Recent server timeout errors — anyone else getting them?

[carnut]

@Topologist

Now there’s a band I’d listen to!

Me too!

[kopek]

@Kent_Clark

2019 will henceforth be known as The Christmas of Our Missed Content.

@GreysonCarlisle

The Silent Night.

The Very Amish Christmas.

Hey – its a real song. By the Electric Amish. Check YouTube)

[Musicat]

@Topologist

Now there’s a band I’d listen to!

That band has some bass player!

[Charlie_Wayne]

I’d really like to know the cause. Sometimes I worry that it may be some kind of virus that has infected my PC.
Other times I find that if I reboot, that will speed things up for a time. But as soon as I get to depending on that to speed things up, it seems to stop working.
The same goes for running Anti-Malware and Spyware. As soon as I get to depending on those to speed things up, they seems to stop working.

Does TSD have a team of technicians they go to when things like this seem to happen? Do they have any opinions?

The most frustrating part is that when I create some software and it fails to work, I can almost always debug it and that is a fairly straightforward process. But I can’t even imagine how I could go about finding the cause of these slowdowns.

[TubaDiva]

Charlie, I’m not sure about much in this world but I’m pretty sure this had nothing to do with what may or may not be happening on your computer.

I don’t know what to tell you about your own machine except that maybe you should take it to someone to have it looked at.

Haven’t been told what happened. It was going on, it wasn’t going on, and now it’s going on again. I’m good with that.

Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

[BigT]

@MrDibble

FYI, I just got a 504, so whatever the “maintenance” was, it didn’t seem to address that issue.

My personal assumption would not be that there was any maintenance going on, especially on Christmas. That looks like a boilerplate message that is displayed whenever the site goes down. My first assumption is that the site went down and everyone was off for the holiday, so there was no one to fix it.

[Bullitt]

@atimnie

I sense that Bullitt is a pessimist, don’t know why…

I’m not a pessimist, I’m a traitorous ingrate.

[Spoons]

@GreysonCarlisle

The Silent Night.

Absolutely perfect. That’s what this event ought to be known as.

[bordelond]

Just saw my first 504 error since Monday. On iPhone 6, unsure what version of Safari.

[ftg]

Another vote for Silent Night. There was no content disappearance as far as I can tell. (Although there are now reports of some post-outage posts disappearing.)

As I said earlier, it is remarkably common that no explanation is offered for such outages.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@bordelond

Just saw my first 504 error since Monday. On iPhone 6, unsure what version of Safari.

Yep. Got a 504 error trying to move from forum to forum and a 502 error calling up a thread.

[Bullitt]

Yep, here too, I just got a couple more of them.

[bordelond]

Not sure if this is well-trod ground or not … but here’s a little layman’s reading about 504 Gateway Timeout errors.

A 504 Gateway Timeout Error happens when a server that was attempting to load a web page did not get a response in time from another server. Almost always, the error is on the website itself, and there’s nothing you can do about it but try again later. Still, there are a few quick things you can try on your end.

…

What Is a 504 Gateway Timeout Error?

A 504 Gateway Timeout Error indicates that a web server attempting to load a page for you did not get a timely response from another server from which it requested information. It’s called a 504 error because that’s the HTTP status code that the web server uses to define that kind of error. The error can occur for a number of reasons, but the two most common reasons are that the server is overwhelmed with requests or is having maintenance performed on it.

…

An important thing to remember is that the 504 error is a server-side error. That means the problem exists with the website you’re trying to access, and not with your computer. That’s both good and bad news. It’s good news because there’s nothing wrong with your computer, and it’s bad news because there’s usually nothing you can do to solve the problem from your end.

Nonetheless, here are few quick things you can try.

Refresh the Page

As we mentioned, a 505 error indicates a temporary problem, and sometimes that problem is very temporary. A site might be getting overwhelmed with traffic, for example. So, refreshing the page is always worth a shot. Most browsers use the F5 key to refresh, and also provide a Refresh button somewhere on the address bar. It doesn’t fix the problem very often, but it takes just a second to try.

Check If the Site Is Down For Other People

Whenever you fail to reach a site (for whatever reason), you can also check if it’s just you that’s having a problem connecting, or if other people are having the same trouble. There are lots of tools out there for this, but our favorites are isitdownrightnow.com and downforeveryoneorjustme.com. Both work pretty much the same. Plug in the URL you want to check, and you’ll get a result like this (image at link - b).

If you get a report saying the site is down for everyone, there’s not much you can do but try again later. If the report shows that the site is up, then the problem might be on your end. It’s very rare this is the case with a 504 error, but it is possible, and you can try some of the things we describe in the next couple of sections.

Restart Your Devices

So, you’ve used a site checking tool and determined that the site is just down for you. And, you’ve tested another browser and are having the same problem. This tells you the problem is likely something on your end, but it’s not your browser.

It is possible that there are some strange, temporary issues with your computer or your networking equipment (Wi-Fi, router, modem, etc.). A simple restart of your computer and your networking devices might help fix the problem.

Another possibility is that the error is caused by a DNS issue but on a DNS server rather than your computer. In that case, you can try switching DNS servers and seeing whether the problem gets resolved.

[kopek]

@Bullitt

Yep, here too, I just got a couple more of them.

I have yet to get one since things came back. I wonder if I’m just hitting it as less busy times?

[ftg]

Yeah, if anything the effect of the downtime was to increase problems, not decrease them. IMO.

[TheCuse]

Seems the same to me. Three times tonight in the last 20 minutes.

[panache45]

And by the way, it’s happening at any and all times, day or night.

[Bullitt]

**502 Server Error

Error: Server Error

The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds.**

(sigh)

[Bullitt]

**504 Gateway Time-out

shield**

(sigh)

[blondebear]

Still getting 502 and 504 errors at least 4-5 times a day here.