I have been thrown out many times but almost always get back in again not long after without doing anything with any settings. However I do always shut down the browser each time I am thrown out and my default setting is to clear all cookies when closing browser.
In theory the browser on the phone can be set to do this (clear cookies each time it is closed) but it always seems more of a pain on phone as it is sometimes not clear if the browser has actually been closed down.
Mike - this is so sad - I havenāt posted for days.
Cant get past the spinning thing.
The other sites I post to seem to have no problems - so itās not my computer as iSpot message implies.
Any hope for the future?
I have no idea how to do this on my phone or on my iPads and it doesnāt sound intuitive from what you say.
This issue is occurring so often for me - phone, iPads and iMac. I donāt always report it, sometimes because forum not available and sometimes to avoid adopting a moaning demeanour in case it carries through to the rest of my life.
The site had become unworkable for me and I took a break from iSpot last week. I tried to follow things without logging in a few times but only managed to view a few observations before the site froze and blue spinning spinner appeared. I logged in yesterday and managed to view my tracker, view some observations & add a couple of agreements and comments, and one comment in a project before the site froze and spinner appeared. I wasnāt able to log out until this morning. Iām now logged in and was able to view my tracker and add this comment. Iād like to post some observations and feel confident to add agreements & comments without the fear of triggering the spinner and exile.
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Update. I only managed to view a couple of observations before the next observation didnāt load and the blue spinner arrived. I tried logging out but pink message said log out failed and blue spinner kept spinningā¦.
Itās the same for me. I sometimes manage a short sequence of comments or a couple of posts on iSpot but only by prioritizing it over everything else. More usually now I get less than a minute and then Iām booted off for hours.
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The site is not fit for purpose. If there is no will or intention to make it work, then sadly, iSpot is effectively over.
The site has just allowed me to put on an observation. Two minutes later itās spinning on both Chrome and Firefox. Very frustrating.
I have - unwillingly - migrated to a new PC. Everything is bigger, stronger, fasterā¦ and iSpot crashes more readily!
Iāve mentioned before that I fear this is both deterring new users, and driving established ones away. To put an observation in iSpot, you need to know:
- To close your browser (if, like mine, that does a clean-up), or go into settings (learning how) to clear the cache,
- That photos may not want to load, and will usually rearrange themselves if there is more than one,
- That the maps interface will shift your location unless you have worked out a trick (there seem to be a couple) to defeat it,
- That site details canāt be saved within iSpot - they could be added to a separate text file for retrieval, I suppose,
- That you canāt free-type names, you must pick from a list,
- And that those lists are badly flawed,
- And that the ID can still āfailā.
There are other issues that better (wo)men than I have listed in the past: I think this is enough to drive one to drink.
It would be good to know that there is a Plan, somewhere, to fix at least some of these issues. I am mildly addicted to iSpot, but I am getting older, grumpier, and more hard-of-thinking. These things are starting to bug me more than before.
(End of rant. Sorry.)
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Well said Amadan - but I am wondering if there is anybody reading these reports.
Mike will remember what happened when Tony Rebello led the exodus from the ZA community to a site across the pond. Not nearly as friendly as iSpot and Iāll not be tempted to follow suit
IS ANYBODY OUT THERE ? Tap ONCE if you exist. But please donāt throw any more spanners in the works.
If you want to identify a Poltergeist based on throws, outside of a hunt, then the most surefire way is to wait for it to do itās ability. If it throws multiple objects at the exact same time, itās a Poltergeist . Alternatively, if it throws any objects in a room with the light on, itās a Poltergeist.
I am afraid I donāt know much more than anyone else here on this forum post. All I would repeat is:
This normally lets me back in almost immediately although occasionally I am shut out for a bit longer. I appreciate not everyone wants to do that, possibly use a specific browser for ispot e.g. firefox if you normally use chrome for other browsing then you donāt have to close down your other websites.
This is only a not particularly good workaround rather than fix.
I also save as I go along where this is possible.
The main issue as you may have guessed is the lack of funding for ispot and for universities in general so we are currently just existing rather than being able to do large rewrites and similar.
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I think that sums it up, Steve.
As āmarlandzaā said yesterday, these problems only occur on iSpot. Therefore itās an iSpot problem.
Itās pretty clear that the various suggested technical workarounds are not really the solution.
Consequently, I rarely bother posting observations or comments now: I donāt have unlimited patience and I do have other things to do.
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Itās rather sad. I shall still try and catch it when itās in a cooperative mood, but those are becoming rarer and the frustration more frequent. Oddly enough it has indulged me for the past hour. Iād better quit while Iām ahead!
Itās very sad indeed, particularly as one of the nicest things about iSpot to me is the sense of a community. You also get to know peopleās areas of expertise, so when youāre posting something youāre not sure about, you know that so and so will be along to try and help. Iāve really loved it and learned so much but It does unfortunately sound like itās just going to limp along until it stops completely or everyone deserts it, whichever comes first. Iāll keep persevering for a bit but can I please just ask what would happen to all the info if the site does end/close - would it just all be lost?
I confess to feeling a bit mean. I pay nothing to use this site, and have got a lot out of it over the years. And yes, the sense of ācommunityā is strong. So complaining is a bit unfair.
But I suspect that paying a small sum annually (or a one-off, to try to solve this issue), by the few remaining loyal users, would be a drop in the ocean. Jokes about how we might make money spring to mind, but the situation really isnāt very funny.
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Feedback from this mornings meeting with programmers. They are continuing to maintain the site, specifically over the past couple of weeks they have got the two separate stages before the live site working again as these servers had become out of synch which was preventing proper updates. This is allowing them to update various bits of software that are used in the backend of the website and to a limited extent the front end. These are mainly security/bug fixes and similar and will need to be tested before going live in a couple of weeks. They have also been working on some of the admin scripts that help me to administer the site and looking at some other bug fixes.
Basically they are working on the site still and will continue to do so. There is a chance that some of these updates and bug fixes may improve the site but to sort it out properly needs a large input of funding to rewrite one particular large chunk of code that canāt be done in little bits. This will take a programmer several months full time so until we get this funding via a grant or other source we canāt do this rewrite.
Around 2200 last night, trying to catch up on observations Iāve missed over the last 10 or so days, I was working back from the most recent and had reached Beautiful, if spiky | Observation | UK and Ireland | iSpot Nature. A long delay so left it and went to bed. This morning 500 Error, as expected. Instead of clearing the cookies, I tried simply re-loading the page ā¦ and it loaded quickly and accurately. Windows 10, Chrome.
I wonder if this indicates that it is not, after all, a cookie problem or, perhaps a problem with a cookie which expires at/after a particular time?
I have noticed that if you leave it for a few hours the problem clears itself. It could be an expiring cookie. But it could also be a resource/deadlock problem resolving itself.
I know this is not the place for this comment - but What the heck -
I think you might enjoy my latest Showcase of Orchids @Luisa Itās not important if iSpot crashes - the links are all there and I can update originals when I please. Most folk enjoy Orchid pics - but my links show how many sites have gone down over the years ( so no longer work).
The REALLY sad one I know as the Swiss Orchid Foundation which had brilliant illustrations. Possibly it may be reinstated onr day.
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The site has been unresponsive twice today. The failure mode has changed. Instead of getting error 500s Iām getting (after long waits) failures to agree identifications or add comments, and attempts to add identifications just hang up (but can be backed out of with an escape).
Addendum: but the main page is currently error 500ing.
This weekend has been particularly bad. I looked at just one observation and the picture wouldnāt load.
Strange how things happen to different people at various times as I had an easy time on the site over easter, being on it for 40min+ on occasions with no problems. Suspect just different times of day as have had other days when thrown out several times within just a short period.