Help! I can't get into the Doll Album!

[Ishtaria]

Hi Folks,

I have PMs and emails from people who have had problems getting into the Doll Album today. There are several reasons:

1) The data center was having problems and have upgraded several of their routers. This produced some slow access times for a while.


BUT, if that isn't enough:

2) There was a major ice storm along the southeast of the United States today. It has caused many power outs and down power and communication lines (which has been hampering internet traffic).


But... But... I click on [this] and got a 405 Forbidden error!

As far as I can tell, people would click on a link; it would give a delayed response (see: items 1 & 2), and they would click on the link again. Lots of people appearently were doing this which confused a security system which then started putting up traffic blocks to [what it thought was] repeated attempts at calling the same thing.


It's been a bad day. I even lost my monitor blew out due to a power spike, and had to replace it.


Everyone should be able to get in to the Doll Album now. If not, please post the problem that you are having in this thread.

Thanks,
Ish

[midnight]

I am still forbidden from the "log-in" button....and the new TDA registration

[Ishtaria]

Hi Midnight,

Ya gotta help me out on this. I could spend 5 hours combing over logs trying to find the entry for the failuree you described.

What time did it occur (and what is your time zone).

The login page? Which login page (a link to it would help).

The exact message (copy-n-pasted from the screen).

At least that gives me something to go on.



Ish

[midnight]

Hi Ish....I am IN I don't think I did anything any different, but I just tried ... 8:15 pm.,Eastern Standard time...

Perhaps, I was "pushing buttons" too fast? This is a busy time for the internet in general.

If you did something, Thanks If you didn't...Thanks anyway, for your hard work

[Inkling]

You are 5 hours behind GMT.

[rentell]

Hi ISH

I have been successful in accessing my album till now.

Today at 10.50 GMT as well as trying several times yesterday I get the following message when using my favourites address, my sig link and when I use the doll album link in the menu.

Template error
Failed to find block 'register'(#(<!-- BEGIN register -->)(.*?)(<!-- END register -->)#s) in :

| <!-- BEGIN home -->
<a href="{HOME_TGT}" title="{HOME_TITLE}">{HOME_LNK}</a> |
<!-- END home --> <!-- BEGIN my_gallery -->
<a href="{MY_GAL_TGT}" title="{MY_GAL_TITLE}">{MY_GAL_LNK}</a> |
<!-- END my_gallery --> <!-- BEGIN allow_memberlist -->
<a href="{MEMBERLIST_TGT}" title="{MEMBERLIST_TITLE}">{MEMBERLIST_LNK}</a> |
<!-- END allow_memberlist --> <!-- BEGIN upload_pic -->
<a href="{UPL_PIC_TGT}" title="{UPL_PIC_TITLE}">{UPL_PIC_LNK}</a> |
<!-- END upload_pic --> <!-- BEGIN faq -->
<a href="{FAQ_TGT}" title="{FAQ_TITLE}">{FAQ_LNK}</a> |
<!-- END faq --> <!-- BEGIN logout -->
<a href="{LOGOUT_TGT}" title="{LOGOUT_TITLE}">{LOGOUT_LNK}</a>
<!-- END logout -->|

Very odd as up until now it has all worked OK.

Regards

[B3F11dolly]

Me too, Rentell

got the same message 5 minutes ago
when I click on "continue" just after log in



but good to know we have Ish

[Inkling]

Everyone is getting this while changes are being made to all The Doll Album links. We are trying to resolve some security issues while making it easier for both users and admin. Please give us another day to fix this.

I'll have more information on this as time goes on, but I'm working 11 hours today, so I might not be able to post more about this until Monday morning. Sorry for the inconvenience. Please be patient. Thank you!

[rentell]

OK, no problems, thanks Inkling.

[Inkling]

I would just like to point out a little bit of history.
Folks were asked not to upload in October and continued doing so and kept requesting albums before everything was completely ready. I tried accomodating right after becoming TDAlbum Admin.

I hope to learn more about what's causing this later, but here is the issue at hand:
We've been getting about ten album requests per day, and most of them are not TDForum members. Ishtaria is trying to make it so that structurally no one can get to TDAlbum Registration unless the are a TDForum member and by clicking Registration link left side of TDForum screen.

Right now, Old Doll Album has been altered to reflect the change. View Our Albums link, Doll Album link in TDForum, and Registration link in TDForum all return the template error.

Also, I've not touched Help Desk tickets Sunday because I didn't see the point in doing so if I can't access TDAlbum. Most tickets are from folks who do not click on link provided them in e-mail response when they register with TDAlbum, or from those who expect new doll album to work like the old one. Users can create their own albums once they are completely registered. When they register and receive e-mail message, they are only registered Inactive. If they click on link sent e-mail, they are registered Active and can upload photos. Otherwise - not.

In addition, sometimes Ishtaria's 'net connection is periodic - and Ish is who makes all the magic happen.

[Everhard]

Good work. It is up and running again. However, please bear with me in this rather long-winded explanation of a fairly serious problem.

I still cannot reliably link to individual photos. Unlike the URL of the thumbnail image, the URL of the picture page is not stable.

Try this:

Code: Select all

<a href="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/displayimage.php?album=40&pos=1"><img src="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/albums/userpics/10009/thumb_2005-12-17_02.jpg" alt="[ Larger image ]"></img></a>
(Use your browser's Back button to return here.)

It renders like so:
<a href="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/di ... os=1"><img src="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... -17_02.jpg" alt="[ Larger image ]"></img></a>
(Use your browser's Back button to return here.)

When I click the link, it takes me to the correct picture in my setup with the pictures arranged in TITLE order (which is why I prefix two-digit numbers to all my titles).

But if, in the Cafe album, I click the + icon by DATE, then try it, it takes me to the wrong picture.

Note that you do not need to be logged in to reorganise an album this way. Presumably anyone can do it. I assume it only affects the browser (client) side, not the server. (Although I find it hard to imagine how that could work...)

One solution is to use the URL of the image itself instead of the album picture page:

Code: Select all

<a href="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/albums/userpics/10009/normal_2005-12-17_02.jpg"><img src="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/albums/userpics/10009/thumb_2005-12-17_02.jpg" alt="[ Larger image ]"></img></a>
(Use your browser's Back button to return here.)

Which renders so:
<a href="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... .jpg"><img src="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... -17_02.jpg" alt="[ Larger image ]"></img></a>
(Use your browser's Back button to return here.)

But I would rather send the user to the actual page complete with title, description, album navigation bar, and so on.

[Inkling]

I wonder if it's set up this way for security reasons. I'll have to ask Ishtaria.

Here are the URLs so folks won't have to keep copying/pasting into browser:
http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/di ... m=40&pos=1

http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... -17_02.jpg
http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... -17_02.jpg

http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... -17_02.jpg

[Ishtaria]

Hi,

The problem has to do with where you are obtaining your link from. If you are getting it through your browser's URL field, you will encounter this problem since the "sort state" is cookie based, and pos=1 means different things depending on how you have sorted the display.

You need to obtain the link to the image from the list published below the photograph (under "File information" in the "URL". That is an absolute reference to your image. The URL in your browser field, is relative to your current sorting scheme.

Ish

[Everhard]

Yep, that's the answer.

Code: Select all

<a href="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/displayimage.php?pos=-513"><img src="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/albums/userpics/10009/thumb_2005-12-17_02.jpg" alt="[ Larger image ]"></img></a> 
(Use your browser's Back button to return here.)

<a href="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/di ... -513"><img src="http://www.dollalbum.com/dollgallery/al ... -17_02.jpg" alt="[ Larger image ]"></img></a>
(Use your browser's Back button to return here.)

Thanks.