TOPIC:

Occasionally our website is not accesible. It results in the attached network error. To confirm that this is not just an internal issue, I try to access the website from my mobile phone using a different network and I get the error that the DNS could not be resolved.

This happens once in a while and last started happening this morning at 1130am.

our website is :

2836096.toastmastersclubs.org

What are you doing to the site when this happens ??

Something you are doing the server sees as an attack.

I try to open the site. I might be editing the agenda for our meetings, might be editing word of the day. Just general web admin stuff. Nothing different than using any other website.

Check for broken links and broken picture references on your website.

SteveTheTechie wrote:

Check for broken links and broken picture references on your website.

What exactly am I looking for? All links work (when the website finnally loaded for me. I have had issues in the past where the uploading of photos was bad and the photos would appear half gray so I uploaded them to imgur and used the links instead (especially since the interface for uploading photos is horrible).

So how would I know which l[inks are broken or here the issues lies? I clicked everything I could.

The pages with broken links or bad photo refs will generally take longer to load since the system will have to "time out" before it gives up on the bad links/references.

Also, you will need to review using the editor for best luck. Sometimes the editor will show a missing photo as just a small box icon.

The most rigorous (but time consuming) approach to checking is to use the editor's source view and count the number of <a href=....> tags (links) and the number of <img ...> tags (images) and cross check those against what you see when you are not in source view. If you see everything that is in Source view and it all works, then that page is probably fine.

I know this is a pain... Borked links/references are a source of a lot of headaches for us, also. I hope to implement a tool this year to help in finding/solving these problems quicker.

SteveTheTechie wrote:

The pages with broken links or bad photo refs will generally take longer to load since the system will have to "time out" before it gives up on the bad links/references.

Also, you will need to review using the editor for best luck. Sometimes the editor will show a missing photo as just a small box icon.

The most rigorous (but time consuming) approach to checking is to use the editor's source view and count the number of <a href=....> tags (links) and the number of <img ...> tags (images) and cross check those against what you see when you are not in source view. If you see everything that is in Source view and it all works, then that page is probably fine.

I know this is a pain... Borked links/references are a source of a lot of headaches for us, also. I hope to implement a tool this year to help in finding/solving these problems quicker.

Broken links would explain the timeouts on pages which have those links. I am getting a timeout loading the main page with no broken links in it (and other pages with no links either). Just the photo of our group that was loaded through the website. Also, broken links wouldnt work one day and timeout the next. Later in the day yesterday the site was working for me and as I mentioned this issue is intermittent. Somedays Ill get timeouts and others it works fine.

Brian's response stating that the server thinks I am doing an attack and therefore denies access seems to be the underlying cause, but I am not doing anything other than normal web admin stuff., like updating the agenda, editing our word of the day page, the tip of the day page, etc. Why is the site seeing my normal usage as an attack?

Its bad enough that the gui to update our web page is not very intuitive and will often give me problems by itself, having timeouts is more irritating than I can handle. I try to update the website in the little free time I have between tasks and if I get a timeout I cant do anything.

So what was the answer? Why did the site suddenly cause timeouts and why does this happen occasionaly? I was told something on my end makes it seem like an attack to the server. Can I get some details so I can ask our support team to address this?

On another note, during this period that I has having the timeout issues, I saved several agenda meetings for our future meetings and they are all lost now and I have to redo them!

Since my issue was not with broken links can anyone tell me what happened? I do not have a lot of time to administer the web site with updates for agendas, word of the day, tip of the day etc, so when I do, I really need it not to time out (or to lose all the work I did). If this occurs, I do not know when I will have time again to repeat this work. I need some info on what I can do on my end to avoid this from happening in the future.

What dates on the agenda have disappeared, and approximately (date) when did you save them?

What browser and version are you using?

The attack showed as over 300 hits against the server in 30 seconds.

Brian wrote:

What dates on the agenda have disappeared, and approximately (date) when did you save them?

What browser and version are you using?

The attack showed as over 300 hits against the server in 30 seconds.

I am using Internet Explorer 9.0.8112.16421. We dont control which browser to use. The Information services tests and approves browsers.

All I was trying to do was login to our site so I can update word of the day and tip of the day. I have added two webpages which I update after (or before each meeting if the members send me what they will say before the meeting).

The meeting agendas were generated using the existing templates we had for meetings up to 3 months in advance for the 2nd and 4th thursday of each month. The 2nd thursday of each month would use the Boston Ops template (which is now called unname template because it even lost his inofmation) and the 4th thrsday was generated with the template of Norwood toastmasters.

I did this right after our meeting on thursday March 27th after 2 pm I believe. Yesterday I was told that the meeting agendas I had created were not there. Just some old ones I had for one meeting in april, one in may and a couple in July. Now I have ensured we have meeting agendas for April, but dont want to spend too much time adding more if they will get lost again.

Also, is there any other information on the attack I could perhaps tell our information services department so they can investigate on their side? Anything I could tell them so they can tell me whats happening on our side?

1) currently is see these future agendas. Not sure why you have 2 agends for July 24

2014-04-10
2014-04-24
2014-05-08
2014-07-24
2014-07-24

2) I will check the backups of March 28 to see if they are there.

I checked the backups for march and those are the only entries.

Please review the steps you used to create the agendas.

Did you go back to the + each time if not you just changed the date of the agenda you were working with.

Brian wrote:

I checked the backups for march and those are the only entries.

Please review the steps you used to create the agendas.

Did you go back to the + each time if not you just changed the date of the agenda you were working with.

Any more insight to the attack (300 hits in 30 seconds)? I am hoping to have something to ask our I.T. department to investigate on their side.

Sorry no.