Forum down for maintenance

[Doc B.]

The forum will be down for a couple hours tonight for maintenance and upgrades. Based on what I have heard regarding SMF forum upgrades it might be wise to save your posts for when we are back up so they don't get lost in the transition.

[Doc B.]

We've been working through some issues with the forum update, and we think we have it all shaken out now. Everyone should be able to start a new topic now. Unfortunately some posts from the last couple of days may have been lost as we had to use a slightly older copy of the database to get things to work. Apologies for that, it's just how this stuff always works. Another forum I follow that uses the same software was down for about a week trying to get the same kinds of issues sorted out.

[Bonzo]

Ciao Doc,
every time i visit Bottlehead (forum and shop) I have to go through captcha, both from home (no fixed IP) and from mobile. Is it a result of the update?
Thank you

[oguinn]

I’m definitely getting it too

[Chris65]

Same here. From a fixed IP & on every visit. Seems rather excessive when just visiting a website.

[Doc B.]

Have you guys tried clearing your browser cache?

[Chris65]

Yes, several times.

[Doc B.]

I have asked our IT guy to look into the captcha issue.

[oguinn]

It hasn’t happened at all today for me.

[Doc B.]

Reply from IT -

On the new firewall, people that may have malware on their machines trying to run scripts on the site that they may not even know about will trigger a capcha that will check if they are human, then let them in and block whatever script it is.. Also, the rare person that runs a browser with no Javascript on purpose (also bad bots flags) can trigger it

[Bonzo]

Got it,
maybe Ad-Block can trigger it.
Today no captcha, only a bit of a lag when connecting.
Thank you Doc

[Chris65]

Reply from IT -

On the new firewall, people that may have malware on their machines trying to run scripts on the site that they may not even know about will trigger a capcha that will check if they are human, then let them in and block whatever script it is.. Also, the rare person that runs a browser with no Javascript on purpose (also bad bots flags) can trigger it

Thanks for the info Doc, but still having issues. The captcha does not always appear, it varies with the amount of time since last visit. Running the latest iOS on iPad. Malware on iPad is quite rare apparently & just to be sure removed the only App I installed recently, no change.
Visit many other sites running SMF software & no problems.
Same on phone running Chrome.

[Deke609]

This has just started happening to me as well - Using Opera on a PC. Until today, I hadn't been asked to do the captcha checkmark thing. But in my last post I was given a captcha challenge to preview my post and then another to post it. 


Derek

[Doc B.]

OK guys I will relay this to IT.

[Chris65]

It gets weirder! Not done anything my end, but can now access the site homepage directly & the products page. I can click through on a few products directly but most of the others & the forum link present the captcha page.
The captcha is no longer asking for ‘select the photos of buses, traffic lights, etc’ but just the simple ‘I’m not a robot’ tick box.