# Off Topic > The Water Cooler >  >  Forum outage??

## Glenn Kennedy

Was the forum out for about 90 minutes today (just able to log back in).  i was getting a "server busy" error message.

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## MrShorty

It kind of looks that way. I was getting the same message, and I note in the "what's new" link/search that there is about a 40 minute gap where there are no new posts.

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## Glenn Kennedy

Ta!  I'm alternating between a free wifi connection, my personal MiFi and a roaming 'phone network at the moment and any failure could have locked me out...

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## Doc.AElstein

Hi Glenn




> Was the forum out for about 90 minutes today (just able to log back in).  i was getting a "server busy" error message.



Yep, the Forum Software was throwing quite a Paddy the last couple of days.
http://www.excelforum.com/suggestion...ml#post4495724
http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...t=#post4495771
http://www.excelforum.com/suggestion...ml#post4496218
http://www.excelforum.com/the-water-...l-forum-2.html
http://www.excelforum.com/the-water-...this-post.html

A few people mentioned to me that they have been getting the  "server busy" error message

I have had it half the time over the last couple of days, periods of about an hour or more

Alan

 :Mad:

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## XOR LX

Had it myself. Please don't say this is an indicator of bigger issues to come...

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## Doc.AElstein

Hi




> Had it myself. Please don't say this is an indicator of bigger issues to come...



_... well, as Email indications were also not working for a while, it could be an indication that someone is experimenting with the Forum Software
_ Shame the management never lets us know
_ Strange policy
_ Or they just cannot communicate in English ?
Alan

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## FDibbins

I am not able to get on much now, since where I work has blocked this site after our last attack, so I go to other forums - Richard B asked me teh same question there

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## Glenn Kennedy

Who does "own" the forum?  What advantage is there for them in owning it?

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## XOR LX

> I am not able to get on much now, since where I work has blocked this site after our last attack, so I go to other forums - Richard B asked me teh same question there



Yes, it's a real shame, as once upon a time I used to frequent this forum almost exclusively. Due to the spate of technical issues (that never seem to completely go away), over time I've found myself using this forum less and less.

Why oh why can it not just run smoothly?

Regards

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## Doc.AElstein

It does seem a totally wiered situation when someone like Ford  cannot get access and also cannot seem to get any response from the management
Other very valuable members have been shut out for long periods, their appeals for help having gone unanswered.
Just before the current problems, I asked EF Management to let me know in which  language they preferred us to communicate.
 I tried Hindi and Urdu, - that was my best guess.
No response.
I too am puzzled about the motivation for owning such a site..
Maybe no one owns the Site. 
Maybe the site has just been abondoned, forgot about, given up with by whoever or whatever owns it, or once bought it and forgot about it
They just forgot to switch it off
Maybe one day someone will pull the plug, - just like that.
Somewhere in a small building joined on to a large Motor company is a room that was used by a small Development team looking at novel ways to get more revenue, and or looking for alternative Advertisment platforms. Some Engineer long since gone bought Excel Forum. The Server or whatever is still plugged in. The room is abandoned.

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## JapanDave

> Who does "own" the forum?  What advantage is there for them in owning it?



I offered to take it off their hands a long time ago, but they did nothing. And I am being dead serious, I would buy this forum if they would sell it.

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## Pepe Le Mokko

> Who does "own" the forum?  What advantage is there for them in owning it?



Perhaps contact Simon Lloyd at this place.

I'm sure he can tell tell much more about this.

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## Glenn Kennedy

Pepe, ZoneAlarm throws a fit (HEUR:Trojan.Script.Generic) when I try to follow that link...

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## JBeaucaire

Apologies to all.  The owners informed me that yesterday at the time when we were experiencing outage/timeouts, they were running queries/updates(?) on the SQL database, effectively locking us all out.   So it was not a system error nor a harbinger of bad things to come, it was just unannounced server-intensive activity by the owner.  The "unannounced" part was obviously unfortunate.  

Sorry for the inconvenience all.

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## Glenn Kennedy

OK.  Thanks for the info...

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## Doc.AElstein

Thanks for helping clear things up, Jerry

_..________________

A very informative thread – looks to be clearing up some things like who... why...   the “management are”

So this is the Approximate story as far as I can glean: ( exact details may be a bit off...)

A few years back ExcelForum was bought by a small software company residing prpbably in a room in an office block in India
May be they have bought lots of web site, maybe even a few thousand, probably ranging from everything from Excel to Tips on Crochet
May be they thought they could get a bit of revenue from ads based on the views/ reputations on ExcelForum back then. Or they thought they could get a few Rupees from the Commercial Forum which I think they introduced. 
They keep their overheads low, and just let the things run themselves, hoping that in total they get  a bit of revenue. 
Maybe as things went ExcelForum did not seem a great investment in terms of returns, so they have it quite well down on their priority. Recently they tried another thing with that weird pop-up to get us to allow then to  give us notifications of god knows what – just some attempt at a sales promotions or something. 
I expect they post questions themselves incognito from their customers

So that explains a lot pf their seeming absence. – Once in a while some employee takes a look and maybe tries out a few things, experiments with his computer skills, changes ( or breaks ) a few things. Or they do something to their Server, and only bother to notify some of their sites, those of greater importance to them then Excel Forum.

In an extreme case of a virus attack like we had early in the year they might occasionally eventually do anything, but the Forum remains low priority for them

I guess in an Ideal world some enthusiastic members could get together to buy the forum. But it is a bit much to ask people giving so much already freely, to then be expected to pay for the privilege – and I guess the Management would not let it go too easy, - their original motives having been to get revenue out of it 

Given that situation it is hardly surprising that posts in Suggestions For Improvement Sub Forum never reach them. Occasionally a moderator may get through to them, but they have enough to do, when they can access the site!!

IMO it is still good to participle and make the suggestions and report problems. ( But maybe if you really want to make contact then send an Email ( in Hindi if you can ) (* EDIT: form Alan Sidman, Post #17* – contact here http://www.digitalwebsolutions.in/contact-us/   )

_..___
 Shame some Members have chosen or been forced to leave in these times. But there remains a hard core of Regulars continually giving great help, Some do not often post in Threads like this. They just carry on despite things like access problems.
 That would appear likely to continue. So it is still, thanks to them, a very helpful Forum. Those people are the Forum. Without them the Forum is nothing.
 :Smilie:   :Smilie: 
Onward and hope for better things  :Smilie:   :Smilie:  ( Maybe some of our Indian management friends will take a sudden interest in Excel , then once a Day they will have a quick look at the first few Threads in the Off Topic Sub Forums )

Alan

P.s. Shame Simon Lloyd is not posting here. Sounds like he could give a more accurate Summary of the situation as regards the Management.

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## alansidman

> Who does "own" the forum? What advantage is there for them in owning it?



Glenn--take a look at this: http://www.whois.com/whois/excelforum.com

and look here to see the owners/team  http://www.digitalwebsolutions.in/about-us/

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## JBeaucaire

Yep, that's exactly who owns the forum.

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## Glenn Kennedy

Weird.  I always imagined it would be some anorak-wearing 15-year old geek working out of his bedroom....

Shows you what I know...  It makes it all the more surprising that the Forum is so "flakey".

With apologies to any/all anorak-wearing 15-year old geeks who read this....

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## Glenn Kennedy

> Just before the current problems, I asked EF Management to let me know in which  language they preferred us to communicate.
>  I tried Hindi and Urdu, - that was my best guess.



Given their location & profile: Hindi and English will be universally understood.  It's my experience that English is very widely understood, even in back street market stalls selling IT stuff, all over India.  I've had to buy bits and bobs in various "pop-up" shops there and have never had any problem getting what I needed.  It's a great country.  If you ever get a chance to go: SEIZE IT!!  I will never forget (amongst many others) a stay in Varanasi (Benares) in the north.

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## Pepe Le Mokko

> Pepe, ZoneAlarm throws a fit (HEUR:Trojan.Script.Generic) when I try to follow that link...



It's OK for me ( BTA I'm on Linux, remember ?   :Wink:  

Try searching for The Code Cage

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## Glenn Kennedy

Pepe, are you "back with us" again, or just checking in...?

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## TMS

If it was 



> anorak-wearing 15-year old geek working out of his bedroom



I suspect it would not be flaky at all.

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## Glenn Kennedy

TMS: indeed...

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## Pepe Le Mokko

> Pepe, are you "back with us" again, or just checking in...?



The second

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## Glenn Kennedy

Old sucky is back and up to his old tricks again today.  Prohibityng HTML code when there isn't any.  I tried the space before and after an < but it made no difference...

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## jeffreybrown

> Perhaps contact Simon Lloyd



I thought he was selling off code cage?

I get the same alert as Glenn

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## Pepe Le Mokko

Works OK for me http://www.thecodecage.com/

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## Doc.AElstein

Hi Glenn




> Old sucky is back and up to his old tricks again today.  Prohibityng HTML code when there isn't any.  I tried the space before and after an < but it made no difference...



Did you try removing the code or formula bit by bit until the problem does not occur so as to identify the culprit?
 That is how I found the

 Replace(Replace 

problem
http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...41#post4412541

In addition I just mucked about here 
http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...39#post4500239
and got another offending character combination, 

exec("cm

Alan
P.s. If you have a file with the code giving you problems I could have a look to see if I can see the offending characters.

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## Doc.AElstein

@ Jeffrey Brown, Glenn, Pepe Le Mokko
Re CodeCage_...




> Pepe, ZoneAlarm throws a fit (HEUR:Trojan.Script.Generic) when I try to follow that link...







> ...I get the same alert as Glenn



A month or two ago, they had to delete all post from over a few days to repair damage done by someone hacking their site
I have always been able to access normally, ( but I do not have a very good Firewall or virus protection thing )
Alan

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## jeffreybrown

My Kaspersky rejects the site as a virus

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## alansidman

Running Norton and it opens ok for me.  

BTW:  For those of you in the US:  If you have a Comcast account, you can download Symantec Norton Anti-Virus for free from the Comcast Site.

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## Doc.AElstein

I was there briefly  Today and had no problem with two computers, ( Vista 32Bit 4GB RAM Computer and  Windows 7 64Bit 4GB RAM Computer )but as I said before I have old computers with poor virus protection. OH Dear. .. Maybe time to let my Microsoft Security Essentials run in case I caught anything there !!

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## Simon Lloyd

Just to allay any fears!
http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/ww-en/w...ecodecage.com/
https://safeweb.norton.com/report/sh...hecodecage.com
Check here https://global.sitesafety.trendmicro.com/
https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/www.thecodecage.com

I could go on, some of you may be getting cached results or false positives due to some custom php scripts for functionality - i've not had any time in the last couple of years to do much with the site as i work two jobs that has me busy 7 days a week - sorry  :Frown:

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## teylyn

> Hi
> 
> _... well, as Email indications were also not working for a while, it could be an indication that someone is experimenting with the Forum Software
> _ Shame the management never lets us know
> _ Strange policy
> _ Or they just cannot communicate in English ?
> Alan



Deja vu and nothing changed since before 2008.

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## Doc.AElstein

Hi Teylyn




> Deja vu and nothing changed since before 2008.



That is new infomation to me ?
Most People have told me that the problems have mainly been in the past couple of years ?
Alan

P.s. I had a feeling that Feedback from OPs was particularly bad recently - possibly the long loading times, timeouts , problem with Email Notifications, etc  put a few off..   or is it just a bit of a growing Trend with the newer OPs ?

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## Doc.AElstein

> Just to allay any fears!
> http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/ww-en/w...ecodecage.com/
> https://safeweb.norton.com/report/sh...hecodecage.com
> Check here https://global.sitesafety.trendmicro.com/
> https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/www.thecodecage.com
> 
> I could go on, some of you may be getting cached results or false positives due to some custom php scripts for functionality - i've not had any time in the last couple of years to do much with the site as i work two jobs that has me busy 7 days a week - sorry



Hi Simon,
  Thanks for popping by
 Just now the Code Cage is not available
Probably just temporary – Excel Forum is frequently inaccessible

CodeCageNoServer.JPG
http://imgur.com/wy17uvQ


Alan

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## Simon Lloyd

> Hi Simon,
>   Thanks for popping by
>  Just now the Code Cage is not available
> Probably just temporary – Excel Forum is frequently inaccessible
> 
> CodeCageNoServer.JPG
> http://imgur.com/wy17uvQ
> 
> 
> Alan



The code cage has once again been the victim of a few malicious individuals, they've been constantly reporting that the site is a phishing attack and as such Enom removed the DNS gateway, they have reviewed the site as have Netcraft and have found it to be false reporting, they have opened the DNS gateway again but will take 48hrs to populate properly, Netcraft have informed all third parties and issued emails to all those that reported it stating they have given a false positive.

So all in all should be constantly accessible by this time tomorrow  :Smilie:

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