There are quite a few broken things for me, some consistently and others intermittently. Too many to bother reporting really. But it's all tolerable, and I stay for the content and the community.
Yes they have some horrible cobbled together system which makes everything difficult from what I read.
Very erratic for me, on either Android phone, laptop with Google or non magic Ipad.
Site has a mind of of its own. Logs out, doesn’t log out, cookie preference shite.
It’s the barmiest site I go on.
Rock solid here beyond the transient issues with caching last week.
Windows 10 desktop PC, up-to-date Chrome browser. I don't log out of the site, don't shut down the computer, don't have any add-ons installed which might interfere with cookies. I do run an ad blocker, but I have a full membership so that shouldn't matter.
I have never seen the logout issues or the cookie consent pop-up issues often reported aside from when the site has been actually broken (I've actively tried to reproduce them, even) and I've been here over a decade. So what's different in our client loadouts?
The answer is YMMV
safari user here, pretty tech savvy, and its only recently (as in weeks) that the 'keep me signed in' check box has actually been selectable when using a mobile device.
.....and now I logged out to double check, and got the same error message as bearnecessities for a few attempts.
Seems stable enough here on the landline/firefox.
Did have one 502 but sorted itself on an F5 and apart from taking a bit of time things(touch wood) seem to be ok if youre wired in, so from the answers maybe its down to phone signals.
I was getting cookie preference on every single page yesterday evening for quite a while, and then it suddenly stopped. Only had to log in twice though. No more problems since.
I've tried Opera on android phone since earlier post and not had any issues.
Just tried again, same device but chrome - cookies question and failure to log in multiple time 🙄
So what’s different in our client loadouts?
It shouldn't matter, I know that you're an IT guru and can give me a gazillion tech reasons (in hexadecimal code 🙂 ) why it does matter, but the site should work for everyone with a functioning device
I'm getting FOMO as it's fine on Mac, PC, iPhone for me on various browsers. Can someone do a youtube of how bad it is, perhaps with some shouting so i can empathise?
FWIW, no problems apart from a brief 502 error.
Pixel 6a/Android 13/Brave browser (with whatever default settings Brave uses)
I don't login from multiple devices.
And I'm a freeloader as well...
Fine with Edge on PC and android phone. Constant re-logins with another android phone and Chrome.
I had issues and then paid for a digital membership. All the issues disappeared. Perhaps, as Hannah said, the ad delivery system is the root cause and you should pay the equivalent of a pint a month to access the forum and all the other content?
Chrome on Android, works fine here. Only thing I can relate to, if I tidy my phone and log out of this site, when I log back in, if I use my stored details, I can't then tick Remember Me and will have to log in next time - as long as I remember to login manually and tick the box, all is good. 🙂
I pay for membership and it still happens though. This is what the issue is.
Samsung S21Fe
Android 13
No add blockers or other stuff.
Viewing through chrome.
Have cleared cookies on multiple occasions yet still asks me to login. I login and read the bike forum, if I swap over to chat forum (or vice versa) I then have to login again.
When I go to login you go to click the stay logged in and the screen suddenly changes logging you in or an error message showing the login page again.
It's been like this for a fair few weeks, I kind of thought someone somewhere would iron it out as these things usually do but it's still going on and beginning to make using the site very frustrating and frankly unusable.
Hopefully the info above will assist in resolving the problem.
@brokenbanjo - unfortunately not that simple. I'm long time digital subscriber and had move browser used to be able to log on/ find the site remotely usable.
Definitely not as slick as it used to be using only a Google phone but what I notice is there must be so many over the past two or three years have fled, can't believe they will just be lurking waiting to pounce when the right thread turns up
When I tried to login this morning (Windows 11 & Chrome 108.0.5359.99 - what a version number!) I got the same error as @BearNecessities but a hard refresh of the page got past the issue. I got the same on my Android 13 phone using Brave browser and a second attempt got past the issue.
It’s constant the need to log in that gets me. Because going to do so loses the page you’re trying to view.
“Member content” - go log in.
Now I can’t find the bloody page and the search isn’t that useful to say the least.
If I go to the site from within gmail app on the iPhone following a newsletter link, say, I’ll get to the “member content” roadblock and gave to log in. Now where’s the page I was viewing? As I am viewing through gmail - an email client app there’s no multi page browser setup which means to try retrace my steps I’m closing the site - back to the email then. Lick the link again.
Oh. Now it’s logged me out.
AND it’s SO slow. Compose comment. Click submit. Often takes a couple of minutes. 30 Mbps on EE 4G here so that’s not it.
I’ve never come across another members site where logging in doesn’t take you back to where you were when you clicked the log in button.
I do hope the techies can make it work better.
As maccruiskeen posted earlier.
Before logging in, check the keep logged in box.
Its fixed the logging in issue so a little bit happier
For me “checking the keep logged in box.” didn’t help.
It shouldn’t matter, I know that you’re an IT guru and can give me a gazillion tech reasons (in hexadecimal code 🙂 ) why it does matter, but the site should work for everyone with a functioning device
It shouldn't matter, I agree. But it demonstrably does.
(Atypical transient outages aside) it works fine for most people. Others complain of getting "constantly" logged out or nagged by the cookie consent dialogue on ever page. So there HAS to be something quantifiably different client-side which the site doesn't like, if that weren't the case then everyone would be affected equally. Whether that may be some browser setting or plug-in, or something people are doing differently when they're interacting with the site, no-one seems to know. And until that gets identified it's not possible to fix it no matter how many complaint threads get created.
As for my "IT Guru" opinion, I'll put that in a follow-up post.
It is my belief that something is interfering with cookies. Both the member login status and the GDPR acceptance tags are stored in cookies local to that individual machine (PC, phone, Mac, Commodore 64, whatever). If the site cannot read those cookies, you will get the login / consent prompts accordingly. The Million Dollar Brucie Bonus Take a Look What's Behind Bully question though is... why?
I spent a lot of time looking at the logout issue (as a user not as STW Tech) back before the site had its last major upgrade. I failed to replicate the symptoms but I did observe how the tracking cookie behaves and found a bug.
This is how it works. Or at least, how worked last I looked, though I doubt it's changed much.
There are two types of cookie: a "persistent" cookie which will live for a period of time specified when it is created, and a "session" cookie which is valid for that browser session. This is what the "remember me" tick box does. If you tick the box then it creates a cookie with a Time To Live of two weeks, which is the default setting for a Wordpress site. If you leave it empty then it creates a session cookie instead, the TTL for this should be until you close the browser, but it's down to the browser to define what it means by a session. So all other things being equal, Remember Me should ask you to log in once a fortnight, otherwise you should be good until you shut the browser or restart your device (though Chrome does something a bit odd here IIRC). If it's not then there is Something Else Going On, there has to be. Either the cookie isn't being written correctly, it's not being read correctly, or something is changing it between write and read.
This is the bug I found: Before the last upgrade it was possible to craft a URL which would take you to the forum index if you were logged in, and to an advert-free login page if you weren't. For a while I recommended this to what was then "Subscribers" complaining about adverts when they got logged out. However, this had the side-effect of replacing the persistent cookie with a session one - effectively unticking the Remember Me box. I came up with a theory as to why this might be happening (little more than an educated guess TBH) but we were still on the old "rat's nest" codebase and the incumbent Tech at the time was frightened to death of changing anything. In any case, that redirect no longer works following a fairly recent update (which I'm guessing is related to the complaint of not going back from whence you came after logging in) so it's moot but...
... the reason I mention it at all is because for me it was actually beneficial. My primary device is a PC which never gets shut down, so a session cookie for me was actually far, far longer than a persistent one. I'd only get logged out when something changed server-side. The point here is, this was a workflow difference, what I was doing wasn't the same as what everyone else was doing. Ie, what I was using wasn't overly relevant, rather how I was using it was. Perversely, someone using my oh-so-clever redirect URL with a different browser or who diligently closes down stuff they're not using might have been causing more login issues than they were mitigating. Without shadowing someone that would have been really difficult to diagnose.
A poster said earlier, "I login and read the bike forum, if I swap over to chat forum (or vice versa) I then have to login again." How do they swap over? There must be half a dozen different ways of navigating that. The lozenge bar, the link to the Forum overview page, the back button in the browser, opening a new tab... maybe one of those ways bollockses the cookie and I've never noticed because I do it in a different way. Maybe it's something specific to the mobile view which I hardly ever use? Someone else was talking about links within Gmail on an iPhone (a niche combination if ever there was one), the chances of the devs tripping over that is vanishingly small unless it's information proffered unsolicited. Yet instead they have bug reports like "It’s dogshit on my phone as well can’t be arsed being more descriptive than that." Right you are squire, we'll make it 17% less dogshit just for you. Tom, remove all the canine excrement from the site when you're back in on Monday will you? I'm surprised no-one mentioned it before.
As for the consent form,
I haven't looked at it in depth (or indeed, at all!) but there may be an additional factor here. [Disclaimer: this is a complete guess.]
I believe that this is managed my a third-party plugin. Theoretically, it is possible that a browser might be flagging this as a security risk and blocking it. I believe that Safari has some sort of aggressive security setting for this which is enabled by default, something like "cross-site cookies." If you're getting this issue on an iDevice (or Safari on a Mac) then it might be worth having a look. Obviously, report back if it fixes anything please.
Other than that, most of the above still stands. Something is buggering about with your cookies, what is it? Adblocker? Browser security settings? A malformed Bookmark? A weird corner of the site which is broken and you keep clicking? Something else?
Is there anyone out there affected by either problem who has sufficient technical nous to use a cookie inspector and watch its behaviour?
Is skimresources breaking links for everyone else?
I just get go.skimresources........ in the address bar, and "Hmmm....can't reach this page"
this link https://singletrackworld.com/singletrack-deal-finder/
doesn’t load any deals,
Mac, Firefox and Brave browers - same result.
And it seems that Mark's ponned thread with reference to iOS issues has disappeared (though those issues remain - the site is unusable (for me) on iOS and IpadOS )
I'm getting the repeated logging out, which I don't think has been a problem before.
The cookie issue disappeared for me for a while, now it's back.
But the worse problem now is the adverts!
So many adverts, I'm getting adverts over the top of other adverts.
My screen is so full of adverts it looks like a scene from a bad movie where the stupid computer user presses the wrong button and is bombarded with ads.
The site remains unusable.
The site seems to have settled down and become stable for me in the last few days. No more logging out, 502 errors etc. Good work hamsters 👍
Typed a reply to someone over a coffee, took 10 mins or so in between other stuff. Hit send, it didn't post and logged me out. CBA to re-type it all. Happened a couple of times in the last week. Just FWIW.
On posts i keep getting 'waiting for proxy tunnel'
only on this site... but every time i post.
Why are you connecting through a proxy?
Googling that error throws up lots of results and a suggested fix. Might be worth trying.
@Cougar - I don't disagree with any of your comments/ analysis but - and I say this as someone for whom the site usually works fine - it's still the case that many folk experience problems with only this site. That suggests something "unique" in the coding/setup.
Site Update – Monday 12th december
Interesting - I can't see that from the Chat Forum page.
Why are you connecting through a proxy?
That's the funny thing, i'm not... so it looks to me like it's something that's slowing things down that goes through a proxy on the back end. I also had one recently that was a google.ads but i didn't get all of the message.
The site has been quick for a few days, but for me, today it's fairly slow.
@weeksy have you tried the solution suggested here? https://windowsloop.com/fix-waiting-for-proxy-tunnel-chrome/
I'm not on Chrome, i'm on Edge for STW as Chrome was terrible for this forum (without being harsh, all other forums (fora ? ) are not)
Edge was a lot better.. According to that doc, Edge isn't affected in the same way.
I’m not on Chrome, i’m on Edge for STW as Chrome was terrible for this forum (without being harsh, all other forums (fora ? ) are not)
To be fair, it’s not just Chrome. It’s pretty shit on Safari on iPhone, iPad and MacBook as well.
Unsurprisingly, no other forums or websites are problematic…
I have had the 502 error this morning and also some very slow page loading.
I guess the point there is that that particular proxy error is a clientside error regardless of the browser and there's nothing we can do about that - all other issues aside that we can do something about of course.
I am going to repeat Monday's test with the ad system again at 12noon today. What I'd really appreciate is anyone experiencing issues to report on what happens between 12-1pm. I didn't get enough feedback on Monday to help us pin it down.
What I'm particularly interested in is any changes in page loading and login behaviour, so if you can post your experiences here that will be really useful.
Hi all,
So first of, from myself and the rest of the tech team I want to apologise for the issues you are all experiencing. I have read this thread and would like to go through the issues raised and explain things where I can.
1) Cookie consent popup (CMP) - This is out of our control I'm afraid as it is our advertising provider that implements this. They sometimes make changes and that can cause issues. We are not aware or told when they make changes to the CMP so we couldn't even provide a heads up to you saying that it will change. We only find out when someone tells us they are having issues and we report back to them. They may then tell us they have made changes. So the best thing to do is to let us know and we'll pass on the message. Unfortunately, that's the best we can do about this issue.
2) Login cookie - We have looked at this many times over the past couple years. We do not do anything special with the login cookie nor does the plugin we use for our profile/account system. There are many different factors that could cause this from how different browsers handle cookies with regards to privacy to the device itself. To resolve this issue, we would have to start looking at building a custom login solution which could open a whole different lot of issues. And as with anything we build ourselves, we would have to maintain it. We are already stretched pretty thin with the issue we are having to deal with. This would be far from ideal.
3) 502 responses - There have a been a few times where our server gets overloaded. 95% of the time this is caused by some script kiddies trying to bring the site down. Usually done in the form of DoS/DDoS. We update our protection every time this happens but then they find new ways. We have to update these rules every time in response to it. This was the cause for the 502 responses on Sunday evening.
4) Search - We understand that the search is not quite up to scratch. This is because of 2 reasons. The first being that we have so many topics and replies that our system struggles when someone wants to search through it all. As such we had to implement and different method of search and it still needs refining to make the search better. Just like Google, we need to make search results better suited to what people are wanting. We have to tech it a bit. The second part is that the site is still a little bit fragmented which makes it hard to keep things consistent. We have plans to migrate the last little bit of fragmentation in the new year. This should help resolve a lot of issues and also allow us to develop better and faster. This fragmentation is not helping the search issue as everything we do for the forum search needs to be done for the rest of the site in separate steps.
5) The caching issue was our fault and we resolved that last week. The issue being that there was a default rule in place that told your browser to cache the pages you visited. This should not have happened and we were able to remove this default rule. The issue should have gone for everyone now but if you are still running into this issue, get in touch at tech-support@singletrackworld.com and we will be able to provide you instructions on how to force this issue to go away. It will require updating/removing the service worker on your browser.
6) The "Subscribe | Favourite" at the top of topics caused some layout issues with the forum nav menu. We have been able to resolve this issue. There was a slight oversight in not looking at how it looks on mobile so we apologise for this.
These threads have been a common theme for a few years.
The bottom line is this: None of these problems afflict any of the other sites I use so it's clearly a problem at Singletrack Towers and all the clear this, activate that, change your browser suggestions are just deflection away from the real problem.
Surely it's long past time for STW to shit or get off the pot i.e. provide a good user experience or give up.
Cue thread getting closed.
My issue that meant I couldn't log in got sorted after the ad switch off/on thanks. 🥕
Pixel 3, chrome, android 12.
Edit: that took about 20 seconds to post btw if any interest, and no I don't know why there's a carrot.
Thread won't get closed for that. We don't do that.
While first of all acknowledging these issues and that there's a lot we can do to fix them, I will defend our position somewhat in suggesting that there are very few sites that do what we do. There are countless forums and forums running the same software as we do (BBpress) but there are very few sites that integrate that forum into the rest of the site with a membership system. Also, last I checked I think our site is the biggest user of BBpress in the world. Not saying that to impress, it clearly has issues. The integration of the forum into the membership system (The source of the bulk of our revenue) is the complicating factor that is pretty unique to us. By integration I mean you make changes to your membership and that gets reflected in your use of the forum. Access to certain content, icon colour, ad visibility etc, etc. Even down to the prices you see in the widgets on the RH column, is all possible because of the integration of the forum code with the membership system. I know, it counts for very little when your UX is affected but our setup here IS very complicated. As a business includes the forum (It's a very important part) but we have to make it work with everything else we do and that's where we hit these snags and it becomes frustrating for us as much as for you.
With the resources that many of the publishers much larger than us have at their disposal for audiences smaller than ours in many cases, we are at a disadvantage from the start by comparison. Our tech are highly skilled and experienced at what they do but they are just a small team dealing with a very complicated system with few resources. As Tom alluded above, our forum database alone contains over 10 million database entries and that only goes back as afar as 2008 and each forum topic and reply is linked via the users involved to all other parts of our membership system. It really isn't simple and although it's frustrating to us each time you guys tell us (rightly) that your issues are not replicated on other forums, I hope you can understand why that is.
None of that is in anyway an excuse. If your UX is poor then that's on us. We take it seriously and we clearly need to do better. That's the focus of the tech team here right now and we hope you are going to see the results of that asap.
