Dearest fellow FPN-ers,

We would appreciate it if you could post any problems with the workings of the new board software here in this thread/topic, preferably with an as succinct as possible description, and if at all possible, illustrated with one, maybe more screendumps, so we can more easily attend to the problem, or explain how to work around out.

Most problems will take some time to be ironed out, so we hope you will bear with us while this is happening.

Thanks in advance for your help and co-operation!

Warm regards,
Wim
on behalf of the FPN Admin Team

Moved here from news thread:

One further data point. The display problem described below does not occur on my work computer, running Firefox v1.5.0.8. So there appears to be some configuration problem with my home computer; but what could it be?

Not really a "problem" and no priority needed, but if you could look at the following some time it will be appreciated.

With the new software there is no 'view new posts' button on the bottom of the page, only at the top. I use that button a lot and scrolling up to the top of the page after reading each thread is a bit of a hassle.

What she said.

I am the one who crashes FPN. I'd rather not post the method here where others can read it. Would the administrator please e-mail me?

I sent a PM but it doesn't show up in my sent items. I'm sure I sent it because I got a reply. I wanted to read back what I've written but my PM is gone.

Lisa,

When you create your PM look at the bottom, you have to check the box for it to save a copy.

Jim

The banner is not dynamically resizing running Firefox v. 2.0.0.3 on Windows 2000 Pro as you can see in the screen shot below. It does work properly on the same machine viewed with IE v. 6.0.2800.1106.

Thanks.
It wasn't like that before was it? Or maybe my personal settings were changed after the upgrade...

Yes, the upgrade removed that preference if you had it checked. Same thing happened to me.

Not problems as such, but a couple of points:

1. I don't care for the dotted-line enclosed quotes - I liked the old style better.
2. I see a little head-and-shoulders figure has appeared next to our user names. I just wanted to make it clear that I'm not Professor Plum, and I didn't do it in the library with the dagger.

May be completely unrelated to the software update, but things feel fairly sluggish.

I'm asked for my password several times a day which gets quite annoying. Is that a feature or a bug?

Regards
Hans-Peter

Bug

An annoyance, more than a problem:

I just posted a review of the Sheaffer PFM III, and the system insists that I can't have all-caps in my topic title. It comes up as Pfm Iii. As I said, not really a problem. Did I miss a setting?

Don

Is there a way to set it as preference again? I can't seem to find that option.

(Sorry to go on about this in the bug report thread.)

No need to apologise Lisa - I think this may be a bug(let). Previously, if you checked the Options box 'Add a copy of this message to my sent items folder' below the composition window, it would 'stick'. It doesn't seem to be doing that any more. I'm not aware that the option can be set anywhere else, unless it's fairly well hidden.

Hi Admin - I've become your worst nightmare, I'm sure, and I'm not even certain my problems are related to the upgrade, but FPN is simply not working properly for me. I've sent you screen dumps of the error messages a couple of days ago. But I'm still getting them!
I can navigate around the site and eventually get to everything I need, but with no "view no posts", no instant access when I click on my username, and a few other bits, combined with learning the new layout of things since the upgrade, I've got a headache!

I also got caught out like Lisa and a few others over the "save copy of message" thing, but I've sussed that now!

I have emailed this, but when I saw this thread I thought I'd better post here too, if it was the preferred route by admin.

No, you have to tell it to remember you. There is a time-out of 1 hour on sessions, so if you don't say you want to be remembered when logging on, it will terminate the session. You only have to do this once, until you delete all cookies from your system again.

Warm regards, Wim

No, that is an "anti-shouting" measure. We'll check into that. I guess the default it to have it on.

Warm regards, Wim

Somehow the system tends to convert all first characters of the words in the title into caps, whatever you write yourself.

It took me a while to find advanced search, and when I did I searched for "Parker 100". This was the result:

One or all of your search keywords were below 4 characters or you searched for words which are not allowed, such as 'html', 'img', etc, please go back and increase the length of these search keywords or choose different keywords.

I'd like to get back the second iteration of ``Mark all forums as read and return to index'' at the bottom of one's search results.

William

I am seeing the same thing at work. Running Netscape 8.1.3 (firefox engine) on and XP Pro system. The toolbar resizing behavior is erratic. At some browser widths, you can see everything, on others nothing of the right side, and yet on others, some things on the right side.

-Bruce

I IE6 everything is fine and dandy,
HOWEVER, on Firefox 2.0.0.3, I find the board overlaps by resolution setting (1280x1024)
Mildly annoying, but that is about all.... is there a fix for this problem...
I do find it a bit annoying to have to scan back and forth to see the whole page...
On my monitor it cuts that page just after Members on the top bar...

I don't care for this at all either.

All the pages seem to take twice as long to load now.

The search engine lists only about 3 results at a time
and show little boxes that must be individually scrolled
to read whats on each one. Happens in IE6 or FF 1.07

IMO, the old board was much better.

We will work that out, but it is very time consuming, so please bare with us while we get the essentials done first. I hope you don't mind too much...

Warm regards, Wim

Compared to some things that get me annoyed around here, this is nothing...

I'll add a new pinned (and closed) topic with all the changes made, so you can all follow the progress. I'll add some of the benefits of the new version of the software in that topic too, time permitting of course.

Warm regards, Wim

I'm pretty PC-savvy and aside from a smattering of cosmetic and functional issues already mentioned, I've got no complaints bar one, and it's a big one.

I run IE 7 normally, and the new board is stunningly slow. It's terrible. It's as if I am accessing the site via a 28.8K dial-up connection. If I right-click to load a thread in a New IE Tab, I wait about 5-8 minutes for the single thread to load - even if it may only consist of 6 posts with NO images! On a bad day, an image-heavy thread would load in 1.5 - 2 mins using the old board. I have a DSL connection and it's not the issue.

I read from the New Posts function only, then I right-click to spawn topics which interest me into other windows and tabs. Is this the issue? Am I making too many connections to the server and getting throttled? I used to open 15+ tabs open from the old board regularly without issue.

Is it really just me? I keep reading comments about how fast the board is! This amazes me!

Hi Laura,

This is a little weird. Currently I am accessing the board from a hotel room with a slow WiFi connection, and it isn't really any slower or faster than it normally is. Actually, I also find it is faster than before. What kind of DSL connection do you have? I normally get in in much less time than 1.5-2 mins. in an image heavy thread. Seconds, maybe 15-20 on a bad day...

I am really wondering if it isn't your DSL connection after all. It is either that, or something in the configuration of IE on your machine, I would think. Have you tried it with FireFox, by any chance, to see whether it makes a difference?

I actually logged on earlier, with 300 members logged in simultaneously,and it didn't feel any different either. I was impressed, actually...

Please do try FireFox,and see how that behaves.

Other things to check are firewall settings, and similar things.

And can you maybe check if indeed opening only 1 or 2 windows makes a difference? I normally only open 1 window at most, and very occasionally 2.

Warm regards, Wim

I'm still in IE6 but to me it's running the same speed or even faster. The image loading hasn't been an issue either. I had several images in my Prera review and found the loading speed very good.

I have to say I think it's a config issue with your system, Laura.

when was the last time you cleaned out temp files? Our systems will get slow when the temp files start adding up. I sure don't mind reloading cookies in order to get back to a decent system speed when we've been surfing for several months. most of the temp files we end up accumulating are from sites we'll never go to again anyway. I don't know how IE7 handles these temp files though so that may be completely useless info for you.

...it seems that with the new software I somehow have to keep logging in repeatedly, every time I add a new post or search a forum... Am I doing something wrong?

I like the features of the new software. It's running a bit slower than before, but only a very small bit slower.

Thanks for all the work!

Petra

Yes, I find things are much slower now.

Judybug

I'm having the same problem as Petra, I have to log in just about every time I visit. Not a major thing, but annoying.

Hi Petra, Larry,

When you log in, there is an item on the right hand side, Options. There are 2 options, one of which is "Remember Me". This puts a cookie on your machine and remembers you when you log in next time.

The current setting is that 'the cookie expires after 7 days of not logging in. Of course you have to enable cookies for FPN in order for this to work. By default this should really be switched on, as it it the least critical level of cookie available to the system.

Furthermore, you only get this Options part when logging in the first time from scratch. So if the sytem throws you out and request a new login, you don't have it. In that case you'll have to close the browser window and start it up from scratch. Essentially when coming in from the Guest screen, you have a login option that will display the Options mentioned.

HTH, warm regards, Wim

With regard to the above: Petra's problem may partly be due to rather strict security settings, with regard to logging in from different computers. So those are relaxed slightly now. We hope this may take away some of the problems.

Warm regards, Wim

I just went to my PM Inbox and noticed that this: [block] - appears after each user name in the "sender" column. When I clicked on "block" it took me to the list that used to be called "buddies," I think. I'm confused and need some clarification on the meaning of the word "block." In reference to PMs and e-mail, I think of "block" as meaning someone has been blocked and therefore can't send me a message. But I'm not sure that's what it means here. Has the Buddies list been replaced by a Block list - "block" meaning your "block of friends" perhaps??

Judybug

Where is the icon to zap people with little jolts of electricity? It was so much fun..........

Hi Judybug,

Yes, that is rather confusing.

The old buddy-list has been converted to something that now is called the Block-list. You'll find that all of your buddies are now on the block list with (Message Allowed) at the end of the line. And Block here really means blocking people from sendign you a message, that option was always there, anyway. Just that it allows to you to do both.

I guess the new buddy list is now the My Friends list, but I am not entirely sure, as I haven't played with any of this stuff yet (tto much new stuff ). Maybe someone else can shed some light on this?

HTH, warm regards, Wim

This self-authorized PC-Nanny for the titles annoys me, to be honest. If I type "LE" I get "Le" displayed, and every single word gets a capital first letter, be it my will or not.

It's not a perfect world out there and I don't want to get the false illusion, that it is. If someone shouts, I want to know and I can deal with that, and in other cases the parenting function mutilates the authors intentions. Encoded naivety shall not prevail. I prefer I. Kant's "sapere aude".



Thanks for your efforts, so far.

I found out what my speed issue was, and to my dismay, it is solely related to IE 7. I don't know why IE is handling the site so poorly, but I would love to know! I much prefer the IE interface... I've just used it for so, so long now...

Anyway, I fired up Firefox 2 and IE 7, opened them both to http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...amp;CODE=getnew, and then began spawning topics off into new tabs and refreshing the posts list. My test results are quite amazing:

IE 7
1 Tab - 14 seconds to receive the New Posts list after a refresh.
5 Tabs - 1:26 to receive the New Posts list after a refresh, the other 4 tabs were partially loaded/still loading.
7 Tabs - 2:19 to receive the New Posts list after a refresh, the other 6 tabs were partially loaded/still loading.

FIREFOX
1 Tab - 3 seconds to receive the New Posts list after a refresh.
7 Tabs - 6 seconds to receive the New Posts list after a refresh, AND every single other one of the 6 tabs loaded *within* that 6 seconds!

The mind boggles. What is IE doing - loading them one at a time? Queuing them? It's certainly throttling them somehow!!!

Also, the DOB option in the Profile Settings is not quite right. I want my DOB to remain blank, like it was on the old board - but now I just keep getting an error until I enter some kind of valid date.

Hi,

It's been really slow for me lately I'm using Safari on Mac OS 10.3.9

Dillon

I must say that the search function is a pain to use when it won't allow words that use three letters. When ever I put together a search term including the word "pen" or "nib" or "ink" I get an error saying the words ALL have to be more than three letters. It doesn't matter if I put in something as specific as "Pelikan M400 nib". Since "nib" is only three letters I get an error. It makes the search function un-useable in many cases. Would it be possible to drop the 4 letter requirement for searches?

It is definitely slower than before the upgrade for me as well. It takes me 8-13 seconds to fully load a page. It is slow both at work and at home, both with mozilla 1.7.5 and IE6.

Yes, things have certainly s-l-o-w-e-d down since the upgrade.

I have Cox cable internet.

Judybug

I'm a bit slower than before as well- but not intolerably slow.

To the people who are reporting slow performance......why are you not including your usage of DSL or Cable Broadband?

Using cable broadband both here at work and at home I am super-fast with this forum and with other forums who also
use this format.

Just a note: Some towns here in CT are crowded with DSL users and just like the old dial-up...the more users the
slower the performance, it's still a phone line. People here are jumping back to cable and paying the extra $10+ a
month. Here at work we say, "you can be cheap or you can be fast".

Check your speed here.

I have wireless broadband at work and cable at home. I just did a speed test at dslreport.com and clocked at 3.5MB/s for downloads. My work connection is slower, but it is fast enough. But what you are miising is the fact that people are reporting a slowdown compared to right before the software update. Either everyone's ISP suddenly slowed down or it is related to the update. I will let you take a guess.

My mozilla browser at work shows in the bottom bar what it is doing. When I start loading an FPN page, it flashes rapidly between "connecting" and "waiting." I barely see a glimpse of "tranferring." So it is not a download speed issue. The FPN server is transmitting only tiny bursts of data. Perhaps the new software is taxing the CPU more than the old one and the server is unable to keep up. Or perhaps some settings of the software and/or server need to be tweaked. I don't know, but there is an undeniable slowdown. Sometimes a page is rendered in about 3-4 seconds, other times it takes 7-8 secs, and yet other times over ten seconds. That's is why I suspect an overload.






I think you have that backwards. It is cable that has shared bandwidth and experiences serious slowdown when there are many users. But both can suffer slowdowns at the switches of the ISP.

Hi,

I am using Cox cable internet, but it seems faster now.

Dillon