OT - Computer Drops Out of Forum

[Griff]

I've been having a problem the past couple of weeks with the forum. Doesn't happen on other forums I frequent. I click on a topic and the connection hangs up and then times out. Since I keep the box checked to keep me logged in, I don't have re-login, but sometimes it does. I haven't changed any settings... but... did a an update to IE-8 about the time this started.

It might be related to my mobile card... but since it doesn't do it on other forums... I'm stumped.

PS: JMiller, email to you has been getting returned... am I persona non-grata????

[Grizz]

Griff, I use firefox and almost never have any issues on the forum. Have you tried it?

[Griff]

No. Heard of it, but haven't tried it? Wondering if I need to clear my "History"? I ain't crippled around a 'puter, but ain't a "geek" either.

[Chuck 100 yd]

I have had similar problems the last couple days.
If I go to another site or forum and then come back to Leverguns it will time out due to slow loading. If I try and LG wont open and I switch to another site that site will come right up. I just try later and sometimes it
will open right away. ???????????????????????

Oh, I have Fire Fox also.

[Wind]

Are any of you guys using a satellite Internet Service Provider, more specifically Wildblue?? Wind

[Modoc ED]

Undo your upgrade to IE8. You should be able to undo the update through the Add an Remove Software in the Control Panel.

[J Miller]

Griff,

I have no idea why your emails are not going through. I'll check the blocked sender list just to be positive, but I know I haven't blocked your email.

I'm also using Firefox browser and so far so good.

Joe

[Blaine]

Dump your cookies and reboot

[BenT]

I have had the same problems. I use I.E. 6 . Other sites work just fine but this one won't open or a topic won't open. I have DSL. It happens a couple times a week.

[kimwcook]

I've got fiber and I don't have a single problem. Sorry, Griff. The devil made me do it.

[Rimfire McNutjob]

I've been using Chrome for the last 4 months or so and I find it's much quicker than IE or FireFox. Though it will occasionally not render a page properly.

[Cliff]

Didn't anyone tell you the secret handshake? Are you sure you are remembering to double clutch at the proper times. How fast are you turning the crank on the wizzoo? Are you left or right handed? I am not sure of the rest of the stuff you should know, something about when to press certain buttons while peddling, and it makes a difference going up hill or down hill. Good Luck.....

[TedH]

I had the same problem when I "upgraded" to IE8. I went back to IE7 and then on the recommendation of several people I downloaded Mozilla Firefox and have been using it ever since. I like it much better than Explorer.

[RKrodle]

I have a real problem sometimes trying to get topics to open on here, or when I post a topic or reply it will take forever or time out, starting to get old as I don't have the problem elsewhere. I'm using firefox.

[JReed]

No. Heard of it, but haven't tried it? Wondering if I need to clear my "History"? I ain't crippled around a 'puter, but ain't a "geek" either.

Firefox works great I recommend making the change. You don't need to be a geek when are you going to be up here next let me know and I could check it out for ya.

[Bogie35]

I too recommend a switch to Mozilla Firefox. I have MUCH fewer problems now than when I used Internet Explorer.

bogie

[Rimfire McNutjob]

Browser users should keep in mind that often the slowness of a browser is not the rendering of the HTML but the DNS lookups that occur while trying to render the full content on complex pages. Google has a new experimental high-speed DNS system they are testing. Their servers are addressed as 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

[RKrodle]

Browser users should keep in mind that often the slowness of a browser is not the rendering of the HTML but the DNS lookups that occur while trying to render the full content on complex pages. Google has a new experimental high-speed DNS system they are testing. Their servers are addressed as 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

Could you put that in English please .

[66GTO]

I have been using Firefox for years and I have had no problems using this site with it. The only time I use Internet Explorer is to download Windoze updates from Microsoft because Microsoft refuses to play nice with any browser except Explorer.

I also have a Linux OS installed on a second computer that I use, but because so many programs will only run on MS operating systems I have to keep Windoze around.

[Rimfire McNutjob]

Browser users should keep in mind that often the slowness of a browser is not the rendering of the HTML but the DNS lookups that occur while trying to render the full content on complex pages. Google has a new experimental high-speed DNS system they are testing. Their servers are addressed as 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

Could you put that in English please .

I'll try ...

When you first put your page request into the browser address bar, you are entering a URL or a Universal Resource Locator. Your browser has to lookup the address of the resource using a DNS or Domain Name Server before it can ask the server for the page content. The target DNS servers you use are often setup as part of configuring your TCP/IP stack. So your browser sends a request to the DNS server setup as your primary for the address record of the fully qualified domain name. Hopefully, after a few fractions of a second, the DNS server will send back the address of the server you need to contact for the actual page. Your browser then uses that address and makes a TCP connection over port 80 and issues a GET to have the server send the HTML (WEB) pages.

Here's the thing ... HTML pages represent a hierarchy of objects called the Document Object Model. This hierarchy often contains references to other pages and image objects that exists on other servers. So while your page is rendering, the browser is having to do DNS lookups on URLs for those objects as well. When the URLs are broken, you can often see the basic page format but many of the image objects are "broken" and show and placeholder frames with a little broken object icon in the corner.

Sometimes, if your primary DNS server doesn't respond quickly enough, the TCP/IP stack will launch a request for name resolution to the secondary server, etc. This takes more time. All of these requests can add up ... even though they are usually only a fraction of a second to resolve. Fast browsers are usually queuing these requests up while the page is rendering and so they appear to happen faster. I know Google's Chrome does this and FireFox likely does it as well.

Sometimes, you can see if your DNS server's speed is hampering your browsing experience by changing to another DNS server that may be operating under less load or have a better cache of existing names to pull from without having to run a query up the DNS chain. The Google DNS servers I listed previously are examples of addresses you might set in your TCP/IP configuration. If you get your IP address via DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) you probably get your default DNS server addresses from that setup that your ISP provides. However, you can still use others out on the internet.

I will warn you though, if you hard code your DNS servers in your configuration and you mess it up or the DNS servers are not operable, you can't get back to the WEB until you fix it. If you have servers listed, you should write them down before trying new ones.

You should most often use a DNS server that is located physically close to you on the internet. One way to see that is to run a PING command for the address and see how fast the responses come back. For example, if you open a command window (Start/Run/Cmd) you can type "ping 8.8.8.8" followed by the enter or return key, you will get four test packets which show how fast that server is responding across the network. The 8.8.8.8 is one of the Google DNS servers. Your local server will probably respond with a packet more quickly than the Google server because your ISP's server is located closer to you. However, your ISP's server may be overloaded and/or probably doesn't have as many names in its cache as the Google server does. You really just need to test it out to see if there anything to be gained by your browser.

That was probably more confusing that the original post ... wasn't it.

[RKrodle]

Thanks RM, that did help some and I appreciate you taking your time to explain it. But, wouldn't that be more of an overall type thing? I'm not having this much problems on other forums, just here.

[Rimfire McNutjob]

Thanks RM, that did help some and I appreciate you taking your time to explain it. But, wouldn't that be more of an overall type thing? I'm not having this much problems on other forums, just here.

Yeah, I just wanted to let people know that often the slowness they experience is not really the WEB but with the lookup mechanism. Also, optimized lookups are what will make one browser appear faster than another.

The site problems are possibly with some incorrect attribute or interpretation of cookie settings.

[66GTO]

Browser users should keep in mind that often the slowness of a browser is not the rendering of the HTML but the DNS lookups that occur while trying to render the full content on complex pages. Google has a new experimental high-speed DNS system they are testing. Their servers are addressed as 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

Could you put that in English please .

I'll try ...

When you first put your page request into the browser address bar, you are entering a URL or a Universal Resource Locator. Your browser has to lookup the address of the resource using a DNS or Domain Name Server before it can ask the server for the page content. The target DNS servers you use are often setup as part of configuring your TCP/IP stack. So your browser sends a request to the DNS server setup as your primary for the address record of the fully qualified domain name. Hopefully, after a few fractions of a second, the DNS server will send back the address of the server you need to contact for the actual page. Your browser then uses that address and makes a TCP connection over port 80 and issues a GET to have the server send the HTML (WEB) pages.

Here's the thing ... HTML pages represent a hierarchy of objects called the Document Object Model. This hierarchy often contains references to other pages and image objects that exists on other servers. So while your page is rendering, the browser is having to do DNS lookups on URLs for those objects as well. When the URLs are broken, you can often see the basic page format but many of the image objects are "broken" and show and placeholder frames with a little broken object icon in the corner.

Sometimes, if your primary DNS server doesn't respond quickly enough, the TCP/IP stack will launch a request for name resolution to the secondary server, etc. This takes more time. All of these requests can add up ... even though they are usually only a fraction of a second to resolve. Fast browsers are usually queuing these requests up while the page is rendering and so they appear to happen faster. I know Google's Chrome does this and FireFox likely does it as well.

Sometimes, you can see if your DNS server's speed is hampering your browsing experience by changing to another DNS server that may be operating under less load or have a better cache of existing names to pull from without having to run a query up the DNS chain. The Google DNS servers I listed previously are examples of addresses you might set in your TCP/IP configuration. If you get your IP address via DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) you probably get your default DNS server addresses from that setup that your ISP provides. However, you can still use others out on the internet.

I will warn you though, if you hard code your DNS servers in your configuration and you mess it up or the DNS servers are not operable, you can't get back to the WEB until you fix it. If you have servers listed, you should write them down before trying new ones.

You should most often use a DNS server that is located physically close to you on the internet. One way to see that is to run a PING command for the address and see how fast the responses come back. For example, if you open a command window (Start/Run/Cmd) you can type "ping 8.8.8.8" followed by the enter or return key, you will get four test packets which show how fast that server is responding across the network. The 8.8.8.8 is one of the Google DNS servers. Your local server will probably respond with a packet more quickly than the Google server because your ISP's server is located closer to you. However, your ISP's server may be overloaded and/or probably doesn't have as many names in its cache as the Google server does. You really just need to test it out to see if there anything to be gained by your browser.

That was probably more confusing that the original post ... wasn't it.

Yes. My head hurts!

[Griff]

Browser users should keep in mind that often the slowness of a browser is not the rendering of the HTML but the DNS lookups that occur while trying to render the full content on complex pages. Google has a new experimental high-speed DNS system they are testing. Their servers are addressed as 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

Could you put that in English please .

I'll try ...

blah, blah, blah, blah.... zzzzzzz...

That was probably more confusing that the original post ... wasn't it.

Why, no... I understood it all.

But, in answer to my own question... I removed IE8 from my computer... reloaded IE7, and it did the same thing. I then downloaded Firefox and tried it... same thing. Then I re-downloaded IE8 and re-installed it. Also installed an update to my Sprint data card (connection) software that included both software and firmware upgrades... and viola... the problem appears to have kissed its' rear goodbye!

Even with Firefox I was getting an error message. It said something along the lines that "...the connection has reset while the page was downloading..." and I would have to "back" up to attempt another view or submit. BUT... Firefox does keep the text I'd typed in whereas under IE8 I'd just get the page I'd left without my changes to it. I've gotten in the habit of saving my text to the clipboard, so it wasn't really a problem... but this is kinda nice.

However, I do like the ability in IE8 to have multiple tabs and windows open at the same time... I haven't learned enough about Firefox if that is also available here.

But... everyone, thanks for your responses... and whichever of the steps I took, it appears to be fixed. (I strongly suspect it was my connection soft/hardware, not the site or even IE.