Message Board Problem Resolution

[sknut70]

My avatar is stuck. I cannot change anything. Last I was able to do was remove my back ground, I was going to add a new one, but I cannot remove or add anything.

can I delete it and start over?
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; FunWebProducts; GTB5; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506; Media Center PC 5.0; InfoPath.2)

[sknut70]

Its been several days, and I still cant add or delete anything from my avatar. I sent Jordan a Pm a few days ago, but I think hes not around? I was able to crop it today.
any help??
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; FunWebProducts; GTB5; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506; Media Center PC 5.0; InfoPath.2)

[Moderator]

Its been several days, and I still cant add or delete anything from my avatar. I sent Jordan a Pm a few days ago, but I think hes not around? I was able to crop it today.
any help??
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; FunWebProducts; GTB5; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506; Media Center PC 5.0; InfoPath.2)

Jordan had to be away for a few days but he should be back today or tomorrow. Sorry, I'm not much help when it comes to the technical side.

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032608 Firefox/3.0.8

[Jordan]

Ever since "living avatars" were introduced, the web page never completes loading. Or maybe it does, but it takes about five to ten minutes every time.

Right now I have three tabs open, and they're all spinning around saying they're loading, and the little green vista page progress bars in the bottom right, are loaded up to what looks like 97%... but they're still loading, and if I place my cursor on the web page anywhere but somewhere I can type, it shows the little 'vista busy' cursor. What used to be the little 'please wait hourglass'.

It says "connecting to pixel.quantserve.com in the bottom left, directly across from the progress bar now. And the page seems to be completely loaded...

Anybody noticed this? Is this an open issue?
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

That sounds like a problem with our Quantcast tracking, and is unrelated to the living avatars. I'll have to do a little investigation, but this may resolve itself fairly quickly.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[Jordan]

Its been several days, and I still cant add or delete anything from my avatar. I sent Jordan a Pm a few days ago, but I think hes not around? I was able to crop it today.
any help??
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; FunWebProducts; GTB5; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506; Media Center PC 5.0; InfoPath.2)

I had to nuke your avatar, but you should be able to modify it again.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[BlackThorn]

Okay, now I'm seeing this same issue on other web sites as well. I don't know if this can be confirmed, but I was told by a friend that just spoke to a computer tech that runs the business computer network where he's employed, that there is a google virus or google worm causing a major problem right now in computers everywhere.

Recently there was a post in this forum about people getting the https:// stephen king site, instead of the http:// one. I have been seeing this recently too, and it was through links on search results for technical information through google, which is my homepage and only search I usually use. That same friend of mine says he has made identical search requests as he has made in the past for through google, and the results were always the same, but recently, he's getting all new results for the same searches.

The tech said that gmail was also effected, and had stated that he moved all his accounts into yahoo, because yahoo was doing things in some unusual and innovative way, and it isn't effected by whatever this is. The google representative or CEO or whatever officially stated there is nothing happening or wrong with google during the meeting, but some techies with a laptop proved there was an issue soon after.

I would personally wonder if this has anything to do with the 'confiter' virus most people already had, that was scheduled to do it's thing on April 1'st.

On a side note, if anyone comes across a video-looking application while they're scanning for a video on search engines through what honestly appears to be a large youtube play window, and your internet browser tells you "You need to install and run this media player software to see the video", DO NOT CLICK IT! I've had to preform two complete format/reinstalls to computers that have activated this advanced piece of malware. Immediately the evil code will contact it's server and download all sorts of disgusting problems for your computer, and insist there is a problem, while disguising itself as some official part of windows, which inevetably spreads like wildfire and eventually will disable/rewrite your administrator password, and you'll be locked out of your own machine. I first got this myself while trying to find the superbowl live on the internet (the Japanese announcer one just didn't do it for me, I had to keep trying...) and recently someone I know was trying to view a CNN video of the current pirate situation the US is dealing with when he re-enabled it.

I had intended to log into a windows xp installation and see if the bug I was dealing with was still on the site, and then log into an ubuntu live cd and test the site for the bug, but I don't think I need to at this point.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[Jordan]

I am unable to duplicate the problem you are experiencing. If anyone else is seeing pages that don't finish loading, please let me know.

The only "Google worm" that I've ever heard of was the Santy worm back in 2004. Google's systems would not have been affected by conficker as they are linux based. If you have any links to the video or article(s) about this, I'd be interested to see them. My friends at Google assure me that the only thing changing is their search algorithm - which they've been modifying regularly since the site went live back in the Web 1.0 days.

Following a like to secure content on our server should now be transparent. We purchased a security certificate for ewxactly that purpose. Why Google is indexing the securly served version of the site? I'm still unsure, but I'm glad we don't have any unindexed pages.

As for clicking links of ill repute... essentially all reputable video on the web is delivered via Flash, Windows Media, QuickTime or RealNetworks. If you have those four things installed, you should be able to view anything.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[mstay]

Jordan, my computer is having a problem displaying the "spoiler" button. It just shows the words Wrap [SPOILER] tags around selected text instead of the little red button. Thanks.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042316 Firefox/3.0.10

[rose key]

I haven't seen the spoiler button for awhile now, but I have used it, so I know it's working, but I thought it was just this stupid work computer doing wierd things again. Glad to know it wasn't just me!
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1)

[Jordan]

This has been resolved, but you might have to dump your cache or wait for it to refresh.