Eric

I've never (previously) heard of RavenDB, but from what I've read, yeah, it sounds like at least part of the problem. I don't have any knowledge of how ATX software was developed this year, but the the above quote pasted by Joel makes it sound as if it's quite possible that RavenDB would have performed just fine if it had been used as designed. What's odd to me is that the quote above, from the "RavenDB exec" is exactly how I would expect almost any database server to be implemented in a network environment. I can't explain why the developers would have done it differently. As far as the software not being tested in a networked environment.. I don't know about that. I worked in QA while at ATX (10 years ago?), and while very little of that time was spent on MAX/Saber (I worked on TaxSolver, their sales and use compliance system) it was always tested in a networked environment.

The software license and price has nothing to do with how capable the software is. This website runs on many free open source systems. The server OS is Linux, the web server is Apache. The programming/scripting language that the forum software is written in is PHP. The database is mySQL. The only thing proprietary is the forum software, but the entire infrastructure doing the heavy lifting is free and open source, and it gets hit a heck of lot harder than any tax software database. If free open source software is good enough to power Google's servers (and most of the rest of the internet), it's good enough for me. The problem is that CCH chose the wrong tool for the job. Software license shouldn't even be a deciding factor when choosing the infrastructure for your application.

Yeah, I know it's a day early, but Governor LePage says I can start drinking at 6am St Patrick's Day, so I'll probably not be in any condition to post tomorrow. Guinness is like a breakfast all by itself anyway.

Thanks Ken. Having a general idea of the time it happened helps too. I assume you got the error within a minute or two of posting this?

The problem yesterday morning was something else, likely a short term issue at my server's data center. I believe everyone on the site at that same time saw things slow down. The rest of these reported issues though, I'm still trying to pin down.

Your issue sounds like it's on the server's end, but without an error message, I don't think anything is showing up in the server logs. So far, everyone reporting issues is using IE, but I have no way to determine if it's just a coincidence because lots of people use it, or if there is an IE-specific bug in the forum software that I haven't found yet. So far, nobody has tried another web browser to report if their problem persists or not, so I don't have a lot to go on.

I'll make the same suggestion I've made to others, try Chrome or Firefox to see if the same problem persists in those browsers. If it doesn't, then you know it's likely something to do with your Internet Explorer configuration, whether it's some setting, or installed/outdated addon/toolbar/etc. If the problem persists in other browses, then it's probably something software related, like drivers or a process running in the background. Video card vendors release updated drivers quite frequently, and many times they reduce conflicts and odd video artifacts/glitches. It's also usually best to use the drivers directly from the manufacturer, and not the one that Microsoft installs after detecting the hardware. I would be interested to hear what your technician comes up with.

Any error associated with a failed post? What happens exactly? I'm really reaching here, but it could be something like old video drivers. This forum software has a lot of fancy javacript-heavy features for actively loading content without page refreshes that could explain why a few people experience odd hiccups while most do not. There are a lot of variables, and diagnosing this stuff is much easier with physical access to the computer. Most of the issues in this thread sound unrelated, just quirky behavior specific to one person's system, except for a few that do sound like they are server-side. I'll start combing the server logs to see what I can find. There are some updates available for the forum software, but they should probably wait until after tax season.

Web browser and version?

As far as the user interface goes, IE 9 and 10 have a lot in common with Chrome. I'm not going to urge you to switch, but it would be good to see if it's something browser related or not, although I'm almost certain it is. That's not to say that it's IE9 related, however, because lots of others are using IE9 without issue. There are lots of variables... addons, toolbars, settings, that could come into play. Eventually IE10 will be pushed as an important update, and that very well could clear up the issue. Sometimes computers do funny things that seem random, and I just can't explain it.

For now I'll chalk the slowness up to random network weirdness. If it happens again though, I hope someone will post here so I can dig into the server logs and see if something's up.

Any interest upgrading to IE10 or just trying to install Firefox or Chrome, at least temporarily? Sometimes figuring out these things is a matter of eliminating possibilities.

Interesting. Please post again if you notice it gets slow again. I'm curious to know if it's a recurring thing, or just temporary network weirdness.

Has anyone been having trouble with the website recently? Any errors or unusually slow response / page loading? I haven't seen anything, and the site feels like its usual snappy self to me, but I've had a couple reports of problems and would like to narrow it down to see if it's on my server's end. EDIT: I deleted the other thread to reduce confusion.

http://thepessimist.com/2013/03/01/the-pessimists-guide-to-the-sequester/

That's unfortunate, Stephen Colbert is a handsome man. EDIT: Actually, after seeing a picture of him, I think he looks more like what would happen if Stephen Colbert and Ryan Reynolds had a baby. EDIT2: Uhoh, two guests reading this thread. He might be one of them.

No! It's not costing me any extra. It just slightly reduces the amount of bandwidth I wasn't using for anything else anyway. If I were closer to my limit, it might matter, but if I were that close to my limit, I'd buy a bigger chunk every month. So quit sending me money! Seriously though, the donations are appreciated, I'll use them to renew my software subscriptions in a couple months but that's not why I made the thread. If anyone noticed the scary BANDWIDTH EXCEEDED message for that few minutes, I didn't want an already shell shocked bunch of tax preparers to freak out and break computers in a Chinese airport or something.

Yes, the forum has seen a lot more traffic this year than last, and the trouble people are having likely accounts for much of the difference. I feel like I should say it again: I've got gobs of unallocated bandwidth available. It's no problem to throw another 5gb at this site's quota to get us through the last couple days of the month.

I just wanted you guys know that everything is fine, and that the forum isn't on the Precipice of Total Implosion™ I've got plenty of bandwidth to spare, no need for donations!

Exceeded bandwidth for the month, my bad! Should be all set now, added a few more gigs per month to the quota -- I'll pay closer attention for the next couple months. Sorry about that

Do you have any other web browsers installed? Firefox or Chrome?

This site uses Arial font for most of the text. You might be able to test if Arial is corrupt by opening WordPad or MS Word and writing some text in Arial font to see if it shows up in bold, even if Bold is not selected. You could also try known affected websites in different browsers to see if it's browser specific or not.

It could be a corrupted font or a browser font setting. What web browser?

I could have sworn they skipped that step, and went straight to trying to convince us which side's fault it is. Maybe they just made the switch in record time and I wasn't paying attention.

Internet Explorer 10, the version that shipped with Windows 8, is now available for Windows 7. Standards support and Javascript performance has improved significantly, even if it still lags behind Chrome and Firefox. I wouldn't blame you folks for not installing it during tax season, especially those who feel like their tax software balances on the precipice of total implosion. But as master of the web, I feel it's my responsibility to let people know that the opportunity exists for an improved web browsing experience. Article http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/internet-explorer-10-finally-released-for-windows-7/ Nerdier article with benchmarks http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/internet-explorer-10-for-windows-7-arrives-destroys-ie9-in-benchmarks-20121113/ Download http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/download