Arrrghh... Can't get FT forums to load via home internet connection
 

Please excuse my ignorance of things technical, but...

For years I have had no problems accessing FT from my laptop at home. But for a few weeks now I have been unable to get the forums to load (though occasionally one will load in about 10 minutes) when using my laptop via my home ADSL connection. However, when I am logged onto my work VPN using the same connection I have no problems at all! (But I really don't want all my FT activity logged at work.)

Today I tried with 2 other computers from my home and neither worked. One was a laptop that I used while travelling and it got the FT forums with no problems while I was away.

What am I doing wrong??? Help. please!

Having the exact same problem here in Cape Town too. Unable to access FT whatsoever from home ADSL line (telkominternet ISP). This started more or less when the Facebook functionality was added to FT.

Thanks, Cage Rattler. I feel a bit better now that I know I'm not alone. Telkom is also my ISP.

It's very baffling, though. I have absolutely no problems with any other site I access. And the problem started out of the blue without any changes of my own IT environment - that I was aware of.

Anybody have suggestions on what is happening?

Thanks for reporting this. Just wanted to let you both know that we are looking into this issue to try to determine what is causing the block, but haven't found the culprit yet.

I've reported this to our network operations people. I'll let you know if they find anything. Cheetah_SA, do you also use that ISP?

The forums stopped loading for me around noon today. I noticed that it was hanging trying to load ibpxl.com

I have the noscript extension on Firefox. Around 7 p.m. I clicked that, marked it to flag ibpxl.com as untrusted, and then FT loaded instantly. It's some crap in javascript at the end of the page code.

Around noon in what time zone?

The ibpxl is a script the we use to push all sorts of other scripts through, so by disabling that, you may run into problems down the road.

noon until 7 p.m. central time. As soon as I disabled that FT resumed loading, but now I don't get smilies or multi-quoting.

Smilies and multi-quotes shouldn't have anything to do with the ibpxl.

If you disable the block on the ibpxl, I assume that the site slows back down? If that's the case, try to load the page with ?nocache=1 at the end if the url. So http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ncredible.html becomes http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...html?nocache=1

You might also try using a different browser, specifically one that handles javascript well, such as Google Chrome.

Turns out it's the ui.ibsrv.net that is killing it, not the ibpxl.
When I allow that one, even with ?nocache=1 FT doesn't load.

Allowing ibpxl doesn't seem to matter.

Firefox 3.6.3, WinXP sp2.

I'm escalating this to our network guy who will take a look. I don't know why that sub-domain wouldn't be liked.

FWIW, ui.ibsrv.net is a static content server housed at the same place as the regular FT servers. There should be no difference between downloading from there.

I am seeing delays getting FT started up that are caused by waiting for Facebook to respond. So it is clear that all FT users are paying a price for this feature, whether or not we want to use it.

You can disable all facebook calls in your options.

Thanks, very helpful -- although the option says "hide" Facebook connections. If the call is still being made the delays will still occur.

They aren't.