Another datapoint regarding SDMB customer dissatisfaction

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1

Well, I’ll be damned; I can actually log in for once. Might as well post this while I still can.

After having the SDMB running for a couple of hours earlier this morning going through the usual loading > database error > loading > database error > thank-you-for-logging-in-but-it-logs-you-right-back-out-again > loading > database error loop while I was surfing other sites in other tabs, I eventually checked my email and found that I’d received a subscription renewal notice from the SDMB.

It’s safe to say that that’s not gonna happen now; if the SDMB can’t be bothered to provide a reliable service to me, I can’t be bothered to provide money to them.

I don’t plan to outright leave the SDMB, but I no longer have any real interest in renewing my subscription, and I use adblock software so I won’t be seeing any advertisements anyway.

On the off chance that the administration tracks customer-sat issues, please consider this my contribution to the dataset.

I would have posted this message earlier, but I was still getting the thank-you-for-logging-in-but-it-logs-you-right-back-out-again issue. Apparently the “privileges of your current membership status” don’t actually include the ability to reliably post messages.

2

We’ve had this intermittent problem for a while.

Intermittent problems that only affect certain users at random times are very difficult to track down and fix.

What we have discovered is that this problem tends to happen to people who use the Foxfire browser – our suspicion is that the browser and/or one of its associated plug-ins causes the fault.

Some people have found when they use another browser this goes away.

Others have found that removing plug-ins makes this problem go away.

I don’t have a better answer for you. I wish I did.

I hope you reconsider and return to the Dope. I’m sorry you’ve had difficulties.

3

Same problem (and, yes, using Firefox). I found that ticking the ‘remember me’ box helped the login stick, as it were.

4

Just one point. Database errors have nothing whatever to do with the browser, they’re server-related. Login problems OTOH are almost definitely a browser issue.

5

Yes, I use IE. I get database errors virtually every morning. I never have the logout problem.

6

I’m sure people have tried it, but perhaps not so I’ll post it anyhow. With Firefox I have repeated problems trying to log in unless I click the “Remember me?” box on the login screen, in which case it always allows me to log in successfully. YMMV.

7

Ta-da!!!

Thank you! It worked!

Now I can comment on the LeMay remark cited in the 1980’s WW III-hypothetical thread!

8

Well, good to know it was a local browser issue and not a server problem :slight_smile:

9

Opera 9 user here who gets the usual errors, especially yesterday (Wed.).

It isn’t the browser.

10

Are getting logged in and back out almost immediately? Because that’s the browser issue.

11

Database errors and timeouts was what I meant.

I never get logged out but my current session expires (the last visited time gets reset and the marks of recent posts changes) quite often. Sometimes within seconds of my last activity.

12

The morning database errors are not intermittent or browser-dependent. Something on your end is broken.

13

Firefox 3.5.2 works fine for me in SDMB (SDMB periodically gives database errors, but that can’t reasonably be blamed on the browser). I guess I have “Remember me” turned on as per some of the other messages; I never (well virtually never) need to log on to SDMB.

All I have in the way of extensions is Adblock Plus 1.1, Canadian English Dictionary 1.1.2, IE View 1.4.3, Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant 1.1 (don’t ask me how I got that - I have no idea) and Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-out (TACO) 1.8.

Maybe SDMB interacts oddly with some other add-ons that other Firefox users have installed?

14

I’ve never had the login problem on other boards that use vB.

And, as noted, the database problems are a separate issue entirely.