Can't access site or site freezes and won't update, what I've learned!

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Here are some nuggets I have learned when I started getting 'site can't be accessed' mixed messages:

1. It was my wifi connection in the laptop, not the WA servers!

It turned out to be my internet wifi router not connecting well with one of my laptops. I had initially thought it was the WA servers, but it was my connection.

The weak connection meant I was losing my content in wordpress as the publish button could not be pressed, though I had been writing directly into wordpress the internet connection was being lost and publish would not work = panic stations!

Pic of these 'slow to respond' messages at the end in case you get anything like them.

My site started freezing and not updating my work and sometimes wouldn't open at all, just giving me a 'can't be accessed notice', so I've been on a learning curve with this.

2. Troubleshooting journey Clear Browse History and Flush DNS

The first thing I was asked to do by site support [to my horror] was:

- Clear browse history

- Flush DNS

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.co... [there was no up to date training on that so I created one]

With the follow on:

- If that didn't work try opening the site in a new browser like Firefox

- And if none of that worked it was likely my internet or computer.

None of that worked.

2. Incognito Window

Marion Black answered my question with the advice to try an incognito window, that would determine whether I had a caching problem or something like that.

- I'm using Chrome at the moment so the way to do that in Chrome is to right click the Chrome icon and click 'open incognito window' in the menu.

My site started crashing again in the incognito window, [yes, just when I was finished a big post and was ready to update, the gremlin had bided his time and struck at that very moment]

Difference in Error Messages when Incognito - Run Diagnostics - Finally an Answer!

Something I learned about the difference in the site crashing in regular Chrome and the incognito window Chrome is the latter gave me a slightly different error message, the incognito window gave me the chance to run a diagnostics. [photos enclosed at end]

- The first time I clicked the diagnostics it told me it was my internet access and it corrected it and my site was live again then froze again within an hour.

- The second time I ran diagnostics it told me the site itself was not responding and I was getting all antsy about the WA servers.

- The third time I ran the diagnostics it said it was my access point. Two out of three, aha!

What made it confusing was:

a. It only happens like this on my WA site - once or twice in a blue moon on other places but all the time on the wordpress site - weird, because when you can surf away and everything else is working fine that is a head scratcher and makes it look like WA servers where the site is.

b. It was happening on two different computers.

c. Even though it says it is the wireless adapter or access point, that is not entirely clear if that means the router or the internet or the computer - concluded my main computer is not connecting properly with the wifi.

The Biggest Nugget? Don't Write Directly to WP

A nugget I got in Jay's training was to write your posts into google docs, I had been writing them straight onto the site so everything got lost if it froze - but on google docs you haven't lost anything if your site ever freezes or if your computer crashes or if your internet loses connection!

However, an update and better way to save to the cloud is now available to us in WA: we now have SiteContent, which is even better than google docs :)

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The confusing error messages below...but it was my wifi to laptop connection was the source of the problem

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These are the various messages that pop up, some seem to tell me one thing then the opposite thing, some give me options to run diagnostics and some don't. So once you are aware then you can find your way round real easy - if you have an internet problem like me.

Who to believe, as these things to my untrained mind look to be pointing one minute at my internet and the next minute at WA servers! Especially when it only happens with my site, but it does appear to be my internet and I got it going with the run diagnostics when I repeated the run.

This is the option in incognito window Chrome, see the run diagnostics window, this got things going for me again

This is the message in regular Chrome - no options to run network diagnostics [maybe another idea would be to right click on your wifi icon and run them there?]

The journey continues!

MozMary

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Recent Comments

11

Thanks for sharing. But a real solution to your problems I do not have. Except maybe that: deactivate all plugins. then reactive one. Should it work, activate the next one. And so on. Maybe that will help you find out the problem.

Good afternoon,

Oh dear me, that really is a lot of trouble. I had a virus lately so the whole computer had to be cleaned, then I had an ad blocker which I did not know existed which made my links and banners not visible anyhow, never a dull moment in this internet world.
My better half says one should save everything on a thumb drive, just in case. I wish you good luck.

Greetings from the south of Spain, Taetske

It's loading quickly for me at the moment. Have you tried deactivating the plugins or trying a different theme?

I will deactivate all of them today and see, though I haven't really anything fancy and it's just the free 2016 theme

Wow, you have had some problems, I have had some of the same issues but it was my computer, it needed a good cleaning. I glad you have some of the issues fixed.

It's a learning curve! Got some great help along the way :)

It doesn't matter what I am doing on my computer, whether on face book or WA etc..I do get the 'this site can't be reached' once in a while and I know it's my internet. I just leave it for a couple minutes and try it again then it's fine.

As for the uploading images and getting the HTTP error, I had that problem but not for long.
So I don't repeat myself I will give you the link of the blog I wrote on it. Sometimes it's the easiest simple things that cause the problem as in this case, I couldn't believe it when I figured it out. I hope this helps :)

I'm not adding any descriptions and some of them are banners that I had no problem with in the past, and they still don't upload, support are telling me to use ftp and that is a whole new learning curve for me - which I wouldn't mind - but like you say, it does seem complicated and unnecessary...

I'm noticing alright there can be many reasons behind it, and a lot of people on google saying it was a recent wordpress update - who knows!

The image problem happened to me over a week ago. I guess maybe there are being updates done? causing these things to happen. I hope you figure it out soon.

I had the same problem today.

Thanks for sharing.

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