SAAFE message board news

[xw5]

The main SAAFE site had an issue - now fixed, and I just need to find out why one bit that's worked fine ever since we moved to the current server stopped working.

Especially if you are away from home, it's possible to end up with an IP address that's on the naughty list, but using one of the various 'is the site down or is it just me' services will give you a clue.

The main work is, as ever, dealing with the users rather than the server and its software...

[xw5]

When I sort out why something isn't working on another computer, there will be a short period of 'down time' here as it's a good time to do a particular upgrade.

Some of it will just have the board in maintenance mode, but there may be some minutes where you don't see anything. Don't panic

[xw5]

This was done this afternoon - there were about twenty minutes of downtime, I think.

The board software has been updated and the server has also been changed too, which shouldn't need doing again for several years...

[xw5]

The one issue I'm aware of as a result of doing this relates to email notifications, specifically to Microsoft email servers such as Hotmail, Outlook, Live etc.

Thanks to a useful feature at the people we rent the imaginary PC that is the server from, the IP address everyone uses to access here has stayed the same - it's why this change could be instant for everyone rather than having to wait for up to a day for everyone to see the new one, as happened with the other server change a couple of years ago.

But the notification emails are coming from a different IP address, the real one of the new server.

Possibly because the people who had the IP address before* were naughty, Microsoft email servers aren't accepting email from it. At all.

You can tell the level of competence involved by the way that the message saying that refers to clearing your IP address with a service that hasn't been called that for twelve years. And, in its new name, thinks we're ok.

Similarly, I've signed up with a Microsoft service to monitor how they see the IP address..

.. but because we send them so little email - about thirty a day at the moment - they don't show any data?!

It'll get sorted eventually, but this is why you've not getting any notifications if the board has an @hotmail, @outlook, @live etc email address recently. When it does get sorted, please read the emails - 'engagement' like this helps our rating with them.

TL;DR: Don't use Hotmail, Outlook or Live for your email address Even perennial losers like Yahoo are doing better.

* _{They've run out of new ones, so any you get are very likely to be second-hand. We'd use IPv6 which has more than enough to have one for every atom on Earth, but 22 years since its introduction, there are still ISPs that don't support it properly. Like mine.}

[SAAFE]

We have had two threads posted by members who have had difficulty accessing the forum over a few days.

Please either email the SAAFE admin address or send a PM to xw5 about this and not post about it on the forum. The forum is for sex work questions and discussions

Technical Problems

If you're having trouble using the forum, see if the help page answers your questions. If that doesn't help, ask an administrator.

[xw5]

TL;DR: Don't use Hotmail, Outlook or Live for your email address Even perennial losers like Yahoo are doing better.

Incredibly annoyingly, it looks very much like the imaginary computer that SAAFE runs on - a 'virtual private server' to use the jargon - is now in a list of "I wouldn't accept email from here if I were you" IP addresses that more than just the Microsoft webmail services use.

It's nothing that we've done - the email we generate is stuff that you've asked for, like notifications of private messages or comments to your posts - but the people we get the server from have not been as strict as they might have been with other people spamming or trying to hack other people, so it's quite possible everyone using them is now treated as, at best, suspicious.

It's also nothing that we can do anything about while we stay with the same provider. I lost count of the number of hoops I jumped through with Microsoft's email services without it ever working. Thanks to the big boys of email like them, Google, Yahoo etc, it has become very difficult to get email through to them without paying someone something somewhere along the line - if anyone here is a lawyer as well as an escort, there has to be a class action waiting to happen.

So we'll be moving where the server is again over the next week. They'll be a bit of downtime - sorry - and it will cost us a bit more, but at the end of it, you might actually get email from here again.

TL;DR: wait a week or so, and things should get better regarding email.

[xw5]

We're aware that the "Spamming in the lion's den" subsection is currently not showing any content.

If we were to lose any subsection it'd be that one, but we'd rather not lose any.

The 790-odd topics it has are in the forum software's database, and we're investigating why they've suddenly stopped showing to anyone, including us.

[xw5]

.. and Spamming is back, albeit with a different URL.

[amy]

We'd also remind members that they can contact any advertiser directly (if they need to) by using the means they have provided for you to do so* within whatever platform or facility that advertiser is offering.


_{*which they will definitely have done, since they will be aware that it's not SAAFE's role to provide people who take money from our members with a convenient customer service interface to use at our expense.}

[xw5]

With a little bit of luck (and probably much swearing) SAAFE will attempt to move to a new server on Friday.

There will inevitably be some downtime, but hopefully not too much...

[xw5]

.. and it's back again.

I'm not totally sure why, when I had fixed various issues caused by the new host setting things up slightly differently to the previous one, it came back not in maintenance mode as I'd set it to that the old server just before copying everything, but it looks like emails are getting through to where they've been sent now.