Bad Links for This Forum

No idea why this happened, but it's all working fine now.

Rich,

While I was away from the computer today, the same thing happened to the 2 Rail (https://ogrforum.com/f...rum/2415514336485319) & 3 Rail Scale forums (https://ogrforum.com/f...rum/2415514336485223). 

I have to delete these address' and get a new one to make them work.

I thought the forum went down for maintenance yesterday ?

It happened to me also with the 3-Rail forum.  Whenever I used my link, I got the "This forum has been deleted" message.   All of the banners were there, but there were no threads.  The only way I could get to the 3-Rail forum was to go to the forum list and click on the 3-Rail forum link.  I was getting the same error message at 5:10 PM PST.  I finally deleted the old link and added a new link and now all is fine.  It is a little odd that some are getting the error message and others are not.

Earl

This happened again today, 12/26/2015.

Here is the link that I have been using successfully, but now no longer works.  It gets the headings and some of the menus, but none of the threads. https://ogrforum.com/f...rum/2415514336485247

I don't know where you guys got those URL's with all those numbers in them. They were never legitimate links to anything on this forum.

Links to the forum are easy to read and understand. For example, this is the URL for the 3-Rail Forum:
https://ogrforum.com/forum/3-rail-forum

This is the URL for the Real Trains forum:
https://ogrforum.com/forum/real-trains

They all follow this same format, with no long strings of numbers.

Rich,

Thank you for the reply.  

I just clicked the 'Add Bookmark' on my iPad to get the link and the link worked successfully since I added it about 2 years ago.  The link even worked OK for several days after the upgrade.  Then one morning it just quit working.

The odd thing is that the link shows the top part of the forum with all the forum sponsors and the forum links but does not show any of the threads and has the 'This forum has been deleted' error message.  Does the bad link work the same on your computer?

It is nothing that requires any action, just an oddity.

Earl

I got the same message on the two rail forum.  Still can not get a  direct link to it.

I got nothing like that, but Saturday and Sunday I had to stop the loading process and reload every time because it was taking too long (no time out though).  Reloading worked every time.

Working fine this morning.

I have lost the sponsors banners @ the top of page (home).

nmtrains posted:

I have lost the sponsors banners @ the top of page (home).

I had the opposite for two days - just the sponsors' banners.  No forums.  Works fine now, though.

Over the weekend also had the issue of taking forever to load a topic. You could click and walk away for 5 minutes and still nothing on your return.

Had used this link about layout building, seems it is deleted now.

https://ogrforum.com/t...845#2415514336671845

EIS posted:

Does the bad link work the same on your computer?

Yes. The links with a lot of numbers in them are BAD links.

Tom Tee posted:

I got the same message on the two rail forum.  Still can not get a  direct link to it.

What do you mean you, "...can not get a  direct link to it."?

If you click on FORUM LIST in the blue tool bar and you can get direct links to ALL the forums. The 2-rail forum is: https://ogrforum.com/f.../2-rail-scale-trains

If you are using a tablet, you won't see that in the tool bar. In that case, use the 3-bar menu at the top left to get to the FORUM LIST, find the main page for a forum, go there and then bookmark that page.

nmtrains posted:

I have lost the sponsors banners @ the top of page (home).

That is a local issue on your computer, not something here.

Mystery Solved.

I just learned that this is something which Hoopla changed in the last two weeks.

I changed the wording on the bad link page to say something other than the default "This Forum Has Been Deleted" which was NOT correct. CLICK HERE and you'll see where a bad link will send you now.

Rich,

The problem is still on-going.  This is about the fourth time I have used a link that used to work and now no longer works.  Here is the bad link (with all the numbers):

https://ogrforum.com/f...rum/2415514336485247

This is the same link that used to be:

https://ogrforum.com/forum/3-rail-forum

I have no idea how it can change from a good link to a bad link, but it certainly is changing.  I don't have that problem on any links but this forum.  Something has definitely changed.

Earl

Rich,

This is getting really weird.  I clicked on my bookmark about 10 minutes ago with the bad link in the post above and got your redesigned forum deleted page.  I navigated to the 'Tech Support' forum to report the issue.  Then I clicked on my bookmark again (without changing it) and this time it worked fine.  I also looked at the address in the bookmark window of Safari and the bookmark is correct:

https://ogrforum.com/forum/3-rail-forum

I suspect that the bookmarks we have been using all along are correct.  Somewhere a DNS or the forum is redirecting the address incorrectly.

Earl

EIS posted:

Rich,

The problem is still on-going.  This is about the fourth time I have used a link that used to work and now no longer works.  Here is the bad link (with all the numbers):

https://ogrforum.com/f...rum/2415514336485247

You cannot use those any of those old links which contain numbers. They are now dead links and will not work. Get rid of them. The links have changed to an SEO-friendly format. This is not a DNS issue and there are no redirects involved.

I gave you the correct link format above. Use the Forum List to go to the forum you want and bookmark it again.

Finally able to go direct to the 2 rail forum but now I get double vision of all the banner ads.  Each line of advertisers is repeated directly under the other.  Total banner space is twice as long.  Spooky.

If you are seeing double rows of banners, something is wrong in your browser.

Rich,

I don't know what is going on.  This morning I clicked the bookmark for your forum and the link was bad.  Roughly 10 minutes later, I clicked the same bookmark and the link was good.  I looked at the bookmark properties and it was correct (i.e. no numbers).  I just clicked on it again, and it is bad again (i.e. lots of numbers).  I have not changed the link at all today.  

I can reload the link again, but I have already done that several times and it keeps changing from a either a good link to a bad link or a bad link to a good link.  I haven't experienced this problem with any of my other links in my bookmarks.

I suspect more folks may be having this problem than is apparent from the posts on this thread.  This thread is not exactly in a conspicuous place on your forum nor is the title indicative of the problem.

Earl

I think your browser is not storing the bookmarks properly. Clear your cache and cookies and go at it again. You should not have any links with numbers in them stored anywhere.

You are right about the title of the thread not indicating what the thread is about. I just changed it. I have not had any emails about this, so I don't think it is a widespread problem. If someone got a message that a forum had been deleted, I'm sure they would have let me know.

Traffic has not dropped any, which would indicate that very few people are having any issues. We're at 8,523,820 pages for this month.

Rich, in addition to double banners my 2 rail forum is not refreshing for one week now. 

Any idea what one  should look for in their Firefox browser?

I notice when I set the forum on my desk top screen and click on it I get the double banners. 

When I go to the forum via a search engine everything is normal???

Tom Tee posted:

Rich, in addition to double banners my 2 rail forum is not refreshing for one week now.

What do you mean by the 2-Rail Forum is not "refreshing"? I don't understand.

Tom Tee posted:

I notice when I set the forum on my desk top screen and click on it I get the double banners. 

When I go to the forum via a search engine everything is normal???

There is only ONE link that you need to use to get here. it is: https://ogrforum.com. That's it. You don't need a search engine, just BOOKMARK THAT LINK! If you use that link and still see double banners, you have a problem in your computer or browser of some kind.

From that link you can go to any forum, bookmark it and have all the forums you like to visit bookmarked and ready for use with CORRECT URLs.