Hello N4Gers.
As most are aware, there are some issues hitting N4G in the last month or two. I wanted to address this issues and also look for feedback on ways to help our contributors out with any issues they're experiencing with submitting content.
For all items below, please note that the IT team is aware of and are looking into them.
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My notifications won't load, why is that?
While we're not exactly certain, it does seem to be something associated with older accounts with a larger than normal number of comments. Sadly, there is no workaround for this at the moment.
I get an error when I try to view my comments from my profile, why is that?
Much like above, this seems to be another issue associated with older accounts with a larger than normal number of comments. Sadly, there is not workaround for this at the moment.
I have a new Private Message, but I can't view my messages. Why not?
This may be tied to the age of an account as well, but we're not certain. Having experienced the issue personally, I've used the times when I could access my PMs and deleted hundreds of older PMs to see if that would help. It didn't. The only workaround I've found is to try until it works.
I keep running into server errors when adding submission tags or trying to save & publish a submission, what gives?
We're not sure. It comes and goes and the IT people are looking into it. The best strategy for dealing with it is to submit a submission with the least amount of information needed (title, summary, image, story type, and a related tag) and save it, don't save & publish. From there, update the submission until it is in proper order and then publish it. It works much better once it is in 'creating' mode, which is what happens when you save the submission rather than saving and publishing it immediately.
Does the N4G Mod team have any solutions that can help people out?
You can always hit up the N4G team via the ticket system at https://n4g.com/tickets/ . The problem tends to be that news is a 24/7 cycle and the moderation team isn't available 24/7 or won't see tickets until they check them directly when they aren't moderating otherwise.
The only potential solution I can think of, and please let us know if you would be interested, is a Discord channel specifically for just N4G Support. Not to chat or complain about users or content, but a place where contributors could submit issues they're having to get a better response time and direct feedback on the issues without having to wait for a PM or ticket on N4G. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments on this or if you have another idea.
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Thank you for reading and sorry we don't have better news at the moment.
Christopher
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Yeah I absolutely have this issue of not being able to view notifications and comment history etc I don't want a new account though I've been far less engaged with the site lately as a result tbh.
I'm glad you guys are aware of this though
Well, I had this really strange bug: I submitted a news item, it got approved, and then it failed. I accepted why it had to fail.
The following day, for no reason (and I didn't resubmit it), a duplicate post (under my name) got sent to the front page. That duplicate post has since been removed.
That's the strangest bug I've ever had.
Thank you for keeping us informed regarding issues with N4G website.
The submission bug is particularly annoying because you don't know, until you save or submit it, whether the site is going to act up, and if it does and hasn't saved it then you lose all of the info you entered and have to start from scratch. The last 48 hours have been particularly bad for this bug.
I'll take on board the tip to enter the minimum amount of info (and maybe go a step further and just quickly enter random info the first time, then go back and fill the form out properly if the site saves the story).
This site needs a major refresh IMO
Well I'm glad it's not just me. I was thinking maybe I had browser issues or some other problem.
In the recent past I couldn't load notifications, past comments and I couldn't submit. But in the last week or so I can do everything on the site, it just takes a while to load but I can notice it getting better again and faster again