EEVblog Electronics Community Forum

EEVblog => News/Suggestions/Help => Topic started by: EEVblog on November 17, 2021, 11:54:24 pm

Title: "Online" error
Post by: EEVblog on November 17, 2021, 11:54:24 pm
Anyone else seeing this "Online" message on profiles?
It's not on all profiles in a thread, just some.

(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/news/online-error/?action=dlattach;attach=1325816;image)
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: thm_w on November 18, 2021, 12:03:46 am
Not here. Looks like its trying to reach the https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Themes/default/images/useron.gif (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Themes/default/images/useron.gif) and is unable, so replaced with the backup text of the image.

Maybe adblock, dns, caching etc. issue locally?
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: BradC on November 18, 2021, 12:10:02 am
It's all ok here.
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: IanB on November 18, 2021, 12:10:46 am
I am not seeing it. Everything looks normal.
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: EEVblog on November 18, 2021, 12:26:40 am
It's fine for me know, but I've seen it a few times now. Strange.
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: Ed.Kloonk on November 18, 2021, 12:31:18 am
I see it occasionally. I always put it down to my fantastic wireless NBN and the scores of peeps watching videos on their iMunts. A page refresh makes it go away. Sometimes I get a server response so sparse, it just has a bit of text and no css formatting.
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: BradC on November 18, 2021, 12:55:56 am
Sometimes I get a server response so sparse, it just has a bit of text and no css formatting.

I've seen this quite a bit recently on several forums and a refresh generally sorts it out (but not always). I'm on an FTTN with pretty much no other traffic at the time with an ISP that prides itself on no congestion, so it's probably not the wireless.

Personally I blame AOL.
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: T3sl4co1l on November 18, 2021, 01:24:12 am
Saw a couple dropouts recently where, not images failing to load, but popping up a page and no assets (CSS, images) loaded.  F5 and it's fine, just a transient thing maybe even a network or browser glitch.

So, haven't noticed anything worth getting up to take a look at.

Tim
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: IanB on November 18, 2021, 03:10:00 am
Curiously, I'm now seeing something else odd. The "Voltmeter in series" thread keep showing up as having unread posts for me, no matter how many times I read it. I've never seen any thread do that before.
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: EEVblog on November 18, 2021, 04:12:24 am
Curiously, I'm now seeing something else odd. The "Voltmeter in series" thread keep showing up as having unread posts for me, no matter how many times I read it. I've never seen any thread do that before.

I said this in another thread somewhere, but I often get the warning that someone has edited the thread when I know no one is editing that thread it's rather annoying have it pop up all the time. It never used to do this like a year ago.
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: tggzzz on November 18, 2021, 09:45:28 am
I saw the "online username" a few days ago. The next page I loaded didn't have it.

More often I see some missing formatting: the background is white, the text is plain, and the content is down the screen without being formatted into boxes. (Just like a retro bulletin board!) Again, the next page loaded correctly.
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: Whales on November 18, 2021, 11:47:53 am
"Online" is the alt text you see when the little image to the left of someone's username doesn't load.

I'm talking about these images: (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Themes/default/images/useron.gif) (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Themes/default/images/useroff.gif)

In the HTML they look like this:
Code: [Select]
<img src="https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Themes/default/images/useron.gif" alt="Online" data-pagespeed-url-hash="159412188" onload="pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality(this);">
You can manually trigger this "Online" bug by editing the page in your browser (right click page -> Inspect or Edit) and intentionally adding a typo into the image URL, so it can't load.

Possible causes:

(1) URL to image is wrong (unlikely?  but possible if eg "theme" is randomly changing)
(2) Image is not being received by the web browser when requested.  Possibly a forum (PHP?) bug, webserver issue, caching issue, browser issue, your own internet link, could be anything.
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: Kean on November 20, 2021, 07:05:11 pm
Dave, I just saw this issue this morning.

Below is the HTML fragment.  The "pagespeed" image URL wasn't valid at the time I viewed the source but seemed to become valid soon after.  :-//

Code: [Select]
<a href="https://www.eevblog.com/forum/pm/?sa=send;u=xxxx" title="Online"><img src="https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Themes/default/images/useron.gif.pagespeed.ce.66OcTgBrBO.gif" alt="Online" data-pagespeed-url-hash="159412188" onload="pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality(this);"/></a>
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: Whales on November 20, 2021, 11:34:24 pm
I think "pagespeed" might be Apache pagespeed?  https://www.modpagespeed.com/doc/filters (https://www.modpagespeed.com/doc/filters)

Ie configured in the webserver config, not php or simplemachines.

N.B. these optimisation and acceleration programs are heavily situation dependent; they can make things better, worse or not much different at all.  Eg switching out the tiny .gifs on dynamically generated pages might not actually achieve much; but it could be doing stuff elsewhere that helps.  I am innately suspicious of any and all such optimis programs :)
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: ataradov on November 28, 2021, 12:24:52 am
Speaking of things not loading. I just notices that this user https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?u=105798 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/profile/?u=105798) has avatar picture that leads to URL outside of the eevblog (http://www.unrealitytv.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/doctor-who-peter-capaldi.jpg (http://www.unrealitytv.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/doctor-who-peter-capaldi.jpg)). And that redirects to some spam place that uBlock blocks, or shows a page that offers to buy the domain.

How did this happen? Allowing random links in avatars seems unsafe, but I don't even understand how that is possible.

Ok, I went to check and apparently you can specify URL of an avatar. This is a tracker's wet dream. How is this even an option? This open so many opportunities to mess with the forum. You are allowing people to load any unverified content.
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: Ed.Kloonk on November 28, 2021, 12:50:06 am
Pretty sure a user can disable images, I'll try to find the link in the settings.

In Look and Layout, there is a checkbox. Don't show users' avatars.

Not the best solution, I realize. 
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: ataradov on November 28, 2021, 03:45:33 am
For sure, but this also affects everyone who is not registered and finds the forum from the search.
Title: Re: "Online" error
Post by: EEVblog on November 29, 2021, 10:52:22 am
I think "pagespeed" might be Apache pagespeed?  https://www.modpagespeed.com/doc/filters (https://www.modpagespeed.com/doc/filters)

Ie configured in the webserver config, not php or simplemachines.

N.B. these optimisation and acceleration programs are heavily situation dependent; they can make things better, worse or not much different at all.  Eg switching out the tiny .gifs on dynamically generated pages might not actually achieve much; but it could be doing stuff elsewhere that helps.  I am innately suspicious of any and all such optimis programs :)

Wew also run the forum and website on two servers (database + files) which probably makes things more complicated.