Troubleshooting Website Access Issues

Typical Website Access Issues and How to Resolve Them

 

1.  "I cannot access my website at all. When I type in the website address, nothing comes up."

1. Yes, it could be a problem with the server.  However, check the following *first*...
2. We can check if your website access is blocked.  If you check your IP address via whatismyipaddress.com/ and provide it to us in a support post, then we can check if you are being blocked by the server for some reason.
3. Try accessing your website via club#.toastmastersclubs.org/directions.html or other non-home page.  This will often work if you have a broken link on your home page which is causing the problem.
4. Try accessing via a different browser.  Some browsers are more tolerant of web page issues than others.  It you find that your website loads ok with a different browser, then you should probably suspect something is wrong with your HTML content, e.g, bad or missing tags, scripts you forgot about, bad links, etc.
5. If you are a techie, did you put some script in your home page that is goofing things up?
6. If your club is using a custom domain, check that your DNS settings are as required.  You can use www.geektools.com/digtool.php or www.digwebinterface.com/ to check against required DNS settings for custom domains (/doc/item/dns-settings-overview).
7. If your club is using a custom domain, check that your domain registration has not expired. You can use http://www.whois.com/ to check your expiration date. You may need to contact your registrar and pay a renewal fee.  (We can not resolve that for you.)
8. Advanced approach.  Using your browser's Developer Tools (via F12 key in IE, Ctrl-Shift-I in Chrome), reload the website.  If there is a javascript error or other type of website error, often you can see what it is in the Console tab of the Developer Tools--look for an error message in red.  If you find this, get a screen shot and post it in the support forums for us to take a look at.

2.  "My website is really slow."

1. Yes, it could be a problem with the server.  However, check the following *first*...
2. Do you have a lot of images and/or scripts in your home page?  That will slow things down.  We would advise breaking the home page up into custom pages.
3. Try accessing your website via #####.toastmastersclubs.org/directions.html or other non-home page. (Substitute your club number for ######.)  This will work if you have a broken link in your home page which is causing the problem.
4. If you are a techie, did you put some script in your home page that is goofing things up?

3.  "I keep getting logged out when I am logged as the website admin."

1. You may have an issue with your cookie settings.  See the user doc on cookies settings. 
2. If you have shared the admin password with another person, you will get logged out when the person logs in at the same time you are logged in.  The system will only allow one person to be logged in as the admin at a time.

4.  "I cannot access my custom page."

1. Most likely a broken link or img tag.  What were your doing before you had the issue?  If your were working with images, then it is very likely a bad img tag.  You will need to go in and take a look at the custom page and try to figure out where the bad reference is and delete/modify it.
2. Sometimes people make a page a different type than they think they did.  e.g., they make it public but they thought it was members only, and they cannot locate it now.  Did you do that?

5.  "How do I find broken links in our website?"

1. We recommend using the free Broken Link Checker tool.