Who has had a 503 this week ?

[AndyMackie]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

Canon Fodder Forums also uses vBulletin v4 and in well over 6000 posts there I have never had the 503 problem

Good point Stan and one that probably highlights the problem - we none of us one here really know what we are talking about when offering such advice to Robert and its probably time to bring in somebody who does. Of course it costs money to hire a consultant to fix the problem or to simply bite the bullet and start afresh on another platform but again, its surely an investment worth far more than this negative vibe?

And I wouldn't contribute to the cost of that, any more than I would expect contributions from others to fix a faulty lens of mine. I buy the mag and want to enjoy the forum - enough already. I spend too much of my precious time on it, though, trying to overcome this problem whereas I think I would spend more on it if it was fixed. Multiply that sentiment and additional forum time by a few hundred times and its a business decision that Robert alone can make.

Andy




Andy

[Riggers]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

it never goes away as such, its been there for me continually since the outset and the only way i have been able to continue to post is by posting the text first and then editing to add the picture - OK it works most of the time but it is an extra step and time consuming.

Something else which strikes me is that, again at least for me, 503 only strikes when i start a new topic - on an established topic images can be added at the same time as text without problem

stan

That's not my experience. I'm pretty IT savvy (I'm an IT Project Manager by day) so am capable of following instructions re all the workarounds that have been offered on here and sometimes they work sometimes they don't. It got to the stage last weekend where I was unable to post a picture at all until the suggestion was made to post a link without the http. This works but does not embed the picture so doesn't look great.

[Riggers]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

Like I said, why not just run phpBB side by side with vBulletin for a while for members who are willing to trial it (don't publish the url publicly) and then you will see if the 503 error is present. If you still get the 503 when posting to phpBB then you definitely have a a server / hosting issue so have more evidence to hit your hosts with to try and get them to sort it out.

[Riggers]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

This was an interesting comment in a thread comparing VB to phpBB:

I own VB software (some one has too) but use phpbb.

Why do i use phpbb over VB well the VB acp is junk everything about VB is junk support is junk most addons are junk plus on a side note who in the he?l is wanting to pay for some addons that really arn't up to the job.

install phpbb and its W3c valid
install VB and it fails hard but yet it's a paid software work that out.

[Riggers]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

For info here's a comparison of VB & PHPBB features:

http://www.forummatrix.org/compare/phpBB+vBulletin

[Robert Scott]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

I'm not saying that phpBB is any better than vBulletin, only that I have used it for my forum for almost 5 years without a problem.

Dave

Google:

'phpBB The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems'

and you will find that the 503 error is also a problem for some of these forums, too. I am reluctant to change from vBulletin when other forum software has similar problems.

[Riggers]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

Google:

'phpBB The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems'

and you will find that the 503 error is also a problem for some of these forums, too. I am reluctant to change from vBulletin when other forum software has similar problems.

But if you follow my advice to trial it privately on the same server then this may help you get closer to where the problem lies ;)

[rajjayaraj]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

Like I said, why not just run phpBB side by side with vBulletin for a while for members who are willing to trial it (don't publish the url publicly) and then you will see if the 503 error is present. If you still get the 503 when posting to phpBB then you definitely have a a server / hosting issue so have more evidence to hit your hosts with to try and get them to sort it out.

If feasible this would be a sensible solution to get to the bottom of the problem i think.

[Robert Scott]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

Like I said, why not just run phpBB side by side with vBulletin for a while...

...because running the EOS magazine forum is not my full-time job. I am looking for a solution which does not double my forum work.

[Robert Scott]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

OK. I have just edited some php code in vBulletin.

Has that made a difference?

[Riggers]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

OK. I have just edited some php code in vBulletin.

Has that made a difference?

Sadly not for me.

[paulr5604]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

...because running the EOS magazine forum is not my full-time job. I am looking for a solution which does not double my forum work.

Robert I don't think this post was started to personally attack you and your work with the forum. I for one appreciate the work you do in providing the forum. It was probably only started to get a people talking about it to try and find a solution as there are a lot of members with different backgrounds And someone out there may know the solution.

Keep up the good work. I enjoy the forum and the 503 error is the only negative I have encountered

[Paulstw]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

I seem to be getting the error with any URL that has been placed in the [] tagged brackets.

[url]www.flickr.com[/url]

Funny that, it just worked for that, however, I wonder if it's a Flickr problem.

[S_J_P]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

"Service Temporarily Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later." error here (Win7/Firefox 25.01)

[Dave_S]

Re: Who has had a 503 this week ?

Google:'phpBB The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems'

I just 'Googled' phpBB, and got this:

https://www.phpbb.com/

Which is what I expected.

Robert, I can understand your reluctance to move to an alternative software, as it would involve more work, with no guarantee that it would fix the problem.

Plus the fact you would have to find your way around a different ACP.

I have used Word Press, and the ACP is nowhere as user friendly as phpBB.

I guess the 'bottom line' is one of how important is the forum to your core business, and does it have financial benefits.

Or is it an overhead without any tangible return for your time and investment, being more of 'sideline/hobby' interest.

If it is the latter, then not wanting to throw any more of your time and money at it, is fully understandable.

Photoplus Magazine (Canon Edition), closed down their forum, and re-launched it on Facebook. However, I think that was a retrograde step, and I have no interest in Facebook based forums.

This, IMO, is the best of the photography forums. The format is right, the membership is friendly and non-controversial, and given that its hosted on a shared server, it runs at good speed.

Dave