I have had trouble loading the boards for the previous three days. I’m not very computer literate, so I’ll tell you what I DO know. I use Microsoft Internet Explorer. Win 95 says I was connected at 31200. Other websites loaded fine. The Boards would open part way and then quit, like after 10-15 inutes they were still not complete. I use the same computer, same access number and same browser.
I tried several times each day at different times. Today, everything seems back to normal. Was there a problem on the boards? No one seems to have noticed this but me!!
I’m in rural No. California, if that matters.
A) The board is the slowest thing I’ve seen, even in good times. Old timers say it went down hill last month with a change of software. Not sure about that one.
B) I just reported on another thread that I get the ½-screen effect after my service drops and redials automatically. When that happens this site is DOA and the rest of the web is fine.
I have waited 15 minutes, like you did, then rebooted and the SDMB came up normally. This happened several times, so it can’t have been close-call timing. So you might try rebooting. Can’t waste more time than you are now waiting.
C) Somebody who knows should answer this better, because it sure seems like a bug or two bugs.
Not sure what to tell you, except that things seem to be better now.
Sorry for your inconvenience.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
I’ll raise dragonlady a few days, location (Australia) and add Netscape and IE5 from different locations with differing connections. The main page didn’t load after 10 minutes. This is just to confirm that others noticed.
The big thing is that everything is okay now. A little slowness I can handle. Not being able to read or post is worryingly like withdrawal.
My guess was always: it is either a temporary unknown problem, or they’ll fix it soon. Oh, dear, I seem to have acquired some faith.
picmr
Ditto, ditto, ditto. Only managed to actually get logged on a few times all weekend (wouldn’t you know, rainy Memorial Day weekend, nothing else to do, of course the boards aren’t going to load.)
Like Dragonlady, have Win95 and IE, boards got up to 38% and just–HUNG–there. Other sites seem OK. Been checking Internet Traffic report all weekend, desperately trying to establish some kind of cause and effect (human need for reasons for things). Possible culprit, the 2 Chicago routers, were also red all weekend, but scratch that theory (I think I’ve said this before), because one of them is still red now and the SDMB is back to normal. Just bad mojo in the Windy City? Or somebody spilled Coke in the SDMB server?
I’d love to love to be orderly and tell you the thread, but someone in MPSIMS mentioned something about a Chicago router being a tad bodgy. May well be the culprit. Anyway, everything humming now.
I wasn’t able to get on the boards at all for five days, due to the problem of slow loading/timing out. (I have IE, Windows 95, cable modem, although it doesn’t seem to have mattered what setup the people who couldn’t get in had.) I was jonesing, especially since I’m trying to avoid working on my thesis. 
I even e-mailed TubaDiva because I couldn’t even pull the board up enough to read any messages explaining what was going on. (Thank you, Tuba!)
It seems back to normal today, zipping right along as it used to.
I will have to disagree with that statement. In the last days of UBB (the software used before vBulletin to manage the SDMB), the board would have to be shut down for “maintenance” several times a week. This has never happened with the new software. I have personally rarely experienced slowdowns on the order of several minutes to load a page. (maybe four or five times since vBulletin) When that happens, I leave the board and come back. Sometimes a time lapse of ten minutes makes a difference.
I’ve experienced this as well. I use Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 5 Macintosh Edition.