AO3 Connection Issues

[lucyrp.livejournal.com]

We've been receiving a small number of reports of people unable to access the Archive of Our Own - if you've been affected by this issue, this post will give you a bit more information about what's going on. We'd also like to appeal for your help as we work to fix it!

What's wrong

We recently upgraded our firewall to improve the security of our servers. Unfortunately, it seems that we haven't got the configuration absolutely right and it's causing connection problems for some users. This problem is only affecting a small number of users, and it's not completely consistent. However, if you've received an Error 404, a warning saying 'Secure Connection Failed', or you've been redirected to a url with 8080 in it, then this is what's causing it.

While we worked on the issue, we temporarily disabled https on the site, as that was causing some additional problems. This means that if you have a browser extension such as HTTPS Everywhere enabled, or you use a browser which enforces https by default, then the site will not load - apologies for this. If the site has been consistently timing out for you, it's worth checking if this applies in your case - if the url defaults to https://archiveofourown.org then you have been affected by this issue.

How you can workaround

If you're being affected by the https issue, you can work around by adding an exception to HTTPS Everywhere, or using a different browser.

If you're getting errors at random, then clearing your browser cache and refreshing should help. You may also find it helps to use another browser.

How you can help us

We're working to get to the bottom of this problem, and we know we've already reduced the number of errors which are occurring. However, it would be enormously helpful for our Systems team to have a little more information. If you encounter an error, please submit a Support request giving the following information:

Your IP address You can find this out by going to http://www.whatsmyip.org/.
The url of the page where you got the error:
The exact error you got: You may find it easiest to copy and paste the error. If you didn't get an error but the page just never loads, tell us that.
What time (UTC) you got the error: Please check the current time in UTC when you get the error - this will make it easier for us to keep track, since we're dealing with users in lots of different timezones.
Is the error intermittent or constant?
What browser are you using? It would be extra helpful if you can tell us your user agent string, which you can find out by going to http://whatsmyuseragent.com/".

If you know how to view the source of a page in the browser, it would also be very helpful if you could could copy and paste the source code of the page that throws up the problem.

If you're comfortable working on the command line, then it would also be helpful if you could provide us with some additional information (if you're already wondering what we're talking about, don't worry, you can ignore this bit). Open up a command line window and type nslookup ao3.org. Copy whatever pops up in your console and paste it into your Support message.

If you can't access the Archive at all (and thus can't submit a Support request there) you can send us this information via our backup Support form.

A note on https

We know that many people prefer to use https connection to provide additional security on the web, and we will be reenabling this option as soon as we can. Because the AO3 doesn't handle data such as credit card information or similar, browsing without https doesn't expose our users to any significant security risks. However, it is always a good policy to use a unique password (i.e. don't use the same username and password combo for the AO3 and your email account) in order to ensure that if for any reason someone else obtains your AO3 credentials, they can't use them to access other data). Apologies for the inconvenience to users while this option is disabled.

ETA for a fix

We're hoping to resolve these lingering problems asap; however, our Systems team have limited time, so we may not be able to track down the root of the problem as fast as we'd like. We'll keep you updated, and in the meantime apologise for the inconvenience.

Mirrored from an original post on the Archive of Our Own.

AO3 Connection Issues

[lucyp]

We've been receiving a small number of reports of people unable to access the Archive of Our Own - if you've been affected by this issue, this post will give you a bit more information about what's going on. We'd also like to appeal for your help as we work to fix it!

What's wrong

We recently upgraded our firewall to improve the security of our servers. Unfortunately, it seems that we haven't got the configuration absolutely right and it's causing connection problems for some users. This problem is only affecting a small number of users, and it's not completely consistent. However, if you've received an Error 404, a warning saying 'Secure Connection Failed', or you've been redirected to a url with 8080 in it, then this is what's causing it.

While we worked on the issue, we temporarily disabled https on the site, as that was causing some additional problems. This means that if you have a browser extension such as HTTPS Everywhere enabled, or you use a browser which enforces https by default, then the site will not load - apologies for this. If the site has been consistently timing out for you, it's worth checking if this applies in your case - if the url defaults to https://archiveofourown.org then you have been affected by this issue.

How you can workaround

If you're being affected by the https issue, you can work around by adding an exception to HTTPS Everywhere, or using a different browser.

If you're getting errors at random, then clearing your browser cache and refreshing should help. You may also find it helps to use another browser.

How you can help us

We're working to get to the bottom of this problem, and we know we've already reduced the number of errors which are occurring. However, it would be enormously helpful for our Systems team to have a little more information. If you encounter an error, please submit a Support request giving the following information:

Your IP address You can find this out by going to http://www.whatsmyip.org/.
The url of the page where you got the error:
The exact error you got: You may find it easiest to copy and paste the error. If you didn't get an error but the page just never loads, tell us that.
What time (UTC) you got the error: Please check the current time in UTC when you get the error - this will make it easier for us to keep track, since we're dealing with users in lots of different timezones.
Is the error intermittent or constant?
What browser are you using? It would be extra helpful if you can tell us your user agent string, which you can find out by going to http://whatsmyuseragent.com/".

If you know how to view the source of a page in the browser, it would also be very helpful if you could could copy and paste the source code of the page that throws up the problem.

If you're comfortable working on the command line, then it would also be helpful if you could provide us with some additional information (if you're already wondering what we're talking about, don't worry, you can ignore this bit). Open up a command line window and type nslookup ao3.org. Copy whatever pops up in your console and paste it into your Support message.

If you can't access the Archive at all (and thus can't submit a Support request there) you can send us this information via our backup Support form.

A note on https

We know that many people prefer to use https connection to provide additional security on the web, and we will be reenabling this option as soon as we can. Because the AO3 doesn't handle data such as credit card information or similar, browsing without https doesn't expose our users to any significant security risks. However, it is always a good policy to use a unique password (i.e. don't use the same username and password combo for the AO3 and your email account) in order to ensure that if for any reason someone else obtains your AO3 credentials, they can't use them to access other data). Apologies for the inconvenience to users while this option is disabled.

ETA for a fix

We're hoping to resolve these lingering problems asap; however, our Systems team have limited time, so we may not be able to track down the root of the problem as fast as we'd like. We'll keep you updated, and in the meantime apologise for the inconvenience.

Mirrored from an original post on the Archive of Our Own.