70 posts tagged “vox”

First time I have seen the Vox compose window for over two days. This site is so dead.
   Here was yesterday’s traceroute from Auckland:

   So I have now tried Vox this month from Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland; on Macs and PCs; on OSX, XP and Vista; using TelstraClear, Surfspot and Kordia; using Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari; and being able to compose is a rarity. I am not exaggerating when I say that Vox has been down for me for more days this month than it has been up.
   Based on feedback, three Kiwi Voxers have been able to get on this site. I still refuse to believe that this error is unique to me. As many of you know, I am on Vox regularly, and average well over a post a day, but the comment thread here gives you an idea of the number of times it has failed. I heard from one Australian Voxer who can no longer blog from Vox using Firefox and has to switch to IE8, so there is something very serious going on with the site in blocking certain individuals from using it normally.
   At least I was able to get these Mini E videos up for your enjoyment: a few days ago, Vox would not let me import images or videos.
   Hey, I’ll take what access I can get right now …

Just Tweeting with Robin, who can, strangely, blog from his home in Auckland, New Zealand on to Vox. I have found it nearly impossible to blog for most days (or parts of days) this month, and for many days since August, whether I am in Wellington or Christchurch, using a Windows machine or a Mac, never mind which browser.
   One observation I have made is that when things do not work, the status bar has ‘Waiting for www.vox.com’. When it believes the page has “loaded”, the message disappears. Of course, all I see is this:

The source is empty as well.
   I have noticed that when the compose screen does come up, ‘Waiting for www.vox.com’ changes to other servers, too, such as static.vox.com. Right now, the screen comes up in a very rapid (for Vox) two hours—go Vox!
   I’m deducing one of two things: when pings come from here in Wellington or Christchurch, they reach the Vox server, but the server fails to go forth to the subdomain and load whatever files are necessary for the compose screen to appear.
   Or, two different ISPs in Wellington and Christchurch (TelstraClear in Wellington and Christchurch, and Surfspot in Christchurch) can only ping www.vox.com but not resolve for static.vox.com. But surely these subdomain URLs are the server end and not the ISP’s? (I believe they are on our own server.)
   I tried a US proxy server last night to see if the compose screen would come up and, once again, it did not. (Proxy servers are a good test: for a while I could not access the Autocade home page from New Zealand, and had to route things through proxies before I could see it. Since complaining to the ISP, things have been fixed.)
   I would love to know what caused the Australian blackout in August, which did not affect New Zealand. That time, I recall Snowy, Ninja and other Australian residents could not blog, and it seems similar to what I experience now.
   I will test Vox from Auckland in a few days’ time, and use a third ISP, to see what happens.
   Diagnoses from boffins who actually know about this stuff are welcome.

I lost count of how many hours it took for the compose screen to come up, but since it is night-time now, and I am pretty sure there was sunlight when I first began clicking ‘Create’, we can say a good quarter of the day has passed, at least.
   The good news is that Daisy at Vox—a.k.a. the only lady who seems to care—has written back to me to say my issue has been passed on to the boffins there. I hope they can sort it out, but I believe that since I have tested Vox on Macs and PCs, and in two different cities using two different ISPs, and all manner of browsers, then we can rule out anything I am doing wrong. I have, after all, been on the web since 1993 and kind of know what I am doing.
   The other good news is that I have something other than technogripes to post.
   First up, the Auckland Savings Bank, which is owned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, is trying to push how “Kiwi” it is. Kiwibank, in New Zealand, must be a real threat to ASB, because people are conscious of how much Australian banks have been ripping off New Zealand customers. Hence the whole local angle, which is not really convincing anyone except for a few people in the boardroom at ASB. (In fact, a whole Facebook group has been set up to refute these advertisements.)
   Here is the outdoor ad that reminded me of the campaign:

to which Helen Baxter, others and I say, ‘Cobblers!’
   As it is nearly impossible to get a compose screen on Vox, here is a second image I wanted to share. The yellow roses that I posted earlier were the worse for wear after some gales here, but you can’t beat nature. Here’s one of the new arrivals, photographed earlier today:    Like Chance the Gardener, I have other flowers. In the spring. In the garden.    As you can see, the spring weather has finally come, albeit very late in the piece.

I’m still testing this site to see how long the compose screen takes to appear. Right now: five minutes. It’s a darned sight better than the 75–120 minutes of last night, and the two days of earlier this month. I suspect Daisy, who is most Voxers’ contact inside the company that created this site, doesn’t work every day—I wrote to her again last night (oddly, I can still DM; and I can still comment. I just cannot compose or add media).
   I have tried this site on Windows and Mac, on IE, Safari and Firefox, using two different ISPs, and in two different cities, and got the same behaviour. It’s been happening with increasing frequency since August. I will briefly try it from a third city shortly.
   I know from feedback from some of you that this bug happened in Australia, too, but it hasn’t happened to you lately (though Ninja has had to switch to IE just to use this site, so things are not normal).
   Interestingly, Robin can still blog from Auckland so the issue is not nationwide.
   My opinion: I was a Vox beta tester and was one of its biggest cheerleaders, and the silence from the company is not making me terribly happy.
   And, yes, I still had interesting posts to share, but by the time the window comes up, the inspiration has long passed. Sorry if I sound like a broken record—I really wish they would fix this site, or turn back whatever new programming they put in which is obviously blocking some users. I have seen a lot of neighbours leave Vox over the last year or so, though oftentimes they do not say why. I wonder if they found it as buggy as I have in the last few months.

Wow, Vox took 75 minutes to come up with the compose screen [and it took an extra 120 for it to come up again because I had a tiny edit to make]. I had wanted to send a private, friends-only post tonight, but after clicking ‘Create’ once every few minutes and fiddling around with cookies, the inspiration has well passed. Looks like we only had this site back for three days before it died again, and no one at Vox seems to give a damn.
   I’d love to insert the earlier screen shot I took of the empty compose screen, but according to Vox right now, I have nothing in my photo library.
   Once upon a time, whenever Blogger fell down, I came here, because it was more stable. Now, Blogger is more reliable, though it is deleting even legitimate blogs—I’ve been battling them since July when they began blocking my friend Vincent Wright’s blog. (They have now deleted it, along with four-and-a-half years of work.)
   So, if anyone has suggestions for a Vox alternative, I’m more open to hearing it than I ever did. I know I can set up a Wordpress blog, but even that platform is buggy as heck and consumes more and more memory with each incarnation. (Again, I’d love to show you a screen shot of one of the bugs, but see above.) And I’d need a lot of plug-ins to get the sites running the way I want.
   Another down side is that I have enough URLs already, and introducing yet another one so friends can keep up with my meanderings doesn’t sit well with me.
   Also, I’ve come to like the community we have here—Linda-Joy, Jaklumen, Robin, M., Jenn, and the many others—and the groups I have built up.
   Am I really asking that much when I just want the technology to function as the makers claim?
   But right now, importing all my Blogger posts at jackyan.com/blog into Wordpress, as well as whatever I can from Vox, might not be a bad idea, if I had the time.

PS.: As the compose screen took 75, then 120, minutes to come up today (once to compose, once to edit), I am seriously considering giving up on Vox. I am trialling Tumblr right now, so if you miss me here, try me there: jackyan.tumblr.com. (I signed up there a long time ago but only made three posts in January 2008.) Down side: no confidential setting for friends.

“Only” took 20 minutes for this screen to come up this time. In a day and age when we should wait no more than 20 seconds. Still, I’m sure Vox believes I should be happy because 20 minutes is less than 16 hours. ‘Yay!’ they must think, ‘our load times have come down from hours to minutes!’
   I know, no one likes the pissy tone I take when I begin these posts, but it’s so darned frustrating when technology does not work as advertised. And no one seems to think there’s anything wrong: I’ve heard from neither my ISP nor Vox on this bug.
   That’s not totally true. I haven’t heard anything recently. TelstraClear says there is nothing wrong and it can reach vox.com. Duh. I know that. So can I. I just can’t do anything while I’m there except make comments (hence I am using one post’s comment space to blog at—this is how ridiculous it has become—and to keep track of how often Vox’s massive bug is keeping me from doing what it says on the tin). I can’t compose, add photos, add videos, etc. Except once every long while when it opts to let me have a screen to write in.
   And Daisy, who seems to be the only person working at Six Apart who cares, has written to me as well. But I’ve heard nothing for a few days.
   Remember how long the Amazon conduit took to get fixed here? Considering this “can’t do stuff on Vox” bug has been around since August, and has gotten worse by the week, I’d rather sacrifice the Amazon conduit in favour of, well, being able to blog.
   Readers, I’m sorry you’ll have to put up with hugely long posts because I have no guarantee on when Vox will let me compose again.

Ben Kingsley
Here’s one thing I wanted to blog during one of the many, many blackouts on Vox.

The compose screen is back for the first time in 16 hours! I wish I knew what was going on with Vox, as this bug has been around a lot over the last few months. Again, the original inspiration for the post has long passed. Oh well.
   For the last day or so I was only able to comment on people’s posts, so I might just leave this entry as a place I can comment whenever I cannot post or add media to Vox. Watch the comment sidebar for new content!

While I can now compose on Vox (not, incidentally, something I could consistently do from Christchurch, either, so we can now conclude the problems were not ISP-specific), is anyone else having problems with the YouTube conduit? I know at least one other user is.
   It gets me a bit worried how things fall down here regularly. But I don’t think we can blame Vox exclusively. I am sure the other site, in this case YouTube, is to blame in part, for perhaps changing its specifications.
   Still, YouTube clips are going to be fewer in number for a while, I expect.

It’s nearly eight months since I started the Cars’ group here on Vox. We are now seven members shy of 100, the group is vibrant and spam-free, and I want to thank all members for making it a great place to be.
   We have had spammers come in, but I have been quite active in deleting the obvious ones before they caused any trouble. One or two have got through, and were deleted after they sneaked in one spam post.
   To see how badly things could have got, I visited the old Cars Rock! group today. It still looks like no one is managing it, despite my suggesting to the group creators that I would be happy to help. There are a few legit posts there, but since mid-2009, spammers pretty much control the place, right down to multiple Russian porn posts.
   No problems with that here. We have great posts from all over the world—Japan, the US, Australia and New Zealand most often—and it’s exactly what I hoped the group would become. Thank you.

Vox was dead again for the last couple of days. Daisy has been very good and has replied to my messages, though it’s a bit annoying that no one else at Six Apart has. It still seems this problem is unique to me, but it can’t be if I can’t compose messages on Vox on any one of three different computers. (I’ll be trying from another office shortly, too, and we are both on the same ISP.)
   Complaining about Vox interrupts the flow of these posts a bit, especially when I just wanted to share these Wellington images with you. Christchurch seemed to have better weather when I visited.