Techie help please

[Chris B]

On my work laptop I get here (the forum) no problem.
On my other laptop I can't get here any more, since yesterday. I just get a blank page with the text "No site configured at this address". But it has no problems with any other website.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[enrico]

Copy and paste a thread in and then work backwards!

 

[Chris B]

Thanks. Why did that work?

 

[alanf]

Why did that work?

Hard to know without looking over your shoulder. I'd associate a message like yours with address resolution - basically somewhere between typing the ...co.uk and working out which bit of code on which server to send.

Couple of things worth trying in these circumstances: I don't recall seeing exactly that wording; when you get an error message that you're not familiar with it's often worth pasting it into a search engine (with quotes) and see what turns up. You usually get at least a hint which layer it's coming from. My other instinct would be to try another browser (Opera can be a handy alternative at these times) which tells you whether it's browser side or down to the IP stack and beyond. If we ignore all the normal rules of step by step diagnosis I'd say it could be an accidentally overwritten bookmark/favorite. Check the spelling of the url you are trying. If it's not that, maybe the browser caching something that's not as helpful as the designers intended and diverting you away from the actual site. Clearing the cache might resolve something, but you don't say which browser you're using.

 

[enrico]

Thanks. Why did that work?

A computer sometimes remembers a mistake that you didn't even realise you had made and stores it in its cache memory. Rather than checking the net when you type a regular address in it checks its own memory and keeps giving you the mistake back! The other thing to try is to press the f5 key, this makes it check the web again and not is own memory!
Stupid really, but there you go!!!
E

 

[Chris B]

Thanks.
I'm still confused but all is now well. It was IE and I also googled beekeeping forum and tried to get in that way to no avail yesterday. But it turned out it was just the Home page it didn't like, once I'd been to a specific thread the Home page also started working.

 

[alanf]

I'm still confused.

Hard to know what level to pitch answers to a non specialist audience. A term that might be worth explaining is cache, it's essentially a way of saving previous information hoping to make use of it again and avoiding the long trip back to the original source. IE (and other browsers) try to save time by reusing previous searches but sometimes that repeats a previous mistyping rather than getting the page again. A case of trying to be to helpful; 99% of the time it saves time and works well, when it doesn't it can be mystifying. A cache can usually be overwritten by subsequent searches or when it reaches a certain age (so you can't always repeat the first results - even more mystifying). That's probably what you saw.

I also googled beekeeping forum and tried to get in that way to no avail yesterday.

There are a few search details that can be useful if you know them. For instance in the google search box:

site:www.beekeepingforum.co.uk traffic light

searches only the forum for threads with those words. The value of that is that you can use all the other standard google operators, such as ignoring threads with certain other words (-temporary), synonyms (~labels) and so on. Some sites do have decent search facilities, but using the google operators mean they work on any site without relying on whatever the site has chosen. Searching for a new thread, as above, reveals how often google is crawling the forum for new posts. I don't know what that is but I do know the result I get now won't be the same as what I get tomorrow.

 

[winmag270]

yeah, what he said.....