COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Stanley]

That could be right Peter. I shall give it a go....

[Stanley]

Have you ever come across Encrochat Mobile Phones? Have a look at THIS Wikipedia article, then go to BBC Sounds and access the programme 'Gangster' broadcast on R4 yesterday from 13:30 to 14:00.
I remember hearing a news item that mentioned this but didn't realise just what a big deal it was.

[Stanley]

The site is dreadfully slow this morning, it's only OneGuy, everything else is normal.

[Big Kev]

Looking at the logs the server was rebooted at 06:58 this morning. If I have time I'll see if I can find any details on what the issue is.

[Stanley]

At that time I noticed that the images suddenly healed up but the rest hasn't changed.
The error message I keep getting is 502 Bad Gateway.

[Big Kev]

The hosting server CPU usage is very high, it had been steadily increasing over the last 7 days. Last time this happened we were being battered by a number of malicious IP addresses, Ian identified these and a block was put on them. Not saying it's the same thing but a good place to start. I have to work now so won't have opportunity to look any further today.

Your 502 will probably be a proxy server not being able to access the hosting server

[Big Kev]

The site appears to be more responsive now

[Stanley]

I have just come down from 2 hours second sleep. Certainly the site is far better now than it was early this morning. Perhaps I should have gone back to bed earlier!
I shall have a drink of tea and then go veggie shopping....

[PanBiker]

With a bit of luck I think I have traced the source of the slowdown in the logs and taken measures to fix the problem.

[Stanley]

Good! I have said it before, you are worth your weight in monkey poo!

[Stanley]

Help. every mail I try to send from Thunderbird this morning throws up the error message 'too many recipients' even for a single address. Anyone any ideas?

[Tizer]

No problem here sending messages via Thunderbird. I can't find anything on google other than many queries in the past from people trying to send hundreds of messages and then it's due to the service provider, not Thunderbird. Try again later, it's probably a temporary glitch somewhere.

[PanBiker]

You could try sending a test mail via webmail on TalkTalk, that would test the mail server.

[Stanley]

I shall do as Peter suggests and leave it to heal up. I got my messages out to all the kids in Oz this morning via Whatsapp. These things generally heal themselves up and as I said earlier, I am getting incoming mail.....

[Stanley]

The morning report is that as usual, whatever brain fart the system had healed itself during the night. Email is healthy again this morning!

[Tizer]

That's good to know.

[PanBiker]

My Full Fibre Broadband contract with Talk Talk is due for renewal shortly. I wanted to check the date as I am going to ask for a new contract that doesn't include the £16 per month free calls boost on the phone line that they can't seem to cancel! A completely new contract should sort that however, the TalkTalk website seems to be broken this morning as it can't log me in so I cant check current deals or anything! I think it is February or thereabouts.

[Stanley]

I hope you can get it sorted Ian. I hate anything like that. It reminds me of the British Gas inability to manage their systems. The bottom line is that it is simply incompetence.

[Tizer]

Ian, Get yourself a personal domain from IONOS and then sign up with Plusnet. I've been with them for about 20 years, outages are rare and they're very responsive when needed. The only real problem I've had with them was when I moved to this house and needed new equipment but then it was really the BT engineers who caused problems.

[PanBiker]

Neither of those solutions would solve the preservation of our email addresses which we have had for over 20 years. Originally with Tiscali when they first started in the mid 90's. TalkTalk took over and have maintained the legacy addresses since around 2009. They have been used to register with dozens of companies and services over the years and it would be a nightmare to unravel and change all of those. If you leave an ISP and their mail service they usually maintain the addresses for about six months before deleting the mailboxes permanently from the servers. I should be able to lose the problem with a new contract which does not include a landline, it will also be cheaper.

[Stanley]

I can see your problem Ian and it's why I tend to bury my head in the sand and leave these matters alone. I'm fairly sure I could get a cheaper deal out of TalkTalk if I tried (It's just over £30 a month at the moment) but I simply can't be arsed. I have enough with the BG Wars!
I hope you can get a satisfactory solution.... (And yes, I would hate to change my email address..... )

[Tizer]

When Mrs Tiz switched on her Samsung phone this morning she got a "System UI Isn't Responding" warning. We searched online and followed the Samsung instructions to clear the system UI cache but couldn't find it. Tried other locations on the phone and eventually found it, cleared the cache and now it seems OK. I often find that the instructions don't work because they keep changing how the files are stored. All part of the Grand Plan for getting folk to ditch their phone and buy another, I suppose!

[Stanley]

The penalties of complicated systems. Ian's problems with the rogue server are a case in point.
I have been having my own problems with what looks like a bum email address belonging to one of my correspondents. It has been fine for ten years but suddenly failed. It has taken us a fortnight to get a solution.

[Tizer]

Perhaps we'd be in a better position if we stopped building nuclear missile subs and aircraft carriers and instead spent the money on AI and quantum computers to protect us...
`Lockbit: UK leads disruption of major cyber-criminal gang' LINK

[Stanley]

From the present dire state of our subs and carriers that is definitely true Peter but then you and I have been arguing for years for spending to be diverted from vanity projects to the real world like health and education.