Is it me, my PC or this site?
 

Am I the only one who has had trouble logging on to Fodor's lately? When I open the site within seconds I get a fatal error message and am denied access. None of my other web sites are doing this and I can't find where I've accidently canceled the cookie for Fodor's or otherwise programmed things to deny access to Fodor's. Since I don't do personal stuff at work, I wasn't able to check this until just today when I got access to a family member's computer. Anybody else had this problem????

Randy, I think they work on the site on some Saturday mornings. This a.m. it wouldn't "come up" at all.
Try getting to Fodor's from scratch and then, when it's come up successfully, save the site with your favorites.
Also, try refreshing (reload if a mac) the page.
Anyone else having this problem?

Clear out your cookies, empty your cache, clear out your history, and log in from afresh.

Randy, I haven't been able to log on for a couple of weeks. Just now I tried again, and bingo, I got in.
I was able to get to Fodor's and read everything. I just couldn't log in to post.
A message would pop up saying Internet Explorer could not open site... Operation aborted.

DL, perhaps my computer did the scheduled clean out of cookies and cache.

Cookies expire automatically at a set time determined by the website that set them. They could expire in hours, days, weeks, or years after you first visit a website - all up to the site you visit. Of course you can always clear a cookie manually.

I just checked out the Fodors cookies that are set on my computer. There are almost 20 of them! Some expire as soon as I close my web browser; some expire in 24 hours, some in a week. One is set to expire in 2038 (i.e. never). So after a set period, many of your cookies will expire on their own if that causes you trouble. Again, it you are having trouble with Fodors, clear your cookies first, then your cache and try again.

Internet Explorer is evil. Get a safer and better browser and do due diligence on your computer, weekly, IE is a leaky sieve. Your computer may be more in trouble than you know. Have you had an expert climb all over it? You may be surprised at what he finds.

On every computer I've encountered that was infected with spyware, the user had been using Internet Explorer - although I imagine even users of Firefox can fall victim.

But no browser is perfect. Firefox, while favorite browser, has plenty of problems. It still has terrible memory leak problems, meaning that the longer you leave it open and open new windows/tabs, the more memory it consumes on your computer and won't give back. To the average user that means eventually Firefox will get slower and slower until you quit the browser and re-start it.

I've played with Safari in Windows. Seems to work fairly well but I still like the feel of Firefox better.

Randy, I have the same problem starting about 10 days ago, after I did an upgrade on my virus protection.

Only happens on Fodors, and only when I click on 'go to Forums' ... I can outsmart the bug by clicking on one of the 'hot topics' instead of 'go to forums'. This always works, it opens up the thread I clicked on and then I can access other forums.

So it's something on the Fodor's site that's trying to load and gets nailed by my virus checker. Combination of poor coding by Fodors and something in your (and my) browser or virus software.

Be sure to upgrade to IE7 and Serice Pack 3 for XP . . then download all windoes updates that are available

I haven't had log on problems but have had some posting problems (you type and the post doesn't appear) and it's the only website that's incredibly slow at loading pages. I use AOL or Firefox as a browser.

Happened to me Thursday or Friday. Couldn't open Fodor's website in the morning, then 1/2 hour later was signed off. No trouble today.

I also had this problem repeatedly when my husband and son insisted I switch browsers--went with Google Chrome.

Explorer has been in the news recently about having major problems. But Dalai is right; there are many other obnoxious bugs etc out there. Just having McAfee or Norton isn't enough anymore.

I'm not a computer maven, but I think that the problem is Fodors. Katie has said that they are doing work on it, and periodically they give it a tune-up to remove the dust in the gears, which slows things down. Maybe that was it.

I have had IE forever, and just a few days ago I had to log in again, for the first time this year. Also, it has seemed to be running slow.

Temporary problems with Fodors have been recurrent for many years. Keep the faith! ((*))

what do you guys think of Chrome vs Firefox vs IE? eating up your memory with Firefox doesn't sound good either? I currently use IE and not having problems.

Because I'm so dumb when it comes to computers, I'm nervous to change anything. But going to Firefox sounds like the thing I need to do.

Andrew, how then do I get back the memory firefox takes and won't give back? Is it something I should do often?

With me it's fear of the unknown with Firefox. I'm used to IE , even if it isn't the best. But I still think I need to do it.

YUp, I'm with you, kodi...I'm just the same way. No problems yet with IE and yet I do hear from those who know better that I should switch to Firefox. That memory drain sounds AWFUL though!

If your computer has a lot of memory, you may not notice an issue with Firefox hogging memory so much. Maybe once a week or so, depending on how often you are online, etc. I tend to open a lot of windows and tabs at one time and keep them open; that might have something to do with it. Suffice to say, it's not a huge thing to shut down Firefox and re-start it once a week. Just kind of a pain. I still prefer to do that than to use Internet Explorer.

Nope, I haven't had any problems recently.

but have in the past when Fodor's was doing upgrades.

I haven't had any issues with Fodors for a few weeks at least. Sometimes their database server crashes and no threads are displayed - and I may need to re-login after that but that's usually routine. If I ever have trouble logging in, in Firefox I just clear my Fodors cookies and sometimes the cache and I'm good, unless they are doing a lot of disruptive work. (Once in a while, not often.)

Andrew, so what do you mean about shutting down Firefox and starting again? Do you mean just turning my computer off and on again? Or something more involved? I don't normally have too many windows open at once. See I told you I wasn't very bright when it comes to computers.

Ncounty, it's nice to know I'm not the only one!!!

OK, let me clarify a bit.

People use their computers in different ways. Some people turn the computer on from "OFF" every day and completely shut it down every day. As a laptop user, I put my computer to "sleep" on and off all day and never really shut it down/reboot it unless I have to. And I keep my Firefox windows open (one always has Gmail) open for days if not weeks at a time.

So I find that eventually, my Firefox becomes "bloated" (often gets very slow) and when I check the memory use, it is using a ton. So all I do is close all Firefox windows (or you can just "Exit" in one and it will close them all) and restart Firefox, without restarting my computer. And that always does the trick.

If you are one of those people who shuts down their computer every day, you'll always be completely re-starting Firefox the next time you start up the computer, so you'll probably never have to worry about this issue.

Oh, okay....much less of a big deal to me then. I shut it down probably at least once a week. Once you shut it down and reboot, you're good again? No biggie; I'll switch and try out Firefox.

I noticed something interesting last night.....while watching the Onion videos, I was always very frustated because the video would glich and hiccup, no matter which computer or laptop I used. Last night, I used my Sprint smartview device for the connection, and no more gliches. It performed beautifully. Somehow my home modem and wireless devices are insufficient when watching those videos and the Sprint smartview was another avenue. I am soooo relieved to find an alternative.

What kind of conventional home connection do you have now? DSL? Cable? Test your connection speed here:

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

Are you saying you are tethering your computer to the internet via your Sprint phone (Via EV-DO broadband wireless?) when you switched connections? It is possible your have a very slow DSL or cable plan or that your home network is not setup right, or your hardware has some issues.

I haven't had major problems with fodors while using IE but I have had trouble with my e-mail. I use Gmail and almost everytime I start typing an e-mail the computer freezes and I have to shut it down. Doesn't freeze on anything else and doesn't freeze on my home computer where I use Firefox. Will have to try firefox on this one too. Any other ideas?

Aaaargh, right now, it is particularly acting up and is slower than dial-up! I think all of the above could be happening, Andrew, lol.... And, I'm so computer illiterate, it is hard to describe the setup except in very rudimentary terms. Believe it or not, I know a lot more than I used to!

My PC is a wired connection to my modem and wireless router. My laptop uses the wireless through the router. On both these modalities, videos on the Onion play poorly with seizing, etc. When I plug in my Sprint "card" into my USB port and bypass my home wireless connection, the videos play beautifully. I do not have the top of the line DSL connection. It is only $29.95 and the $41.95 is faster. Generally, it is a small difference but nights like this when it acts up, it is considerable.

Hope I am explaining it adequately. There are times when the speed is very fast and other times when it is incredibly slow like tonight. I do have a secured connection so no one is stealing my band width (terminology I learned here, :) ).

It could well be that your DSL isn't working properly. That's why I suggested you try the speed test link I posted above. (You can try it with the Sprint thing as well for comparison.)

You could power cycle your DSL modem (unplug the power, wait about 10 seconds, plug it back in; wait til it reconnects) and see if that helps your speed issues.

Also - is your wireless router secured? Could a neighbor or someone else be stealing all your bandwidth?

Cali--if you are already using gmail as your main email you might want to change to Google's Browser, which is called Chrome. If you open a Google search page, there is a place right on it to load "Chrome."

Firefox is open source, for what it's worth.

Regarding the problems with Fodor's: when I was on Explorer, I was getting the fatal errors on different times of day/day of the week. Sometimes I could outsmart it by clicking immediately on my name and going to the forums.

Thanks Andrew, my wireless router is secured. I'll try those other measures that you described.

Just saw this thread--I don't have much to add as the experts here have given you great advice, RandyK.

I can confirm that we are at the final stages of the Forums first major upgrade since the site's launching in 1996. We are transferring all of the threads to a new platform and losing the site's use of frames; the layout however, will still look similar.

The new upgrade should dramatically improve both the forum's search functionality and the load time of topics.

I'll keep you posted--

Thanks Andrew. I appreciate your answers.
I 'shut down' every time I'm away from my computer for a few hours or more, and certainly at the end of every day. I don't leave any sites open. I'm not sure if this is the same as turning it "off". I don't ever turn the power off.


Oh so much to learn... and stuff that should be so simple!!!

5Alive,thanks for the info on Google's Chrome. I will look into it.

just wish computers werent so complicated lol