Unable to access LBPC site sporadically

Greetings all. I've already talked to CC about this, and we agreed it might be wise to make a thread about this issue in case other people are having similar problems. I put a TLDR at the bottom for less attentive people. :P

Every now and then for some unknown reason I am unable to access the LBPC website. It's not that the webpage partly loads then stops, or that I can't log in, or that the internet is down or my PC is having problems, as far as I can tell.

The site fails to load completely. I use IE version 7.0.6 (I believe the current one) and all other websites and internet related activity still works... except for LBPC. :( I recieve an error message saying the page fails to load at all, yet all other pages I go to work fine. :confused:

This includes trying other links within the site. It's like the whole page ceases to exist for a while. It's happened more than once over the space of a few hours, but it seems when it's working it stays working.

I live in Sydney, Australia, and have Optusnet as my service provided (ISP).

It does not happen all the time though, but just randomly, but seems to be becoming more common. I haven't tried access the site at the time it's not working through, say, the PS3 browser.

TLDR: LBPC page won't load.
Every other web page does.
Happens randomly.
Lives in Sydney, Australia. ISP is Optusnet.

Anyone else having such problems?

Nothing like this has ever happened to me. Let's hope it's a unique problem.

I'm hoping so as well. It does not happen all the time, but it's annoying when it does. I thought I might start this topic in case others have a similar issue so we can better work out what's going on. :(

Never had this happen before.
*phew*

Elbee if I'm not mistaken Optus is currently trialling the Governments new Content Filtering System, there have been many reports of issues like yours with the ISP's participating in the trial.

My suggestion to you is to churn away from Optus as fast as you can and choose someone like Internode or Iinet who consistently rate 1 & 2 in the Broadband Satisfaction Survey. More info on the Governments Filtering trial and it's associated issues can be found at http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ in the Broadband forum, there is also an Optus specific forum on this site whith thousands of Optus users who will be able to help you with the issue.

Cheers Al

Well it seems "Al's" (?) thing may be the cause - content filtering seems like it may be doing it. Do you get a 403 error when this happens?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dawesbr

Well it seems "Al's" (?) thing may be the cause - content filtering seems like it may be doing it. Do you get a 403 error when this happens?

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The next time it occurs I'll have to make a note of what specific error is occurring, if any. I could not sign in with the PS3 for a few hours while everything else was working fine. As the problem stopped I can't get the DNS number it was showing (if I have the letters right).

It's not like LBPC is an offensive site, or the PSN in general is an offensive place. :confused:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elbee23

The next time it occurs I'll have to make a note of what specific error is occurring, if any. I could not sign in with the PS3 for a few hours while everything else was working fine. As the problem stopped I can't get the DNS number it was showing (if I have the letters right).

It's not like LBPC is an offensive site, or the PSN in general is an offensive place. :confused:

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Maybe it's when someone posts something offensive, you can't access the site until we moderate it. For example, that indecent the other day in the Artwork and Creativity forum. Were you able to view the site then?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Killian

Maybe it's when someone posts something offensive, you can't access the site until we moderate it. For example, that indecent the other day in the Artwork and Creativity forum. Were you able to view the site then?

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Unfortunately I was able to see that. :( I was the first moderator to remove the post.

It's just very strange. Some sites I go to have no problems at all, like a board game site, a survey site, a few gaming wikis, search engines and hotmail. LBPC stands out as one of the few sites that sometimes jams, so it might (or might not) have something to do with the filter they are trialling. It's odd though that a G (the equivalent of E) rated game on a G rated site would be blocked completely every so often. :confused:

I wonder if there are any other Australian Optusnet users on this site who are having similar issues...

The issue isn't that the Government content filter Optus is testing sees something on this site or has this site listed in it's banned list, the issue is with the filter itself being buggy and working intermittently at best and at worse blocking sites randomly, there was a local Dentists site which was being banned under the content filtering trial, the technology being tested is far from perfect and there are thousands of cases of perfectly legitimate sites being filtered during the trial.

Hence the out cry in Australia that this will not work and that it is a parents responsibility to look after their children when they use the net and that censoship never works and the government is wasting it's time and our money in testing this technology.

In saying all that, my recommendation would be to visit the Whirlpool website at the link provided in my first post and go to the Optus forum on that site and ask the question there if anyone else is having issues accessing the same sites you are, Whirlpool is a vast resource of technically minded users who are usually chomping at the bit to use their knowledge to help fellow users on the same ISP as them solve issues, just be careful of the trolls and provide as much technical information as you can to them.

Cheers QuozL

I think I may have this problem, or something similar. Sometimes on this site when I just go to another page, during loading it have an error message and it says that the operation is aborted. I can easily solve this problem though by just refreshing the page, but it still gets annoying.

From what I've read, this just sounds like general internet issues unrelated to the site - otherwise, it would be more widespread than just a handful of people.

I have had the odd problem with pages not loading, but 99% of the time it works when I refresh it.

I live in NZ and we have xtra broadband

Well, the issue I have is not fixed by a simple refresh. It's like the page no longer exists according to my browser, which does suggest it could be from something like an internet filter.

Still though, it hasn't happened in the last few days. It usually happens at least once a week though, but if it happens again and I can get on the site afterwards I'll keep you all informed. When the site does not work, it's usually only for one day at a time and is fine the next day.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elbee23

Well, the issue I have is not fixed by a simple refresh. It's like the page no longer exists according to my browser, which does suggest it could be from something like an internet filter.

Still though, it hasn't happened in the last few days. It usually happens at least once a week though, but if it happens again and I can get on the site afterwards I'll keep you all informed. When the site does not work, it's usually only for one day at a time and is fine the next day.

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Have you tried the good old proxy sites you used at school? (or is it just me? :p)

Does it work if you use: www.g.ho.st

It's a virtual computer. You can use the browser in that to view blocked sites I believe, and the virtual computer itself is pretty awesome.

I'm a bit old. It's been years since I have used an education centres (schools) computer to access the internet, and I'm not quite sure what a proxy site is.

Well, I haven't really had any problems with this or any other website since I wrote about these problems. I'm hoping it was just a random temporary glitch that has just as mysteriously gone away as it disappeared. Sometimes web sites won't load briefly, but will fix themselves up with a refresh.

I just haven't had the "No, I won't load that site no matter how many times you ask" bug for a while. :eek: