Do your programmers have any suggestions for users to change local settings or is it a problem at Kalmbach's end?

The problem of the main portions of the screen coming up blank been much worse during the last week of December for me using the latest version of Firefox. The banner and the frame with right hand side ads loads but the page content is blank. It happens something like 1/3 to 1/2 of the time in all 3 forums.  I had to press refresh 3 times to get the reply screen to load yesterday.

Apparently the problem of having to refresh every time you select a thread or hit reply has gone away for some members but not for me. It still gets me in all 3 forums, with the latest version of Firefox on 4 different computers with a T1 at work, DSL at  home and with wireless and T1 networks in hotels. It eats up 1/3 to 1/2 of the time I spend on the forum, cutting into my willingness to scan all the sections.

If it is a local setting I'd love to understand which setting I can change to reduce the problem. If it is the Community Server forum software it's a serious bug. If they can't fix it maybe Kalmbach should negotiate a refund.

Last month I  tried working in the forums with Internet Explorer 6.026 on a T1 connection.

I did NOT have to refresh pages but I did get some very long pauses with just a blue background, then another long pause  in a reply while it DL'd the buttons and graphics each time. The forum seemed much slower with IE than with Firefox... but maybe the same time if I counted the time needed to refresh? The T1 at work should be faster than the DSL at home.

The problem of having to log into each forum is another annoying "feature" that continues. Since I access the forums from several computers with different connections it may be a cookie issue. In my case the upper right hand message says Welcome Russ Nobbs so the system recognizes me. However, I have to log out and log in again to post or see "my discussions," This happens when I move from one forum to another and when  come direct to a forum. It's very inconsistent. I DO have cookies enabled.

Others have posted details of the problems they have that may give the techs some clues. See
http://cs.beadandbutton.com/bnbcs/forums/t/2706.aspx?PageIndex=4
http://cs.beadandbutton.com/bnbcs/forums/t/2706.aspx?PageIndex=3

I hope all this information will give some hints to the Kalmbach on line techs. It's an issue that is hurting your forum members and, in the long run, your revenue stream from ads on your sites.

My team is actively trying to track down where and specifically "why" our forum readers are experiencing these issues. The digest of items you have listed in this post are very helpful. 

We are working on resolving these issues. For instance the memory in the web server used by the beading and jewelry web sites was doubled just last week to help deal with peak usage and traffic trends.

One metric would be of particular interest - I really need a sampling of the specific days and times logged when the weird page loading occurs. With a day and specific time - I can track down within performance and error reporting what is happening with the servers.

We are reviewing these issues as a team and understand the frustration. We are still trying to reproduce the errors to match the symptoms reported here (as well as BeadStyle and Art Jewelry).

Send me a "Personal Message" through the board with the specific date and time you observe these issues.

 Thank you

 Thanks for the reply, Wade, I appreciate the attention to this issue. I'll start sending PM's with details on the problems as they occur.