Egad! Help

Wow,this is the first time I'm in since last Friday

Apparently it's on the host's side, with the servers, so there's nothing the forum admins can do.

I haven't had the error much for a couple of months.  But it came back with a vengeance Monday.  I've been able to connect, and log in, a couple of times since then.  Even now, I got connected but didn't log in. I viewed your reply, then clicked to log in, and got the error.  I was able to refresh the page and retry, and log in this time. I can see why some people have decided just to give up and not participate anymore.

agreed on the 504 error as pain in the butt & appears admin don't really know how to fix it.

I still disagree. It may be a default setting, though we have no way of knowing what setting Kalmbach's host uses, but it is lousy design if forum members have to use a third-party word processor to write their posts.  And this wasn't always like this.  It's a bug and needs to be addressed.

Also, the 504 server timeout error was back over the last 24 hours.  It occurred when trying to navigate to the forum, or occasionally after connecting to the forum, the timeout occurred when logging in. The workaround of refreshing the page did not work.

I was able to connect and log in now for the first time since yesterday morning around 0730 Eastern.  Posting and having the save complete is also relatively slow, a couple of minutes, compared to normal performance of several seconds.

So those managing the servers still have some issues to resolve.

I think Greysteele nailed it, 20 min. is the server session timeout default and TB mentioned taking 30 min to compose and post...

Anything more or less than 20 min would require knowing how to change the default session timeout and then doing so, which is seldom a mandate, especially for a forum.

I typically use Word to compose in order to have access to spellchecking.

Greysteele

Retired techie here. When we interact with a web site, we engage in what is called a "session". The web server will maintain memory of us for the duration of that session, including the fact that we have logged in, who we are, etc. The session will expire (time out) if we have not interacted with the server for a specified amount of time (20 minutes is the default time-out). Sitting on a page and typing does not interract with the server, just our own computers. So if we take too long to type our posts, we hit the time-out, are "logged out" and now "forbidden" to post because only logged-in users are allowed to post. It's not a bug. It's just how things work on the World Wide Web.

Bottom line: Don't take too long typing a post here on this or any web site. As several people have recommended, you should compose your magnum opus beforehand, then copy-paste it into the text box to submit. 

That's a workaround, though, not a solution. The problem isn't that the session expires after too long an idle time. It expires after too short a time. It's a bug that the support team needs to resolve. But in terms of severity, it has a relatively low impact, so it's probably not too high in their backlog.

Retired techie here. When we interact with a web site, we engage in what is called a "session". The web server will maintain memory of us for the duration of that session, including the fact that we have logged in, who we are, etc. The session will expire (time out) if we have not interacted with the server for a specified amount of time (20 minutes is the default time-out). Sitting on a page and typing does not interract with the server, just our own computers. So if we take too long to type our posts, we hit the time-out, are "logged out" and now "forbidden" to post because only logged-in users are allowed to post. It's not a bug. It's just how things work on the World Wide Web.

Bottom line: Don't take too long typing a post here on this or any web site. As several people have recommended, you should compose your magnum opus beforehand, then copy-paste it into the text box to submit.

As Baron mentioned, this has been going on for months, and there are days where we can't even get on here.  Some of the ads running on this site have also caused issues for people with getting their posts wiped out.  A few of the guys have been using a workaround for that by typing their post into Wordpad first, and then copying and pasting the text here.  That way, even if the site glitches, all you have to do is just copy and paste again.

Do you have a cellphone?  Their cameras are fine for photos for forums.

Hi Baron!

 Well, this is the first for me!

Thanks, Bill!

       No, Believe it or not I have an H.P. here at home. I just got hit by that.It's the first that has ever happened too! As far as photos.just before I lost my Camera that I used, The sites started to charge and I got so frustrated i said The "H" with it! I haven't looked for a free site because of having no Camera.My L/lady's daughter gave me a small Point and Shoot which I promptly misplaced and haven't found it yet!

You post on a desktop at the library?

you should be able to type a doc in whatever program it has, like Word.

When you have it finished, copy and paste the text into the forum post.

obviously you aren't inserting image links.

Ive saved myself endless frustration that way.

Get a little thumb drive. Save your posts on there and delete from the computer. 

Bill

If you look down in the Forum Error reporting section, I think you'll find that this is a known bug with the forum.