connecting problem

June 14, 2020 1:57 PM

I am unable to access MF with firefox. I can get on with Chrome but when I try my old link on Firefox I get "Site is not Available," I can't even logout. Any suggestions?
posted by charlesminus to MetaFilter-Related at 1:57 PM (21 comments total)

Usual suggestion is to try to clear all MetaFilter cookies and try it again. There was some downtime a while ago that did some weird things to people's DNS. Want to try that step first and we can try some more things if that's not it. Also are you trying to go to MetaFilter.com or some other URL?
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 1:58 PM on June 14, 2020

Thanks, but I guess I don't know how to clear cookies. Can you help. And yes I am trying www.metafilter.com which is how I got here using chrome.
posted by charlesminus at 2:08 PM on June 14, 2020

Do these instructions work for you?

To delete cookies for any single website:

Click the menu button [that looks like three stacked horizontal lines] and select Preferences.
Select the Privacy & Security panel and go to the Cookies and Site Data section.
Click the Manage Data… button. The Manage Cookies and Site Data dialog will appear.
In the Search websites field, type the name of the site [metafilter.com] whose cookies you want to remove. Items that match your search will be displayed.
To remove all cookies and storage data for the website, click Remove All Shown.
To remove selected items, select an entry and click Remove Selected.
Click Save Changes.
In the Removing Cookies and Site Data confirmation dialog that opens, click OK.
Close the about:preferences page.

posted by zamboni at 2:15 PM on June 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

This worked thank you. I thought that I had already tried that based on a google search but I think I missed a step or something. Anyway, thanks. I think your response falls into the "Here, let me Google that for you" category. Feeling dumb over here.
posted by charlesminus at 2:22 PM on June 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Do not feel dumb! There's a lot going on and, honestly, it's a nice group of folks happy to help. Glad it's sorted.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 2:39 PM on June 14, 2020 [11 favorites]

Yup, the only dumb question is the one you don't ask. Glad it's working now!
posted by zamboni at 2:49 PM on June 14, 2020 [5 favorites]

I'll have to disagree. There are plenty of dumb questions... but this one does not qualify. I'm glad to hear you got it solved, good job!
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:01 PM on June 14, 2020 [4 favorites]

I've been on MF for more years than I can even guess at (how do they get those cats in those copy machines?) but this is my first MetaTalk experience. Not my last.
posted by charlesminus at 6:07 PM on June 14, 2020 [12 favorites]

charlesminus, do not feel dumb. You learned a new thing .. and can apply it to pay sites that say you have read your allotted articles. Delete cookies and try again. YMMV.
posted by terrapin at 6:37 AM on June 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Feeling dumb over here.

I'm in HR. An employee was recently having problems with a benefit thing, so I offered to sit on a screen share with him to show him where he needed to go to complete the benefit thing. He hadn't actually registered an account online with the benefit yet (no wonder you're having struggles, man) so I sat and watched and assisted him through the registration process.

And I watched as he misspelled his name into the registration form the same wrong way in two different places.

"Oh dang," I think, "we have his legal name wrong." I so I pipe up and say so, explain we have a lot wrong for him and I can help get everything fixed. There was a long pause. Then a very slow backspace...backspace...backspace. Then a retype with the correct spelling. And then he says, "uh, I would appreciate if you never repeated that to anyone."

In conclusion, you ain't dumb until you're misspell your own name dumb.
posted by phunniemee at 12:20 PM on June 15, 2020 [7 favorites]

Many years ago at a crappy old call center job I had, they company made the very unusual move of having a "hey, let's all have a group meeting, and have a beer or two if you want, and then let's just take it easy for the rest of the day" event after something or other awful had happened. I really didn't like that job, and I'm pretty sure I was feeling kind of fucked up by the whatever-it-was that prompted it, and so I took somewhat reckless advantage of being paid to drink beer, and by the time I got back to my desk I managed to irritatedly, drunkenly, insistently type my password in until I locked myself out of my workstation, at which point I remembered I had changed my password that morning.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:52 PM on June 15, 2020 [9 favorites]

Oh yeah remember that time I was wondering how the banning mechanism worked and I banned myself but then couldn't UNban myself until mathowie came back? Good times.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 2:07 PM on June 15, 2020 [26 favorites]

I've (nearly? actually? probably.) locked myself out of my work computer after changing the password earlier that day, or the day before, or when I tried to log in on Monday after changing the password on Friday.

I've also forgotten my password in the middle of the day, after logging in with the same password for days on end, because my brain is fried and I can't remember anything of use.

And, thanks to some setting or combination of uBlock Origin and other FireFox features, cannot play YouTube videos on FireFox, because trying to load YouTube videos will lock up the browser and every tab and instance of it I have open. So I just play YouTube videos in Chrome instead.

(I've also misspelled my own name on occasion, though my name is one that is generally flagged to be corrected in spell checkers.)

In other words, I'm on Team This Wasn't A Dumb Question ;)
posted by filthy light thief at 3:53 PM on June 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

Great stories, thanks.
posted by charlesminus at 5:03 PM on June 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

I did too many years in on site tech, walk up or desk side tech support and helpdesk. I have actually seen the "I thought that was a coffee cup holder!" thing in the wild and it hurt my brain. I could fill a rather large novel simply with the phrases "Is it plugged in? Is it turned on? Have you tried turning it on and off again?"

One of my nerdiest stories involves providing tech support to the ER medical team sticking a vacuum hose in my chest wall and coming out of heavy sedation and hearing "It seems to be frozen? I can't enter the data." and automatically responding "Do you need to save any data?" and then "Press and hold the power button until it turns off then press it again to reboot it." while I was tripping my stupid face off on Milk of Amnesia.

"Huh, that worked. Also what the fuck how are you awake!?"
posted by loquacious at 6:58 PM on June 15, 2020 [23 favorites]

A relative was a library media specialist, and once a teacher called them over because “the computer doesn’t work,” and it was actually just a monitor. There was no computer.
posted by sacchan at 5:56 AM on June 16, 2020

I have seen the "monitor only" PEBKAC issue multiple times back when CRTs were the norm. Just a monitor sitting there, no mouse or keyboard or computer. Monitor wasn't even plugged in, and they were confused why the power button didn't work.

I was confused about what they intended to do without a mouse or keyboard even if it did turn on. Touch screens and tablets weren't even a thing yet.

It took a while for my innocent, naive self to come to terms with the idea that people like this were often in charge of important things, and, well... *gestures at 2020*
posted by loquacious at 7:46 AM on June 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

I was confused about what they intended to do without a mouse or keyboard even if it did turn on.

They never noticed those pieces were missing. First thing they ever did was turn on the monitor and if that didn't work they punted to tech support.

When I was in university I was doing support for an organization with about 3500 users that had a 30 day password expiration policy. Approximately 1% of the mainframe users would forget their new password every month. We also had a VAX controlling remote access with a 35 day policy and another specialized system that had a 45 day policy. I was the password reset guy and spent about 25 hours a week resetting passwords.

I talked to some users every month.

Anyways the big take away I learned was everyone forgets passwords or whatever. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Whatever your issue the support person you are talking too doesn't need the long story just what the problem is. Computer support to doctor they've seen your problem before (often a lot). Saved me a lot of time over the years.
posted by Mitheral at 8:04 AM on June 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

A relative was a library media specialist, and once a teacher called them over because “the computer doesn’t work,” and it was actually just a monitor. There was no computer.

I am genuinely and honestly surprised I haven't done this myself.

(look, sometimes computers are really small and i don't notice them)
posted by kalimac at 10:58 AM on June 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

I once managed to lock myself out of my bank account the way cortex described, minus the drinking part.
posted by hat_eater at 6:10 AM on June 17, 2020

Last week I screwed up a gas pump sale because I reflexively punched in my California zip code.

I have lived fulltime in Pennsylvania since 2017.
posted by scrump at 8:48 PM on June 21, 2020 [1 favorite]