Thread: The forums are completely broken

Come on now, how hard is it to fix this whole piece of garbage after years of bloody beta?

Bad Request

Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.

I am getting this in about 70% of the cases when I click on anything.
Half the images of the forums refuse to load too.
This has been happening at least since the patch, but could very well be since last maintenance - not 100% sure.
I am using Opera 11.52 and didn't have THESE problems before at all.

And bring back the post history option in the CP. And bring back the old emoticons. And let the forum page fit today's widescreen monitors. Come on, this is not the 90s.

Originally Posted by Nymphonic

Come on, this is not the 90s.

I don't think there would be less whining if this would be. But I think I, personally, would feel quite well...
Not to be regarded as a post against legal complaint. Complaint is important for progress. *raise fist*

The forum is completely 100% working for me (barring the intitial click-twice that has been there since I joined). I'm on Opera 11.64 (home and work) and it's the same working status on both.

There's another thread about this somewhere. You should post a detailed bug report about it there.

Ok this is happening with IE9 as well. Clearing whole cache including eliminating all cookies and restarts didn't help at all.
I just get the same error message most of the time.

Quite clever with fail update - makes people complain less, because they can't

Originally Posted by The-Walrus

Ok this is happening with IE9 as well. Clearing whole cache including eliminating all cookies and restarts didn't help at all.
I just get the same error message most of the time.

Quite clever with fail update - makes people complain less, because they can't

Just curious, but are you running under Compatability View? I have since IE8, and other than the pretty constant 'having to click twice', the rest seems to be working.

I don't. And Opera doesn't have any such functionality anyway.

I had no such problems up until these days whatsoever! They should wipe this stupid software off the servers and put standard BB forums (or whatever is it called) up instead.

I have no problems on IE8 or Firefox 12.

Originally Posted by The-Walrus

I don't. And Opera doesn't have any such functionality anyway.

I had no such problems up until these days whatsoever! They should wipe this stupid software off the servers and put standard BB forums (or whatever is it called) up instead.

The problem with this is that users who are using previous versions of IE will have problems. I won't get into the evolution of IE, but compatability view allows users of newer IE versions to run older sites that were created to be compatable. It's a set it once thing for the site... not that tough to do and will save you some grief. Whether or not you do is, of course, your choice, but getting mad about it won't solve anything.

I totally understand your point, but if I've been using specific browser version for months to years and these problems only started this week, Turbine is clearly to be blamed :P

Bad Request

Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.

EIGHT times in a row trying to open a thread! This is ridiculous. Happening more or less since U7.

I had to stop looking at the forums during the day on my phone (which, yes, I know I shouldn't be doing anyway lol) because they simply don't work. Every click is a 'bad request' error. From my computer (IE9), I don't get that error, but the load time for a page is VERY much slower than it used to be, and I still need to click several times on some links. I often have to reload the page when I try to create a post because nothing can be typed in the text editor.

There remain a great deal of broken, outdated, or user-unfriendly issues with this site. I rarely get anything other than a blank page when I type in a search term. Lorebook is outdated and doesn't search well. And of course the persistent issue with characters and kinships updating information properly.

We'll probably get the usual posts we get in this type of thread that say it's perfect, we're imagining things, it shouldn't be a priority, etc. But personally I think that raising issues that could lead to the best quality site possible is a sign that we're loyal to this game/site/company and want it to succeed and continue to attract this amazing community. C'mon Turbine, show us what you can do!

Originally Posted by Whart

I had to stop looking at the forums during the day on my phone (which, yes, I know I shouldn't be doing anyway lol) because they simply don't work. Every click is a 'bad request' error. From my computer (IE9), I don't get that error, but the load time for a page is VERY much slower than it used to be, and I still need to click several times on some links. I often have to reload the page when I try to create a post because nothing can be typed in the text editor.

There remain a great deal of broken, outdated, or user-unfriendly issues with this site. I rarely get anything other than a blank page when I type in a search term. Lorebook is outdated and doesn't search well. And of course the persistent issue with characters and kinships updating information properly.

We'll probably get the usual posts we get in this type of thread that say it's perfect, we're imagining things, it shouldn't be a priority, etc. But personally I think that raising issues that could lead to the best quality site possible is a sign that we're loyal to this game/site/company and want it to succeed and continue to attract this amazing community. C'mon Turbine, show us what you can do!

I really thought it was problem with Opera, but it's exactly the same with IE8. Pages don't fully load in 80% of the cases, too.
Except for general crappiness I never had problems of this kind for two years until around Update7.

The 400 Bad Request (which is a rather common vB issue) is generally related to cookie handling. Normally this shouldn't be a problem, but coupled with the tie-in to myLOTRO and their customized load-handling cache plugin, it's probably an issue that is far from trivial to fix.

A 'quick fix' is to delete your cookie for this forum, restart your browser, and log back in. It *should* be a lesser issue, but it will come back as time goes on.

Originally Posted by DarkCntry

The 400 Bad Request (which is a rather common vB issue) is generally related to cookie handling. Normally this shouldn't be a problem, but coupled with the tie-in to myLOTRO and their customized load-handling cache plugin, it's probably an issue that is far from trivial to fix.

A 'quick fix' is to delete your cookie for this forum, restart your browser, and log back in. It *should* be a lesser issue, but it will come back as time goes on.

Yeah I figured it had something to do with cookies. BUT I refuse to delete entire cache (it's the quickest way) everytime I want to read the forums. Just for the record, it took me about eight attempts to even get into the CP. Everytime I tried to refresh the forums either didn't load or loaded partially, resulting in the popup menu where I can get to subscribed threads to disappear after I moved the mouse away from "My preferences".
It's HORRIBLE. Can't you get just one thing right Turbine?

I understand the OP's frustration but other than the double click on things, I don't have any problem. Btw, I run Chrome 19.0.1 I used to like Opera but I ended up finding it couldn't do things as well as FF or Chrome. It is better than IE9 though.

Brand new Opera 12 beta behaves (just for the record) the same. Not like I expected a difference, but was worth a try.

I wonder how many months will Turbine ignore us.

I get really irritated with the search function. I can no longer click on any of the results, they just don't open. Makes searching pretty much useless when I can verify that what I am looking for is there, but I can't read it.

After 5 years of existence, LOTRO Community is still Beta

Now we have a new skin on a busted forum....Hooray!

I was JUST thinking the same thing

The disturbing fact is Turbine won't even acknowledge the problem. I guess I will just stop visiting the forums and possibly playing the game as well, there is too much broken stuff lately.

Originally Posted by Mark_J

Now we have a new skin on a busted forum....Hooray!

you have too much rep ... and sadly I have given out too much in the last 24h .. so +1 and /bow

I miss the old forums the way it used to be way back. I still cannot get used to this new(er) forum. I therfore rarely come here and rely on other fan sites for news and stories instead. The only thing I use often is the lottery.

Looks like one specific cookie is responsible for this. I typically "minimize" several forum categories. I found out if I leave them all be, the forums seem to work normally.

Could anyone who encountered the same problems confirm this?

A couple of these kind of problems are account related as far as I know. For example, I can never see anyone's forum profile (including my own) on any browser I tried (and I tried some obscure ones too, I can tell you... I do web development as a professional software designer myself, occasionally). I always get a recursive page redirection.
I can't get any of my own character setting pages. I just get 'Error: An error occurred while processing your request. We apologize for the inconvenience.' returned. The blog admin does a recursive page redirection, like the forum profiles do, which means I can't blog at all on my forum account.

When I log out, I can see forum profiles just fine... but of course I can't use any interaction that needs login access with them. Which makes it hard to, for example, add forum friends.

I managed to get a response from the support. It is a known problem for some users. Awesome. Would you ever care to inform your customers, Turbine? Oh I forgot you all were extremely busy with promoting the store and giving us dummies we all were dying for.

I am getting seriously fed up with this attitude of yours. We (almost never) neither get answers nor are being informed about stuff.

An update on my forum adventures:

I am working from a new computer most of the day now and it does not have any of the reported issues except for having to select 'My Forum Settings' twice to get to my home base. That's WAI as far as I can tell based on the URL's. The new comp is a basic Dell running Win7.

The other older computers I use to access this site still have tremendous problems with terrible navigation performance, dropped log-ins, etc.

Have you tried deleting entire cache and cookies and anything else of that kind on the old computer?

It's funny...

The first three topics in these forums are:

1) Lottery is broken

2) The Forums are broken

3) The Lorebook is broken

I can't wait to get in-world and experience all the new bugs they've implemented for our pleasure.

Originally Posted by The-Walrus

Have you tried deleting entire cache and cookies and anything else of that kind on the old computer?

Yeah, I've done all of the usual browser/internet-related diagnostics. Way back on the original form of these forums, pre-Community Beta, I had no problems with any computer. It was something which changed on the forum side, not on my end. I suppose it could be something in-between the servers and my computers, but that seems to be very unlikely. The computers I use are at completely different addresses.

The forums have gotten really bad again for me lately. I've cleared my cache, deleted cookies, restarted my comp, refreshed the browser, all of the above, and the issues are back again as soon as I open up the forums. Getting very tiresome...

I followed the above suggestions a while back, and everything seemed to be fine for a while, but in the last several days it's gotten much worse.

I'm using IE9... yes, I know some folks have an easier time of it on other browsers, but everything else I do in IE9 works fine, I shouldn't have to open a different browser just to use these forums.

I've totally given up on Turbine giving any attention to these forums. They suck. Really and truly suck.

Originally Posted by Alcaniel

The forums have gotten really bad again for me lately. I've cleared my cache, deleted cookies, restarted my comp, refreshed the browser, all of the above, and the issues are back again as soon as I open up the forums. Getting very tiresome...

I followed the above suggestions a while back, and everything seemed to be fine for a while, but in the last several days it's gotten much worse.

I'm using IE9... yes, I know some folks have an easier time of it on other browsers, but everything else I do in IE9 works fine, I shouldn't have to open a different browser just to use these forums.

Do you collapse any of the forums sections by chance? That's what's causing all problems for me.

Originally Posted by The-Walrus

Do you collapse any of the forums sections by chance? That's what's causing all problems for me.

I do, in fact. I'll try leaving them all open and see if that fixes anything, thanks for the input!

For what it's worth, I normally browse the forums by first checking my subscribed threads, then I check the Dev tracker, and then I check new posts. I do not surf through the forum sub-sections directly.

Originally Posted by Alcaniel

I do, in fact. I'll try leaving them all open and see if that fixes anything, thanks for the input!

My personal experience says you can collapse exactly one section and stay bug-free. I did it with the server list.

Originally Posted by Skippy-SuperChunk

After 5 years of existence, LOTRO Community is still Beta

QXDNB (I have no idea what that means. It just popped up in the reply window. I decided to leave it for demonstrative purposes)

And as too the quote above. Five years = No intention of ever leaving the 'test' phase of the 'new' forums.

Originally Posted by Stigger32

QXDNB (I have no idea what that means. It just popped up in the reply window. I decided to leave it for demonstrative purposes)

And as too the quote above. Five years = No intention of ever leaving the 'test' phase of the 'new' forums.

Of course not. If they leave the "testing" phase then they have to admit when something is broken or not working and then actually fix it. As long as it stays in perpetual beta they can hand-wave any problems away as "oh well it's beta you can't expect it to be perfect" and never have to fix anything or provide a working, functional community site.

Usually I am all for giving the benefit of the doubt, but having the forums be in "beta" for years is embarrassing and unprofessional. Maybe they think people outside the game don't notice or talk about these kind of things, but they do, and it reflects very badly on the company and their reputation.

FYI, ever since the update earlier this week I have been getting the "Bad Request" error about half the time when I click on forum links and I'm using Firefox 12.0. It took me multiple tries to post this msg because of it as well. One more critical bug to add to the pile of garbage we have to deal with on this "beta" site I guess.

Originally Posted by brasswire12

Of course not. If they leave the "testing" phase then they have to admit when something is broken or not working and then actually fix it. As long as it stays in perpetual beta they can hand-wave any problems away as "oh well it's beta you can't expect it to be perfect" and never have to fix anything or provide a working, functional community site.

Usually I am all for giving the benefit of the doubt, but having the forums be in "beta" for years is embarrassing and unprofessional. Maybe they think people outside the game don't notice or talk about these kind of things, but they do, and it reflects very badly on the company and their reputation.

FYI, ever since the update earlier this week I have been getting the "Bad Request" error about half the time when I click on forum links and I'm using Firefox 12.0. It took me multiple tries to post this msg because of it as well. One more critical bug to add to the pile of garbage we have to deal with on this "beta" site I guess.

'Bad request' - Yeh so have I.

And as to the unprofessional comment. I couldn't agree more. I will never, ever, ever, buy another Turbine product. Once I'm done with Lotro. Thats it for me.

I've been having so many problems since trying to come back