What has this site done?

[AlfHuy]

18 hours ago, polpott said:

Well at least that's narrowed it down to a few thousand,

Where is Steve100 when we need him?

[RJRS1301]

On 3/11/2021 at 2:05 PM, darksidedog said:

What this site has "done" is to recover from an unexpected complete crash.

A hell of a lot of work has gone on to get the site back up and at least semi functional. It is unfortunate that there are issues remaining, though the technical team are working almost non stop to get it right. A little understanding would help at this point, along with a little patience.

EDIT: It was a malicious DDoS event that caused it, not negligence by TVF.

Thank you for the efforts to date

[lopburi3]

32 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

Until told to do so expect better to just wait as have read reports that can not be done and my own attempt failed.  Even posting an image seems to be beyond my ability today.  ????

OK got it to work this time - there seem to be two procedures but only one of them work.  Had to remove the placeholder first.

[CharlieH]

For those who wish to reload their Avatar.

Go to your profile page, next to your name is a circle where your avatar should be, bottom left of that is a picture frame, click that and follow the instructions to change the image.

 

[colinneil]

9 minutes ago, CharlieH said:

For those who wish to reload their Avatar.

Go to your profile page, next to your name is a circle where your avatar should be, bottom left of that is a picture frame, click that and follow the instructions to change the image.

 

Just done that Charlie, it says no photo to crop.

 

[CharlieH]

2 minutes ago, colinneil said:

Just done that Charlie, it says no photo to crop.

 

You dont have your image in there Colin, its for those changing or adding there own back in.

In your specific case as you dont have the original, DONT touch it as the original waiting to be restored will be removed.

[chainarong]

TV sent me a message to remove my add removal app , all i was doing was deleting the adds getting in the way of what I was reading. Then all i could get was a blank home page.  Since then its turned to <deleted>.  

[KannikaP]

I wonder who decided that the title of the thread should be a smaller font than the name of members who reply. Ridiculous.

[bwpage3]

Still see all kinds of formatting errors today.

Edited March 12, 2021 by bwpage3

[ubonjoe]

21 minutes ago, bwpage3 said:

Still see all kinds of formatting errors today.

That is due to names appearing where the avatar should be.

[FarFlungFalang]

6 hours ago, AlfHuy said:

Where is Steve100 when we need him?

He got moved to an inactive post!

[Puccini]

On 3/11/2021 at 5:22 AM, NCC1701A said:

...and don't think i did not notice that last crash you got your forum avatar back before me and it has happened again.

I have a feeling that he uploaded his avatar again. I did the same with my avatar a moment ago.

[Puccini]

On 3/11/2021 at 7:05 AM, lopburi3 said:

Actually they posted that the outage was due to a server upgrade on Tuesday morning ThaiVisa Facebook page for those of us who found that.  When they got a message up on forum website it said in one breath unavaliable and availabe on same page (although obviously not available).  Obviously it continues to be a work in progress as was on and off yesterday.

And it is now the third day of November in the year of the Lord twothousandandtwentyone:

"On 3/11/2021 at 6:34 AM, Bangkok Barry said"

Was the same time format used before the outage?

[Maestro]

Removed an off-topic post and the replies to it.

[Sujo]

Every day i need to sign in from both ipad and phone. Never had to do that before.

Had to change passwords a few times so lots of emails about it. Do it on the ipad then later on the phone. Its quite annoying.

[donnacha]

On 3/11/2021 at 1:02 PM, IslandLover said:

Are you the culprit by any chance? ????

No. If I was, the forum would not be back up now.

It has well over a dozen vulnerabilities. I would consecutively hammer them all, causing at least a couple of weeks of intermittent downtime to ensure that their Google rankings would never recover.

Such an action on my part is, however, unnecessary. They are perfectly capable of destroying this forum on their own.

Their current Cloudflare settings alone are going to decimate their traffic. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. They really haven't thought this through.

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by donnacha

[Golden Triangle]

29 minutes ago, donnacha said:

No. If I was, the forum would not be back up now.

It has well over a dozen vulnerabilities. I would consecutively hammer them all, causing at least a couple of weeks of intermittent downtime to ensure that their Google rankings would never recover.

Such an action on my part is, however, unnecessary. They are perfectly capable of destroying this forum on their own.

Their current Cloudflare settings alone are going to decimate their traffic. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. They really haven't thought this through.

 

Not being sarcastic at all, in fact quite serious, could you explain what you mean for us mortals for whom what you say is interesting but not understood ???????? Thanks.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Golden Triangle

[IslandLover]

1 hour ago, donnacha said:

No. If I was, the forum would not be back up now.

It has well over a dozen vulnerabilities. I would consecutively hammer them all, causing at least a couple of weeks of intermittent downtime to ensure that their Google rankings would never recover.

Such an action on my part is, however, unnecessary. They are perfectly capable of destroying this forum on their own.

Their current Cloudflare settings alone are going to decimate their traffic. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. They really haven't thought this through.

 

????????

[mstevens]

I imagine there is sympathy from users towards ThaiVisa for what has happened with this site. The problem is, just what has happened? Some say a hack. Some say migrating to a new server. Some say a server crash. Just come out an be straight with us and tell us what has happened and what the plan is to get things back to normal. Do that and you will probably find most people are supportive. But so far, that doesn't seem to have happened or at least if there has been such an announcement, it has been buried deep in some sub-forum and most of us have not seen it and are therefore not aware of what is going on. And that just adds to the frustration of it all and may cause us to look for other forums or Facebook groups to use instead.

[IslandLover]

3 hours ago, Puccini said:

And it is now the third day of November in the year of the Lord twothousandandtwentyone:

"On 3/11/2021 at 6:34 AM, Bangkok Barry said"

Was the same time format used before the outage?

British English date format = 11th March 2021.  Duh. ????

[IslandLover]

6 hours ago, bwpage3 said:

Still see all kinds of formatting errors today.

These formatting errors are to do with the lack of the user's avatar.  Once you upload your avatar again, the formatting returns to normal.

[lopburi3]

7 hours ago, IslandLover said:

These formatting errors are to do with the lack of the user's avatar.  Once you upload your avatar again, the formatting returns to normal.

Very little is normal.  Format changed.  Font changed.  Date changed.  Background changed.  Colors changed.  Alerts unreadable.  Font nearly so.  They either do not have previous settings available or have not had time to implement them yet (software has always been modified for this forum).

[IslandLover]

58 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

Very little is normal.  Format changed.  Font changed.  Date changed.  Background changed.  Colors changed.  Alerts unreadable.  Font nearly so.  They either do not have previous settings available or have not had time to implement them yet (software has always been modified for this forum).

OK, I accept there have been other changes.  The forum certainly has a different look and layout now.  However, I see no problem with the fonts.  I guess it depends on what device you are using to view the forum. They are perfectly readable on my desktop monitor.

[polpott]

1 hour ago, lopburi3 said:

Very little is normal.  Format changed.  Font changed.  Date changed.  Background changed.  Colors changed.  Alerts unreadable.  Font nearly so.  They either do not have previous settings available or have not had time to implement them yet (software has always been modified for this forum).

I view the forum exclusively on a laptop using Brave browser. The only negative, for me, is unreadable alerts.

"Back to top of page" arrow has returned. Major result!

[lopburi3]

14 minutes ago, IslandLover said:

OK, I accept there have been other changes.  The forum certainly has a different look and layout now.  However, I see no problem with the fonts.  I guess it depends on what device you are using to view the forum. They are perfectly readable on my desktop monitor.

Not on mine!  Too thin and weak to view properly for these old eyes (only headlines and poster in a good font).  And the black alert notices are totally unreadable more than 3 inches from screen (total black). 

[KannikaP]

1 hour ago, IslandLover said:

OK, I accept there have been other changes.  The forum certainly has a different look and layout now.  However, I see no problem with the fonts.  I guess it depends on what device you are using to view the forum. They are perfectly readable on my desktop monitor.

The Title of the thread is now smaller than the poster's name. In the Topics list on the right hand side, why are some names in orange, some in blue and others in black, and the poster's status ie Advanced Member etc, is in insipid orange, almost un-readable, as if that really matters. 

[Mr Derek]

16 hours ago, mstevens said:

I imagine there is sympathy from users towards ThaiVisa for what has happened with this site. The problem is, just what has happened? Some say a hack. Some say migrating to a new server. Some say a server crash. Just come out an be straight with us and tell us what has happened and what the plan is to get things back to normal. Do that and you will probably find most people are supportive. But so far, that doesn't seem to have happened or at least if there has been such an announcement, it has been buried deep in some sub-forum and most of us have not seen it and are therefore not aware of what is going on. And that just adds to the frustration of it all and may cause us to look for other forums or Facebook groups to use instead.

I think it's obvious what happened seeing as the redesign and the alleged DDoS attack happened at exactly the same time. Pure coincidence? I think not. My guess is that the site redesign was badly implemented resulting in a system crash and outage. To cover that up and turn all criticism into sympathy they put it out that there was a DDoS attack.

As to the redesign. Too much white space which means too much tedious scrolling. The font seems to be 70% black against the pale blue box and requires a tad more effort to read which is an unwelcome strain on the eyes, though I daresay younger eyes won't notice it. Also, when I tried to add a hyperlink into a post, the webpage crashed and I lost my post.

Some consultation of the users regarding the redesign would have been appreciated. Why not do a mock up first and give us a chance to offer some feedback before implementing the whole thing as a like-it-or-not fait accompli?

Finally, like many people, I wasted some time trying and retrying the site during the outage. A simple email notifying us of the problem would have been appreciated.

[kingofthemountain]

2 minutes ago, Mr Derek said:

I think it's obvious what happened seeing as the redesign and the alleged DDoS attack happened at exactly the same time. Pure coincidence? I think not. My guess is that the site redesign was badly implemented resulting in a system crash and outage. To cover that up and turn all criticism into sympathy they put it out that there was a DDoS attack.

As to the redesign. Too much white space which means too much tedious scrolling. The font seems to be 70% black against the pale blue box and requires a tad more effort to read which is an unwelcome strain on the eyes, though I daresay younger eyes won't notice it. Also, when I tried to add a hyperlink into a post, the webpage crashed and I lost my post.

Some consultation of the users regarding the redesign would have been appreciated. Why not do a mock up first and give us a chance to offer some feedback before implementing the whole thing as a like-it-or-not fait accompli?

Finally, like many people, I wasted some time trying and retrying the site during the outage. A simple email notifying us of the problem would have been appreciated.

I totally agree with you

can i add the 502 or 522 error problem has still not been fixed?

(Still 3 time for me only today)

[rott]

On 3/11/2021 at 1:20 PM, Maliproto said:

Why, what do they owe to us, the freebie members?  Perhaps they directed their explanations to the only ones who deserve explanations, i.e. the advertisers who do pay to be here!

If it wasn't for the likes of us there wouldn't be any advertisers would there.? 

[IslandLover]

8 hours ago, lopburi3 said:

Not on mine!  Too thin and weak to view properly for these old eyes (only headlines and poster in a good font).  And the black alert notices are totally unreadable more than 3 inches from screen (total black). 

OK, you win ????.  The text on the black alert notices is indeed extremely feint.  I don't log in to TVF much nowadays so any changes have less of an impact for me.  I only noticed something was wrong when I stopped receiving the daily e-mail newsletters a few days ago.  I then checked the Facebook page and saw the post about the website hack, which incidentally has now been removed.

What really happened here will probably remain a mystery as no official announcement seems to be forthcoming from the Admins.  A website I was involved in was also taken down by malicious people so I know something about the problems caused.  It really isn't funny.