Author Topic: Website problems: Please reply! (Read 1570 times)

Indofunk · « **on:** October 15, 2025, 05:25:46 PM »

Hello Filmwasters! The executive team is aware of the recent errors on filmwasters.com and we're working to get everything back to normal! In the meantime, I can't guarantee that any threads you start or reply to will be preserved, but feel free to browse the forum as long as it's up. I'll update this thread when I have more details. Thanks for your patience!

- Satish & Ed

Indofunk · « **Reply #1 on:** October 15, 2025, 07:53:45 PM »

Update: Bluehost diagnosed the problem as a cache problem (which would explain the suspiciously DDoS-like errors we were getting last night). They cleared the server cache and it'll take a while for that to propagate to the internet, so be patient! (Although if you're reading this, then that means that you've been patient up till now 😊)

There's another problem, which may or may not be related, which is a formatting problem. You'll probably notice it in the header where there's a SMF logo that shouldn't be there. Ed & I will have to (carefully!) figure out why this is happening and try to fix it without breaking things again 😁

Thanks as always for your patience 😊

Satish

Indofunk · « **Reply #2 on:** October 17, 2025, 04:21:28 AM »

Yet another update, and a request for feedback: As of yesterday, the forum still wasn't working for Ed (it's been working for me because I forced a load without the server cache, and it's been working for me ever since). I was out all day today, and when I got back, this post had 75 views, which seems to me to indicate that people can see the site again. Could you please reply to this thread and tell me 1. can you interact normally with the site (navigate around, post replies, etc) and 2. do you see the formatting problems that I see (no left margin, and a SMF header that shouldn't be there)? Any additional comments are also welcome 😊

Harvey · « **Reply #3 on:** October 17, 2025, 07:49:44 AM »

Hi Satish,
I can log in fine and navigate with care. I can see compression at the top of the screen where the ‘Home Filmwasters Which Board Main Forum menu links are sat over the date and Main Forum, which affects clicking the right link. The Search icon and box is also over the menu selection. The SMF logo is visible. The Filmwasters name is there but tiny. No left margin on home page.
I see the Topic Summary posts here have newest at the top which is different to the other posts but may be deliberate?
Hope this helps.
Shaun

Harvey · « **Reply #4 on:** October 17, 2025, 07:51:00 AM »

Okay. That’s weird. The posts here are now in oldest to newest order.

Indofunk · « **Reply #5 on:** October 17, 2025, 04:15:32 PM »

Thanks Harvey, that's helpful, and you're seeing slightly different problems than I am, possibly because of browser and/or OS (I'm on Chrome/Windows). Still seems to point to theme formatting problems, which maybe solved by simply ("simply" ... HAHAHA) reloading the theme. I think Ed is going to schedule that at some point. Ed, please warn us before you do that so we know that things might either be fixed or get broken even more 😁

Everyone else, please feel free to sound off here! Thanks for being the most chill website/user base that I've ever webmastered 🤣

Bryan · « **Reply #6 on:** October 18, 2025, 05:15:40 AM »

I checked this morning and still couldn't bet on. Finally got on this evening. I do see the simple machines forum logo on top.

irv_b · « **Reply #7 on:** October 19, 2025, 09:40:30 AM »

Hi Satish
Like most people I can see the post and read them but I tried to start the weekend thread and It wouldn't let me post, with pictures.
Cheers Irv

Pete_R · « **Reply #8 on:** October 19, 2025, 09:58:44 AM »

Had problems seeing the forum yesterday but OK today.

All attachments seem to have gone missing. E.g. my attachment to this post https://filmwasters.com/forum/index.php?topic=10814.msg143217#msg143217 but all others I checked are missing too.

Francois · « **Reply #9 on:** October 19, 2025, 02:16:11 PM »

Apart from the Simplemachines logo, things seem OK on my end of things

Pete_R · « **Reply #10 on:** October 19, 2025, 02:55:54 PM »

Just went off again. Now back.

Mike (happyforest) · « **Reply #11 on:** October 19, 2025, 06:32:14 PM »

Seems to be behaving itself at the moment apart from SMF logo.

Thanks for whatever magic you are working on it and hope it can only get better from here.

Regards

Mike

Pete_R · « **Reply #12 on:** October 19, 2025, 09:04:39 PM »

Been off again for the last few hours but has just come back. Very intermittant.

Update: Went off again for the rest of the day yesterday but back today. Doesn't seem to be regional. Tried a VPN in the US and got the same.

Indofunk · « **Reply #13 on:** October 20, 2025, 10:00:45 PM »

UPDATE: As you've noticed, it seems to be intermittent 😕 The worst kind of problem to diagnose, because it's not reproducible. Ed & I will try to follow up with our webhost as we have time. Thanks for your patience, I'm hoping we can get to the bottom of this soon!

Francois · « **Reply #14 on:** October 21, 2025, 03:03:02 PM »

I don't know if it could be related, but yesterday AWS had a major outage on their east coast servers that had worldwide repercussions.
At one point, I couldn't even log into my Bell account and didn't even have telephone service...
It might be somehow related.

Indofunk · « **Reply #15 on:** October 22, 2025, 05:21:39 PM »

Quote from: Francois on October 21, 2025, 03:03:02 PM

I don't know if it could be related, but yesterday AWS had a major outage on their east coast servers that had worldwide repercussions.
At one point, I couldn't even log into my Bell account and didn't even have telephone service...
It might be somehow related.

The same thought occurred to me, but our problems started happening well before the AWS issues. I don't believe they're related, although the AWS problem may have compounded our preexisting problem.

Francois · « **Reply #16 on:** October 23, 2025, 01:34:48 PM »

That's pretty much what I was thinking.
My neighbor works for the emission of certificates and he told me that they are still picking up the pieces from this. Last night he worked well past 11pm and he's probably still at it this morning.

Pete_R · « **Reply #17 on:** October 23, 2025, 02:24:02 PM »

Off again this morning. I'm assuming what I'm seeing is the same for everyone. Tried to attach a screenshot but attachments aren't working.

When I tried to add an attachment I got "Canot access attachments upload path!".

Edit: Uploaded the screenshots somewhere else so I can include here

Indofunk · « **Reply #18 on:** October 23, 2025, 03:40:49 PM »

Thanks for pointing out the attachment problem! [Great, yet another problem to deal with 😂] I'm using this post to test attachments myself...

Yup, same error 😢 I'm thinking the theme is broken (among other things 🙄) ... probably worth it for Ed to reload the theme when he gets a chance.

Flippy · « **Reply #19 on:** October 26, 2025, 04:03:46 AM »

I'm still having the error where the forum won't let me log in unless I visit the forum through a post, instead of from the main site. Not sure why that's happening.

Indofunk · « **Reply #20 on:** October 27, 2025, 09:14:01 PM »

Continued apologies for not getting to the bottom of this. I have to get in touch with our webhost again, but in the meantime they gave me a possible workaround (I say "possible" because although it worked for me at first, it then stopped working 😕). Try using this URL, noting the "nocache=1" part:

https://filmwasters.com/forum/index.php?nocache=1&board=1.0

Francois · « **Reply #21 on:** October 30, 2025, 12:34:49 PM »

Yet for me it just works fine right now.
It's either the Too Many Requests or just fine...

Mike (happyforest) · « **Reply #22 on:** October 30, 2025, 07:18:39 PM »

Still seems to be issues. Yesterday got the too many request response. Today, the post banners are merging with the home, login sections.

Regards

Mike

This was with IPadOS 17.7.10 & Safari and still the case.

Just (Nov 1st) checked with Windows 11 & Firefox 144.0.2 and Debian Bookworm (12) 6.1.0-40-amd64 & Firefox 140.4.0esr(64-bit) and working fine.

Francois · « **Reply #23 on:** November 01, 2025, 01:12:20 PM »

Can you all please post the browser you're using and mention if you have extensions like an ad blocker enabled?
I'm starting to suspect that there might be a browser issue involved in there. This is all too weird.

Also, I wonder if BlueHost uses the Microsoft Azur servers? I have a neighbor who works in IT and they all went down after a botched attempt to take down the TOR network by a government entity.

Indofunk · « **Reply #24 on:** November 01, 2025, 11:20:22 PM »

It's happening to me on Chrome and Firefox.

Indofunk · « **Reply #25 on:** November 01, 2025, 11:21:03 PM »

Also, I really hope to have time early next week to dig back into this (meaning, ride Bluehost's ass until they fix it 😁)

News:

Author Topic: Website problems: Please reply! (Read 1570 times)