Is it just me, or are all of the pictures on xF broken?

[Lynk]

I would very much like to consider switching my planned launches to xF, since I recently had a problem with my pilot site's vB installation. Eventhough I have paid more than a single license purchase of vB for my site's installation, which is only a year-and-a-half old, the support folks at vB were trying to extort more money from me for support. If it wasn't for Shamil, my site would still be broken.

Well, these forums seem to exhibiting much the same problems as my site. It ended-up being a BOM in the UTF-8 configuration file, which contains the connection strings, was corrupting every script on my site. So, now for my two questions:

• Is there any ETA for the repairs here, or is the functionality just broken in my IE8 installation?
• Would a couple of larger board installations of xF please share a link to their site?

 

[Nasr]

Yes, yes... a cookie-less domain may well be the issue. Thank you for giving this some attention.

I don't see any obvious signs of blocked connections in my firewall logs, but I'll gladly look into them a bit deeper when I have some more time.

Just to let you know, you probably would never find a more friendlier person on these forums than Brogan. Hope to see you as a customer of xenForo and hopefully, soon.

 

[Lynk]

Thank you, Nasr. I have nothing against Brogan, and certainly expect to find a better overall community and developer support over here. After reading countless dismissals from support staff at vBulletin.com's forums, I have all but signed-off on their product. While I'll probably keep using my license to their software, vB has put a pretty bad taste in my mouth; that's why I made specific mention of Shamil. Two months without any help from vB's staff, and Shamil found my problem within two days.

Call me a bit jaded... I've been working on network infrastructures for over a decade, didn't get scared by the doom and gloom of the tech bubble, served to support some of the largest enterprise networks in the world, and provide engineering support to VERY large clients. Over the course of my career, I can't fathom to count the number of times that I've heard and seen an issue dismissed as "due to the network." That said, cisco and Juniper have their own issues from time to time.

I checked this site from my public server, which is not using NAT, and the site loaded correctly. This is significant because the PIX 515E in front of it is running PIX OS 7.2(4). At home, I have a PIX 501 running PIX OS 6.3(3). So, I compared the inspection of the 515E to the fixup of the 501; HTTP was the only difference, yet removing it didn't effect a change. I suppose I could enable PAT on my 515E's external interface for one of the backend networks, but I'd rather not fiddle around too much with my collocation hardware.

Brogan, are the images being served from different public addresses than the rest of the site content? I'm still suspect that they're getting dropped due to false identification as session hacking. This whole thing may be a moot subject though, considering that the PIX 501 has been declared End Of Life; you can buy them on eBay for $10, all day long.

 

[Onimua]

Thank you, Nasr. I have nothing against Brogan, and certainly expect to find a better overall community and developer support over here. After reading countless dismissals from support staff at vBulletin.com's forums, I have all but signed-off on their product. While I'll probably keep using my license to their software, vB has put a pretty bad taste in my mouth; that's why I made specific mention of Shamil. Two months without any help from vB's staff, and Shamil found my problem within two days.

Call me a bit jaded... I've been working on network infrastructures for over a decade, didn't get scared by the doom and gloom of the tech bubble, served to support some of the largest enterprise networks in the world, and provide engineering support to VERY large clients. Over the course of my career, I can't fathom to count the number of times that I've heard and seen an issue dismissed as "due to the network." That said, cisco and Juniper have their own issues from time to time.

I checked this site from my public server, which is not using NAT, and the site loaded correctly. This is significant because the PIX 515E in front of it is running PIX OS 7.2(4). At home, I have a PIX 501 running PIX OS 6.3(3). So, I compared the inspection of the 515E to the fixup of the 501; HTTP was the only difference, yet removing it didn't effect a change. I suppose I could enable PAT on my 515E's external interface for one of the backend networks, but I'd rather not fiddle around too much with my collocation hardware.

Brogan, are the images being served from different public addresses than the rest of the site content? I'm still suspect that they're getting dropped due to false identification as session hacking. This whole thing may be a moot subject though, considering that the PIX 501 has been declared End Of Life; you can buy them on eBay for $10, all day long.

It might be because some things are being loaded from xenforo.net instead, like avatars, perhaps?

 

[Paul B]

Brogan, are the images being served from different public addresses than the rest of the site content?

Yes, as I posted earlier, xenforo.net is being used for avatars, etc.
You can see that by looking on the BB Code Help page at the IMG tag: http://xenforo.com/community/help/bb-codes

[IMG]http://xenforo.net/community/styles/default/xenforo/avatars/avatar_s.png[/IMG]

Or even browsing to the URL of my avatar: http://xenforo.net/community/data/avatars/l/0/521.jpg?1302302910

 

[Lynk]

It might be because some things are being loaded from xenforo.<span style="font-weight: bold">net</span> instead, like avatars, perhaps?

That's what I'm getting at... If I load a site that contains image tags on another domain, my client computer will initiate HTTP GET requests for those images, and all will work as expected. On the other hand, if a page has a server-side call to images on another domain (more specifically, another IP address), that handoff must be handled correctly. Simply stated, a firewall will block content sent to my client, unless I my client initiated the connection. That's why firewalls are considered "stateful."

A firewall will block content from a server, unless the trusted host (client) specifically requests it.

... I THINK I JUST FOUND THE PROBLEM... Comcast's DNS servers have been failing to resolve "xenforo.net." After resolving www.xenforo.net, Comcast's servers have a proper cache to "xenforo.net," and the site is working for me.

 

[AnthonyCea]

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xf-server-on-the-blink.14963/

It is not just you, the site was malfunctioning the other night when I started this thread, could have been a DB connection issue.

 

[Lynk]

Slick... now I like the forums software all that much more! The pop-up edit boxes and other dynamic content are great!

Brogan, will you check that you've got an A record for "@.xenforo.net?" Seems that you have a CNAME record, but either are missing or failing to resolve the A record.

 

[Nasr]

That's what I'm getting at... If I load a site that contains image tags on another domain, my client computer will initiate HTTP GET requests for those images, and all will work as expected. On the other hand, if a page has a server-side call to images on another domain (more specifically, another IP address), that handoff must be handled correctly. Simply stated, a firewall will block content sent to my client, unless I my client initiated the connection. That's why firewalls are considered "stateful."

A firewall will block content from a server, unless the trusted host (client) specifically requests it.

... I THINK I JUST FOUND THE PROBLEM... Comcast's DNS servers have been failing to resolve "xenforo.net." After resolving www.xenforo.net, Comcast's servers have a proper cache to "xenforo.net," and the site is working for me.

Glad you've found the problem.

 

[Lynk]

Guys, I'm surprised these forums are working for anyone, right now.

The registries have xenforo.net pointing to dns{1-4}.registrar-services.com, but the domain is seeded on the Internet as served by dns{1-5}.name-services.com. When I connect to name-services.com, I see a record for xenforo.net.local, but no xenforo.net. The servers at registrar-services.com either have no knowledge of the xenforo.net domain, or needs the zone reloaded.

Needless to say, the problem is *not* on my end.

 

[John]

I wondered why I was seeing flashes of xenforo.net in my browser progress bar from time to time. I've not experienced any image loading problems that I'm aware of (don't use IE), but I have noticed degraded performance as of late. I just chocked it up to my ISP which is also Comcast...but now I'm beginning to think it isn't entirely them.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Just to let you know, you probably would never find a more friendlier person on these forums than Brogan. Hope to see you as a customer of xenForo and hopefully, soon.

I haven't been here long but from what Ive seen I would endorse the above post, Brogan is very helpful

 

[Sadik B]

Hi Lynk,

1. Install Firefox, if you don't have it already.
2. Install Firebug
3. Open xF.com in firefox
4. If you see a red "X" where an avatar or image should have been, press F12
5. Click on the inspect element arrow in firebug
6. Now take your mouse pointer to the red "X" where image should have been.
7. Note the image path and copy it. It can either be a <img> element (in which case you did not need firebug) or any element with the image in the css background or background-image property. For example, the path of my avatar is http://xenforo.net/community/data/avatars/m/0/543.jpg?1298139023
8. Now open a different browser and try to open the image url, if it opens, it's a problem with your browser (in this case firefox)
9. If it doesn't open in a different browser, try a different computer (preferably while disabling firewall, antivirus etc.) in the same network. If it opens, it's a problem with the machine you were earlier on.
10. If it doesn't open in another computer, go to a friend's place and try the url. If it opens it's a problem with your home netowrk.
11. If it doesn't yet open in your friend's place, it's most possibly something wrong at xF.com and we can then contact the developers.

Hope I helped

 

[Sergei]

It can also be your antivirus.

 

[Lynk]

Sadikb and Sergei, the problem is related to DNS, as detailed in my last post.

In some respects, I'm pleased that the problem is caused by name resolution. In fact, I'm already planning my first deployment of xF. I just hope the folks here can figure out the problems with their DNS SOA, so that the problems I've experienced don't drive others to question the platform, since it really does look brilliant!

 

[Crazyace]

That's what I'm getting at... If I load a site that contains image tags on another domain, my client computer will initiate HTTP GET requests for those images, and all will work as expected. On the other hand, if a page has a server-side call to images on another domain (more specifically, another IP address), that handoff must be handled correctly. Simply stated, a firewall will block content sent to my client, unless I my client initiated the connection. That's why firewalls are considered "stateful."

A firewall will block content from a server, unless the trusted host (client) specifically requests it.

... I THINK I JUST FOUND THE PROBLEM... Comcast's DNS servers have been failing to resolve "xenforo.net." After resolving www.xenforo.net, Comcast's servers have a proper cache to "xenforo.net," and the site is working for me.

I was having the same issue. It was driving me crazy because none of my images would show up and facebook wouldn't auto log-in for me. Also in IE9 when clicking on a post the screen would just go black. I have Comcast Business Class and clicking on the .net site helped fix my issues also.

 

[Panupat]

Lynk - I had similar problems before but not with Xenforo website. For me it was Lithium framework website. I got all images as X and non of the javascript got loaded. The problem stayed for a few days, I didn't visit that site for a week or so and then the problem just go away....

Looking from the error messages it seemed firefox was trying to block cross-site scripts. Lithium called to jquery files from jquery's website. But... jquery website has always be in my white list and no other sites ever did that error to me. To this day I still haven't quite fully figured out what the problem really was, nor how it went away.

 

[Renegade]

One of my forum users reported the exact same problem with my forum and I don't use a cookie less domain. Since it was just one user I did not keep it very high in my priority list.

 

[Crazyace]

My issue with this site came back again and I had to use xenforo.net again to fix it.

 

[Mike]

XenForo.net should be using all of the same DNS hosts as XenForo.com, so I'm really not sure why there would be particular problems with one domain. (It's also odd that most people don't have an issue with xf.net.)

 

[xml]

this issue could be related to the ISP caching system, try to login xenforo.com through adifferent ISP or through a proxy and see if you will have the same issue