The Future of Steepster

Hi Tom – thanks for the work you’ve put into the site these past few weeks. I have a question about the behind-the-scenes changes, for you or Michael or AdagioTeas (if that isn’t also Michael). Do you have a test environment you are working in before pushing changes to the live site? I thought that was standard practice, but if so I don’t understand why the site is having all these real-time issues? Can you touch on this? This isn’t really a critique; I’ve honestly been confused about this from the beginning and would like to know more about the process.

I just mentioned this in a reply to Mastress Alita, but I do honestly believe the reliability of the site will be improving shortly (exact timing TBD). While there will likely be issues during the continued transition and updates, I’ve already seen the progress Tom and Michael have been able to make (more on the backend/admin side that isn’t visible to everyone else). Even though it pains me to say it again, I hope you’re able to stick it out a little longer because I’m certain it will be better soon.

Can’t wait to see this get cleared up, because as it stands I can’t add tasting notes. Most of the site will eventually load if I wait for a long time, but for days now the individual tea pages always show a cloudflare error after waiting a long while for the page to load.

I do see a few tasting notes sneaking through though, is there some secret to getting to the individual tea pages?

@MandyJS,

I’ve tried adding some off and on over the last few days. Sometimes I can get the tea pages to load and sometimes not, honestly just seems like random chance (at least for me personally).

The best news of all.

Just wait until there’s a Steepster election, I’m running.

You’ve got my vote.

Hah! Yes.

Darn, oh well. I was hoping there was some secret like last time when certain people in the know were able to use the site by removing the “s” from the https. Guess I’ll just have to pretend I’m back on slow speed with the minute+ page load times and hope for the best that at the end a page will actually appear haha

We are slowly making some progress! Great to hear it is coming through.

Thanks for the update, MandyJS… if I can log in to the secure steepster then I think I’ll catch up on some tasting notes. :D Probably won’t be posting a bunch of notes myself though, until steepster seems better for a while.

I’m not posting anything from the backlog on my Steepster.txt backup either. Still can’t post to the forums from my real account (obviously). Have pretty much only been working on reading through my (huge, nearly a year’s worth) backlog of tea reviews on my Following List while overall activity is “lower”, making it a bit “easier” to try to catch up… The 504s have been making even reading difficult.

Yea, I was getting tons of 504s up until yesterday, but today, not so much. The only thing that’s really annoying me is the excessive amount of captchas that I’m getting on most pageloads. I wouldn’t mind it as much if it was just the normal letter captcha, but trying to pick out all the boats or planes from a bunch of not clear images is getting real old, real fast.

Ugh, I so hate having to log out, change accounts, log back in just to reply…

MandyJS, get “Privacy Pass” add on for Firefox or Chrome (assuming you are using one of those Browsers). After you solve it once, it “stores” a key and you don’t have to solve it again.

I actually got that addon just today in response to all the captchas I was getting here, but it seemed to have no effect… Luckily Tom C was reading the discussion page here and quickly had a solution!

Mastress Alita – yeah, a catchup on notes time! I don’t think me hitting the “like” button will slow steepster down much more anyway. But as usual, my dashboard won’t let me hit the ‘see more’ button past five days ago, but this has been a forever problem, not really a recent one!

@mastressalitaclone Just had an idea that might make your ordeal a little less annoying. Is it possible for you to have your main account in one browser and your clone discussion account in a different browser so they can both remain logged in? Maybe then you won’t have to keep logging in and out?

@tea-sipper: I am reading directly off individual user pages, not the Dash. But then, I’m so far behind I’m (literally) over 100 pages behind on some users… I kinda “fell out” of Steepster a bit when I bought the house, and I just hit my one year anniversary of that purchase, sooo… a year behind. Ya…

@MandyJS: That would certainly work, but considering my browser is the Number One memory hog on my computer, having TWO open would bog my computer down TWICE as much, and isn’t really the most ideal solution for me. Honestly, I’m just really upset my account stopped working… it did fine up until around a week or two ago. Now I get to sit in the sad corner with Martin and Skysamurai. :-(

Darn, fingers crossed they get your main account working properly again soon. Hoping for a speedy end to this craziness!

Oh happy one year anniversary on your new house, Mastress Alita! :D

Thank you so much! This completely solved the problem! :D

One of our frequent and regular members, Martin Bednar [ https://www.steepster.com/Martin-CZE ] lives in the Czech Republic and is having the same problem that MandyJS described (getting an excessive amount of Captchas, PrivacyPass add-on is not helping/stopping them). Like me, (my “real account” is Mastress Alita [ https://www.steepster.com/mastressalita ] he can’t post to the message boards, so I’m passing this along for him.

The Czech Republic isn’t a big source of the spam, so I added him to the whitelist. Have him try now.

Note, the captcha measure is only temporary as we clean house here.

Thanks Tom (and trying to post here :) )
It works as expected now. I hope it won’t be big problem with a spam.

You can post?! Now I have to try… (crosses all the fingers, toes and anything else crossable…)

OH MY GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWD!!!!! does all the happy dances

Woohoo!

dances with Mastress Alita

Thanks, Tom! Dances with Mastress Alita and Martin Bednár

Some probably didn’t “stick” as I have noticed this issue too. But recently everything works for me as expected.

I’ve literally never gotten email notifications :/

I’ve only ever gotten e-mails for Private Messages and forum threads I opt to “subscribe” to.

Roswell & Mastress Alita: oh no! did you check your email settings on your account page? (I imagine you have…) Or is this something you do have the box checked for and it has always been a steepster bug for you?

I think it worked for maybe the first three months I had an account (so, sevenish years ago) but then it just stopped working. It doesn’t really bug me, personally, I’m on the site enough that I catch all my notifications here anyway.

Well, that’s even weirder, Roswell.

Of the things I had checked, “When someone comments on a tasting note I’ve commented on” I’ve never received e-mails for. I don’t remember ever having that, since I joined the site, so I guess I assumed I didn’t have it checked. And like Ros, I’m on the site so much I just get those through my “Notifications” tab, so I don’t think an e-mail would mean much to me anyway (isn’t really something I miss…) In any event, since it was checked and has never worked, definitely broke. :-P

Oh man, what the heck isn’t broke on steepster.

Horray for you and Martin getting your forum replying abilities back!! As for the recent tasting notes page, I just checked it and it’s working on my end (at least now it is). I wasn’t around six hours ago to test it out then, but maybe give it another try and hope for the best :) Fingers crossed for you guys.

It was a long load, but I did get it loaded now. I’ll pass this along to White Antlers and see if she can access it now, as well.

Confirmed from White Antlers (her account is one that still cannot post in the forums) that the page is now working, thanks for addressing it!