Problem accessing Eng-Tips website 1

[Deniall]

My apologies in advance for posting this on what is probably the wrong forum, but it looked to me like the least inappropriate.

I am a long-time regular user of both this Tek-Tips site and its companion site Eng-Tips.[ ] About 12 hours ago, after working fine only a few hours earlier, my ability to connect to Eng-Tips suddenly ceased and was replaced with the message:
[ ][ ][ ]This page isn't working.
[ ][ ][ ]

http://www.eng-tips.com

redirected you too many times.
[ ][ ][ ]Try clearing your cookies.
[ ][ ][ ]ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS

I tried clearing cookies, and also a few other things suggested by Prof Google, all to no avail.[ ] I switched from the Chrome browser to the Edge one, but the problem persisted.[ ] I tested Tek-Tips and (obviously) it was working fine.[ ] I went to the computer of a friend who has never been either a Tek-Tipper or an Eng-Tipper, and had exactly the same problem.

So I assumed that the problem must be at the Eng-Tips end, and went to bed in the expectation that it would be fixed by the time I got up this morning.[ ] Not so.[ ] Things remain exactly as they had been last night, including non-access from my friend's computer.[ ] Furthermore, when I opened up my email system there were several messages from Eng-Tips advising me that more posts had been added to the thread I had been engaging with when the problem first arose.[ ] This casts doubt on my assumption that the problem lies with the site.

I have absolutely no idea what is going on.[ ] The slender evidences I have been able to unearth seem self-contradictory.
» Where does the problem probably lie?
» What might the remedy be?



[sub][ ]—————————————————————————————————[/sub]
[sup]Engineering mathematician/analyst.[ ] See my profile for more details.[/sup]

 

[Deniall]

As a bit more evidence that the above problem is not restricted to something on my particular computer setup, a few minutes ago I attempted to log into Eng-Tips using my Android mobile phone.[ ] This triggered pretty much exactly the same error message.

[sub][ ]—————————————————————————————————[/sub]
[sup]Engineering mathematician/analyst.[ ] See my profile for more details.[/sup]

 

[Mike Lewis]

I can confirm that it is not just you, Denaill. I am seeing the same message.

You could try reporting it to Engineering.Com management, at

https://www.engineering.com/contact.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[strongm]

Me too

 

[Deniall]

Many thanks, Mike and Strongm.[ ] It's nice to know that I am not being ignorant or stupid.[ ] In this matter at least.

I have already lodged a message at engineering.com, doing it a few minutes before initiating this thread.[ ] The message was pretty much along the same lines as above, but I was not sure that it was the right place at which to do the lodging.

A couple of hours ago I also contacted another Eng-tipper via email, Doug Jenkins who goes by the handle "IDS".[ ] (He runs a very useful web site, and I got his email address from that.)[ ] He replied that he was not having the problem, but he found something somewhere that gave the following personal account.[ ] (The "I" below is not Doug, but his source.)
----------
I cleared all the cookies from Eng-tips and cleared the cache - nothing doing.[ ] My original bookmarked site and home page

https://eng-tips.com

still doesn't work.
HOWEVER, doing a search and then clicking on a forum does!, but clicking on the main site doesn't ?!?
So now I'm signed in and just saved the bookmark as the same plus/threadminder.....
How weird is that?”
That might be worth trying.
----------

So I (Deniall again now) tried the same approach and it worked for me too.

It's a very cumbersome work-around, but at this stage beggars can't be choosers.[ ] Hopefully it will also work for other victims of the glitch until management gets off its RRRs and fixes things.

[sub][ ]—————————————————————————————————[/sub]
[sup]Engineering mathematician/analyst.[ ] See my profile for more details.[/sup]

 

[Deniall]

Now, nine hours plus a good night's sleep later, the problem SEEMS to have been fixed, both on my Windows computer and my Android phone.[ ] No reply yet from engineering.com, but the fix is the important thing (provided it persists).

[sub][ ]—————————————————————————————————[/sub]
[sup]Engineering mathematician/analyst.[ ] See my profile for more details.[/sup]

 

[Kennabytes]

The problem appears to be a faulty redirect (probably the .htaccess) preventing pages from any non www. URLs from opening i.e.

https://www.eng-tips.com

is working,

https://eng-tips.com

isn't.

 

[Deniall]

Kennabytes.[ ] Many thanks for that simple explanation, which some quick experimentation shows to be exactly right.[ ] I can now trigger the error at will.

So perhaps the "fix" that seemed to happen overnight a few days ago was a mirage.[ ] Engineering.com didn't fix anything and the apparent fix was merely my haphazard / randomly varied typing of the URL?[ ] It would be nice to hear from them!

[sub][ ]—————————————————————————————————[/sub]
[sup]Engineering mathematician/analyst.[ ] See my profile for more details.[/sup]