What's up with InSim?

Miros1 · 11-07-2007, 01:03 PM

Both the main and adult sites are giving me "not found" errors.

Miros1 · 11-07-2007, 04:28 PM

Prolly an ISP fart on my end! It's working fine now.

Zirconia Wolf · 11-11-2007, 03:11 PM

I hope so!

For a moment I was afraid that Kelly followed through on her threat to drop the site if she had any more donation fraud problems.

Miros1 · 11-11-2007, 03:48 PM

Yeah, I had bad moments too. But if that were the case, there'd have been a page saying Site Closed, not just a "not found" error...

FredsG · 11-11-2007, 06:38 PM

Thanks for posting this...i still can't get in over at either one of those sites...was wondering if my security system was keeping me out since i can make it to this site just fine...every time i go there i just get a white empty page? will keep trying though since you seem to have made it in there

Greg · 11-11-2007, 07:51 PM

Hmm... I'm in now, so I suspect it was a problem with domain name service.

Yup, Sun Sims is not 100% reliable, but it's very close. We're on a lightly loaded shared server on pair Networks, fed by 1-terrabit connections to the Internet; couldn't be much better.

I'm pretty sure that Insimenator is hosted in the Dallas Data Center with network connections that are pretty close to awesome but the site is so busy that sometimes the server gets jugged up. More often, it's the database server that gets saturated because vBulletin is a very database-intensive application, especially the way Insim uses it.

Speaking of Insim, I doubt that Kathy would just pull the plug on the site arbitrarily. She gets frustrated from all the grief people hand her, but she's not crazy. In any case, it's a really good idea to have backups of anything you put on any site, including this one.

Greg · 11-11-2007, 07:52 PM

Oh, and hi, Fred! Welcome to Sun Sims!

Greg · 11-11-2007, 08:48 PM

Hmm... four times now, I've had a security warning notice show up with the ads on Insimadult. Each was an attempt to open Microsoft Outlook.

The latest came from 80.93.59.108, which resolves to colo.moscow.peterhost.ru. It sounds like AdBrite needs to be more careful about whose ads they are distributing.

For what it's worth, we are now blocking all traffic from that server.

FredsG · 11-12-2007, 12:51 AM

Thanks for that Greg...

i just left my latest attempt in getting in over there...had MSN "ping" the site and they came back with no response? if i weren't so baby fresh to the internet itself, i might understand more about whats going on over there...hope you don't mind if i just hang out over here for further advice about this particular thing,...i hope i can pick up a few more bits of advice...but other than that- Thanks to all of you who make the Sims community a really great place to hang out!!!

Miros1 · 11-12-2007, 06:03 AM

I've got Flash off by default, so I don't get security warnings. Actually, I've got most stuff off, and just turn it on when a particular site needs it. Even then, most 3rd party stuff is still off, so I actually get text versions of the ads a good chunk of the time!

Greg · 11-12-2007, 11:35 AM

That's an interesting conundrum, Fred. I don't know why one person would have difficulty getting to a particular site when someone else can get to it. That phenomenon is counter-intuitive; I'd expect that a site's performance would be the same for everybody.

Once upon a time, Beosboxboy was telling me about network collisions along the Eastern seaboard because all the traffic to the mid-Atlantic states goes through a single node in Maryland. Still, that's not how the net is supposed to work; it should search for a route for every data packet that it carries even if it has to route traffic all way around the world and back.

Well, anyhow, of course you're welcome to hang out here. Sun Sims is a relatively quiet little board but we're as sincere as Linus's pumpkin patch!

Rose, how do you turn off Flash?

Miros1 · 11-12-2007, 02:31 PM

Actually, you have to turn off all ActiveX.

In IE, Tools->Internet Options. Click Security. Click Internet. Set to the desired level (I use Medium), then click Custom. Scroll down to ActiveX (about the 3rd thing). Disable just about everything in that catagory.

Greg · 11-12-2007, 05:06 PM

I'm wondering what the consequences of doing that would be. I guess there's one way to find out!

FredsG · 11-12-2007, 06:12 PM

okay, so i have just bought my third computer in 24 hours,

this one seems to be working fine so far, but i can-not log on to any of the Insim sites, or their threads

all i can think of now, is that the site itself must have black-listed me? i read in the membership thingy that if they felt you were doing some such bad things they wuold block you without warning and keep you out...i take it, by your latest response i'm the only one here still not getting back into that site...i can get in to every other one of hundreds i try...now, i will go have a private pity party and wonder what went wrong. if anyone has any further helpful suggestions, they'll be greatly appreciated

Miros1 · 11-12-2007, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg

I'm wondering what the consequences of doing that would be. I guess there's one way to find out!

You end up with large blank areas on some web pages. Other pages say You don't have Flash, etc. That's the way I casually browse.

Even when I turn on ActiveX (includes Flash) for a site, I don't allow 3rd party content or cookies. Helps keep the ads under control!

Greg · 11-13-2007, 02:16 AM

Fred, I looked up your public user profile on both Insimenator.net and Insimadult.net, and it looks OK from what I can tell. I'm just a plain user there, though, so I can't check your account status other than to see that it is there.

What are the symptoms of not being able to log on? Is Insim just not recognizing your login, or is it that you can't even get to the spot where you would enter your username and password?

If you're able to try to log in but can't, that would indicate that the username and password you're trying to use don't match what's in the database. You could try the "Forgot your password?" thing if that happens.

If it's that you can't get to the site at all, then either (a) Insim is blocking the whole XO network, or (b) something in the chain between you and Insim is blocking Insim, or (c) XO's domain name server entry for Insimenator.net is messed up. Of these, the most likely thing is (c).

Let's try an experiment with theory (c). If the DNS is messed up, then you still out to be able to at least see the site via it's IP address:

http://72.233.37.67/ <--- That's insimenator.net

A lot of the site is hardcoded with its domain name so you might not see pictures and stuff, but you ought to at least see the skeleton of the site and the login prompt on the page that comes up. (You won't be able to log in from that prompt because of vBulletin's internal security. vBulletin will only accept logins from the domain name.) So, if you can see the site via its IP address but not via its domain name (http://www.insimenator.net/), then you could ask XO to check their DNS tables.

I can't imagine why Insim would have banned you, but I think if you try to log in to a banned account, then vBulletin tells you about it.

FredsG · 11-13-2007, 07:23 PM

well, yesterday i read Miros advice and figured out how to change that third party cookie stuff, thank you for the info on that

and i went to go write down exactly what was coming up on the search page just now and for some crazy reason, i got in like there had never been a problem

it sure is good to know that you all are willing to keep plugging away at a problem for a fellow (Painfully New) simmer! my thanks to all of you over and over again...someday i'll laugh at myself when i figure out how easy it really is

Miros1 · 11-13-2007, 10:13 PM

Lol, prolly while turning off the third party cookies, you turned on the first party ones!

Greg · 11-14-2007, 12:31 AM

You're welcome, Fred! As a matter of fact, we actually enjoy fiddling with these little network mysteries. If I recall correctly, Rose and I have been doing this sort of thing since the halcyon days of the SimGoddesses site, and (according to the ancient history of Moon Sims) that goes back to November 2001!

FredsG · 11-14-2007, 05:26 PM

Omg, then you all are light years ahead of this ol' granny!!! i only hooked to the cyber world for the very first time in June..my kids came over to use it more than i did the first few months...but i think one of my boys was going to some pretty unsavory sites, cuz he'd come runnin up here whining that the ol' computer was crashing...LOL...if only i'd known...i sent him home and told him to go buy his own computer to ruin...but alas, i think it was too late...this new one seems to be doing just fine, and the kiddies can just go get their own, but don't be surprised if i keep coming up with more silly problems that you all know are just common sense!!!

11-07-2007, 01:03 PM	#1
Miros1 Goddess for Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: NY State Posts: 3,303	What's up with InSim? Both the main and adult sites are giving me "not found" errors.

11-11-2007, 03:11 PM	#3
Zirconia Wolf Reticulated MoonBat Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: My trusty computer in Issaquah WA, USA. Posts: 848	I hope so! For a moment I was afraid that Kelly followed through on her threat to drop the site if she had any more donation fraud problems. __________________ Long Live All Wild Canines! Leader Of The Moon-Bat Revolution!

11-11-2007, 07:51 PM	#6
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Hmm... I'm in now, so I suspect it was a problem with domain name service. Yup, Sun Sims is not 100% reliable, but it's very close. We're on a lightly loaded shared server on pair Networks, fed by 1-terrabit connections to the Internet; couldn't be much better. I'm pretty sure that Insimenator is hosted in the Dallas Data Center with network connections that are pretty close to awesome but the site is so busy that sometimes the server gets jugged up. More often, it's the database server that gets saturated because vBulletin is a very database-intensive application, especially the way Insim uses it. Speaking of Insim, I doubt that Kathy would just pull the plug on the site arbitrarily. She gets frustrated from all the grief people hand her, but she's not crazy. In any case, it's a really good idea to have backups of anything you put on any site, including this one. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

11-11-2007, 07:52 PM	#7
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Oh, and hi, Fred! Welcome to Sun Sims! __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

11-11-2007, 08:48 PM	#8
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Hmm... four times now, I've had a security warning notice show up with the ads on Insimadult. Each was an attempt to open Microsoft Outlook. The latest came from 80.93.59.108, which resolves to colo.moscow.peterhost.ru. It sounds like AdBrite needs to be more careful about whose ads they are distributing. For what it's worth, we are now blocking all traffic from that server. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know? Last edited by Greg : 11-12-2007 at 11:25 AM.

11-07-2007, 04:28 PM	#2
Miros1 Goddess for Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: NY State Posts: 3,303	Prolly an ISP fart on my end! It's working fine now.

11-11-2007, 03:48 PM	#4
Miros1 Goddess for Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: NY State Posts: 3,303	Yeah, I had bad moments too. But if that were the case, there'd have been a page saying Site Closed, not just a "not found" error...

11-11-2007, 06:38 PM	#5
FredsG Banned Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 64	Thanks for posting this...i still can't get in over at either one of those sites...was wondering if my security system was keeping me out since i can make it to this site just fine...every time i go there i just get a white empty page? will keep trying though since you seem to have made it in there

11-12-2007, 12:51 AM	#9
FredsG Banned Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 64	Thanks for that Greg... i just left my latest attempt in getting in over there...had MSN "ping" the site and they came back with no response? if i weren't so baby fresh to the internet itself, i might understand more about whats going on over there...hope you don't mind if i just hang out over here for further advice about this particular thing,...i hope i can pick up a few more bits of advice...but other than that- Thanks to all of you who make the Sims community a really great place to hang out!!!

11-12-2007, 06:03 AM	#10
Miros1 Goddess for Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: NY State Posts: 3,303	I've got Flash off by default, so I don't get security warnings. Actually, I've got most stuff off, and just turn it on when a particular site needs it. Even then, most 3rd party stuff is still off, so I actually get text versions of the ads a good chunk of the time!

11-12-2007, 11:35 AM	#11
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	That's an interesting conundrum, Fred. I don't know why one person would have difficulty getting to a particular site when someone else can get to it. That phenomenon is counter-intuitive; I'd expect that a site's performance would be the same for everybody. Once upon a time, Beosboxboy was telling me about network collisions along the Eastern seaboard because all the traffic to the mid-Atlantic states goes through a single node in Maryland. Still, that's not how the net is supposed to work; it should search for a route for every data packet that it carries even if it has to route traffic all way around the world and back. Well, anyhow, of course you're welcome to hang out here. Sun Sims is a relatively quiet little board but we're as sincere as Linus's pumpkin patch! Rose, how do you turn off Flash? __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

11-12-2007, 02:31 PM	#12
Miros1 Goddess for Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: NY State Posts: 3,303	Actually, you have to turn off all ActiveX. In IE, Tools->Internet Options. Click Security. Click Internet. Set to the desired level (I use Medium), then click Custom. Scroll down to ActiveX (about the 3rd thing). Disable just about everything in that catagory.

11-12-2007, 05:06 PM	#13
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	I'm wondering what the consequences of doing that would be. I guess there's one way to find out! __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

11-12-2007, 06:12 PM	#14
FredsG Banned Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 64	okay, so i have just bought my third computer in 24 hours, this one seems to be working fine so far, but i can-not log on to any of the Insim sites, or their threads all i can think of now, is that the site itself must have black-listed me? i read in the membership thingy that if they felt you were doing some such bad things they wuold block you without warning and keep you out...i take it, by your latest response i'm the only one here still not getting back into that site...i can get in to every other one of hundreds i try...now, i will go have a private pity party and wonder what went wrong. if anyone has any further helpful suggestions, they'll be greatly appreciated

11-13-2007, 02:16 AM	#16
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Fred, I looked up your public user profile on both Insimenator.net and Insimadult.net, and it looks OK from what I can tell. I'm just a plain user there, though, so I can't check your account status other than to see that it is there. What are the symptoms of not being able to log on? Is Insim just not recognizing your login, or is it that you can't even get to the spot where you would enter your username and password? If you're able to try to log in but can't, that would indicate that the username and password you're trying to use don't match what's in the database. You could try the "Forgot your password?" thing if that happens. If it's that you can't get to the site at all, then either (a) Insim is blocking the whole XO network, or (b) something in the chain between you and Insim is blocking Insim, or (c) XO's domain name server entry for Insimenator.net is messed up. Of these, the most likely thing is (c). Let's try an experiment with theory (c). If the DNS is messed up, then you still out to be able to at least see the site via it's IP address: http://72.233.37.67/ <--- That's insimenator.net A lot of the site is hardcoded with its domain name so you might not see pictures and stuff, but you ought to at least see the skeleton of the site and the login prompt on the page that comes up. (You won't be able to log in from that prompt because of vBulletin's internal security. vBulletin will only accept logins from the domain name.) So, if you can see the site via its IP address but not via its domain name (http://www.insimenator.net/), then you could ask XO to check their DNS tables. I can't imagine why Insim would have banned you, but I think if you try to log in to a banned account, then vBulletin tells you about it. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

11-13-2007, 07:23 PM	#17
FredsG Banned Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 64	well, yesterday i read Miros advice and figured out how to change that third party cookie stuff, thank you for the info on that and i went to go write down exactly what was coming up on the search page just now and for some crazy reason, i got in like there had never been a problem it sure is good to know that you all are willing to keep plugging away at a problem for a fellow (Painfully New) simmer! my thanks to all of you over and over again...someday i'll laugh at myself when i figure out how easy it really is

11-13-2007, 10:13 PM	#18
Miros1 Goddess for Life Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: NY State Posts: 3,303	Lol, prolly while turning off the third party cookies, you turned on the first party ones!

11-14-2007, 12:31 AM	#19
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	You're welcome, Fred! As a matter of fact, we actually enjoy fiddling with these little network mysteries. If I recall correctly, Rose and I have been doing this sort of thing since the halcyon days of the SimGoddesses site, and (according to the ancient history of Moon Sims) that goes back to November 2001! __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?

11-14-2007, 05:26 PM	#20
FredsG Banned Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 64	Omg, then you all are light years ahead of this ol' granny!!! i only hooked to the cyber world for the very first time in June..my kids came over to use it more than i did the first few months...but i think one of my boys was going to some pretty unsavory sites, cuz he'd come runnin up here whining that the ol' computer was crashing...LOL...if only i'd known...i sent him home and told him to go buy his own computer to ruin...but alas, i think it was too late...this new one seems to be doing just fine, and the kiddies can just go get their own, but don't be surprised if i keep coming up with more silly problems that you all know are just common sense!!!