BOF website crashes; is it just me?

[DJM]

As a pretty frequent user of the BOF website, I experience problems which others either do not have/notice or merely ignore and hope they go away.

Every so often, I find that "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" when I click on a link and that access is lost for a few minutes. At the same time, access to the rest of the web is fine, so the fact that it's the BOF site appears to be relevant.

It would be good to know if others experience this problem as BOF report that I'm the only one they know of ...

[DJM]

For those with some techie expertise, when I do an IE diagnosis, the following message is displayed:-



So a firewall is at fault somewhere, and intermittently too.

For the record, I'm running Vista and using the Vista firewall; I also have a firewall in my Belkin router and my ISP is Zen.

Anyone got any thoughts?

[epocian]

I use Firefox and don't seem to get any problems
Do many people still use IE?

[andypat]

I've not had any probs accessing it on IE

[DJM]

Do many people still use IE?

December 2009
Firefox (46.4%)
Internet Explorer (37.2%)
Chrome (9.8%)
Safari (3.6%)
Opera (2.3%)

Source: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

[Angry Haggis]

A useful tool for this kind of query is: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/brit ... ing.org.uk

Those Firefox stats look a little high - the site admits that people using "alternative to IE" browsers are more likely to visit the site. Wikipedia aggregates data from several browser stats sites on a regular basis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_shar ... mary_Table

[Paul Frost]

With regards IE user numbers.
I suspect that the number of IE users of the British Orienteering website is much higher than any averages of the web.
There seems to be a large number of orienteers that are employed in the education or corporate sectors, the computers in these groups tend to be locked in to Windows XP and often IE6. The don't normally allow any installing of new applications and so Firefox etc. are not very common.
In the web developer world you would probably find IE has less than 5% share.

With regards the BO website, I find the Flash navigation causes big delays in loading and may cause other problems. It is also possible that Flash could be disabled on some corporate type networks.

[awk]

There seems to be a large number of orienteers that are employed in the education or corporate sectors, the computers in these groups tend to be locked in to Windows XP and often IE6.

We're firmly in the Firefox camp! (FWIW)

[Mr Chips]

With regards the BO website, I find the Flash navigation causes big delays in loading and may cause other problems.

Annoyed by the delays caused by the (totally unnecessary) Flash animations I tried FlashBlock (http://flashblock.mozdev.org/) - this speeds up loading but hides the main navigation buttons until you click to allow the animation. More recently I found NoScript (http://noscript.net/) - if this is set to disallow scripts on the BOF website (turn FlashBlock off) you get a static version of the navigation header instead of the Flash version - much more functional and IMHO more appropriate for the likely users.

[Paul Frost]

The problem with NoScript and others like it is that many websites use javascript to provide enhancement to the site. Some of these things are purely cosmetic (rounded corners etc.) but others improve the usability and offer extra features.
Google maps requires javascript to work.

The better option would be for mainstream websites to stop using Flash for the main navigation.

[MIE]

The better option would be for mainstream websites to stop using Flash for the main navigation.

Did that at the BOF AGM in 2008 and was met by a blank from the main desk
and nothing changed

Glad to see others are now of the mind something should happen

[Gross]

Did that at the BOF AGM in 2008 and was met by a blank from the main desk
and nothing changed

Same happens if you ask what is orienteering
said partly in jest as they are getting better

[Big Jon]

Internet Explorer is so 90's! Get up to speed and install a decent browser.

[gg]

Chrome all the way

[Clive Coles]

The BOF site has been stable for me since I switched to broadband and installed Firefox as my preferred browser. Response times however still range from OK to poor.

When the site was first launched I was still on dial-up ~ there were times the site was unuseable. I used to switch off after waiting for 2 minutes.

I have exchanged a number of emails with Mike at BOF over the last 3 years on systems performance and scaleability of the applications. He did offer a work-around for IE users ~ you can deactivate Flash so that the banner, with the pulsating buttons, is not displayed. That to me was not a solution.

I think there could be more to this than just the configuration of our platforms. Slow Broadband facilities, like mine. don't help but my instinct points me towards the data base/application design.

BOF are engaged in an ambitious application development programme which is phased over a number of years. We are moving from a simple web based information system to one that manages key processes such as fixtures, ranking and event entry and money collections.

The concerns about performance tend to come to the fore when new facilities are grafted into existing facilities. New facilities attract more enquiries often from people who have not previously enquired of the site. Where queues build up within the applications you get inconsistances in performance. With good design you can tune systems to cope with increases in demand.

I asked Mike about 12 months ago if BOF had developed a performance model so that he could assess if the growth and expansion of facilities was sustainable on the BOF software & hardware platforms. He assured me it was all under control but I was none the wiser as to how this was being achieved.

I hope he is right. With my current usage of the BOF web the performance is adequate. A bit turgid but I haven't had a system crash.

Fingers crossed for the next phase. If people are going to use the event entry system to pay registration fees the application must be slick, secure and stable.