have the issue on the same day with multiple devices?

[gwells]

Frank,

 

Looks to me like people had problems over a few days, not just a single day, but the bottom line is there is no way to know from where I sit. Anything I might suggest would be a stab in the dark.

 

Many times in computers and IT, you never know exactly what caused a problem, only what fixed it.

[Ronnie]

8 hours ago, gwells said:

When you click a saved bookmark/favorite, the computer accesses the stored URL of where you want to go, along with the cookie containing your stored log-in info, and uses those pieces of info to get you to the page and to log you in automatically.

Both bookmarks and favorites can get corrupted on occasion and when log-in problems are encountered, my suggestion is first to set a new cookie using the procedure given above. If that doesn't resolve the problem, the next step is to delete the stored bookmark then to go to the page you want to access on a recurring basis and to create a new bookmark/favorite.

 

I would agree if we were experiencing a login problem caused by a corrupt cookie but that was not the case when it happened to me. I didn't get a chance to access the forum to login.  Each time I came to the forum all I got was what is shown in the screen that nick8086 posted (below). If you take a look at my previous post you will see that all I did was change my bookmark to point to a secure website address.  No cookies were deleted. Could this be a redirect problem where http// doesn't redirect to https// when it should?

 

[gwells]

Wasn't inferring in my suggestions above that I knew what the cause was in every instance. As I said, these are the approaches I would take had I experienced the problems reported. These are not close to being black and white issues, not with multiple operating systems, browsers, servers, and ISPs involved.

 

Server-side issues are always a possibility in situations like this and there's honestly no easy way to diagnose them, especially secondhand.

[West Peterson]

There was a glitch in regard to our host receiving payment. It was not AACA's fault.

[Paul Dobbin]

I've had no problem with it all day.

 

[Spinneyhill]

Problem sorted out. But corrupt cookies? Nah, lots of us having corrupt cookies at the same time is most unlikely. Esp. since I keep no cookies - I practice private browsing, saving no cookies or history. I don't want to be tracked by Big Brother = Google or anyone else.