ASF Site Performance

Bintang · 18 February 2015

Julia said:
+1. So, Joe, what would you suggest we do if this happens again?

Julia, if you haven't already done so you should do a full-scan of your PC using your anti-virus software.

I exposed a Macintosh and a Windows PC to this incident last night.
I use ESET security on both computers.
A full scan of the Macintosh turned up nothing but a scan of the Windows PC reported a single 'infiltration' and a single file (connected with the Chrome browser) that required cleaning.

Joe Blow · 18 February 2015

Julia said:
+1. So, Joe, what would you suggest we do if this happens again? Having clicked on the option 'trust this site' and gone ahead, I'm feeling somewhat vulnerable. Just because nothing particularly untoward has happened in the immediate day after is no indication that there isn't something lying in wait for the future. The idea of passwords etc being accessed is very worrying.

If antivirus software on the part of us as individuals is deemed to be sufficient protection (and I hope it is), shouldn't the ASF antivirus etc protections have prevented the whole unfortunate event?

I am not laying blame anywhere. Just wanting to know what the situation actually is and what one should do if it happens again.

Julia, if this happened again, which of course I hope it doesn't, I would suggest that as a precaution people should probably avoid the website until any Malware is removed. Most of this low level hacking is nuisance stuff, like vandalism and in the vast majority of cases it's the work of teenagers rather than criminals.

I must admit to being a little embarrassed. There's only been a small handful of incidents in almost eleven years and I guess I had taken my eye off the ball a little. This one took me by surprise. ASF had never been sidelined by Google like that before.

I would advise everyone to keep a good virus/malware protector installed and active at all times. Even the free ones are usually OK. This is more than enough to protect you from most of the stuff that you're likely to run into of the web. As a precaution, always run a scan on your system after any incident such as this.

Apologies to all for the inconvenience and I will do my best to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

burglar · 19 February 2015

Joe Blow said:
... Apologies to all for the inconvenience ...

Hey Joe,
The tipping comp did not update yesterday.

Joe Blow · 19 February 2015

burglar said:
Hey Joe,
The tipping comp did not update yesterday.

Hi Burglar, the competition has now been updated.

Joe Blow · 19 February 2015

Just a little more on the hacking incident. The actual malicious code was disabled very quickly but Google continued to display the warnings until they had conducted a website review. Unfortunately, this took about 12 hours. I understand that this is their process but after the code was disabled the risk to anyone visiting ASF was nil. The amount of time the warnings were displayed made the whole incident seem worse than it actually was.

Julia · 19 February 2015

Joe Blow said:
Julia, if this happened again, which of course I hope it doesn't, I would suggest that as a precaution people should probably avoid the website until any Malware is removed.

OK.
Bintang, thanks: scan reports that one threat was averted.

Ann · 22 February 2015

Hi Joe, I am having enormous difficulty today, it is like the old dial up days, maybe even worse. Once I log out and reboot all my other sites are fine. Before I reboot it clogs up all my sites. Here is dreadful once I manage to actually get back into the site. Love the place too much to give up though!

Cheers Ann

Joe Blow · 22 February 2015

Ann said:
Hi Joe, I am having enormous difficulty today, it is like the old dial up days, maybe even worse. Once I log out and reboot all my other sites are fine. Before I reboot it clogs up all my sites. Here is dreadful once I manage to actually get back into the site. Love the place too much to give up though!

Cheers Ann

Hi Ann, thank you for your feedback and kind words.

I'm sorry to hear of your issues with ASF today. All I can suggest for now is to clear your browser cache and delete your temporary internet files and then restart your PC and see if that helps. Sometimes unplugging the modem and then plugging it back in is worth trying also.

We migrated from one server to another earlier this month and all of the feedback regarding website performance since the move has been universally positive, so it's disappointing to hear of your issues with ASF today. I thought that I had finally gotten on top of all issues relating to website performance.

If you could visit again in the next few days and let me know if you are still experiencing the same issues, I would be very appreciative. That will at least let me know if it is a temporary problem or not.

Thanks!

Ann · 24 February 2015

Joe Blow said:
If you could visit again in the next few days and let me know if you are still experiencing the same issues, I would be very appreciative. That will at least let me know if it is a temporary problem or not.

All seems OK Joe, I was here a couple of times on Monday and tonight, both days normal speed. It may have been problems my end, maybe with iinet. I will check it out next Sunday just in case.

Joe Blow · 25 February 2015

Ann said:
All seems OK Joe, I was here a couple of times on Monday and tonight, both days normal speed. It may have been problems my end, maybe with iinet. I will check it out next Sunday just in case.

Thanks for getting back to me Ann. I'm happy to hear that everything is OK now, and I hope it continues.

pixel · 25 February 2015

Ann said:
All seems OK Joe, I was here a couple of times on Monday and tonight, both days normal speed. It may have been problems my end, maybe with iinet. I will check it out next Sunday just in case.

Hi Ann,

Did you by any chance install a new Bob, Bob lite, or ~2 recently?
The reason I ask: I spent a couple of hours last Sunday to reinstall Bob2 at a friend's place, who couldn't even start his PC, let alone make a phone call. Had to reset Bob (with a toothpick ) and start from scratch. Connect his PC with an Ethernet cable into port 1 and then use IE11 on address http://10.1.1.1 to kick off the Wizard.

Humming along now - although my friend is again inundating me with silly joke emails. :1zhelp:

Julia · 25 February 2015

Ann said:
All seems OK Joe, I was here a couple of times on Monday and tonight, both days normal speed. It may have been problems my end, maybe with iinet. I will check it out next Sunday just in case.

I'm with Westnet, part of iinet, and yes they did have problems on that weekend.
It must have been widespread because I eventually gave up trying to get them on the phone after waiting more than an hour for someone to answer. I was unable to get a connection at all during that time.
So probably not to do with ASF, Joe.

Ann · 25 February 2015

pixel said:
Hi Ann,

Did you by any chance install a new Bob, Bob lite, or ~2 recently?
The reason I ask: I spent a couple of hours last Sunday to reinstall Bob2 at a friend's place, who couldn't even start his PC, let alone make a phone call. Had to reset Bob (with a toothpick ) and start from scratch. Connect his PC with an Ethernet cable into port 1 and then use IE11 on address http://10.1.1.1 to kick off the Wizard.

Humming along now - although my friend is again inundating me with silly joke emails. :1zhelp:

No pixel, i did nothing new....it was just my normal day on Bloomberg, Incredible Charts and then ASF.

Julia said:
I'm with Westnet, part of iinet, and yes they did have problems on that weekend.
It must have been widespread because I eventually gave up trying to get them on the phone after waiting more than an hour for someone to answer. I was unable to get a connection at all during that time.
So probably not to do with ASF, Joe.

Well there you go Julia, that's most likely what it was!

I am surprised you had to wait so long, iinet help desk is usually spot on within minutes. Enormously helpful help desk whenever I have needed them. I should chart them to see how they are traveling!

Edit: Oooo it has just dumped...buying op?!

pixel · 26 February 2015

Julia said:
I'm with Westnet, part of iinet, and yes they did have problems on that weekend.
It must have been widespread because I eventually gave up trying to get them on the phone after waiting more than an hour for someone to answer. I was unable to get a connection at all during that time.
So probably not to do with ASF, Joe.

Thanks for the info, Julia;

You may have just burst my bubble: If I just happened to arrive at the right time when their Server had come up again, that would explain why my connection attempts were successful. And my friend thought it was my sheer genius Oh well - I won;t tell them

burglar · 26 February 2015

Joe Blow said:
Hi Burglar, the competition has now been updated.

Sorry to say, Joe!

It has happened again!!

Joe Blow · 26 February 2015

burglar said:
Sorry to say, Joe!

It has happened again!!

Hi burglar, I have done a manual update for the moment and will investigate further to find out why the automatic update is failing on some days.

Julia · 26 February 2015

pixel said:
Thanks for the info, Julia;

You may have just burst my bubble: If I just happened to arrive at the right time when their Server had come up again, that would explain why my connection attempts were successful. And my friend thought it was my sheer genius Oh well - I won;t tell them

Sorry, pixel. I'm sure the timing was irrelevant and your brilliance remains unquestioned.

Bill M · 2 March 2015

Hi Joe, I had a page appear that I have not seen before. I was on the BHP thread, I think I was on page 123. I wanted to jump to page 121 so I clicked that page tab and I had this page appear after 2 attempts:

Joe Blow · 2 March 2015

Hi Bill, ASF is filtered through a CDN (Content Delivery Network) service called CloudFlare, for increased speed and security.

The page you got indicated that ASF's server was down momentarily. If this happens again, just click the "Retry for a live version" link at the top right of the page and ASF will come up as soon as the server is back online. If you get these pages often, please let me know as it could be indicative of a problem.

Julia · 2 March 2015

Bill M said:
Hi Joe, I had a page appear that I have not seen before. I was on the BHP thread, I think I was on page 123. I wanted to jump to page 121 so I clicked that page tab and I had this page appear after 2 attempts:

I've also had it two or three times plus another page which advises of an "encoding error".
Sometimes I can just back arrow and have another go but sometimes have to shut down and start over again.

Then clicking on the icon which takes one to the first new post sometimes doesn't work.

PS just after I posted the above I got the screen mentioned above:

ASF Site Performance

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