Denise (![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png)
denise) wrote in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png)
dw_maintenance2013-08-02 09:51 pm
denise) wrote in dw_maintenance2013-08-02 09:51 pm
a few quick notes on ongoing, intermittent issues
We've had a few intermittent issues lately that people have been running into:
1) Random "403 Forbidden" errors when loading site pages, mostly in journals but sometimes on site pages.
2) Shop carts paid for by credit card where you get an error when trying to check out, then the cart is set to "waiting for payment" status.
3) When crossposting to LiveJournal, the crosspost not going through and error messages in your inbox that read "Failed to connect to http://www.livejournal.com/interface/xmlrpc".
All three of these errors are only happening occasionally.
The first two are problems on our end that we're working to track down -- we've added some extra debugging code that should help us pinpoint the cause, and we'll get it fixed as quickly as possible after that. (Things that only happen occasionally are very hard to diagnose and fix, since you can't always know for sure what the cause is, and you can't usually verify that the fixes you're putting into place actually fix the problem.)
The crossposting problem is, unfortunately, on LJ's end and not on ours: that error means that LJ was unreachable at the time the crosspost attempt was sent. If you get the error, your crosspost attempt will retry up to five times, at increasingly-longer intervals, before sending you a final failure notice in your inbox. Once that happens, you can edit the post and re-check the crosspost box, then save the post, to start it trying again. Whether or not it succeeds depends entirely on whether we can reach LJ at the time it tries. (It doesn't matter whether you can load LJ on your own computer when that happens -- the crosspost attempt is sent from our servers, so our servers have to be able to reach LJ, not your computer.)
If you run into problems with a payment, open a support request in the Account Payments category, and I'll get things fixed up for you as soon as I possibly can. (There's only one of me, though, so it probably won't be an immediate response, unless you happen to catch me while I'm sitting right in front of the computer!)
If you run into either of the other two problems, you can let us know by leaving a comment here, just so we can get a rough sense of how often the problems are coming up. We might not be able to tell you anything more than what's in this post, though!
If you're having an issue that isn't one of these three, open a support request, describing the issue as thoroughly as possible, and somebody will help you troubleshoot it.
1) Random "403 Forbidden" errors when loading site pages, mostly in journals but sometimes on site pages.
2) Shop carts paid for by credit card where you get an error when trying to check out, then the cart is set to "waiting for payment" status.
3) When crossposting to LiveJournal, the crosspost not going through and error messages in your inbox that read "Failed to connect to http://www.livejournal.com/interface/xmlrpc".
All three of these errors are only happening occasionally.
The first two are problems on our end that we're working to track down -- we've added some extra debugging code that should help us pinpoint the cause, and we'll get it fixed as quickly as possible after that. (Things that only happen occasionally are very hard to diagnose and fix, since you can't always know for sure what the cause is, and you can't usually verify that the fixes you're putting into place actually fix the problem.)
The crossposting problem is, unfortunately, on LJ's end and not on ours: that error means that LJ was unreachable at the time the crosspost attempt was sent. If you get the error, your crosspost attempt will retry up to five times, at increasingly-longer intervals, before sending you a final failure notice in your inbox. Once that happens, you can edit the post and re-check the crosspost box, then save the post, to start it trying again. Whether or not it succeeds depends entirely on whether we can reach LJ at the time it tries. (It doesn't matter whether you can load LJ on your own computer when that happens -- the crosspost attempt is sent from our servers, so our servers have to be able to reach LJ, not your computer.)
If you run into problems with a payment, open a support request in the Account Payments category, and I'll get things fixed up for you as soon as I possibly can. (There's only one of me, though, so it probably won't be an immediate response, unless you happen to catch me while I'm sitting right in front of the computer!)
If you run into either of the other two problems, you can let us know by leaving a comment here, just so we can get a rough sense of how often the problems are coming up. We might not be able to tell you anything more than what's in this post, though!
If you're having an issue that isn't one of these three, open a support request, describing the issue as thoroughly as possible, and somebody will help you troubleshoot it.
no subject
no subject
"Crosspost of "Interesting Links for 02-08-2013"
(http://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/2924945.html) to
andrewducker@LiveJournal failed.
Failed to crosspost entry to andrewducker@LiveJournal: Failed to connect
to http://www.livejournal.com/interface/xmlrpc."
And after that point I've never had it go through later on - I always have to go and edit, tick the box, and hit update. I've never received an email saying "Dreamwidth gave up on trying to post."
no subject
The second failure notice wouldn't be emailed-- it is an inbox-only notif iirc.
Before this spate of LiveJournal crosspost issues, it was fairly common to get the first xpost failure notif, then check LiveJournal, and see that the second xpost attempt had already been successful. Recently, though, LiveJournal has been unavailable fairly consistently, so that isn't happening. I understand how it could be a little confusing, though!
no subject
I _have_ had situations where I'd receive both the failure notification and a success notification from LJ in my inbox almost simultaneously (I track myself so I can see that posts have made it through ok from my link autoposter). I assumed that that was cases of the post being successful, but DW not being told it had occurred because the connection was lost.
How long does it keep trying for?
no subject
I don't have the information right in front of me, but I seem to remember that it is a period of a few hours. I may be incorrect, though.